Chapter 9

By this point, Lady Li had lost both the substance of her position and every scrap of face.

Pale as death, she handed me her servants’ contracts without daring another word. Only her eyes remained full of resentment.

I accepted the box of contracts at my leisure, leaned close to her ear, and murmured, “I’m not my sister. I don’t overlook things. This is a small punishment to teach you a lesson. Provoke me again, and I’ll pull out your guts and wind them around Cong’s neck.”

Lady Li jerked her head up, staring at me in terror.

I returned a brazen, triumphant smile that said, quite clearly, I was not joking.

A resounding victory in my first battle.

I led a large procession back to my courtyard.

Hongyuan had already investigated everything. Beside me, she said, “This Madam Sun is the worst. She’s the one who encouraged Cong to bully You. Chunya is neither particularly good nor bad. Xiuxue isn’t a decent one either…”

In a few sentences, she laid out the servants’ offenses.

“Enough,” I said coldly. “Thirty strokes each. Then sell them into servitude in the bitterly cold borderlands!”

I was making an example of them. Unless I was ruthless enough, no one would be deterred.

The women and maids begged for mercy. “Madam, spare us! Madam, we were wrong!”

Their pleas rose one after another throughout the courtyard.

I waved a hand. “Take them away and beat them. Make sure everyone in the earl’s household can hear!”

Hongyuan rolled up her sleeves. “Xiao Hu and the others know how to administer military punishment. I’ll send for them.”

Xiao Hu was another of the people I had brought from Jiayu Pass. He had once been responsible for punishments in the raiding squad.

But if Xiao Hu did it, would any of them survive?

“Tell him to use restraint,” I said quietly. “Leave them alive.”

Until now, I had avoided any direct confrontation with Lady Li.

This was the opportunity I had been waiting for.

I meant to establish my authority once and for all!

Just then, Zhao Yuhua returned, his face grim. “I have something to say to you.”

The old earl had kept him behind. No doubt he had been scolded for failing to control his own wife.

But what did his father’s scolding have to do with me?

I raised an eyebrow and went with him into the main room.

“Yue Wujiu! You’ve gone too far!” he snapped. “Your sister was so gentle and virtuous. How could she have a full sister like you?”

I would not have been nearly so angry if he had left my sister out of it!

“If my sister were alive to see You being bullied like this, she would be even more ruthless than I was!” I retorted.

“You are the wife of this family’s heir,” Zhao Yuhua said icily. “How can you be so vicious? You’ve barely married into the family, and you openly defy your husband and contradict your elders. What will you not dare in the future?”

“You have the nerve to blame me? If you’d taken responsibility and looked after your children properly, could this have happened? First you fail in your duty as a father, then you refuse to reflect on it! I’m cleaning up your mess, and you dare resent me? Who gave you such an inflated opinion of yourself?”

It was the first time I had defied him like this. “Yue Wujiu!” he said through his teeth.

“What?” I shouted. “Listen carefully, Zhao Yuhua. For my sister’s sake, I can show you a little respect. But give you an inch, and you take a mile! I don’t go looking for trouble. But if someone tries to walk all over me, I’ll beat him senseless even if he’s the king of Heaven himself!”

So angry that he laughed, Zhao Yuhua said, “Good. Good. Very good!”

Now that the pretense was finally gone, I had no desire to restore it. “I’m perfectly good,” I said contemptuously. “I don’t need you to tell me.”

Unable to bear another moment, he said, “Vulgar woman. You’d better look to your conduct,” and swept out.