Chapter 1

When Pei Xiang stormed into the brothel with her servants,

the young marquis was in a private room, listening to me play the qin. His eyes were half closed as he listened intently; there was not a trace of his usual dissipation about him.

When the piece ended, he began his critique.

“That was well played today. All the care I’ve put into teaching you has paid off.”

I had never been particularly good at chess. I had been a farmer’s daughter, after all, with no money to learn such refined accomplishments.

But once you entered a brothel,

without a skill worth showing off, you could never attract the capital’s rich and powerful. You became the lowest sort of girl in the house, someone anyone could trample on and humiliate, with no say over whether you lived or died.

And I did not want to die yet.

So I had attached myself to Zhou Zhi.

The most notorious rake among the capital’s young noblemen, Zhou Zhi was also the Emperor’s particular favorite, a man whose influence at court was at its height.

He was handsome, too, born of imperial blood and possessed of a dazzling rank. He had captured the hearts of a whole host of noble young ladies.

Even the eldest Miss Pei, Pei Xiang,

had fallen for him after a single distant glimpse at a palace banquet. After that, she could neither eat nor drink in peace, and insisted she would marry him.

One was a young marquis beloved by the Emperor.

The other was the eldest daughter of the reigning Chancellor.

By rank alone, they made a fitting match. And Pei Xiang was so devoted, so unwilling to marry anyone else, that she had taken her demands all the way to the Emperor. The whole capital had heard about it before she finally secured that marriage decree.

Today should have been their wedding day.

But a drunken wastrel had begun pestering me at the brothel. When Zhou Zhi heard, he abandoned the business of fetching Pei Xiang and rode straight here to find me.

He spent a fortune on me and forbade anyone else to come near me.

Naturally, I was grateful.

“Today is your wedding day, my lord. The auspicious hour seems to have arrived. Why haven’t you gone to fetch your bride?”

I had just poured him some wine when the door was thrust open. Pei Xiang stood there in her wedding robes, a sword in her hand, and came straight at me to kill me.

“Pei Xiang, what are you doing?”

I stood where I was. Trained in martial arts since childhood, Zhou Zhi moved swiftly in front of me and struck the sword from her hand.

“Zhou Zhi, how can you ask me that?”

Looking at the man she loved, Pei Xiang’s eyes quickly filled with tears. She was one of the capital’s rare beauties, and her tearful face was lovely enough to stir anyone’s pity.

Unfortunately for her, Zhou Zhi had never been a man to soften for a pretty face.

Even after three years at his side, I could not see into his heart. He seemed utterly dissolute, yet he had never touched me. He had given me a measure of respect and protection that was hard to come by.

But did he like me? Probably not.

Otherwise, he would have taken me out of the brothel long ago, instead of coming to see me whenever the mood struck or he had some time to spare.

Zhou Zhi had once told me, “Love is a sham. If I ever marry, it will only be because a marriage contract ties me down. As for winning my heart, no one stands a chance.”

So he did not love Pei Xiang.

He simply did not care whom he married.

Pei Xiang kept sobbing her accusations and pointed at me. I lowered my eyes and saw her vivid red nails, the color of fresh blood.

“Today is our wedding day, yet you come to a brothel and spend a fortune on a prostitute, leaving me to fend for myself! I am the Chancellor’s daughter. No one has ever treated me like this! This bitch has bewitched you. Of course I’m going to kill her!”

Pei Xiang screamed herself hoarse.

Then,

she tried to rush at me again, only for Zhou Zhi to stop her once more.

“If you keep making a scene, there will be no wedding today. And this marriage will be called off altogether.”

There was little change in his eyes. He merely kept me behind him. I was a little plaything he had kept for two years, after all; he could hardly let someone else trample on me.

That would be an insult to him.

And the dissolute young marquis cared a great deal about his pride.

Pei Xiang had only meant to throw a small tantrum, or at most kill me to vent her anger. She had never intended to destroy the marriage.

Give your heart to the wrong person, and you are doomed to lower yourself beyond measure.

“No. I’m already yours.”

Pei Xiang shook her head over and over. All her earlier arrogance was gone. Panic filled her eyes as she tugged at Zhou Zhi’s sleeve, her voice slipping helplessly into pleading, stripped of every scrap of pride.

“Zhou Zhi, His Majesty decreed this marriage. You can’t abandon me!”

Her eyes swam with tears, yet she still tried to cling to her dignity. She did not know that Zhou Zhi preferred obedience above all. Threatening him with an imperial decree would only deepen his disgust.

I watched as the impatience in his eyes grew. There was not the slightest affection in his gaze for the woman who was about to become his wife.

Had the bride been anyone else, I would not have played the villain and broken up their match.

But she was Pei Xiang.

She had drowned my little brother and sister, then sold me to a brothel.

That hatred could never be reconciled.

So, deliberately, in front of Pei Xiang, I slowly slipped my arm around Zhou Zhi’s and laughed softly. “You used to be so overbearing, Miss Pei. I never imagined I’d live to see you brought this low.”

I meant to provoke her.

