Chapter 3
Xu Liuzhao dragged me along at a run before finally stopping in front of the patch of golden broom blossoms in the courtyard.
She looked perfectly composed, while I was panting so hard I could barely maintain the poised bearing expected of a well-bred young lady.
“What… what book don’t you understand? What do you need me to explain?”
“Nothing. I made it up on the spot.”
I gave her a disapproving look. “In that case, you should have observed the proper courtesies before the emperor and the chancellor.”
“Why should I? Everyone is equal.”
Xu Liuzhao was unconcerned. “Besides, they were too preoccupied with their own schemes to care about such details.”
She paused, then suddenly turned wholly serious as she looked at me. “Cheng Qingqing.”
“I came here to save you.”
It sounded so absurd that I laughed and shook my head. “I am the Cheng family’s legitimate daughter. My maternal family is prominent, and my parents and brother have always cherished and indulged me. I am beautiful, and my reputation for virtue and gentleness is known throughout the capital. Now I am married to Lin Zhao, who treasures me like a jewel and has never wavered in his devotion. Even the emperor praised me highly when I met him today. What could I possibly need you to save me from?”
Xu Liuzhao said nothing. She merely stared at me.
Her eyes were like two lanterns in the night, astonishingly bright. A trace of pity hovered in her gaze, and for some reason it irritated me.
My voice turned cold. “If you truly wish to save me, then you should leave the general’s residence as soon as possible and stop coveting my husband.”
“You actually think I covet him…”
She let out a long sigh and reached toward me as though to stroke my hair, only to draw her hand back in the end.
“Forget it.”
Xu Liuzhao left. As I watched her retreating figure, I found myself remembering how her hand had felt around mine.
It was not soft. It was even a little rough. But it had held on with such strength, clasping me so tightly.
Lin Zhao had said that she was born in the northern city and raised on the frontier. It made sense that she differed from the pampered noble daughters of the capital.
Only a few days later, Lin Zhao had to lead his troops out of the capital again.
On the night before his departure, he refused to let me rest. He even bit a deep, bleeding wound into my shoulder.
I trembled and cried out from the pain, but he stared at me in the wavering candlelight, his eyes dark and unreadable.
“Qingqing, you are mine. You always will be.”
He forced me to repeat those words again and again, then tormented me with renewed savagery. “If you ever betray me, I’ll chain you beside the bed so you can never leave again.”
I never understood what had come over him. No matter how many times I asked, Lin Zhao refused to tell me.
He left before dawn the next morning.
After resting in my room for two days, I went to Lin Zhao’s study and discovered a letter of divorce beneath several books on military strategy.
He meant to divorce me? Was it because of Xu Liuzhao?
The shock struck like a thunderbolt. I clutched the letter, my hands trembling beyond control.
Before I knew it, tears were streaming from my eyes like broken beads. They fell onto the paper and bled the ink into dark stains.
After nightfall, I sent away the maids following me and went alone to the loft in the western side courtyard.
It was the most secluded place in the entire general’s residence. I had only come here a few times with Lin Zhao, and each time because he had insisted upon it.
Thinking of him made my heart ache all over again.
I had dreamed of marrying him since I was seven. After longing for him for more than ten years, was he truly going to cast me aside for Xu Liuzhao, a woman he had brought to the capital out of nowhere?
She might be beautiful, but she knew nothing of proper conduct. In what way could I possibly be inferior to her?
A dull ache throbbed in my head, yet the thoughts in my mind seemed to split into two currents.
One flowed in the light, telling me that I had only to drive Xu Liuzhao out of the capital so Lin Zhao could never see her again after he returned.
The other hid in darkness. I did not know where it had come from, yet it kept telling me over and over that this was not Xu Liuzhao’s fault.
It was not Xu Liuzhao’s fault…
Then whose fault was it?
I was so lost in thought that I failed to notice the concealed door behind me opening. A tall figure emerged and stopped soundlessly at my back.
The next instant, an arm locked around my waist from behind, and a hand violently yanked down my clothes.