As if answering his wish, the great doors slowly swung open. The very first thing revealed was Hua Zhi’s face — the face that had been haunting his thoughts — and without meaning to, he took two steps forward.

Behind him, the crowd of aristocratic young men who had come to watch the spectacle exchanged bewildered glances. The Hua Family had produced a concubine — an embarrassment enough to shame their ancestors — and yet Hua Zhi was personally coming to send her off? That wasn’t at all like the woman she had shown herself to be.

Hua Zhi had brought no one else out with her. The only people at her side were her own personal maids, Hua Yan, and Nanny Li, who had come as witness.

Her patience was thoroughly spent, and that showed in how directly she handled things.

“Word has it that a daughter of the Hua Family has long admired Young Master Feng’s talents, and would rather become a concubine than be parted from him.”

Feng Changyü actually believed she was complimenting him and instinctively puffed up his chest. The men behind him struggled not to burst into laughter. Talents? Feng Changyü has talents? Ha! The talent of crawling in and out of women’s beds? That’s not a compliment, is it?!

“I have the heart to help others achieve their happiness, so naturally I would not be the one to stand in the way of two hearts that belong together. But the Hua Family cannot bear the weight of certain slanders. Nanny Li, if you would.”

Nanny Li stepped forward. Her voice was gentle, but it could not be ignored. “Old Nanny has just conducted the examination herself. Hua Yan is a woman of unblemished honor. Old Nanny stakes her own reputation on it.”

Hua Zhi inclined her head slightly toward Nanny Li, then let her gaze fall on Feng Changyü — and it was not a kind look. “I do not know where those unflattering rumors originated, but Young Master Feng should know better than anyone.”

Feng Changyü had entirely lost the use of his brain by this point and immediately declared: “Of course — Hua Yan and I have conducted ourselves with complete propriety. There has been no impropriety between us whatsoever.”

“Knowing that Young Master Feng holds Hua Yan in such high regard, I can set my mind at ease. Even without a maternal home to return to, I trust she will find a measure of his affection within the Feng household. A woman willing to give up her family and enter as a concubine for your sake is not easy to come by.”

Something about that sounded not quite right. Feng Changyü had misplaced his brain, but the others around him had not, and one of them asked: “If I may ask — what exactly does the eldest young miss mean by that?”

Hua Zhi produced the contract and held it out. “From this day forward, Hua Yan and the Hua Family are bound by no ties whatsoever. This document is witness. She agreed of her own accord, and the elder Madam Zhu has served as guarantor.”

Feng Changyü’s expression changed. His actual objective had never been simply to take a concubine.

“But the eldest young miss said she had the heart to help us achieve—”

“I helped her achieve it.” The corner of Hua Zhi’s mouth curved upward. “But the Hua Family has its own rules. This is the price she must pay. The Hua Family has never produced a daughter who became a concubine — that record will not be broken on my watch.”

Feng Changyü was a man raised in aristocratic households, and by now he had understood exactly what Hua Zhi had done. First, she had made him personally confirm Hua Yan’s purity with his own mouth, effectively clearing the Hua Family’s name of slander by proxy. Then she had expelled Hua Yan from the family, making plain the Hua Family’s position on the entire matter. And finally, she had used her words to bind him — even if he tired of Hua Yan in the future, he could not simply mistreat her. After all, the woman had given up her family for him. Anyone who discarded a person who had sacrificed that much would be branded heartless.

But this ran completely contrary to his actual purpose. He hadn’t wanted Hua Yan at all. He had wanted Hua Zhi.

“Hua Yan, go on. We won’t be seeing you off.” Hua Zhi’s cold smile was, no matter how one looked at it, brilliantly striking. The gathered young men looked, glanced away, then found their eyes drifting back — unable to look away and yet afraid that Hua Zhi would notice them among the crowd she considered to be on Feng Changyü’s side.

In that moment, they desperately wanted to distance themselves from Feng Changyü entirely.

Eyes wandering elsewhere landed, without quite intending to, on Hua Yan. Whether from humiliation or fury was hard to say, but her face was flushed and her expression stubborn, and in that look, there was the faintest shadow of Hua Zhi’s bearing.

