In the secluded inner chambers of the Yong’an Marquis’s residence, the pale light of dawn filtered through the jade-green gauze windows, casting hazy slivers of brightness across the room.
Yuan Yingti sat up sleepily, clutching the covers around herself. Her maids filed in one after another, briskly drawing back the curtains and canopy before skillfully helping her out of bed.
She sat down on an embroidered stool and let the maids gather around her. They dressed and combed her hair, then attended to her teeth, washed her hands, and cleansed her face. Yuan Yingti cooperated with languid obedience, like a puppet pulled by strings.
The senior maid gently patted the water from her face with a soft silk cloth. She opened a gilt face-powder box painted with orchids and picked up a dab of pearly-white cream with her fingertip, slowly smoothing it over Yuan Yingti’s face.
Yuan Yingti tipped her head slightly upward. The spring sunlight happened to fall across her delicate, flower-like cheeks. Her skin was white as snow, so smooth and tender it looked as though it might break at a touch. Once the thin layer of cream was spread across it, her complexion seemed to gleam with a fine, polished sheen.
The senior maid held her breath, making her movements even gentler.
This was the finest face cream in the capital, worth an ounce of gold for an ounce of cream. The senior maid used it without the slightest restraint. She then took another dab, roughly the size of a copper coin, and bent down to smooth it over Yuan Yingti’s delicate, boneless-looking hands.
Yuan Yingti gradually woke from her drowsiness.
“Miss, shall we have breakfast?” the senior maid asked warmly once they had finished.
Yuan Yingti nodded.
She was helped to her feet and escorted to the dining table.
Once seated, she slowly moved her fingertips until they found the bowl before her. A single light sniff was enough for her to identify the morning’s breakfast: sweet milk with flower-petal dew.
It was the breakfast she had most often.
The milk had been freshly drawn from the dairy cow the household kept especially for her. The flower-petal dew had been painstakingly collected by the maids that very morning, one drop at a time, onto jade plates. The two were steamed together over water, producing a faint, delicate fragrance.
Yuan Yingti picked up her spoon.
As she ate, her eyes remained fixed on empty space.
She possessed a pair of beautiful, limpid eyes, clear and pure, shimmering like sunlight dancing over a mountain stream.
Sadly, there was no focus in them.
Yuan Yingti was blind. She had lost her sight when she was seven.
The senior maid stood beside her, gazing at those eyes and feeling the same pang of regret she had felt countless times before.
Miss is as beautiful as the goddess Luo, more lovely than any divine maiden or immortal fairy. How could someone so perfect have been left with such a flaw? If only that accident had never happened…
She sighed inwardly over the injustice of it all.
Yuan Yingti, however, had long since accepted reality.
She lowered her head and calmly drank her milk. A single small bowl was enough to fill her.
Just as she put down her spoon, there was a soft knock at the door.
An elderly woman entered from outside, her face beaming with delight.
She was plump and sturdy, dressed in a dark indigo vest. Her hair had gone completely gray, but her face was warm and kindly. In her arms she carried two heavy bolts of fabric.
The senior maid hurried forward to greet her, taking the fabrics with practiced attentiveness.
“Mama Fang, you’re here.”
Mama Fang was the senior stewardess of Yuan Yingti’s courtyard—and her wet nurse as well.
Yuan Yingti’s mother had died when she was young, and Mama Fang had personally raised her. Kindhearted and compassionate, Mama Fang cherished her as dearly as she would her own eyes. The two were exceptionally close.
Mama Fang was the person Yuan Yingti trusted most.
Recognizing her brisk footsteps, Yuan Yingti couldn’t help smiling sweetly.
“Mama, why are you so happy today?”
“Someone has come knocking with gifts again.” Mama Fang didn’t hand the fabrics over to the maid. Instead, she walked up to Yuan Yingti and bent down, placing the bolts beside her hand. “Quick, Miss, feel them. This is the most sought-after Thinlight Silk from Suzhou these days. It’s so soft and smooth beneath the fingers, like water. I heard it takes twelve seamstresses working day and night for an entire month just to weave one bolt.”
It sounded extravagantly luxurious.
Obediently, Yuan Yingti reached out and carefully ran her fingers over the fabric.
“It was Brother Pei who sent it, wasn’t it?”
This was Suzhou Thinlight Silk. Her fiancé, Pei Shuyu, was currently studying in Suzhou.
Mama Fang gave her a teasing smile.
“Nothing gets past you, Miss.”
