Chapter 2

The moment I recognized Fengxing,

my mind went blank with a roar.

My body reacted before I could think. My eyes burned red, and my back teeth ground together. I wanted to fling myself at her and bite a piece of flesh from her body.

“What is she doing here?”

“Of course she’s here.” Pei Feng braced one hand against my shoulder to hold me back, smiling until his eyes narrowed. “She’s the concubine I’m taking.”

My head roared again.

I couldn’t believe the man who shared my bed was shielding Fengxing behind him.

There was only one person in this world I hated most.

Fengxing, and no other.

Now, leaning behind my husband, she smiled at me.

“After that business with the pale-yellow purse, so many people in the capital thought you and I didn’t get along, Sister. None of them dared offend the young general’s wife. I would have had to marry beneath me, into a merchant’s family.”

“Who would have thought young General Pei would be willing to take me as his concubine?”

“You really are so kind to me, Sister. You couldn’t bear to see me suffer. Even after marrying, you wanted your sister with you.”

If Fengxing had managed to marry a merchant as his lawful wife, I would have counted that as my failure.

I would never let her make a good marriage in this lifetime.

Yet the Fengxing before me could not have looked more pleased with herself—

She wore a pale-yellow dress, and that pale-yellow purse still hung at her waist.

Following my gaze, she lifted the purse and smiled behind pursed lips.

“Young General Pei specifically told me to wear it.”

“He took me to a dress shop this morning and paid a great deal for this dress too.”

I looked straight at Pei Feng. “You know what happened between us?”

Pei Feng nodded proudly.

He marveled at my deathly pale face. “I’ve known you all this time, and this is the first time I’ve seen you beaten. I’ve changed my mind. An apology won’t help now. I’m definitely taking Fengxing as my concubine. Let’s see if you finally learn who’s in charge of this household!”

I lowered my eyes to the purse.

I couldn’t summon the strength for a single word of argument.

All those years at home came back to me. It had always been like this.

Father had always favored Fengxing and her mother.

Last year, the heir to the Marquis of Shanyin had seen a poem I had written on a tavern wall and invited me to an autumn crab feast. With Father’s tacit permission, Fengxing wore my pale-yellow dress to the gathering and received a pale-yellow purse from the marquis’s heir as a token of love.

When I found out, I flew into a rage.

Father had said, “You’re my legitimate daughter. It will be easy for you to make a good marriage. Fengxing’s birth is lowly. Although I freed her and her mother from servitude long ago, arranging a match is still difficult. What harm would it do to let her have this one?”

I would never compromise.

I went straight to the marquis’s heir and told him he had mistaken her for me.

“I’m afraid you’ll find this disgraceful, my lord, but this wretched maid is my half-sister. She was born a servant, and she is dishonest. She is unworthy of you.” I had the matron accompanying me beat Fengxing fifty times in front of everyone. After all, once we got home, I wouldn’t have another chance. When the beating was over, I smiled brightly and apologized as the heir watched me, his expression difficult to read. “I’m sorry things have come to this, my lord. Let’s forget the marriage.”

Of course I wouldn’t let Fengxing marry up into a marquis’s household.

Nor would I marry into it myself. Because he had given Fengxing a love token, Father would certainly use that to insist she accompany me as a concubine.

I would rather we both lost than let her win by the slightest degree.

Fengxing had suffered badly.

So she spread the rumor that I was jealous: because I liked pale-yellow dresses, I forbade the servants to wear the same color and had a maid beaten fifty times merely for wearing a pale-yellow purse.

A rumor had always been easier to spread than to disprove.

I couldn’t publicize Fengxing’s parentage or explain that the purse had come from the marquis’s heir. I had to swallow the injustice in silence.

But the rumor did indeed make it hard for me to find a husband.

Back then, Fengxing had brought several portrait scrolls to flaunt in front of me.

“Sister, come and help me choose.”

“These are the husbands Father has selected for me. With my background, I could only enter a great household like the marquis’s as a concubine. Now I’ve given up that idea, I might as well go south and become the lawful wife of a rich merchant. When they hear I’m a concubine-born daughter of the Zhao family, they all come running. Look, there are so many I can hardly choose.”

I tore every one of her scrolls to pieces.

I wasn’t merciful enough to let her ruin my marriage prospects and then walk away.

After running the Zhao household for several years, I had enough influence to warn the merchants who traveled north and south: I was at odds with the maid Fengxing. Anyone who married her would be making an enemy of me.

And so her marriage prospects fell through too.

Father took her side and confined me to the house. Fengxing came again to boast about the fifty loads of dowry he had prepared for her.

I had been ready to destroy us both, had I not met that contrarian Pei Feng.

“A jealous shrew? A shrew is exactly who I want to marry!”

Marrying him gave me influence once more. Even with her fifty loads of dowry, Fengxing couldn’t marry.

Whatever Pei Feng’s original intentions had been,

I was grateful to him.

Even when he behaved absurdly, I generally let it pass.

But today, he had brought Fengxing before me.

Every trace of gratitude I felt for him vanished in an instant.

Pei Feng was still talking. “No time like the present. I’ll take Fengxing as my concubine today. That pale-yellow dress looks quite nice. I’ll have a matron find a piece of red cloth for a veil, and tonight we’ll enter the bridal chamber.”

As he spoke, he kept watching me.

Our eyes met, and the deadness in mine startled him.

He was about to speak when I cut in.

“If you really mean to bring her into this family, give me a divorce letter first.”

Pei Feng immediately jumped up. “Zhao Qingzhi, are you threatening me? Do you understand what’s happening? I’m the one who has you by the throat! You have to do as I say!”

“I’ll wait for your divorce letter.” I turned and walked away without looking back.