Chapter 3
On the outside, Zhou Jichuan looked like an aloof immortal, as pure and distant as snow on a high mountain. Who would have guessed what a narcissist he was underneath?
I turned to Xu Lianyi, who was still sobbing behind her hands. “Miss Xu, you insist my master has been intimate with you?”
“If he insists on denying it… I—I have no wish to live. I can only die to preserve my honor!”
That was exactly what I’d been waiting for!
I drew a deep breath and dropped a thunderbolt:
“But my master… is impotent!”
The entire room froze in shock!
Zhou Jichuan went rigid, his eyes bulging.
He opened his mouth wide, trying to protest. It opened and closed again, making him look both ridiculous and pitiful.
[What nonsense is she spouting??? Who is she talking about?! Me? Impotent?!]
[Aaaah! Has this wretched girl gone mad?! I’m clearly… clearly extraordinarily gifted, a paragon of manly vigor! She’s destroying my reputation! My dignity as a man! Boohoo…]
He whipped his head toward Qingfeng and fixed him with a desperate, pleading stare.
[Quick! Say something for me! Prove my innocence!]
I immediately turned to Qingfeng as well, winking and making faces.
Qingfeng looked at Zhou Jichuan, then at me. His throat bobbed as he swallowed with difficulty.
“Yes… My master… does indeed suffer from impotence.”
Gasps rose around us.
The room erupted!
Some people suddenly understood.
“No wonder… Lord Zhou is twenty-two and still hasn’t arranged a marriage. So that’s why…”
“Alas, the Dingnan household has had only one male heir for three generations. Is the family line really going to… end here?”
Others were secretly delighted. “Well, isn’t this good news! Now that he can’t perform, that foolish girl of mine should finally give up on him and settle down with someone else!”
Xu Lianyi was stunned, too, and blurted, “You… You’re impotent?”
Zhou Jichuan closed his eyes and nodded heavily.
Two hot streams of tears ran down his cheeks.
I hurried forward as though to steady him and murmured soothingly, “Please don’t blame me, my lord… Your reputation and the household’s must come first.”
His eyes flew open, and he glared savagely at Xu Lianyi.
She shuddered under his gaze and hastily stammered out a different story.
“I—I… Perhaps I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time and misunderstood…”
With her story so full of contradictions and holes, everyone immediately realized something was amiss.
Whispers spread:
“I hear things haven’t been going well for the Xu family lately. They’re in a hurry to send their daughter to that vicious, cold-blooded Prince Regent as a concubine…”
“That explains it! She saw Lord Zhou was young and the marquess’s only heir, so she tried to latch on to him and escape her fate?”
“What a wicked scheme!”
…