“You… you’ve been having someone watch me and Brother Yan?”
Yan Xiao’s fingers tapped lightly on the steering wheel. “The whole of Liangzhou belongs to me. Why would I need to ‘watch’ you?”
She narrowed her eyes. “So you admit you’ve been watching me all along?”
“It’s protection,” he said lightly, as if it were nothing. “Perhaps that word is easier to accept.”
Whenever Shen Wan was with Yan Xiao, she seemed to get angry at the slightest thing.
Was it because she had a bad temper?
No, it was simply because Yan Xiao was insufferable.
If having a temper like hers counted as ‘bad,’ then who even had a good one?
“I don’t need your protection. If you were truly capable of protecting me, when my brother and I were adopted by our uncle, you should have stepped in and taken us away.”
She had only met Yan Xiao after being adopted by Shen Mingyuan.
Yan Xiao glanced in the rearview mirror, a bitter frustration tugging at him…
“Shen Wan, you know I hate hearing things like this. But what about Zhou Yan? What did he do when you and your brother were adopted?”
“Don’t twist the meaning!”
The wind swept through the shattered windshield, ruffling her hair inside the car.
Yan Xiao countered, “How is it different? You dislike me, so naturally you made Zhou Yan your first choice?”
Shen Wan fell silent for the rest of the ride.
“What would you like to hear then?” Yan Xiao asked. Shen Wan met his gaze, her voice suddenly rising. “You want to hear me obey, submit, and look at you like a subordinate?”
Yan Xiao’s eyes narrowed slightly, his aura intensifying.
Shen Wan lifted her chin, glaring at him like a puffed-up little cat.
“You love Zhou Yan?” he asked abruptly.
Shen Wan hadn’t expected him to be so direct.
She bit her lip, eyes flickering. “Who I love is none of your business.”
He smiled.
“Shen Wan, even you hesitate, don’t you?”
“You ” Her voice caught in her throat, and she couldn’t continue.
Outside the window, the streets of Liangzhou blurred past like flowing water, while inside the car, the atmosphere was heavy and tense, like the calm before a storm.
Yan Xiao left the car outside the General’s mansion and had the guards bring another vehicle.
The models were the same, so no one would notice if they weren’t paying close attention.
After the earlier gunfight, the first car was damaged, and if others saw it, it might have caused a commotion.
The General’s mansion was decorated with lanterns and banners, full of guests and bustling activity.
Everyone whispered and speculated about the wedding.
Yan Xiao drove her back and had the maid come to fix her dress.
After being out with Yan Xiao, Shen Wan’s previously cold expression had softened considerably compared to that morning.
“Plop.”
A maid accidentally dropped a container of rouge, and it fell onto Shen Wan’s wedding dress, leaving a pale pink stain.
The maid trembled on her knees, face pale, body shaking uncontrollably, stammering, “Mistress, please forgive me! I didn’t do it on purpose, I really didn’t mean it…”
“Not on purpose?” an older servant barked. “Not on purpose? How does rouge end up on the mistress’s wedding dress? Do you even know what day this is? If the auspicious timing is ruined, can you take responsibility?!”
Raising a hand to strike the maid, the older servant stopped as Shen Wan lifted her hand.
“Wait.”
Her gaze fell on the blush stain on the wedding dress. The pale pink spread across the pristine silk like a peach blossom blooming in the snow beautiful yet out of place.
She sniffed it lightly. A strange scent filled her nose.
It wasn’t the fragrance of the rouge itself, but a faint, bitter medicinal smell.
“Who gave you this rouge?” she asked, her eyes fixed on the maid kneeling on the floor.