When Pei Xiang first burst into the room, she had been blinded by rage. She had barely looked at my face; she had only wanted to kill the bitch who had seduced her husband.

Now, hearing my words, she turned her gaze on me and studied me closely. Bewilderment gave way to fury, and the hatred in her eyes grew.

“You! You lowborn wretch who doesn’t know her place! First you bewitched my brother, and now you want to steal my husband. Have you no shame?”

Her insults were vicious, her eyes full of contempt.

But I was no longer the little girl who could do nothing but cry. Faced with the enemy I hated most, I had no objection to driving a few more blades into her heart.

“You’re so virtuous. Can you keep your husband’s heart?”

I aimed every word at her sorest spot. Her expression changed at once, and she glared venomously at me. Unwilling to concede, she hurled uglier and uglier insults.

“What right does a shameless whore have to flaunt herself in front of me? If I dared to throw you into a brothel before, I can certainly kill you now!”

Arrogant once more, she signaled to the servants she had brought.

Several stepped forward and tried to grab me, but Zhou Zhi kicked them away.

“I told you, Yueniang is under my protection. Keep this up, and there will be no marriage!”

Now he was truly angry.

He had always protected his own.

He had been gravely wounded when we first met. I had saved him.

He said a kindness must be repaid, and since these were troubled times, he would keep me safe through them for the rest of my life.

From then on, no one had dared bully me again.

“Do you know what sort of woman she is? She deliberately seduced my brother, making him want to refuse his marriage to the princess and bring this shameless bitch into our family. Now she’s seducing you. Why can’t you see through her?”

Pei Xiang bristled with grievance, convinced I was nothing but a seductress, even though Zhou Zhi had come to the brothel of his own accord and spent that fortune on me willingly.

Every bit of blame,

she blindly tried to heap on me.

By the end of the farce, a growing crowd had gathered outside the room. The Chancellor’s own daughter had stormed into a brothel in her bridal robes to catch her future husband with another woman.

Some pitied her, saying women had a miserable lot.

Others condemned her as too jealous to be a proper wife.

“If you still want to enter my household, leave now. Otherwise, you know I keep my word. This marriage really will be over.”

Zhou Zhi’s expression had darkened. There was no hint of a joke.

Pei Xiang had been ready to keep shrieking accusations at me. At that, she dared say no more, only fixed me with a vicious stare. “One day, I’ll tear that face of yours to pieces!”

“Very well. I’ll be waiting.”

Clinging to Zhou Zhi, I gave her a languid, seductive look, an undisguised provocation.

Pei Xiang was furious, but Zhou Zhi’s men still escorted her back to his residence. And the wedding that should have taken place that day was hurried through just like that.

The groom never attended. The bride performed the wedding bows alone.

It was a terrible humiliation.

The other patrons of the brothel gossiped about it endlessly, treating it as a joke.

Zhou Zhi was still there with me. Turning a teacup in his hand, he asked mildly, “So she’s the one you want to kill, Yueniang?”

Since he had taken me under his protection,

of course he knew everything that had happened to me.

It was the eldest Pei son who had made a wager with his friends and pretended to be poor to deceive me. He was the one who claimed to love me deeply and swore to marry no one else, then went home to break off his engagement without consulting me. Yet it was my life he had endangered. Pei Xiang had had me, an innocent young woman, sold into a brothel, and had my little brother and sister dashed to death.

And the woman responsible remained an enviable noble lady in the capital, even granted a marriage by the Emperor, showered with unparalleled favor and honor.

A killer paid nothing for murder, and could go on to live out her days in comfort and wealth.

What sort of justice was that?

If Heaven refused to send a bolt of lightning to strike her dead and punish such evil, I would have to do it myself.

“Will you stop me from taking revenge, my lord?”

I looked quietly at Zhou Zhi. His eyes remained calm, revealing neither pleasure nor anger. He merely stated a fact.

“The Chancellor’s daughter, married by imperial decree. If she dies in my house, it will cause me a great deal of trouble. You’re a sensible girl, Yueniang. You know how much I dislike trouble.”

Because he disliked trouble, he would obey the decree and marry Pei Xiang despite having no affection for her. He did not care who his wife was.

If not Pei Xiang, it would be some other woman.

Since none of them mattered to him, there was no need to care, or to invite more trouble over it.

So he did not want to help me take revenge.

Perhaps he saw the hatred for Pei Xiang in my eyes, naked and undisguised even in front of him.

Zhou Zhi paused, then bent and tipped up my chin. A trace of a smile appeared in his eyes, as though he were teasing me.

“Unless you can make me fall in love with you willingly. Then I could kill not only Pei Xiang for you, but the entire Pei family.”

I knew he meant it.

But I also knew

that I stood a better chance of charging into his residence with a sword and killing Pei Xiang myself than of making Zhou Zhi love me.

He had always been a coldhearted man.

So I slid my arms around his shoulders and smiled sweetly. “Then would you care to try, my lord? Take me into your household. Give me a chance.”

We would have to try before we could know whether he might fall in love.

And if I could get inside his residence,

I could kill Pei Xiang with my own hands.