Chapter 1

By the time I realized something was wrong, the princess’s maid had already helped me into a guest room.

Layers of gauze curtains hung in the dim room.

A man lay behind them, his robe hanging open.

His muscular chest was fully exposed.

The sight of his face startled me.

He was extraordinarily handsome, his features as fine as carved jade.

Wasn’t this Lord Yu, once the princess’s most favored companion?

To bring me down, she was willing to sacrifice even her darling?

The drug took hold. Heat spread through me, and every limb crawled with a torment like ants beneath my skin.

Faced with this man, I could scarcely keep control of myself under its influence.

When he saw me, a smile of vindictive satisfaction curled his lips. The drug had affected his eyes too.

He evidently knew what the princess intended.

He expected me to panic, to feel so humiliated I wanted to die.

Like the other women she had ruined.

I smiled faintly and moved closer.

A strained sound escaped him. He stared at me in surprise.

“You were forced into this too, weren’t you?”

An unpleasantly sweet fragrance filled the room.

I looked down at him. An unnatural flush colored his cheeks.

“They’ve been burning an aphrodisiac incense in here. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be in this state either.”

Fighting the discomfort the drug caused, I spoke softly into his ear.

After all those years working on pleasure boats, I knew how to sway a man’s thoughts.

And now both of us were drugged, barely able to keep our heads clear.

He trembled all over. His hand caught at me involuntarily as he struggled to recover some lucidity.

“You’re her favorite, yet she forces you to sleep with other women. What does she think you are? A plaything?”

He bit his lip. Anger and humiliation crossed his flushed face.

I pressed on.

“A man may be killed, but he shouldn’t have to endure such humiliation. The princess keeps you here to amuse herself by degrading you. Don’t you want to avenge that, Zhai Jiulang?”

At the name, his eyes went cold.

“How… do you… know?”

I did not answer. My fingers rested lightly against his chest.

The drug and the incense were viciously potent. Within moments, fine beads of sweat covered my forehead, and the heat was almost unbearable.

If I wished to avoid sleeping with him, I would have to spend hours immersed in the freezing lake or bleed myself to release the poison.

Either would be agonizing.

Under the drug’s influence, I chose intimacy with the man before me over those painful alternatives.

I leaned toward his ear.

“I’ll help you. But before that, you must help me…”