After being stunned for a long while, Ren Yijun let out a light snort: “You girl, that was just luck.” As he spoke, he followed Han Yunqian’s previous chess moves and made another move, glancing sideways at Ren Yaoqi. “What’s your next move?”

Ren Yaoqi wrinkled her nose at him, picked another piece from the chess jar, and gently placed it down.

Ren Yijun frowned and made another move.

The two went back and forth, with Ren Yijun following Han Yunqian’s previous moves while Ren Yaoqi countered each one. By the end, she had miraculously turned around Ren Shimin’s previous losing position.

When they concluded, Ren Yijun’s side had lost by three pieces.

“How is this possible?” Ren Yijun stared at Ren Yaoqi with complete disbelief.

Ren Shimin, however, laughed heartily with a proud expression: “Yaoyao has finally helped Father get revenge!”

“Hmph! Again!” Ren Yijun set up another game—the first match between Ren Shimin and Han Yunqian.

This time, he no longer underestimated his opponent and made some variations based on Ren Yaoqi’s moves, occasionally pausing to think carefully. Ren Yaoqi played extremely quickly, often following immediately after Ren Yijun placed his pieces, as if no matter how the game changed, she had it all memorized.

In this game, Ren Yijun lost by two pieces.

This made even Ren Shimin, who had been watching for entertainment, take things seriously.

Ren Yijun glanced at Ren Yaoqi, then silently set up his previous game with Han Yunqian. Only this time, he played Han Yunqian’s pieces while Ren Yaoqi played his previous moves.

In the warm pavilion, both men were completely focused, and Ren Yaoqi also propped her chin while placing pieces, remaining silent.

Time passed minute by minute as Ren Yijun replayed all of today’s games. What was surprising was that, however many pieces he had originally lost to Han Yunqian, Ren Yaoqi won by exactly that same number, not one more, not one less.

It was fine at first, but the further they played, the uglier Ren Yijun’s expression became. When the final game was decided, Ren Yijun suddenly lost his temper, slapping the table and standing up to glare at Ren Yaoqi: “What is the meaning of this?”

Ren Shimin also sensed something was wrong and frowned disapprovingly at Ren Yaoqi: “Yaoyao, Father didn’t realize you had such talent for chess. But Father may have forgotten to teach you—the most important thing in chess is chess character. Chess character reflects personal character. At all times, respecting your opponent is the minimum you should do. If you cannot do this, no matter how good your chess skills, you will be looked down upon. Since you could win more beautifully, why deliberately toy with your Third Brother?”

Upon hearing this, Ren Yaoqi looked at them with a surprised expression, then said to Ren Shimin with a grieved face: “Father, wasn’t I replaying the games with Third Brother? I thought I was supposed to follow Young Master Han’s previous moves. I… I wasn’t trying to toy with Third Brother.”

Seeing Ren Yaoqi’s tearful appearance, Ren Shimin quickly said: “Yaoyao, Father isn’t blaming you. Father is just worried—”

“Wait, you said you were following Yunqian’s moves?” Ren Yijun interrupted Ren Shimin’s words in shock.

Ren Shimin was also stunned: “Yunqian played like this?”

Ren Yaoqi nodded with certainty, looking innocent: “Yes, didn’t you notice that Young Master Han always won by just a little bit each time? Never more than five pieces at most. Seeing how happy you both seemed when losing, I thought this was some popular new playing style.”

Ren Yijun’s face turned iron-blue: “How is this possible!”

Seeing his disbelief, Ren Yaoqi moved several pieces on the board while demonstrating: “Look, when you played to this point, he clearly could have done this… and won decisively against you.”

On the board, Ren Yijun’s position took a sharp turn for the worse, no longer the evenly matched stalemate from before.

“But he deliberately didn’t do this,” Ren Yaoqi looked at Ren Yijun with sympathy. “Young Master Han was probably being kind, afraid you’d lose too badly. After all, our families will continue to interact, so this way he saved you some face.”

