Pei Zhao had made quite a show of himself at the watchtower, and less than a quarter of an hour later, he found himself in a secluded corner of Cui Jingyu’s marquis estate, his arm pinched black and blue by Lingbo.

“Look how impressive you are, look how mighty!” Lingbo pinched him hard twice more, furious at his failure to live up to her expectations. “Now you know how to steal the spotlight — where were you before all this? Cui Jingyu has been granted a marquisate, and every young lady in the capital is scrambling over each other for him. You couldn’t show your face earlier, and now you choose this moment to upstage him — what good does it do? Does anyone think they’d give up a marquis to marry a penniless frontier soldier like you?”

“I was recovering from an injury,” Pei Zhao said with a cheerful smile.

“What injury?” Lingbo’s suspicion was immediately aroused.

Still smiling, Pei Zhao leaned in and reached for the lapel of his robe as if he were about to show her. He let her grow tense before flashing a brilliant grin. “Just kidding.”

Lingbo was so annoyed she looked around for something to hit him with. He only laughed and dodged. “Mercy, young miss, stop hitting — if you beat me to death, there’ll be no one left to help you.”

“Counting on you is like waiting for dried vegetables to bloom.” Lingbo looked at him with disdain, then gave him a sidelong glance. “At least with that blue fox-fur on, you look somewhat like a person. What was that you were wearing before — dressed like a beggar.”

“I’m a penniless frontier soldier, so naturally I depend entirely on your charity, young miss.” Pei Zhao immediately put on a pitiful expression. He was handsome enough that every look suited him, which gave him all the more license to smile and posture. Lingbo found him all the more insufferable for it.

“Enough of that — don’t try those tricks on me. Go clean yourself up, win the heart of some great family’s daughter at the Flower Selection Banquet, and marry into a prestigious household. That would be more like it.”

“I can’t manage that.” Pei Zhao smiled again. “A penniless frontier soldier isn’t fit for such high company…”

Lingbo couldn’t be bothered to argue. She glanced around — the spot where they stood was on the path that led to the outer kitchen. With Pei Zhao’s intelligence, she’d already mapped out every corner of Deputy Minister Huang’s residence. At this hour, Lu Wenyin would certainly be keeping company with the ladies over tea, and afterward would accompany Madam Wei to oversee the arrangements for the evening banquet — she would have to pass through here. So why hadn’t she appeared yet?

“The young miss is off to do great things again.” Pei Zhao teased her.

Lingbo gave him a look.

“Unlike some people who have nothing to do all day?”

“Indeed.” Pei Zhao went on reciting with the same easy smile: “The skilled tire themselves, the clever are troubled, but only the incapable desire nothing — eating their fill and wandering freely, drifting like an untethered boat…”

Lingbo shot him a glance and was just about to speak when she caught sight of Lu Wenyin and Madam Wei approaching, surrounded by a cluster of attendants. She shoved him into the shrubbery. The spot had once been a peony garden; in this season, the peonies were stripped down to bare branches, forming one large, dense thicket. Pei Zhao deserved it — he was always idling about and teasing Lingbo. He had the skill to rival Cui Jingyu, and his horsemanship gave him the core strength to match. Yet in front of Lingbo, he never thought to put up his guard, and before he knew it, she’d shoved him clean into the bushes. He toppled over entirely and landed in a snowbank.

“Hey,” Pei Zhao called out in amused protest, lying there among the branches, looking very much like he intended to hold this over Lingbo indefinitely.

“Shh!” Lingbo shot him a warning look, then walked out with Xiao Liu’er.

With the air of someone executing a great scheme, Lingbo slipped out from behind the peony garden, then turned around with her back deliberately facing the main path, and began searching through the snowbank for something, Xiao Liu’er at her side.

Pei Zhao made no rush to get up. He lay there among the branches, watching her bustle about, so at his ease that he pillowed his head on his arm.

Whenever Lingbo was devising something, she always wore that expression — lips pressed together, eyes slightly narrowed, like a little fox. It was genuinely amusing. Yet no one else had an ambition quite so alive and brimming as hers, and it made her far more captivating than any beauty of face or form.

Madam Wei came along with Lu Wenyin and the others. As these ladies were Lu Wenyin’s entourage, they paid Lingbo no mind. Chen Mengliu in particular despised her thoroughly. But Madam Wei still maintained her sense of duty as hostess and asked, “Lingbo, what are you doing here? What are you looking for?”

“Our young miss dropped a ring — she’ll have to go look over there by the lake as well.” Xiao Liu’er pointed in the direction of the lake.

Deputy Minister Huang’s estate was large, and Cui Jingyu had purchased it in haste, so while the areas set aside for the banquet had been put in order, the northern section of the compound was still locked up. In winter it was dim and dreary. Prominent families in the capital would have lanterns blazing well before dusk for a proper banquet, yet this part of the estate had not so much as a single lamp lit, leaving it dark and oppressive.

