Yan Kingdom, first year of the Guangqi era, summer.
The blazing sun poured through the window, brilliant and scorching.
Nian Chujiu sat before a bronze mirror, staring at the beauty reflected within it: snow-white skin, raven-black hair. For a moment, she felt utterly lost.
The curtains rustled.
Her personal maid, Mingyue, hurried in, unable to hide her excitement. “Miss! Someone from Marquis Zhongyong Manor has arrived. They must have come to invite Madam over to discuss your marriage to Young Master Gu.”
Marquis Zhongyong Manor! Young Master Gu?
Nian Chujiu’s fingers clenched instinctively around her sleeve. She looked once more at the vibrant, youthful face in the mirror. She sat frozen for a long while before finally coming back to herself. She had been reborn?
This should be the second day after the Nian family arrived in the capital. The Gu family had not sent people here to discuss a wedding. They had come to demand the engagement be broken off. The Nian family would be caught completely off guard. And from this day onward, their fortunes would take a disastrous turn, ending with the ruin of the entire family.
Suppressing the storm raging within her heart, Nian Chujiu slowly rose to her feet. A cold light flashed across her eyes. “Mingyue, let’s go have a look.”
Before she even stepped into the courtyard, she heard her mother, Yin Ying, slam the table and curse furiously. “They’ve gone too far! Back when the Gu family was so poor they could barely afford a meal, they shamelessly came to our door again and again, begging for this marriage alliance. Have they forgotten all that? Old Master Gu would’ve been dead long ago if not for our century-old ginseng! During the years of war, the Gu family borrowed hundreds upon hundreds of taels from us. And now they have the nerve to break off the engagement? Bah! They’ve thrown away every shred of shame!”
Mother was still alive!
Nian Chujiu’s eyes reddened instantly. It took all her strength to suppress the overwhelming joy surging in her chest. Even her voice trembled.
“Mother, the Gu family isn’t here just to break off the engagement. They’re forcing me to become Gu Jiangzhi’s concubine.”
“Bullshit!” Yin Ying brought her palm down heavily on the table. The teacups rattled violently. “As if they’d be so lucky! A daughter of the Nian family does not become a concubine!”
Nian Chujiu lowered her gaze and smoothed her sleeve. It had been the same in her previous life. Her engagement to Gu Jiangzhi had dragged on for five years, from the time she came of age until she was twenty, turning her into an “old maid.”
Who could have expected that the moment the Gu family was elevated to noble rank, they would abandon their promises and seek a more powerful alliance? If they had merely wanted to break the engagement, a simple notice to the Nian family would have sufficed.
But the Gu family was greedy. They had set their sights on the Nian family’s enormous dowry. In their letters, they fixed a wedding date and urged the Nian family to move to the capital as soon as possible while the newly unified realm was still stabilizing.
The Nian family had already been considering relocation to the south. So the entire family escorted their daughter to the capital, unknowingly walking straight into the trap the Gu family had prepared.
First, the Gu family stunned them with the broken engagement. Then they magnanimously offered her the position of an “honored concubine,” demanding that she enter the residence through a side gate in a small sedan chair.
But this was Nian Chujiu. The precious darling cherished by every member of the Nian family. Who would willingly watch her become another man’s concubine?
The Nian family angrily refused. Enraged and humiliated, the Gu family retaliated. They first broke the engagement and drove the Nian family out of the capital. Then they falsely accused them of funding rebel forces. The result: the entire Nian family was thrown into prison and convicted of treason. The men were sentenced to execution. The women were condemned to the Imperial Entertainment Bureau, reduced forever to the status of lowborn slaves.
On the day of the execution, the sky was a terrifying gray. The dull sound of blades cutting through flesh and bone was never heard. It echoed countless times in Nian Chujiu’s mind.
When her father’s head rolled to the ground, his eyes were still fixed in her direction. Her second uncle’s blood sprayed several feet into the air, splashing warm across her third uncle’s face. One after another, her six brothers fell, blood flooding the execution platform. Her seventh brother feared pain more than anything. Yet the executioner deliberately toyed with him, letting the blade stray half an inch so that it failed to sever his neck at once. And then there were her young nephews…
For days afterward, the stench of blood lingered at the execution grounds, enough to make people sick. Even now, remembering it made her heart pound and her chest tighten. Her fingertips tingled with numbness.
Nian Chujiu closed her eyes. She forced the metallic taste of blood rising in her throat and the searing hatred burning in her gaze back into the deepest recesses of her heart.
Outside the window, cicadas shrieked hoarsely. Distant thunder rolled behind thick clouds. It sounded exactly like fate approaching once again.
At that moment, a servant arrived to announce, “Madam, Miss, Young Master Gu has come to visit. He is waiting in the main hall.”
