Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Cui Shao recognized him. He took a step forward, shielding my younger brother and me, his voice icy.

“Young Master Ma.”

“Lord Cui. Oh, wait, look at my memory-you’re just a commoner now. You don’t have the power to punish me anymore.”

Young Master Ma straightened his back and tilted his chin up, looking down his nose at Cui Shao. His gaze suddenly turned vicious. “Cui Shao! You’ve ruined my fun. If you get down on your knees and kowtow, I might let you off this once. If you don’t, then it’ll be just like last time: thirty lashes with a horsewhip. Take your pick.”

He watched Cui Shao with amused interest, like a cat toying with a mouse. No matter what Cui Shao chose, he wouldn’t escape the man’s clutches.

Young Master Ma was intent on humiliating and taking revenge on Cui Shao.

Back when Cui Shao was still Lord Cui, he had encountered Young Master Ma drunkenly harassing a common woman while returning from a palace banquet.

Cui Shao had ordered his men to strip Young Master Ma’s clothes and give him thirty strokes of the board to make an example of him.

From that day on, Young Master Ma harbored a deep grudge. Later, when the Cui Clan fell from grace, he frequently looked for trouble. On our wedding day, Young Master Ma had found an excuse to give Cui Shao thirty lashes.

He did it because he knew that Cui Shao would never kneel to him.

“Chen Yu, do you still have that ointment…”

“Young Master Ma! You are so suave, so handsome, so gallant! Please, in your great mercy, just treat us like a fart and let us go! I’ll kowtow to you right now!”

Cui Shao’s hand was still hanging in mid-air when my brother and I ducked under his arms and slid into a kneeling position on the ground.

“Exactly, Young Master Ma! Please let us go! We’ll kowtow as many times as you want-”

My brother held up his hands. His tone was a bit perfunctory and lacked emotion at first, but after I gave him a nudge, he drew out his vowels and reclaimed his old expertise.

Though we hadn’t used these skills for a few months, the reaction was etched into our very bones. We were as sycophantic as could be.

But we didn’t care. As long as we stayed alive, it was enough. This tactic had never failed us; at the very least, it minimized the damage.

Regardless of how majestic Cui Shao might have been in the imperial court, when it came to the art of survival, he couldn’t even compare to my brother.

Sacrificing pride to save him from thirty lashes was, to me, a bargain.

But in the next instant, Cui Shao pulled my brother and me up.

I hadn’t expected the seemingly frail Cui Shao to possess such strength. Even more unexpected was that after pulling us up, Cui Shao knelt down himself.

The sun was a bit warmer now, and the snow in the shadows had begun to melt. My brother and I had specifically chosen a dry spot to kneel, but Cui Shao knelt right into a puddle of muddy water.

It was cold and filthy.

He looked up. “Young Master Ma, you are a man of great mercy. Please… let me go.”