“Your skin is so delicate. If the fabric is even a little coarse, you’ll break out in a rash. This Thinlight Silk is worthy of you. Once I have the time, I’ll make you a spring outfit…”
Mama Fang continued chatting away.
“Young Master Pei is always thinking of you. You must remember his kindness, Miss.”
Yuan Yingti placed both hands neatly in her lap and obediently nodded.
Her father had told her the same thing.
Her fiancé, Pei Shuyu, was the legitimate heir of the Hedong Pei clan, a family that had stood for a hundred years. He was destined to become the next patriarch of the Pei clan.
She had heard that he was handsome and refined, a gentleman as flawless as jade, a man like an orchid and a jade tree. She had also heard that he was extraordinarily talented, his reputation renowned far and wide, his literary brilliance capable of stirring the entire realm.
Yuan Yingti had met Pei Shuyu only a handful of times.
He was indeed exactly as she had heard: a gentle, refined man with a warm manner. His voice was smooth as polished jade, every word clearly and steadily pronounced, carrying an innate air of nobility and composure.
Her father had told her that Pei Shuyu’s willingness to marry her was a blessing.
She had to remember his kindness. Once she married into his household, she was to serve her husband well, support him, and raise their children.
Yuan Yingti knew that she was nothing more than a pampered little bird kept inside an expensive golden cage.
For now, her father was the one keeping her.
Later, Pei Shuyu would become the next man responsible for keeping her.
She would certainly have to treat her benefactor well.
Her father had also told her that she was delicate, and blind besides. Before marriage, she could rely on her father; after marriage, she could only rely on a man.
Yuan Yingti thought her father was absolutely right.
She was blind. How could she possibly rely on herself?
Yuan Yingti remembered every word her father had ever said.
She was the most obedient girl there was.
As she drifted into thought, Mama Fang handed the Thinlight Silk to the maids to put away carefully. Then she returned to Yuan Yingti’s side and smiled.
“Miss, there’s one more thing I need to report to you.”
Yuan Yingti came back to herself.
“Go ahead, Mama.”
“Today, my youngest boy has come to work at the Marquis’s residence.”
The Yong’an Marquis had gone south to Yizhou during this period, leaving Yuan Yingti as the only master of the enormous estate. Since a new servant had been taken into the household, protocol required that she be informed.
Yuan Yingti gave a small nod.
“A-Nu is here?”
Mama Fang had a younger son named A-Nu, slightly older than Yuan Yingti. Although the two had never met, Yuan Yingti had always been close to Mama Fang, so naturally she knew a little about him.
Mama Fang had mentioned him to her a few days ago, saying that A-Nu was grown now and could take up a position in the household. At the time, Yuan Yingti had told her to make whatever arrangements she thought best.
So she asked, “Where is A-Nu working?”
Mama Fang beamed.
“That boy has only just arrived at the Marquis’s residence. I thought he ought to start with the hardest, most tiring work. Just now, I assigned him to the stables to feed the horses. He can learn how to ride and handle them while he’s there. Later, he’ll be able to serve as your carriage driver and help me take care of you.”
Being a carriage driver could hardly be considered a good position.
In such a large household, there were plenty of more respectable jobs.
Yuan Yingti thought about it.
“Being a carriage driver sounds rather hard. Doesn’t the east wing still need a steward…?”
“That boy couldn’t manage people.” Mama Fang laughed and shook her head. “A-Nu is the most honest and dependable boy there is. Learning to be a carriage driver suits him perfectly.”
Seeing that Mama Fang had already made up her mind, Yuan Yingti pressed her lips together in a smile and didn’t argue any further.
Honest and dependable…
She rested her chin in her palm and silently repeated those four words.
A-Nu must be a very reliable person, just like Mama Fang.
…
On the second floor of an old tavern in the West Market, voices roared over one another.
The air was thick with the smells of sweat, sourness, and strong liquor, hot and stale.
Sunlight poured through the open windows onto a noisy table of men near the street.
They wore coarse short tunics and trousers and were a gang of roughnecks who had spent years prowling the West Market.
Now they were spitting and shouting as they placed a wager.
“Everyone says the young lady of the Yong’an Marquis’s residence is the most beautiful woman in the capital, a beauty beyond anything in heaven or on earth. So what if she’s blind? If I could see her just once, it’d be worth my whole life!”
A tall, skinny man smacked his lips and narrowed his eyes as he spoke.
“Bah.”
The dark-faced man beside him spat.
