“Say that again?!”

A thunderous shout of fury rang through the young lady’s inner chamber in the Wang household.

Wang Wenzhong had returned from his inspection of the countryside, and the very first thing he heard was news of his daughter having privately commandeered official personnel to summon Li Wu. The blood had rushed to his head when he received word, and he had wanted nothing more than to slap this shameless daughter of his across the face right then and there.

He had stormed into her inner chamber to demand an explanation, only to find Wang Furen already inside, while several maidservants stood to one side at an utter loss. The evening meal on the table had not been touched.

When he demanded to know what was going on, he learned that Wang Shiyong had staged a hunger strike to resist the marriage arrangement!

If Wang Wenzhong had previously only wanted to slap her once, he now wanted to strangle her outright.

“Father, you can say it as many times as you like — it will not change anything.” Wang Shiyong sat on the bed with her head bowed, looking docile on the surface. But what she said left no room for compromise. “Your daughter will not marry anyone but Li Wu.”

Wang Furen swayed on her feet and grabbed the side table nearby for support — whether she had been frightened by Wang Wenzhong’s roaring or by her daughter’s outrageous declaration, it was impossible to say.

“Why are you standing there gaping?! Get out, all of you!” Wang Wenzhong bellowed at the maidservants, his face ashen. “One word of what you just heard leaves this room, and I’ll have your heads!”

The maidservants fled the inner chamber in terrified disarray.

“What nonsense are you talking?!” Wang Wenzhong roared. “Li Wu is a married man. Are you trying to become a concubine to a sixth-rank military officer?!”

“With Father here, would you truly let your daughter become someone’s concubine?” Wang Shiyong replied.

“Of course not! You are my legitimate daughter. If you were to become someone’s concubine, where would that leave the face of the Wang family of Xuzhou?!”

“Well then.”

Wang Shiyong’s breezy, unconcerned manner pushed Wang Wenzhong over the edge. He could not hold himself back — his palm came down across Wang Shiyong’s face, sending her reeling against the bed post, her head knocked sideways.

“Not unless I am dead — otherwise, don’t even dream of it!”

“My lord!” Wang Furen wept and sank to her knees, one hand clutching Wang Shiyong’s and the other grasping Wang Wenzhong’s official robe, crying too hard to speak coherently. “My lord, she is your daughter — please, talk this through calmly, talk it through calmly…”

“Does she look to you like she wants to talk this through calmly with me?!” Wang Wenzhong roared and swept Wang Furen aside with a flick of his sleeve. “She turned out like this, and half of that is thanks to you and your indulgence!”

Wang Furen tumbled to the floor, weeping bitterly.

“I am telling you — this match has been decided. Whether you wish it or not, you will be wed! Next month!”

“My lord!” Wang Furen cried out, her face going white. “Such haste — what will outsiders think?!”

“I have no more patience for that!” Wang Wenzhong said. “The longer this drags on, it won’t be speculation — it will be a full-blown scandal that everyone knows about!”

“My lord, what do you mean? What scandal?” Wang Furen’s face drained of color.

“Mother —” Wang Shiyong spoke before Wang Wenzhong could. “Several months ago, on my way home from visiting relatives, I was accosted by bandits. My dress was not merely dirtied — it was torn.”

“What?!” Wang Furen’s eyes rolled back, and she nearly fainted on the spot.

“Though I did not lose my virtue, my reputation has been tainted. If Father marries me to a fourth-rank official, and the truth comes to light in the future, will he not feel, just as Father does now, that I have brought shame upon his family’s name? He would not only despise me — he would resent Father for the deliberate concealment. Rather than making an enemy of him, would it not be better for Father to look for another path?”

Wang Shiyong turned to look at Wang Wenzhong — whose face was trembling with fury — with an unwavering gaze.

“Li Wu has both courage and resourcefulness, rough edges tempered by careful perception. Is Father not troubled by the lack of capable men at his side? If I were to marry into his household, Li Wu would become family — and Father could use him without any remaining misgivings.”

“Hold your tongue!” Wang Wenzhong’s rage was boundless. “Have you no shame?! Is this the kind of talk fit for an unmarried young woman?! Whatever ability Li Wu may have, I will never allow him to marry my daughter! My legitimate daughter will not be given in marriage to a man who once begged in the streets!”

