Chapter 5

Pei Feng returned to his study and lay down in a sulk.

His forehead throbbed, making him miserably irritable.

He had finally fallen asleep when, in the middle of the night, he heard a servant boy calling him.

“The concubine is ill! She’s vomiting and has diarrhea!”

Still half asleep, Pei Feng wondered what concubine they meant.

He rolled over to go back to sleep, then came fully awake.

Only then did he remember the business with Fengxing. He got up again and ordered them to fetch a physician. After taking her pulse, the physician said she had eaten something bad. Fengxing tearfully insisted she hadn’t eaten anything.

“I only drank the tea Sister gave me as an apology.”

“Perhaps my lowly birth and poor fortune make me unfit to accept tea from someone so exalted. That must be why this has happened.”

Pei Feng understood as soon as he heard that.

He sent for the shards of the red porcelain cup. Sure enough, the physician found croton, a powerful purgative, in them.

Pei Feng laughed in anger. “I knew she’d never let it go so easily. So this was what she had in store. Zhao Qingzhi is so petty she can’t even sleep on a grievance. She has to get her revenge on the spot.”

Fengxing caught his sleeve and asked, looking pitifully appealing, whether he wouldn’t stay.

Entirely unmoved, Pei Feng pulled his sleeve free. “You’ve taken croton. If you start vomiting and having diarrhea again tonight, am I supposed to wait on you?”

It was already the third watch by the time he returned to the study.

After all that commotion, however, Pei Feng slept soundly.

He knew Zhao Qingzhi had been furious. Now that she had let it all out, nothing much would happen. As for the divorce letter, he had forgotten all about it. Zhao Qingzhi would never have the nerve to leave for real. Once she stepped outside this door, who else would want her?

But when he woke in the morning, unease stirred in his heart again.

He kept feeling something was about to happen.

Pei Feng hastily made himself presentable and went straight to the bedroom. It was very quiet when he pushed the door open, and his eyelid twitched. But when he saw all the dowry chests lying untouched in the corner, he relaxed again.

Zhao Qingzhi must have gone out for breakfast.

She loved the fried dough sticks and tofu pudding at the eastern end of the street.

Thinking it over, Pei Feng felt he had gone a little too far yesterday. Especially when Fengxing brought him breakfast that morning: her smile made him uncomfortable all over. He kept feeling there was something hidden in it. Nothing like Zhao Qingzhi’s tricks, so direct and open.

This was his concubine?

The very thought gave Pei Feng goose bumps.

“After breakfast, you should go home.”

Fengxing’s smile froze. “What did you say, Husband?”

“Don’t call me that.” Pei Feng shook off the goose bumps on his arms. “Yesterday was just a farce to annoy Zhao Qingzhi. We don’t take concubines in our family. If Grandfather finds out, he’ll break my legs.”

In fact, his grandfather wouldn’t care.

Pei Feng had simply made up an excuse to rid himself of the trouble before him.

His heart was terribly unsettled today. He kept feeling something was missing.

At his words, Fengxing’s eyes filled with tears. That only gave Pei Feng more goose bumps. He had played so many tricks on Zhao Qingzhi. When had she ever burst into tears? If someone wronged you, why not simply strike back? What good was all this crying?

Zhao Qingzhi had never cried.

Except…

Except when she had told him how harshly her father treated her.

Pei Feng’s unease deepened. He ran back to the bedroom, but Zhao Qingzhi and the maid she had brought as part of her dowry were still nowhere to be seen. He summoned the household’s head maid. “Where is Zhao Qingzhi?”

“Madam took the divorce letter and left early this morning.”

Pei Feng gaped. “How could she have?”

All her things were still here. She hadn’t taken a single dowry chest.

“Young Master, have you lost your wits?” the maid said. “How could Madam move a hundred carrying loads of dowry by herself? Of course she needs to send people to check the inventory and take it home afterward.”

Pei Feng sank onto the bed in a daze.

Just then, Fengxing called from outside again. “Young General Pei.”

Pei Feng’s face hardened. “Didn’t I tell her to leave?”

The maid looked troubled. “You only went to the Zhao household yesterday to ask for her as a concubine. Isn’t it rather frivolous to send her back today?”

“So what?” Pei Feng kicked over the round stool beside him. “When have I ever cared what people say when I make a scene? Send her back! Send her back right now!”

A wail went up outside, and the crying began again.

It made Pei Feng even more irritable.

If not for this Fengxing, he would never have lost his head and given Zhao Qingzhi a divorce letter. Zhao Qingzhi might have a bad reputation, but she had a large dowry and knew how to run shops. There might actually be some blind fool willing to marry her.

That fool Zhao Qingzhi.

Once her temper rose, she lost her head even worse than he did. What if she really said yes?