Chapter 3
“I’d never been to the capital. How could you recognize me? How could you even know my place among the sons of my family?”
His face was guarded.
There were many sons in the Zhai clan. Jiulang had always lived at the family home in Jiangbei, never appearing in the capital.
Later, Leyi had taken him into her private quarters. Few people knew him by sight.
No wonder he was suspicious.
“I lived in Jiangbei when I was young. I saw you there. You were generous to everyone then. I even received a reward from you once.”
Naturally, I would not tell him the truth.
In those days, I had been Qiao Lanzhi, the younger daughter of Censor Qiao Zeming.
Our family had been a suitable match for his cousin’s.
Who could have foreseen that, soon after disaster struck us, the Zhais would be destroyed as well? Fate could be cruel.
But he accepted my story. Back then, people really had called him the Boy Who Gave Away His Fortune.
Whenever the mood took him, he rewarded servants, sometimes even strangers passing in the street.
At the mention of the past, his gaze grew distant. He seemed to be remembering his carefree, extravagant youth.
“Now you’re a minister’s daughter, while I’ve become…”
He clenched his teeth. He could not bring himself to say “a kept man.”
“We can change our own fortunes.”
I looked at him.
“Don’t you think there was something suspicious about your family’s case? My adoptive father mentioned what happened back then. It seems Princess Leyi may have had a hand in it.”
Minister Li had never said that. It was my own conjecture.
Leyi had once visited Jiangbei and taken a liking to the ninth son of the Zhai family.
Several times, both openly and through hints, she had urged Lord Zhai to send Jiulang to the capital.
Her reputation had already spread. How could an old aristocratic house like the Zhais allow one of its sons to serve her in that fashion?
They had refused in the strongest terms.
It was said that, on hearing of her demand, Jiulang had been so humiliated and furious that he snapped a riding whip in front of her.
From that moment, there had been enmity between them.
Not long afterward, the Zhais had been implicated in a treason case.
Even if Leyi had not devised it, she must have helped it along.
Veins stood out on the fists clenched at his sides.
As soon as disaster struck his family, he had been brought secretly to the capital.
His uncles and brothers had been beheaded or exiled. He alone had become the princess’s lover.
Leyi often posed as his benefactor, implying that without her, he too would have lost his head.
“I knew she couldn’t have been so kind!”
His teeth ground together. Every humiliation he had suffered in her residence came surging back.
Abruptly, he looked up.
“Why are you helping me?”
“First, because I saw what you were like in those days, and I grieve for what you’ve lost.”
I held his gaze.
“Second, because I’ve offended the princess. Rather than spend the rest of my days looking over my shoulder, I’d prefer to bring her down once and for all.”