Chapter 5

I waited for him to continue.

“You were three. You probably don’t remember me. My grandmother was one of your nursemaids. If you hadn’t gone mad, she would never have injured you and lost such a good position. My family would never have fallen into poverty. My grandfather would not have beaten her every day for it, and my father would not have imitated him and beaten my mother. I would not have grown up in fear and misery.”

I frowned. “So you later beat your two maids? A proud family tradition.”

“Grandmother cursed me constantly and blamed everything on me. Why? Even if I’d touched you that day, would you not have gone mad? Would she not have been dismissed? I did nothing wrong. You did!”

He pointed at me in fury.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

Scholar Sun stared.

I looked at his mother. “What did you mean when you said I destroyed your family?”

“Y-you didn’t. They brought it upon themselves,” she answered carefully.

“Then say no more.”

Scholar Sun, however, had years of grievances left. “Several years ago, my grandfather chased Grandmother all the way to the river while beating her. Father tried to stop him. All three fell in and drowned.”

He wiped his tears roughly. “After that, I devoted myself to my studies. I swore I would marry you and torment you. I wanted my dead grandmother to see whether I truly had a servant’s fate—whether a lowborn boy like me could never touch a noble young lady.”

I considered this. Apparently, I had done him a favor after all.

“No need to thank me.”

He stared again.

I turned to the kneeling maids. “Beat him as he used to beat you.”

Neither dared move.

“Well?” I played idly with my dagger. “What are you waiting for?”

An eerie stillness filled the chamber, broken only by my voice.

One maid, Jin’er, finally raised her head and knocked her brow firmly against the floor.

“Madam, you are forcing us toward our deaths.”

The other, Yin’er, joined her, kowtowing again and again.

“Very well. I’m tired. You may all leave.”

I never liked forcing people. If they had their fears, I could wait. There would be time.

Xiaoyu unlocked the door, and all four fled in disorder.

Early the next morning, Scholar Sun and his mother, faces swollen like pig heads, tried to sneak out and report me. They had agreed that accusing me of assaulting a provincial graduate would let him repudiate me and seize my dowry. Since I was plainly in the wrong, they believed even my father could do nothing.

Washed and dressed, I watched the four of them edge toward the gate.

“Mother. Husband. Where are you going?”

They jumped back in perfect unison.

“W-wife, we were going to buy a few things.”

“Then I’ll come.”

“No need!”

“Weren’t you going to the magistrate? We may as well go together. Otherwise, I’ll only lose time when they summon me later.”

All four stiffened. Mother and son had whispered their plan in hiding. They could not imagine how I knew.

When I raised a hand, they covered their heads, expecting another blow.

I merely adjusted the hairpin in my hair. “Why aren’t we leaving?”

Scholar Sun dropped to his knees. “Wife, I’ve changed my mind.”