Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Gu Jinyan and I had long since grown sick of the sight of each other. We were far past the point of peaceful coexistence.

When he saw me turn to leave, he snapped, “Qin Yuqing!”

“Do you not know Chengyue is already of marriageable age?”

“As the lady of this household, how can you still indulge her in riding horses and wielding blades? She has not the slightest air of a proper young lady!”

My lips parted, but before I could speak, Chengyue had already stepped in front of me. The young girl lifted her chin proudly. “Father!”

“I wasn’t even born to her. You have no right to blame her!”

Gu Jinyan had been a marquis for more than ten years. He was long accustomed to the careful flattery of those around him. When had anyone ever dared embarrass him like this? And the one standing before him with that utterly unconcerned look was the only daughter of the Marquis’s Manor. He flew into a rage. “Impudent wretch!”

“I am your father. How dare you speak to me that way?”

Chengyue merely crossed her arms over her chest, completely unafraid.

Unable to save face, he turned his cold glare on me. “Qin Yuqing, is this how you raise a daughter?”

“Marquis Gu, what right do you have to question me?”

I said flatly, “In all the years she has been alive, have you ever looked after her for a single day?”

Meeting my gaze, Gu Jinyan choked. “A woman must marry eventually. If you keep this up, do you intend for her to become an old maid?”

“And what if she does?”

I picked at my nails with disdain. “I can afford to support her.”

“You-!”

Gu Jinyan was so furious he nearly stamped his feet.

“Qin Yuqing, I have put up with you for long enough!”

“In all of Jinling City, is there any mistress of a household like you? You do not discipline the concubines, you do not respect your husband, and you have even raised our daughter into someone arrogant and overbearing!”

“I have had enough! I want to divorce you!”

I scratched my ear, completely indifferent.

“Then let us divorce.”

It was not as if we had never made a scene like this before.

Only, in the past, I had always been the one making the fuss. Gu Jinyan would simply let my words go in one ear and out the other, treating them as nothing more than hot air.

Now that I had agreed so lightly, the man who had just been so aggressive fell abruptly silent.

I took Chengyue’s hand and was about to turn away.

But then I saw his eyes quietly redden.

“Qin Yuqing, are you truly so heartless?”

Of course I was heartless.

Once word spread that Gu Jinyan and I had completely fallen out, people came to persuade me in shifts from dusk until nightfall, from concubines to old servant women.

In the end, Gu Jinyan could not hold out any longer. He came to stand outside the ancestral hall himself and said in a humbled voice that he had only been overwhelmed by anger and spoken rashly in the heat of the moment.

My face remained expressionless as I continued striking the wooden fish in my hand.

Not listening, not listening. A tortoise chanting sutras was still just noise.