Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Young Master Ma left, satisfied. Cui Shao remained slightly bowed as if respectfully seeing him off, completely ignoring the muddy water staining his robes.

“Are you… all right?”

“It is nothing. It will be clean once washed.”

His tone was casual, as if he were discussing something perfectly normal.

“As for you, do not stand up for me like that again. You are a woman; you should not be protecting me.”

In truth, this sort of thing was perfectly normal to me. My younger brother and I had lived this way in the Chen Family-when we couldn’t win a fight, we resorted to flattery.

“Why have you stopped?”

Cui Shao paused and looked back at my brother and me, as we stood rooted to the spot.

“Did you really think you knelt for nothing?”

Night had fallen, and Young Master Ma had finished his revelry. Having had a fair bit to drink, he sat swaying on his horse, mumbling drunken nonsense.

Young Master Ma’s family estate wasn’t particularly grand; they had simply produced a merchant ancestor who enjoyed a brief period of glory. Now, they lived off a meager ancestral inheritance. To get home, he had to pass through a narrow alleyway.

My brother and I lay in wait. The moment he dismounted, we threw a sack over his head. With clubs at the ready, we rained blows down upon him like falling stones.

Young Master Ma shrieked and wailed in pain. Finally, my brother even relieved himself on the man.

We didn’t stop until we had run a great distance. Cui Shao was breathless, a faint flush rising to his pale cheeks.

“Do you do this often?”

“Of course. My brother and I have no one to rely on. We’re like the old dogs in the courtyard that anyone can kick. We don’t have the strength for a direct confrontation, so we have to find other ways. We feign submission and humility first, then look for a chance to take our revenge. I can’t touch Master Chen or Miss Chen, but as for others-if they’re powerful, I use someone else’s hand against them. For those like the servants who act big by riding on their masters’ coattails, my brother and I just ambush them. Besides, we look harmless; no one ever suspects us.”

“You’re right,” Cui Shao said. “No one would suspect that someone who has had their dignity and pride crushed-someone who bows to power-would harbor thoughts of revenge.”

I patted Cui Shao on the shoulder. “Do you feel a bit better now?”

Cui Shao was about to speak when he glanced at my hair. “Where is your hairpin?”

My hairpin? I reached up to touch my head; it was gone.

That hairpin was just ordinary peach wood, my only “dowry.” I must have lost it while we were beating Young Master Ma.

“That Young Master Ma is truly loathsome. Not only did we have to kneel to him twice, but he even made me lose my hairpin. We should have beaten him more.”

My brother nodded, then seemed to remember something. “Wait, we should have beaten him three times. When he was drunk and getting off his horse earlier, I heard him muttering. He said Cui Shao is a broken man but married a beautiful wife, and that he’d find a chance to snatch you away to be his concubine!”

Under the cold moonlight, Cui Shao’s expression turned frigid. He stared back toward the entrance of the alley we had just left, his thoughts unreadable.