Chapter 5

Although a long time had passed, I could still recall certain details of that night.

On the flagstones beside the bathing pool, his knees turned blue from kneeling.

His lips were wet, but his kisses burned with force.

The damp bed curtains tangled around us.

Neither of us had experience. We moved together on instinct alone.

When he kissed me, he gripped my arms hard.

I had no patience for such delicate contact and leaned away, but he was stubborn too. He followed me, demanding kiss after kiss.

I caught his hair. “Is this what you meant when you said you would vomit?”

He held me as though he wanted to melt into my body.

“I don’t know…” was all he could say.

He sounded pitiful.

He tasted delicious.

Cheng Zhi dumped a blind man on me and left to carry out a task for Master.

I stayed nearby with the man. I thought it would be no more than a fleeting affair, yet by a twist of fate we lived together for nearly half a year.

As for what happened later…

I left on a rainy night.

Cheng Zhi returned covered in dust. The moment he saw the blind man, his knees gave out beneath him.

His hands shook so badly he could barely speak. “S-Senior Sister, you have to… end it with h-him. Now.”

Only then did I learn that the man I had been sleeping with was the Crown Prince, robbed of his memories.

Cheng Zhi had been in such a panic when he made the purchase that he had never asked the servants enough questions. They had bought the wrong person.

At least the mistaken blind man still possessed the cold constitution I needed.

“We are finished, Senior Sister,” Cheng Zhi moaned. “My cousin looks gentle and generous, but he never forgets a grievance. Once his memory returns, he will cut both of us into pieces. You didn’t mistreat him these past six months, did you?”

I thought: mistreat was far too mild a word. I had worked him like an ox.

I made a blind man wash my clothes, serve my tea, chop firewood, and cook every meal. His hands were covered in cuts of every size.

I slept with him at night and ordered him around by day.

It was a wonder he had endured me so long.

Cheng Zhi urged me to end the affair immediately.

“How?” I asked. I had never done this before.

He lowered his voice. “Tell him you have fallen for someone else. Men cannot bear that.”

I nodded.

When the blind man emerged from the kitchen carrying dinner with a happy smile, I pinched Cheng Zhi.

Cheng Zhi made a peculiar sound.

The blind man froze beneath the eaves. His hands jerked, and the dishes crashed to the ground.

He knew that sound too well.

Shuzhou summers were close and rainy. With nothing else to do, we often did the things we both enjoyed.

There was a covered mat in the courtyard. The blind man would prepare tea and snacks and play the flute for me.

Whenever I grew drowsy, he would rouse me with his hands and mouth.

His heated lips and cool hands had carved themselves into my memory.

Rain drummed outside. Sometimes it drowned out his voice. Sometimes it did not.

I covered his mouth. “Quiet.”

He bent his legs and bit my fingers to smother the sounds. The corners of his sightless eyes were red and filmed with tears.

Now he pretended not to have heard. Flustered, he knelt and began feeling for the shards of porcelain. One sliced his finger, and blood poured out.

I pulled him inside.

Without a word, he pinned me against the wall and tried to kiss me.

I pushed him away.

“There are fifty taels under the bed,” I said evenly. “You can wash clothes, cook, chop wood, and heat water now. You can live on your own. From this day forward, we go our separate ways.”

He clung to me. “No. I don’t want that! I won’t let you go! I don’t care who that man is. Just don’t bring him home.”

He begged incoherently, humbling himself past all dignity.

I looked at his bitten lips and the tears in his eyes, and remembered what Master and Cheng Zhi had once said about the Crown Prince.

Master had recalled, “Years ago, while the Emperor was ill, the Crown Prince governed in his stead. The great clans and senior ministers dismissed him. Only when the purge began and blood soaked the flagstones of Vermilion Bird Avenue did they realize his wings had long since grown. He plans every move before he acts and has the temperament of a tiger or leopard. Do not offend him lightly.”

Cheng Zhi had shared a palace secret. “The Imperial Noble Consort once ruled the inner palace. She poisoned my cousin with an aphrodisiac, hoping to turn him into a depraved wastrel. He endured it through sheer will. Desire is part of human nature, yet he conquered even his own. What could he not defeat? I grew up with him. He is cold, stubborn, and terrifying.”

If the truth emerged, Cheng Zhi and I would die. Flight was the wisest choice.

The blind man continued to plead.

I still meant to leave.

Even without his memories, when driven into a corner he revealed a chilling hatred.

“I may not know your face, but I will find you,” he said bitterly. “When that day comes, you had better not kneel and beg for mercy. I will not listen to a single word.”

Remembering it now, I rubbed my earlobe.

He had bitten me hard before I left, his face covered in tears and murder in his heart.

Cheng Zhi watched me warily. “Senior Sister, you haven’t been bewitched by his beauty, have you? You don’t miss him and want another taste of the past, do you? He will kill you first and poison me afterward.”

I took out a command token and sighed. “The Crown Prince has summoned Master back to the capital to command his palace guards. Master is too lazy to return, so she gave me the token and told me to report in her place.”

Cheng Zhi looked as though his parents had died. A master’s order could not be disobeyed.

After pondering for a long while, his eyes lit up. “Senior Sister, giving the pendant to Lin Langyue may not be enough. When we meet my aunt, I will say you are my fiancée. My cousin is proud and aloof. He would never pay attention to his cousin’s future wife.”

I held out my hand.

Reluctantly, Cheng Zhi gave me one hundred taels.

I tucked the money away. “Do not worry. I will save you from an arranged marriage.”

He eyed me with suspicion. “Senior Sister, you are notoriously unreliable. If you ruin this, I want my money back.”