Chapter 5

His voice was contemptuous, but his grip on my arm tightened little by little.

I struggled in pain. The brocade fell from my hands, leaving only a silver needle between my fingers.

“Pei Yan, I swear on my parents’ names: I do not love you, and I do not want to marry you!”

“Then whom do you want to marry?”

The embers smoldering in his chest seemed to flare into a blaze, burning through him and rushing to his head.

Pei Yan could no longer remain composed.

“Are you dreaming of that young General Ji, like Ying and the others? Or some other man? Yes—my little sister told me you were very intimate with a bearded man in town.”

“But you can forget it, Li Shenbi!”

“For the rest of your life, you can only be mine. You have nowhere to go except to marry me, and nobody will dare take you in!”

“As for your brother…”

He snorted.

“I checked the Ministry of War’s records. Your brother’s name is not on the current list of surviving soldiers from the northern frontier.”

It was late spring, almost summer. The earth was growing warm.

Yet I felt as though I stood in a frozen cellar in the depths of winter. Icy meltwater seeped through my body and throat, threatening to drown me.

When I stopped struggling, Pei Yan loosened his grip a little.

Wouldn’t it have been better if she’d behaved sensibly from the start?

A flicker of pity crossed his eyes. His gaze passed over my lips and deepened.

Those lips.

How many times had he kissed them in his dreams?

Chunxin, who had stood frozen beside us, suddenly moved. She lunged forward and pulled at his arm.

He flung her away.

As Pei Yan bent toward me again, she threw herself at him once more.

“Please, master! Please have mercy on my mistress!”

Repeatedly obstructed by a servant he considered no more than an insect, Pei Yan’s eyes filled with a terrifying coldness.

He lifted his foot to kick her.

I wrenched free with all my strength. The silver needle swept beneath his cheekbone, leaving a long cut.

The courtyard fell utterly silent.

Pei Yan slowly wiped the blood with a fingertip. One corner of his mouth lifted into a frightening smile.

“Li Shenbi.”

He spoke my name in a dark voice.

His long fingers moved to the jade belt at his waist, about to undo it.

At that moment, a servant’s trembling voice came from the gate.

“Master.”

“A Lady Wei has come from the palace. She says the Empress wishes to summon… your cousin.”

Pei Yan plainly did not intend to let me go so easily.

But he had to withdraw for the moment and allow me to put my clothes and appearance in order.

I helped Chunxin up. My hands were still shaking when I asked, dazed, “Why did you help me?”

She was crying miserably.

She didn’t dare take my hand. She could only keep apologizing.

After years together, we knew each other too well.

My single instruction that she needn’t clean my room anymore had told her I’d seen through everything.

I had hated her betrayal. I had been hurt beyond bearing.

One midnight, bent over my desk drawing a mechanism, I’d heard three soft knocks, followed by the sound of a tea tray being set down.

Even I couldn’t say whether, when I opened the door, I knocked the cup over deliberately or by accident.

It shattered.

The hurt choking my chest seemed to spill over the floor with the tea.

In those years of living under another family’s roof, even I had to bow my head before the power of the capital’s Pei clan. I couldn’t meet it without fear.

How much less could Chunxin?

If I could not protect her completely, I ought not demand absolute loyalty.

The palace carriage rattled along.

I was brought before a hall and knelt to pay my respects.

The woman behind the pearl curtain spoke, but her question concerned Pei Yan.

“If that Pei boy had insisted on forcing you just now, and no one had come to rescue you, what would you have done?”

The white jade floor was polished enough to reflect our blurred silhouettes.

The Pei family was powerful. They were said to have some kinship with the Empress herself.

In this world, offending the mighty often ended with one’s head severed from one’s neck.

But in the end, it was only death.

Only going to find my brother, my mother, and my father.

“I would kill him, Your Majesty.”

I heard my own voice.

“I had a needle. If I caught him off guard, I would have a chance.”

“His eyes. His throat. If he wanted me in his bed, he couldn’t keep his eyes open watching me forever.”

The Empress laughed heartily.

“If you killed him, the Pei family wouldn’t spare you.”

I smiled too.

“I would run. If I couldn’t escape, I would die. Either would be better than spending my life controlled and toyed with.”