chapter 2
chapter 2
The Pei family had produced dukes and ministers for four generations. Their bells rang at every feast, and their tables never lacked delicacies. Few families in the capital could rival their distinction.
Pei Yi was the eldest legitimate son of the family’s eldest branch. He was handsome, accomplished in both scholarship and martial arts, and destined for a brilliant future. A man like him could have married a princess.
How could he possibly take a maid as his lawful wife?
The law itself forbade a freeborn man from marrying an enslaved woman. A concubine born as a maid might be elevated after bearing children and surviving the lawful wife, but to marry a maid outright would make him the laughingstock of the capital.
I must have stood there thinking too long, because the housekeeper came to hurry me again. I packed only the essentials and made my way, one heavy step at a time, to Pei Yi’s Pine-and-Plum Court.
As I crossed the front courtyard, I met Steward Jiang beneath a covered walkway.
He appeared to have rushed there. His hair, normally combed without a strand out of place, was disordered. His face was pale, and tears shone around his reddened eyes.
Pain twisted through my chest. I looked at him once, lowered my eyes at once, and walked past him.
Grand Madam had spoken. There was no room left for appeal. However unwilling we were, what could we do?
I reached Pine-and-Plum Court in a daze. Before I even crossed the threshold, porcelain shattered in the main room.
The housekeeper lifted the curtain and found Pei Yi in a towering rage. The room was wrecked.
The moment Pei Yi saw me, his anger sharpened. Open disgust and contempt filled his eyes.
“What are you doing here? Who told you to come?”
“Do all of you think any stray cat or dog is fit to climb into my bed?”
I froze, unable to speak.
Chun Tang had run away without a backward glance, yet I was the one expected to answer for her. Why?
I was about to explain when lines of writing suddenly appeared in midair.
“The heroine’s trick works every time. Look how furious the male lead is—he’s beside himself over her!”
“Serves him right. That’s what he gets for looking down on her and offering only to make her a concubine!”
“It won’t matter what the second female lead says. The male lead is furious, so how could he stand the sight of her? Compared with the heroine, she’s greedy, vain, and spineless!”
“Exactly. I remember this part. After she badmouths the heroine, the male lead kicks her in the stomach so hard she coughs blood.”
I had grown up in a great household and could recognize a modest number of characters.
Heroine? Male lead?
Was I the second female lead?
I did not understand what the strange lines meant, but the instinct to stay alive made me close my mouth.
I had no desire to be kicked until I coughed blood.
When I said nothing and quietly withdrew into a corner, Pei Yi lost his excuse to strike at me. He could only continue smashing everything in reach.
The housekeeper tried to intervene. Pei Yi shoved him so hard that he nearly split his head open on the floor.
It seemed I had chosen correctly.
The floating comments were right. Pei Yi could not possibly be ignorant of what had happened. He had never needed my explanation.
He had merely wanted someone on whom to vent his fury.
At last, after he had exhausted himself breaking things and shouting abuse, he waved a hand and drove both the housekeeper and me out.