“What does it matter that he once begged for alms, or that he was once born to nobility? In a time of upheaval, a man’s past no longer matters — what matters is his ability today. If Li Wu became one of our own, Father would no longer need to worry about shouldering everything alone.”

“You’ve been completely bewitched!” Wang Wenzhong said. “I will never agree to this. Willing or unwilling, in one month, you will step into that wedding sedan!”

Wang Shiyong held Wang Wenzhong’s gaze for a long moment, then said: “…Then Father may see your daughter’s corpse into the sedan instead.”

“You —”

“My body was given to me by my parents. In the ordinary way of things, I would obey whatever Father asked of me without question. But I truly cannot change my heart. With no other recourse left, I have no choice but to resort to this.”

Wang Shiyong reached calmly up to her hair and drew out a pin. She held the pointed end to her own throat and said:

“If Father insists on directing the rest of your daughter’s life, then take back this body now.”

“You—!! You —”

Wang Wenzhong’s blood and breath rose in disorder. He lurched and staggered.

Wang Furen did not go to steady him — she was busy weeping and pleading with her daughter, who was holding a pin to her own throat. “Shiyong, Shiyong! What are you doing? You were never like this before… weren’t you always the most obedient, the most sensible one in the family? Put down the pin — tell your father whatever is on your mind, talk to him…”

“Mother, I no longer wish to be the most obedient one in the family.” Wang Shiyong looked at her mother, tears gradually welling up. “What good has obedience ever done? When Heaven chose to crush me, it never once considered whether I was obedient or not — Mother, would I have met with such a thing if I hadn’t agreed to make that trip on Second Brother’s behalf? If I hadn’t… how would I have ended up in such a situation today…”

“Shiyong…” Wang Furen wept and wailed. “My poor child — it is because you had too kind a heart, treating even your half-brother as your equal, that you fell into this terrible misfortune!”

“Enough! As if there isn’t enough chaos already?!” Wang Wenzhong thundered.

Wang Furen stopped her complaints and went on crying, filled with nothing but resentment.

Wang Wenzhong’s expression was grim. “If I were not forcing you to marry the Prefect of Shouzhou, would you still be set on marrying Li Wu?”

“In this life, I will marry no one but him,” Wang Shiyong said. “Otherwise, I would rather die.”

“Outrageous!” Wang Wenzhong roared with fury. “Then do as you please!”

“My lord!” Wang Furen cried, seizing his sleeve.

“Let her do as she pleases!” Wang Wenzhong shook off his wife’s hand and glared at Wang Shiyong. “I refuse to believe she can actually starve herself to death in this house!”

Eight days later, Wang Wenzhong received Li Wu at his private villa in the eastern outskirts.

“You and my daughter have met on several occasions. You should have some sense of what manner of person she is.” Wang Wenzhong said, his face impassive.

The refined study was fragrant with the faint scent of incense. Li Wu stood in the center of the room, facing Wang Wenzhong, who had turned to look at him.

“She’s a lump of rotten filth” —

Li Wu swallowed those words down before they could reach his lips and said casually:

“Not particularly well acquainted. She’s a familiar face.”

“That will do.” Wang Wenzhong said. “Marry her.”

Li Wu suspected he had heard wrong.

He straightened the slouching bend from his back and looked Wang Wenzhong squarely in the eye: “What does His Lordship mean? I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“A true man of worth is born to forge his mark on the world. Whatever else you may not understand, surely you grasp the meaning of that?”

“…”

Wang Wenzhong looked down at him with the air of a man who held all the cards.

“You may be talented and capable, but you come from humble origins. Without a powerful family to support you through marriage, you will spend your entire life as a minor military officer, and climbing any higher will be an enormous struggle. Don’t you want to honor your ancestors and make something of yourself?”

Li Wu curved the corner of his mouth into a faint smile: “Since Your Lordship says so — who in the world doesn’t want to make something of themselves?”

“Then you should seize this opportunity.”

“What opportunity?”

“The opportunity to change your station.” Wang Wenzhong said. “My daughter Shiyong excels in the four arts and classical learning alike. She is my only daughter and my only legitimate child. I am willing to give her to you in marriage — a union well-matched in every respect.”

