Chapter 2
That scoundrel Wen Yilan was leaning against a strapping man, smiling with bashful delight.
I hid behind the bamboo and pulled faces at him until my eyes nearly cramped. Only then did he reluctantly come over.
“This is dreadfully dull. Let’s go home.”
Wen Yilan backed away two steps. “Are you joking? You may have no man to amuse you, but I do. Run along and stop bothering me.”
What a world. People simply weren’t what they used to be.
To think he had once pursued me so ardently.
Rouge, jewelry—he had showered me with gifts and clung to me wherever I went.
It took me a very, very long time to see the light.
He had been learning from me all along. Learning how to be a woman.
“Be a darling, Yingying. Go home without me. I’ll come see you when I’m free. Three boxes of Bifang Studio’s new rouge—will that do?”
Wen Yilan tugged at my sleeve.
My scalp prickled. I nodded at once.
“You’re the best, darling. Off I go.”
Before I could make the unreasonable request that he find a suitable man for me too, the wretch had vanished.
As I wandered through the long, secluded bamboo grove, I felt despondent. Perhaps even he would have a husband before I did…
“What happened? Did Wen Yilan send you packing?”
Yuan Lang was still there, mocking me as though he were enjoying a show.
Why did this man haunt me so…?
“Even if you don’t care for my cousin, you should stay away from Wen Yilan. He’s hardly dependable. He kept pestering me with jokes just now. Aren’t you afraid he’ll toy with your feelings, then marry you simply to put you on display?”
“Perhaps you’d been speaking ill of someone behind their back again?”
Yuan Lang’s face went from livid to red. After a long silence, he turned his head away. “If you won’t appreciate the warning, forget I said anything.”
I snorted and muttered, “Some people look so respectable, every inch the gentleman. Who would have guessed they were such accomplished backbiters?”
“Was I wrong about you before?” Yuan Lang gave a derisive laugh. “Every word I said to my cousin that day was true. Which part wronged you? You know what you did.”
I scratched my head in irritation. “No, I don’t.”
“Why keep up the act? There’s no one else here. You can stop pretending.”
“Explain yourself. Who’s pretending? What am I pretending?”
“You were the one who barged into my room and wouldn’t stop talking to me. Will you still deny it?” Yuan Lang walked toward me, staring straight at me. “A year ago, at Fuxi Restaurant. That was you.”
For some reason, I grew nervous and edged back. “Nonsense. You’re slandering me. I never even saw you at Fuxi Restaurant.”
As I retreated, I caught my foot on a stone and stumbled.
An arm swept around my waist, steadying me.
“Slandering you? It was the banquet celebrating my examination success. I drank too much and went to rest in a private room on the third floor. You burst in and talked at me for ages. Have you forgotten all of it?”
Yuan Lang helped me regain my balance and let go.
My cheeks burned with embarrassment. I didn’t know what to do with my hands.
His words brought me abruptly to my senses.
Surely not. Could Yuan Lang really be the person I had cornered with my drunken chatter?
On the night of my eighteenth birthday, Wen Yilan and I had drunk ourselves senseless at Fuxi Restaurant. The staff took us upstairs to rest in a private room on the third floor.
And, as it happened, there was a handsome young gentleman in that room…
A maid from home came to fetch me that night. There was no one in the room when I left, so I thought I had dreamed it.
I might have been younger then, but I was still an old maid at heart.
Had the sight of a handsome young man made me pester him with a lot of nonsense? Surely not. I had always had such good manners…
Seeing my bewilderment, Yuan Lang’s brow knotted tightly, and his tone grew sharper. “What? You truly don’t remember?”
I discreetly put a few more steps between us and offered an ingratiating smile. “You really are very clever.”
“Then let me refresh your memory. Why should I be the only one who remembers?” Yuan Lang frowned. “You held on to me and wouldn’t let me leave. You kept telling me to come and ask for your hand. You said every miserable man out there was blind and failed to appreciate your beauty.”
Oh dear. Could he be telling the truth? That level of vanity did sound very much like me.
“You called me your dear elder brother. You said you only liked men older than you. You told me I was handsome and begged and pleaded with me to come to your house and propose.”
How did he know I liked older men? Had I really gone about asking people to marry me when I was drunk?
I could have wept. My voice trembled with mortification. “S-surely not? I’m normally so well-mannered…”
“You just admitted yourself that you were at Fuxi Restaurant that night.”
That settled it. The world fell silent.
I certainly had got drunk there. There was no arguing my way out now.
My shameless old face went scarlet. I stammered, unable to produce a single word.
“Still going to deny it? Hmm?”
I covered my burning cheeks, my voice thick with impending tears. “I was drunk. I didn’t mean to do it. Why didn’t you have someone take me away sooner?”
“As luck would have it, I was drunk too. Fortunately, I’m a little cleverer than a certain person. I remembered a few things—and knew whom to settle accounts with.”