Seeing Ren Yijun still refusing to believe he had been toyed with while giving his all against his opponent.

Ren Yaoqi shook her head and restored the previous games one by one, except this time the chess style changed dramatically at the end, each time leaving Ren Yijun’s pieces losing most of their territory.

By the end, Ren Yijun’s face could only be described as black as the bottom of a pot.

Ren Shimin watched the entire replay in stunned silence, finally sighing softly and patting Ren Yaoqi’s head: “Alright, Yaoyao, stop making your Third Brother angry. He hates it most when people don’t respect their opponents while playing chess.”

“Hmph!” Ren Yijun snorted coldly, turning his head away, truly quite angry.

Ren Yaoqi said as if casually, “Father once said you can tell a person’s character from how they play chess. Young Master Han has very high chess skills, but he likes to hide his true abilities. He could win beautifully, but lacks straightforwardness. I find him somewhat too… worldly.”

Upon hearing this, Ren Shimin couldn’t help but become thoughtful.

Ren Yaoqi slowly picked up the chess pieces from the board, carefully placing them one by one back into the fine white porcelain chess jar.

“Originally, I found him quite agreeable and wanted to befriend him in the future. Looking now, people with this kind of character are truly unlikeable!” Ren Yijun said coldly. His nature was already peculiar, often changing moods like flipping pages, and now his face had returned to its usual gloominess.

Ren Shimin sighed: “No one in this world is perfect. Those with both talent and virtue are ultimately very few. Young Master Han also comes from a merchant family. The Han family has only him as a male heir in his generation. From what he says, apart from studying at Yunyang City’s academy, he usually travels north and south with his family elders. It’s perfectly normal for him to pick up some of the cautious nature of merchants.” Speaking of which, the Ren family was also a merchant family, yet Ren Shimin had always looked down somewhat on merchants.

This analysis was reasonable, Ren Yaoqi thought pleasantly while putting the lid on the chess jar.

She didn’t care about the saying “chess character reflects personal character.” Whether that Young Master Han deliberately let them win, or whether his chess skills were truly similar to Ren Shimin and Ren Yijun’s didn’t concern her.

She simply didn’t want these two men to have too good an impression of Han Yunqian—so good that they wouldn’t rest until they brought him into the family as a son-in-law and brother-in-law.

Although she didn’t know whether the Han family had played a part in the Ren family’s downfall in her previous life, keeping distance from the Han family was the safest approach.

She felt no guilt about secretly undermining a man’s character like this. A man who was faithless regarding marriage engagements, regardless of his reasons, she found detestable.

When men broke off engagements, they could still marry their beautiful, sweethearts. But women had their entire lives ruined because of it. Ren Yaohua’s tragedy in the previous life was caused jointly by both the Han and Ren families.

After this incident, two more days passed. The Han family sent an invitation asking Ren Shimin and Ren Yijun to visit Han Manor. Ren Shimin was busy mounting paintings at the time and politely declined. Ren Yijun simply claimed illness and wouldn’t even see the messenger.

Afterward, the Han family sent two more invitations, but neither Ren Shimin nor Ren Yijun went. However, Fifth Master Ren Shimao and the eldest young master Ren Yiyan did visit once.

Soon, it was nearly the end of the year. This winter was particularly cold. People stayed home whenever possible, winter social engagements were much reduced, and the Han family stopped sending invitations.

Ren Yaoyu’s confinement was finally lifted, though she could no longer return to Old Madam’s courtyard. From then on, she and Ren Yaoying became bitter enemies. Her attitude toward Ren Yaohua, whom she had originally considered an enemy, softened considerably.

Another change was that Third Young Master Ren Yijun, who had a strange temperament and cold relationships with all his siblings, suddenly became kindly disposed toward the Fifth Miss. He often braved wind and snow, leaning on his walking stick to come to Ziwei Courtyard to play chess with Fifth Miss Ren Yaoqi. This left everyone in the Ren family completely puzzled and greatly surprised. Only Third Master remained unsurprised and calm as ever.