At least he listened to his grandmother.
She hadn’t been in her room long before Shen Yanchen came upstairs with some ointment and breakfast.
Tao Huanyi couldn’t see, but she caught the fragrant smell of steamed buns. Before long, Shen Yanchen’s voice came from beside her. “Open your mouth.”
“I can manage it myself…”
Tao Huanyi groped through the air. She missed the bun and caught Shen Yanchen by the wrist instead. Startled, she jerked her hand back. Seeing this, Shen Yanchen raised an eyebrow. “If you’re so afraid of me, how dare you pull such a tired old trick as playing the victim right in front of me?”
Playing the victim?
Did he think she’d fallen on purpose?
Tao Huanyi was about to explain when Shen Yanchen pushed the bun into her mouth.
“Mmph…”
She chewed and tried to speak. As soon as she opened her mouth, a chill spread across her back and waist. She gasped, and Shen Yanchen finished applying the ointment.
He drew away, and the faint fragrance in his hair disappeared from her nose.
She pinched the bedsheet. The wounds had felt cold at first, but now they burned like fire.
“I wasn’t playing the victim. That part of the stairs was a little slippery.”
Shen Yanchen looked down at her and asked in a low voice, “I’ve walked those stairs too. How come I never noticed anything like that?”
Tao Huanyi paused, then said, “I’m blind. I can’t see where I’m going, so I hold on to the railing when I use the stairs. People like you, who can see, usually walk down the middle, don’t you?”
Her voice was clear and firm, her reasoning so sound that there was hardly room to argue.
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. When I fell, I felt around the other parts of the stairs too. It seemed like the area near the railing was the only slippery part. I think it had been waxed.”
Otherwise, how could she have fallen? She couldn’t see, so she was always extremely careful on the stairs.
Tao Huanyi felt around for her white cane where she had set it aside. “If you don’t believe me, you can go check for yourself.”
“No need. I believe you.”
Those four words landed in Tao Huanyi’s heart like a pebble dropped into a still lake. Ripples spread, and she found herself pressing her lips together.
Without thinking, she blurted out, “Young Master Shen, forgive me for speaking out of turn, but is there some secret in the Shen family? Those three wives who died before they could marry you—is it possible their deaths had something to do with these stairs…?”
She hadn’t finished when Shen Yanchen’s cold hand suddenly closed around her throat. He didn’t squeeze, but the pressure he exerted was terrifying. It felt as if an army were bearing down on her; she could hardly breathe.
His icy voice came from above her. “Tao Huanyi, do you really think you’re the Young Madam of the Shen family? Don’t meddle in things that aren’t your concern.”
Tao Huanyi was afraid of him, but since he wasn’t squeezing, he clearly had no real intention of killing her. She would be living with Shen Yanchen for a year. She couldn’t keep cowering like this forever.
Gathering her courage, she bit her lip and retorted, “Who says it has nothing to do with me? If what happened on the stairs today has something to do with the three women who were supposed to marry you, then that means my child and I could be in danger here in the Shen residence. How can something that concerns my life have nothing to do with me?”
Shen Yanchen stared in disbelief at the sightless young woman before him.
She was lovely, and her eyes were beautiful, yet they had lost their light.
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll break your legs?”
“If you really want to break them without even finding out what happened, then there’s nothing I can say.”
Tao Huanyi twisted her fingers behind her back.
Of course she was afraid.
Shen Yanchen made no move for a long while. Instead, he folded his arms and studied her. The lovely young woman was pretending to be bold and stubborn at that very moment. There was something interesting about it. Compared with all the people he’d encountered before, this blind girl was far more interesting.
In Shen Yanchen’s life, there were only two kinds of people: those who feared him, and those who didn’t fear him at first but came to fear him later.
The only person who hadn’t feared him was the little girl in his memories.
Tao Huanyi was even more remarkable. She clearly wasn’t afraid of him, yet she pretended to be.
“I’ll get to the bottom of this and give you an answer. Don’t ask questions about the Shen family.”
Shen Yanchen was about to leave when Tao Huanyi caught his arm. The young woman clutched his sleeve tightly, looking as though she relied on him. He stared wordlessly at the hand holding him, then remembered that she couldn’t see and asked, “What are you doing?”
“I wanted to ask if I’m allowed to go out.”
“If you want to go out, just go. Why are you grabbing me? And what do you need to go out for?”
Tao Huanyi blinked and released him, raising both hands. “You heard my uncle yesterday. He asked me for money. I don’t have any, so I have to go out and find a way to get some.”
Shen Yanchen wasn’t particularly curious about that.
She’d agreed yesterday, and he’d assumed she would ask the Shen family to step in and help. He hadn’t expected her to go out and find a solution herself.
What could she possibly do outside?
“What if I say you can’t go out?”
Then she’d have to sneak out.
Tao Huanyi obediently replied, “All right. I’ll do as you say.”
“If Fang Yuming comes again, you can tell him to come to me. The Fang family schemed against me like this. I, Shen Yanchen, won’t let them get away with it.”
Tao Huanyi muttered under her breath, “I wonder who it was that really screwed me over last night.”
She thought she’d spoken quietly enough, but Shen Yanchen still heard her.
He told her coldly, “What happens between you and the Fang family is for you to settle among yourselves. I thought you had some backbone, Little Blind Girl. I didn’t expect you to agree to help him raise the money after all.”
Before Tao Huanyi could respond, Shen Yanchen had already left the room.
Outside, her keen hearing caught his instruction: “Take good care of her.”
“Yes!”
Tao Huanyi was a little moved.
The Living King of Hell… wasn’t as frightening as she’d imagined.
She let out a sigh of relief. She’d made it through the day.
Over the next few days, Tao Huanyi began asking about Shen Yanchen’s whereabouts. With several servants looking after her, she took the opportunity to ask about the things she wanted to know.
“What does Shen Yanchen go out to do every day?”
“The Shen family has so many businesses in Rongcheng. Of course the Young Master has to go out and check on them!” One of the maids then caught herself and asked warily, “Miss Tao, why do you want to know?”
“I can’t see, remember? There’s a doctor who has to prepare medicine for me regularly. I’m afraid Young Master Shen will get angry, so I need to go out and get it while he’s away.”
The maid chuckled. “Right? Our Young Master really is terrifying! Young Madam, it’s wonderful that you understand that! We’ll make sure to cover for you!”
“If the Young Master finds out we let you go out, we’ll be in serious trouble!”
Their mood was contagious, and Tao Huanyi couldn’t help smiling too. “Don’t worry. I won’t let him find out.”
“Mm!”
With their help, Tao Huanyi could go out without worrying.
The Shen residence stood in the city center, and the area wasn’t too remote. Before long, Tao Huanyi had familiarized herself with the nearby streets. Guided by her memory, she went to pick up her medicine, then used her unusually keen hearing to locate a nearby piano shop.
So, on the second and third days, she used picking up her medicine as an excuse to go into the piano shop.
She had started learning piano at the age of three. Thanks to her exceptional talent, she had become a pupil of the renowned piano teacher Han Taihua while still very young. After the fire at her family home, Han Taihua had gone abroad too, and Tao Huanyi had let her piano skills fall into disuse.
The Tao family had originally run an instrument factory, and her mother had been a famous instrument maker. A violin made by her mother’s own hands could fetch a sky-high price!