“I was throwing myself into your arms, Husband.”
When she said those words, her face did not flush, nor did her breathing become uneven. Her eyes were clear and tranquil, like the waters of a deep pool, perfectly calm without the slightest ripple.
Shen Yi, however, stiffened, and his breathing became disordered. His Adam’s apple involuntarily bobbed once.
After a few breaths, he finally steadied himself. Embarrassed, he pushed her away, and his irritated tone carried a hint of panic that was difficult to detect.
“Jiang, Xue, Ning, who gave you permission to throw yourself into the arms of this Heir Apparent?”
“Don’t you like it?”
“I don’t!”
“But Mother said there are very few men who can refuse when a woman throws herself into their arms. Could it be…” She sucked in a sharp breath. “Could it be that you’re not a man? Or do you have some hidden ailment?”
“Jiang Xiao-Liu!”
He grabbed her chin, wishing he could crush those poisonous little lips of hers.
“When you encounter a problem, do you never look for the cause in yourself?”
“Look for the cause in myself?” Her eyelashes lowered slightly as she pondered for a moment. “Could it be that I used the wrong posture when throwing myself into your arms?”
“Go back and think about it carefully!”
Shen Yi released her chin.
“Until you truly learn how to please a man, you are not allowed to behave so improperly again!”
“Oh.”
Jiang Xuening answered dejectedly. Before leaving, she suddenly remembered something.
“The day after tomorrow is the day I return to my parents’ home. Can you accompany me?”
At that time, newlyweds generally returned to the bride’s family home on the third or fifth day after their wedding, and at the latest, within seven days.
Jiang Xuening had no particular affection for her maternal family, Zhongcheng Residence, so she had not mentioned the matter of returning home over the past few days.
Today, Zhongcheng Residence had sent someone to urge her to come back. She had no choice but to make the trip the day after tomorrow.
Jiang Xuening’s grandfather was the Chief Censor. If not for the consideration given to her grandfather, Shen Yi would never have agreed to the substitution in the marriage in the first place.
Now that he had married her, although he disliked her, he still had to maintain appearances. Thus, even if she had not asked him, Shen Yi had already planned to accompany her back to her family home.
However, since she had come to ask him herself, he was happy to take advantage of the opportunity to negotiate a condition with her.
“If you promise not to come to the study and disturb me for the next half month, I can accompany you.”
“It’s a deal!”
She could use this period of time to think carefully about how she should please this man.
……
After Shen Yi accompanied her back to her maternal family home, things indeed became much quieter over the following days. She no longer came knocking on the door of his study at night.
However, after only a few peaceful days, she suddenly came looking for him to ask for money.
“Husband, give me twenty taels.”
“What do you need the money for?”
Although twenty taels was not much, the two of them were merely husband and wife in name. She knew perfectly well that he disliked her, yet she still had the audacity to ask him for money so matter-of-factly.
“I have a very important use for it.”
“What about your monthly allowance?”
As far as he knew, her monthly allowance was thirty taels.
“I spent it all.”
“Don’t you have any private savings of your own?”
“No.”
When she had married, Zhongcheng Residence had given her quite a substantial dowry. However, everything had been recorded in the dowry inventory, which was in Chunlan’s hands. Chunlan was one of Legal Mother’s people, so if Jiang Xuening wanted to use any of the dowry, it would inevitably alert Legal Mother.
She had therefore simply stopped thinking about that dowry.
Shen Yi did not know whether what she said was true or not, but twenty taels of silver was nothing to him. He did not ask any further questions and instructed Lu Ming to take the money from his private treasury and give it to her.
Unexpectedly, two days later, she came to ask for money again.
This time, she wanted thirty taels.
“Didn’t I just give you twenty taels the day before yesterday?”
“I’ve already spent it.”
Her gaze was open and honest, and she did not forget to defend herself.
“And I’ve already been very frugal.”
Twenty or thirty taels could cover the expenses of an ordinary household for half a year. But for a wealthy Marquis’s Residence, it was not even a drop in the bucket.
Forget it. Even a hairpin that caught one’s eye could cost a hundred taels.
Shen Yi glanced at the pitifully few pieces of jewelry on her. He then told Lu Ming to give her fifty taels directly.
Those fifty taels bought him three days of peace.
On the fourth day, she came again.
Unlike the previous two times when she had asked for money without the slightest hesitation, this time she looked somewhat guilty.
It seemed that she was probably going to ask for more than she had before.
“Go ahead. How much do you want this time?”
She raised her hand, holding up five slender fingers.
Another fifty taels?
“Five… hundred taels.”
After saying this, she lowered her head and did not dare to meet his eyes.
“Five hundred taels?”
The first two times, she had not asked for much, so he had casually given her the money.
But this time, although five hundred taels was not a particularly large sum to him, the sudden increase by dozens of times inevitably made Shen Yi suspicious that she intended to use the money for something improper.
If she had been using her own money, that would have been one thing. If something happened afterward, he would have had ways to distance himself from the matter.
But she was using his money.
If she committed some offense outside, he, as her husband in name, would also find it difficult to escape responsibility.
Thinking of this, Shen Yi’s expression darkened. He looked at her with a deep, unreadable gaze.
“I need a reason.”
Jiang Xuening also knew that she was asking for far too much this time, but she could not tell him the truth.
“I can write you an IOU. I’ll find a way to repay you in the future.”
Seeing that she refused to explain, Shen Yi became even more suspicious. Naturally, he was unwilling to give her the money, but at the same time, he wanted to know exactly what she intended to do with it.
If she truly intended to do something improper, he did not mind playing along and taking advantage of the opportunity to catch her in the act, giving himself leverage to control her in the future.
“There is no need to write an IOU.”
Shen Yi did not intend to take the money from his own accounts. Instead, he pointed her toward another way to obtain it.
“When the Marquis’s Residence proposed the marriage to your family, the betrothal gifts included three shops. Their locations are excellent, and they make considerable profits. You can go to the shops and collect the profits from the first half of the year. There should be around five or six hundred taels.”
Those three shops were no longer under the Marquis’s Residence’s name. They were either in the Shen family’s hands or under her name. In any case, they had nothing to do with him.
Having received his suggestion, Jiang Xuening immediately put away the gentle, pleading expression she had worn while asking him for money. She lifted her chin and walked away.
She wore one expression when asking for money and another when she failed to get what she wanted.
Shen Yi let out a soft laugh.
He summoned Lu Ming and ordered him to have someone keep an eye on Jiang Xuening and find out exactly what she intended to do with the money.
The next day, when Shen Yi returned from the government office, Lu Ming came over to greet him the moment he stepped out of the carriage, eager to report what had happened.
“Heir Apparent, Young Madam took a Maid to the three shops this morning to collect the accounts. In the afternoon, she left the Maid behind and secretly slipped out on her own. She went to… went to…”
“Where did she go?”
“Drunken Wind Pavilion.”
Shen Yi’s expression instantly turned dark, and his deep-set brows cast a heavy shadow over his face.
Drunken Wind Pavilion was a brothel located in the pleasure district.
She had actually gone to a brothel?
One had to know that besides women who had fallen into the pleasure trade, the brothel also housed handsome and graceful male entertainers.
The twenty taels and fifty taels she had asked for earlier had probably only been enough for tea and music there. But today, she had taken five hundred taels.
Could it be that she had taken a liking to one of the male entertainers and intended to buy his freedom?
“What a Jiang Xiao-Liu!”
Shen Yi laughed in extreme anger, his voice cold and chilling like shattered ice and jade.
“Let’s go. We’re going to Drunken Wind Pavilion!”