“A noble young lady from a family like that? You think you or I could ever see her? We probably couldn’t even touch the stone lions outside her gate!”
“That’s why we’re making a wager!”
The skinny man rolled up his sleeves and slapped the square table.
“Whoever loses has to go to the Marquis’s residence himself and take a look at how beautiful she really is. Then he can come back and tell us all about it. Is this pampered young lady really as seductive as they say—more alluring than a fairy?”
The others burst out laughing.
Their gazes darted from one another before, almost unanimously, settling on the man seated at the head of the table, who had barely spoken all this time.
He was the leader of this gang of thugs and scoundrels.
He lounged lazily against the back of his chair, his long legs spread apart, idly playing with a small silver folding knife.
Among this collection of ugly rogues, he stood out far too much.
He was tall and powerfully built, dressed in coarse black clothing. His shoulders were broad, his waist narrow, and his entire frame seemed to conceal a tightly coiled strength.
His face was even more striking.
Exceptionally handsome. Almost unnaturally so.
Only the faintly sinister glint in his eyes gave away the fact that he was certainly no good man.
“Big Brother, want to place a wager too?”
Seeing that he seemed to be in a particularly good mood today, the skinny man gathered his courage and egged him on.
Xie Zhi really was in a good mood today.
He gave a lazy, half-amused hum through his nose.
The skinny man chuckled and swiftly pulled three dice and a dice cup from inside his clothes.
He was a gambling addict. He always carried the two around with him.
The three dice rattled into the cup.
“Big Brother, let’s bet high or low. One roll decides the winner.”
The skinny man pushed the cup to the center of the table.
Every man immediately fixed his eyes upon it.
Xie Zhi didn’t even raise his eyelids.
“High.”
The others exchanged glances and all chose low.
The Yong’an Marquis’s residence wasn’t a place just anyone could barge into. If they really lost, they could go together. Having more people would give them courage.
The skinny man rubbed his hands together and drew a deep breath.
Slowly, bit by bit, he lifted the dice cup.
The first die revealed one red pip.
Then two…
Then another two.
“One, two, two… We won!”
The gang erupted in cheers, their faces alight with excitement.
“Big Brother, go! Big Brother, go!”
Xie Zhi glanced at the dice.
He wasn’t angry in the slightest.
He simply nodded.
“Mm. A wager is a wager.”
Compared with the legendary beauty of the capital, what interested him more was the Yong’an Marquis’s residence itself.
He had long wanted to see for himself the gilded, jewel-encrusted world of the nobility.
Xie Zhi rose to his feet.
With a sharp click, the little folding knife snapped shut. He spun it once between his fingers, and in the blink of an eye, it disappeared into his sleeve.
Outside the tavern lay the long main street of the West Market.
The voices of vendors hawking their wares and pedestrians haggling over prices mingled into one great din. It was midday, and the brilliant sun shone directly down upon the blue-gray flagstones.
Xie Zhi moved through the crowd.
Wherever he passed, the noise immediately died down a little.
Who in the West Market didn’t know him?
The notorious leader of the local thugs. Fists like iron, vicious hands.
Whenever people saw him coming, they instinctively stepped aside, opening up a narrow path through the crowd.
Xie Zhi walked swiftly and soon disappeared at the end of the street.
Before long, he stood outside a magnificent estate.
The Yong’an Marquis’s residence had towering vermilion gates, each studded with gleaming copper nails the size of bowls. A pair of stone lions stood proudly before the entrance, while beneath the eaves hung a gilded plaque bearing the words:
Yong’an Marquis’s Residence.
The place looked imposing beyond words.
He studied it for a while before circling around to a secluded side gate on the western side of the estate.
The stables seemed to be nearby. A faint smell of fodder and livestock lingered in the air.
As luck would have it, someone dressed in a servant’s uniform came out through the gate.
Xie Zhi walked toward him.
His hand moved swiftly.
The servant took a sharp blow to the back of the neck and collapsed without even managing a grunt.
Xie Zhi efficiently dragged him into a corner, stripped off his clothes in a few quick movements, and pulled them over his own body.
The clothes were a little tight.
He gave them a sharp tug with his elbow, then casually removed the wooden nameplate hanging from the man’s waist.
Several small characters were carved into it:
Stables.
Xie Zhi glanced at them, fastened the nameplate around his own waist, and then, beneath the dazzling golden sunlight of midday, stepped through the side gate.
Just like that, he swaggered into the Yong’an Marquis’s residence.