“Gladly — I’ll go home and tell my wife right away to prepare herself to receive the tea Miss Wang will serve her.”

Wang Wenzhong’s expression darkened.

“My legitimate daughter will naturally not be given to anyone as a concubine.”

“Then I must have heard wrong just now?” Li Wu looked surprised. “I have two younger brothers with the Li surname — which one does His Lordship wish to give Miss Wang to?”

“Li Wu, don’t play the fool in front of me!”

Wang Wenzhong’s palm came down on the writing desk, and the air went suddenly silent, his voice the only sound filling the room.

“I recognize your ability, and it is precisely for that reason that I am willing to give my cherished daughter to you. You should understand clearly how to weigh this decision.” Wang Wenzhong said, his face stern. “She is nothing more than a palace maid who fled from disaster. She has no established family backing her, and she will be of no benefit whatsoever to your career — indeed, she will hold you back. If you become my son-in-law, everything changes. My connections become your connections; the rank I have attained, you will attain as well, or surpass it, in time.”

“But if you stand here and refuse me —” Wang Wenzhong said, “then I am afraid your sixth-rank position may be difficult to hold onto. I am not a petty man, but I have no desire to face someone who cannot recognize a good thing when it is given to him every day.”

Li Wu laughed coldly to himself while keeping his expression utterly neutral. “I understand Your Lordship’s meaning. You wish me to put away my wife and remarry?”

Wang Wenzhong said: “Out of consideration for you, I will send someone to make arrangements for your first wife, so that she may live out the rest of her days in comfort and ease.”

“His Lordship is truly magnanimous,” Li Wu said.

“Does that mean you agree?”

“Who could bring themselves to refuse such a generous offer?” Li Wu rubbed the back of his neck. “Only — my wife at home is a fierce and willful woman, and she loves me to the point of madness. I doubt she would agree to a separation so easily.”

“She is a common woman. What does it matter whether she agrees?” Wang Wenzhong let out a cold laugh. “I will give you three days. Go home and discuss it with her first. If she is too foolish to know what is good for her, I have ways of making her come around.”

“Three days? There’s no need for three days.” Li Wu said with great deliberateness. “It is a great honor that His Lordship is willing to bestow your daughter upon me — truly, a fortune three lifetimes of virtue could not purchase. I will go home this very moment and tell that worn-out woman to pack her things and get out! Not one of the hairpins and gowns I’ve bought her over the years will she be taking with her — it all belongs to Miss Wang!”

Wang Wenzhong’s aim had always been to have Li Wu set aside his wife and remarry, yet watching Li Wu show such utter lack of feeling made him look at the man with even greater contempt and distaste.

To think that his daughter, rather than starve herself or take her own life, had chosen to lower herself to this man of such thoroughly base character — Wang Wenzhong felt exactly as though he had swallowed a live fly: sick to his stomach, and without any recourse.

Still, Li Wu’s personal abilities were formidable, and could fill the desperate void of capable men at his side. If not for the fact that his own sons were all completely useless, he would have let Wang Shiyong starve to death in her room before he allowed his daughter, the legitimate heir of a prefect, to marry a man who had once begged in the streets!

“There is no need to be quite so heartless — she is your first wife, after all.” Wang Wenzhong said, his face flat. “I will give you a sum of money to pass on to her, enough to see her comfortably settled for the rest of her life.”

Li Wu made a show of a pained expression: “My wife at home is idle and greedy, used to having every luxury. If the amount is too small to satisfy her enormous appetite, it might be easier for me to simply go home and give her a good beating, so she’ll tuck her tail between her legs and leave on her own…”

“You will do no such thing! If this is handled so disgracefully, how is the Wang family to hold its head up in Xuzhou afterward?” Wang Wenzhong said. “I will give you five thousand taels —”

Li Wu put on an agonized face: “Perhaps I had better just go home and beat —”

“Ten thousand taels.” Wang Wenzhong said. “This matter must be handled properly. She is to leave your household in good spirits — ideally of her own accord, by her own request. It must be something no one can find fault with.”

Li Wu’s voice rang out firm and clear:

“Your Lordship may rest easy. Li Wu will see to it that she leaves the Li household in the finest of spirits!”