Chapter 3
“Miss Lin, why don’t you tell us as well? Let everyone in this household judge who is making things difficult for whom.”
Lin Qingru’s face went white. My voice turned sharp.
“Was I the one who stole your ancestral jade?
“Was it my child who called your husband Father?
“Or was I the one who hid behind a child in public and ground your dignity beneath my heel?”
She swayed. I gave a cold laugh.
“You grew up with the marquis, Miss Lin. Do not tell me you failed to recognize the Xie family’s ancestral jade. And do not tell me you do not understand the capital’s rules.”
“Jingqiu!”
Xie Jingrang tried to stop me.
Ah Zheng frowned. Suppressing the chill in the curl of her lips, she deliberately laughed aloud.
“My mother is famous throughout the capital as a capable and virtuous mistress. She would never bully a wild child who has lost his father and behaves as though his mother were dead too—utterly without manners.”
“The moment Mother received Father’s letter, she prepared the finest courtyard. She filled a whole room with brand-new necessities. She was even afraid that giving them money for daily expenses would wound certain people’s delicate pride, so she quietly left silver on the dressing table and spared them the humiliation of accepting it in public.
“Can such generosity and care be called bullying? If this is how the mistresses of other houses bully people, I hope they will bully me every day.”
She walked up to Song Chang’an and tapped the jade with one finger.
“Besides, this belongs to the sole legitimate son of the Xie line. It should have gone to my little brother.
“Taking back one’s own property is not bullying.
“Refusing to return it is what lacks dignity.”
“When the Xie family fell, Aunt Lin abandoned her betrothal and married far away in Ningzhou. Did she leave her dignity behind in the capital as well?”
“Then you had better bend down and search carefully for it. Without your dignity, Father’s charity and pity will never prop up a lifetime of luxury for you.”
Everyone understood perfectly. One after another, they lifted handkerchiefs to hide their laughter.
Lin Qingru looked as if she had been slapped across the face. Color flashed from green to white over her skin.
“I… I wasn’t refusing. I…”
“Good!”
Ah Zheng cut her off.
“If you don’t know how to take it off, I do!”
The words had barely left her lips when she seized the cord and yanked the jade from Song Chang’an’s neck.
His mouth puckered with pain, and he was about to burst into tears when Ah Zheng roared,
“Swallow it!”
The boy froze, his crying trapped on his face.
His lower lip trembled, but in the end he made no sound.
Xie Jingrang’s brow knotted.
Lin Qingru stared in disbelief.
The corners of my mouth rose in satisfaction.
Only then did Ah Zheng carry the jade to her little brother, who was just over two, and present it like a treasure.
“It is meant to pass to you, but you’re too young. If you cannot guard what belongs to you, someone may steal it.”
“Shall your big sister keep it safe for you?”
Xie Yu blinked his huge eyes and nodded.
Ah Zheng beamed.
“Then it’s settled.”
She returned to my side and spoke with pointed meaning.
“The palace matrons taught me how to slap people. It hurts terribly. Don’t be so ungrateful that you force me to slap him to death.”
She bit down hard on the final three words.
Song Chang’an jerked both hands up and clamped them over his trembling mouth.
Ah Zheng looked at Lin Qingru, whose thin lips were pressed tight. Her voice was cold and hard.
“My mother may have a bodhisattva’s face and a tender heart, but she is no weak woman to be trampled on.”
“The blade forged inside palace walls kills whoever dares touch it.”