The moment Nian Chujiu heard the words ‘Young Master Gu,’ she couldn’t help but shudder.
Yin Ying’s expression darkened. Rolling up her sleeves, she snorted. “He still dares to show his face? I’ll fetch a feather duster and personally beat that cur Gu out of here!”
Listening to her mother’s unwavering defense, warmth spread through Nian Chujiu’s heart. The suffocating weight on her chest eased slightly.
When she opened her eyes again, they were rimmed with red. “Mother, let me hear what he has to say.”
Seeing her daughter’s reddened eyes and forced composure, Yin Ying’s heart ached. Tears welled up in her own eyes. “My precious girl…”
“I’m fine, Mother.” Nian Chujiu raised a bright, clear smile, though her voice remained steady and resolute. “What is something like this compared to everything our family has endured? We’ve survived years of war and chaos. As long as our family remains together, that matters more than anything else.”
She looked at her mother. “Don’t you agree?”
“Mm, yes, yes.” Yin Ying nodded repeatedly. “Let’s keep this from Grandmother for now. Don’t let the old lady damage her health over it,” Nian Chujiu instructed. After speaking, she took a deep breath and turned toward the main hall.
The residence was only a temporary rental. The courtyard was cramped, the covered walkways short. These days, silver was needed for everything, so they spared every expense they could.
Stubborn tufts of wild grass pushed through cracks in the blue-brick paving. Damp moss clung to the corners of the walls. The entire courtyard carried a faint air of shabby decline.
As Nian Chujiu passed through the narrow corridor, she spotted Gu Jiangzhi at first glance through the peeling wooden door of the main hall.
The handsome youth she remembered was still there, but the immaturity had faded, replaced by an air of aristocratic refinement. He wore a blue cloud-patterned satin robe, a white jade belt at his waist. His hair was bound meticulously beneath a jade crown. Not the slightest trace remained of the awkward young man who had once stood nervously in the Nian family’s reception hall.
At this point, ambition and power had not yet seeped into his bones. Nor had his eyes acquired the ruthless coldness of a man who could kill without batting an eye.
As if sensing her presence, Gu Jiangzhi suddenly looked toward the doorway.
Their eyes met.
A flash of light swept through his gaze.
Five years seemed like a master craftsman’s blade, carefully carving away the girl’s once-soft, indistinct features and shaping them into something sharp and defined. Her face was unchanged, yet the watery brightness in her eyes had settled into a profound, unfathomable stillness. She stood there in a plain, half-worn silk dress. A simple silver hairpin adorned her hair. She resembled celadon porcelain after rain: cool, flawless, translucent.
Gu Jiangzhi unconsciously stepped forward half a pace. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Miss Nian,” he began, his voice much deeper than it had been in youth. “How is the Old Madam’s health? And are your father and mother well?”
Nian Chujiu stepped over the threshold, her calm gaze settling on his face. “They haven’t been angered to death yet,” she replied. “Just now, Madam Gu sent word that our engagement is no longer valid. I’d like to hear directly from Young Master Gu whether there’s been some misunderstanding.”
Not even a single word of polite greeting.
Gu Jiangzhi’s expression stiffened—the gentle, carefully prepared words lodged in his throat. Steadying himself, he softened his tone. “Miss Nian, you must understand my circumstances. Some matters are simply beyond my control.”
Nian Chujiu merely lifted her eyes and looked at him.
Under her gaze, Gu Jiangzhi’s confidence faltered. He avoided her eyes. “Although my family has been granted a marquisate, we have no real foundation in the capital.”
“Get to the point,” Nian Chujiu interrupted, impatience clear in her voice.
The rebuke stung. The pride that had quietly grown within him since his family’s rise in status was provoked.
Miss Nian was good in every way, except that she was too forceful, too clever, too sharp. Being around her always felt suffocating. In the past, that was one thing. But now the Gu family had been elevated to nobility, and yet she still overshadowed him.
Straightening his back, he dropped the pretense of caution. “The point is this… Miss Nian, I have always held you in my heart. The position of principal wife is not mine to decide, but I can promise you the rank of Honored Concubine. All your treatment and allowances will match those of the legal wife. I would never let you suffer the slightest grievance.”
Hearing this supposedly heartfelt proposal, Nian Chujiu slowly drew a breath. The air felt so cold that her lungs tightened. Her fingernails dug deeply into her palms before she could suppress the surge of nausea and fury rising within her.
She addressed him by his full name. “Gu Jiangzhi, spare me your self-deceiving nonsense. What do you mean you’ve always held me in your heart? What do you mean you’re powerless? Isn’t it simply that your Gu family has set its sights on the Nian family’s enormous dowry?”