“How careless,” Madam Wei said. “It’s bitter cold out here — don’t freeze. You can have a couple of servants help look for it, or wait until the snow melts and it’ll turn up on its own.”

Lingbo gave a mild reply, but showed no sign of intending to follow this advice. Even after Madam Wei had walked quite a distance away, she was still there with her attendant searching. Anyone watching with a scheming eye could not help but be tempted.

Sure enough, Chen Mengliu could not hold herself back.

She patiently accompanied Lu Wenyin to the kitchen, then cast a glance at Yang Qiaozhen, who was at Lu Wenyin’s side. Yang Qiaozhen understood immediately and quietly slipped away.

“Sister-in-law, I’ve just remembered something — I need to go back to the watchtower and check on it,” Chen Mengliu said.

“What’s so urgent it can’t wait?” Lu Wenyin frowned. She had been using the pretext of arranging Chen Mengliu’s marriage to mobilize the Chen family’s resources on a grand scale, but that didn’t mean she had no plans for her sister-in-law at all. As long as Lu Wanyang secured the top prize of this Flower Selection Banquet — Cui Jingyu himself — she wouldn’t mind helping Chen Mengliu reel in Wei Yushan as well. Together they could form a solid alliance, looking out for one another. After all, wasn’t it simple enough to manage a trusting, guileless woman like Madam Wei as she pleased?

So she had been deliberately bringing Chen Mengliu forward to make herself visible before Madam Wei, and had been planning to use today’s hosting duties as an opportunity for her sister-in-law to demonstrate her capabilities. She knew this sister-in-law of hers — no great learning, no particular beauty — but her strength lay in her temper. She was harsh and commanding. Not a single maidservant or manservant in the household dared cross her. If a single word displeased her, they were sent to kneel on broken porcelain in the blazing sun, and even when their knees were raw and bleeding, she showed no mercy. She had them all thoroughly cowed. Madam Wei was soft-natured — she needed exactly this kind of daughter-in-law.

Chen Mengliu hadn’t thought so deeply into it, but seeing that Lu Wenyin wouldn’t agree, she couldn’t free herself easily. So she pulled Lu Wenyin to one side, said a few words in private, came up with some other veiled excuse, and slipped away.

The moment she was out from the kitchen, she led Yang Qiaozhen and a whole procession of maidservants and matrons sweeping grandly toward the northern courtyard of the Cui estate, where she cornered Ye Lingbo squarely — who was still there searching for that wretched ring.

The place was dark and secluded, rarely visited. No ordinary young lady would dare venture here. It was a perfect opportunity. Chen Mengliu was accustomed to throwing her weight around. She had her maidservants encircle the mistress and servant at once, then jeered, “What’s that they say — the homelier you are, the more you act up? Ye Lingbo, take a good look at that face of yours before you dare show up at a Flower Selection Banquet.”

“What’s wrong with my face?” Ye Lingbo said with a faint smile. “I’d say it’s a touch better than Miss Chen’s, at least.”

In truth, Lingbo’s looks were not dramatically superior to Chen Mengliu’s, but Chen Mengliu lived in the shadow of her beautiful sister-in-law, and with the even more striking Lu Wanyang beside her for comparison, she was well aware of where she stood. She didn’t dare lay a hand on Lu Wanyang, but she had long taken out her resentments on the prettier maidservants in the household. One who bore a passing resemblance to Lu Wanyang she had found a pretext to slash across the face and had her sent off to be paired with a manservant. The poor young maidservant, frightened out of her wits, had thrown herself into a well. In prominent households of the capital, servants were many, but cruelty to them was no fine reputation, and no matter how hard Madam Chen tried to suppress it, word had leaked out all the same.

Lingbo was different. Plain-looking as she was, she had a capable mind. Qinglan and Yanyan were both beautiful, but the sisters were of one heart and had never cared about such things. Besides, Lingbo’s own ambitions ran high and she had never harbored any inferiority about her appearance. So those words did not sting her in the slightest.

When Chen Mengliu heard that retort, she immediately moved to strike her. The maidservants didn’t dare stop her. It was Yang Qiaozhen, who had a bit more sense, who held her back. “Darling girl, how can you go striking people at the Flower Selection Banquet? She can’t get married — don’t fall into her trap.”

Just then the two of them were standing outside a small pavilion, its doors and windows dark behind them. Lingbo heard that and broke into a bright smile. “So the fact that you’re holding her back means I won’t fall into a trap?”

“What?” Yang Qiaozhen hadn’t quite grasped it yet. She only saw Lingbo step back and slip inside the pavilion door. Xiao Liu’er produced a lock from somewhere and snapped it shut on the door. Then she pushed through the crowd and ran — ran as fast as she could, shouting at the top of her lungs:

“Help! Marquis Cui! Madam Wei! Help! Miss Chen and Madam Xue have locked our young miss in an empty room! Help! Come quickly, someone save her!”