Several minds arrived at the same thought simultaneously — had Feng Changyü taken a liking to Hua Yan precisely because of this resemblance? But no — if he had genuinely wanted Hua Yan, why was he standing there now wearing the expression of a man who had attempted to steal a chicken and lost his bait in the process?

Wait.

Steal the chicken, lose the bait? So that was his scheme? Whoever had come up with this plan must have had a grudge against Feng Changyü. With the eldest young miss’s temperament — even if she had properly matched up with a Hua Family girl — did he really think he could go around flirting with her afterward? And as her concubine-cousin, no less?

The men exchanged glances and, without any prior agreement, each took a step back, putting distance between themselves and Feng Changyü. They all very much wanted the eldest young miss to spare them a glance — just not under circumstances like these.

With her personal maid, Hua Yan carried her bundled belongings and endured the humiliation of boarding the sedan chair herself. Hua Zhi watched with cold eyes. She had not a shred of sympathy for the maid either. Some things could not have been accomplished by Hua Yan acting alone — if that maid had reported any of this from the beginning, it could never have gone this far.

“Eldest young miss, I—”

Feng Changyü, unwilling to let things end this way, was about to say more when Hua Zhi had already turned and gone back inside. The door swung shut with a loud bang. She hadn’t even had the patience to hear him out.

Inside the sedan chair, Hua Yan heard the sound and lifted the curtain to look back at that closed gate. A desolate grief rose in her, sourceless and unasked for. The Hua Family — there was no longer a place for her there.

“What are you crying for? If you don’t want to come with me, go back.” Feng Changyü was already seething; the sight of Hua Yan like this only made him angrier.

Without Hua Zhi there, the flock of young men who had been so subdued in her presence suddenly came back to life. One of them stepped forward, draped an arm over Feng Changyü’s shoulder, and laughed. “Come now — didn’t the eldest young miss herself say that you ought to cherish Hua Yan all the more? That would be the only way to honor all her genuine feeling for you.”

Feng Changyü felt the words press against his chest like something solid. He shoved the man off and swung up onto his horse. “Stop dawdling. Carry her home.”

Inside the sedan chair, Hua Yan’s tears fell freely. She didn’t even know why she was crying. She had gotten what she wanted, hadn’t she? She had broken free from the hopeless Hua Family, hadn’t she? She had the money she’d wanted, hadn’t she? And yet she could not stop the tears.

It would be fine. She would live well. She would use this money to buy a shop. He had no children yet — she would give him his eldest son. All this suffering, all this humiliation — it would all be worth it in the end.

When Hua Zhi came back through the gate, she found that the old matriarch and the wives of every branch were all there waiting — even the elder Madam Zhu had not left.

“Why are you all still here?” Hua Zhi walked toward them with a smile. “Are you worried I was too heartless?”

The old matriarch dabbed at the corner of her eye. “This was the best outcome we could have hoped for. The Hua Family’s name has been cleared, and it won’t reflect on the other daughters. As for what she took away with her, we did not obstruct even a single item — that in itself was the last small kindness we could show her.”

“More than just a small kindness.” Nanny Li, who by rule never put her oar into others’ business, chose this moment to say something. “The eldest young miss may appear to have been ruthless about the whole thing, but she gave that young lady considerable protection. She used words to bind that young master — as long as he still cares about his reputation, that young lady has something to hold onto in the inner household. Who wants to be the one cast as a heartless man? Even if he has to perform affection, he’ll have to perform it convincingly.”

The Fourth Branch wife — Hua Yan’s mother — whose eyes were swollen nearly shut from weeping, dropped into a deep, extended bow before Hua Zhi.

Hua Zhi would not accept a bow from an elder; she stepped aside and went in person to help the woman up. Then she looked back and said, “No one can stop a person who has set her heart on climbing higher. Fourth Great-Aunt, please don’t blame my aunt.”

The old matriarch sighed. “I know. When ambition grows large enough, people will find every way they can to get what they want. There is no point in blame.”

The exhausted, haggard mother could no longer hold back and broke into loud, wrenching sobs.