Cui Yunchu had barely stepped foot back into the Cui estate when the steward promptly blocked her path.
"What a coincidence," Cui Yunchu said with a sheepish smile.
The steward let out a silent sigh. "Not a coincidence, Miss. I have been standing here on orders from the Lord Prime Minister, waiting for you for quite some time. He requests your presence in his study."
"."
Always this same routine.
Cui Yunchu pursed her lips. This time she didn't even bother to ask, simply hanging her head. "Lead the way."
Along the way, the steward kindly reminded her, "An hour ago, Lord Zhou paid a visit."
"Oh." Cui Yunchu wasn't the least bit surprised.
Her mind was racing, trying to figure out how to explain things to Cui Qingyuan to soften whatever punishment was coming her way.
But everything she'd done with Shen Xiabai, Zhou Yuanmo had witnessed with his own eyes. Getting out of this one easily wouldn't be simple.
She walked no faster than a crawl, but the steward didn't rush her. By the time they reached the door of the Prime Minister's study, the sky had already begun to darken.
Cui Yunchu knew this was serious. The moment she pushed open the door, she dropped to her knees with a resounding thud.
It was loud enough that Cui Qingyuan, buried in his official documents, looked up at her—a cold, furious glance.
He set down his brush and studied Cui Yunchu in silence.
After a long moment, he finally spoke. "Why don't you tell me, how should you be punished so that you'll actually learn your lesson?"
Cui Yunchu knew she was in the wrong, so she said nothing.
But Cui Qingyuan's suppressed fury exploded forth in that instant. "The face of the Cui family has been all but ruined by you!!!"
"Zhou Yuanmo is a government official and the husband I personally chose for you. Who gave you the audacity to hang him from the rafters?"
"As a daughter of the Cui family, you dared to carry on a secret affair with another man."
He had learned of it from the Crown Prince and immediately arranged a marriage for her, but he never imagined the two had already gone that far—catching him completely off guard.
Cui Yunchu dug a finger into her ear.
This wasn't her first time being the target of Cui Qingyuan's wrath. She wasn't exactly afraid, but she did hold a healthy respect for physical punishment.
A wise man knows when to yield. "Father, forgive me. Your daughter knows she was wrong."
Cui Yunchu was always quick to admit fault. She never stubbornly dug in her heels like Cui Yunfeng did, because she was afraid of pain, afraid of the cold, afraid that Cui Qingyuan might, in a moment of ruthlessness, actually end her.
But the more she confessed, the more she repeated her mistakes, and the more disgusted Cui Qingyuan grew with her behavior.
No backbone of a Cui.
"You truly are your concubine mother's daughter."
Those words made Cui Yunchu raise her lowered gaze slightly. "What does Father mean by that?"
"Is Father saying that, like my mother, I am shameless, undisciplined, and without any sense of decency?"
Cui Qingyuan's face darkened as he stared at Cui Yunchu, not speaking for a moment.
But Cui Yunchu curled her lips into a smile.
She knew—he had always looked down on her mother, and so he looked down on her too. And because of her actions, he felt that she carried her mother's blood, and that made her low, vile, and dirty.
Like mother, like daughter. Neither of them was any good.
Cui Qingyuan said, "From this day forward, you will move into the ancestral hall and kneel there. Without my permission, you will never take a single step out of that hall."
He absolutely would not allow her to marry into the Shen family.
His face was resolute, as if he meant to imprison her for good. There was no hesitation, no reluctance in that stern expression.
Cui Yunchu thought to herself, if not for Grandmother still being alive, would he have had her drowned in a pond directly?
"On what grounds?" Cui Yunchu's voice was quiet, but it rang clear in the study. She slowly rose to her feet, facing Cui Qingyuan in rare defiance.
"Yunfeng insisted on marrying Prince An—wasn't that also a private engagement? Even when you threatened to cast her out of the family, your heart was still with her. Everything you did was for her good. You even had me deliver her birthday gift, twisting the knife in my heart."
"Why is it that when it comes to me, you have to speak so cruelly? Were Yunfeng and Prince An's relationship anything less than a secret affair back then?"
"And are you telling me you truly knew nothing about Prince An arranging for that carriage to knock me off the cliff so he could marry Yunfeng?"
Her love should have extended to all things her father cared for—yet even that last one, she couldn't measure up to.
He had never once asked about the cause or the circumstances.
She confessed to her mistakes so readily, while back then, Yunfeng had knelt outside the study door, stubbornly defying their father to marry Prince An...
She had been so obedient and docile. Why couldn't he be just a little kinder to her?
Cui Qingyuan's hands on the desk clenched slightly. "It's your mother—"
Cui Yunchu cut him off. "I know you hate my mother. She was your stain. And after she died, I became the stain you can never wash away."
Cui Yunchu didn't cry. She was remarkably calm instead. "My mother had no father or mother, no upbringing. Even her surname was given to her by the brothel madam who took her in."
"But I have a surname. I'm a Cui. I have a father, I have ancestors. So whose fault is it that I lack upbringing? You had someone you deemed shameless teach me shame and decency. Who is more shameless in all that?"
She had the look of someone with nothing left to lose, as if she no longer feared death itself. "My mother had no parents. Do I?"
"You always speak of the Cui family's honor, the Cui family's etiquette, the Cui family's breeding. But who ever told me what that meant? Who ever taught me what it looked like?"
She met the Prime Minister's gaze with a faint, shallow smile. "When others curse my mother, they say she was born without a father, without discipline. So what do they say about me then?"
The study fell so silent that even the steward's breathing could be heard clearly.
Cui Yunchu expected Cui Qingyuan to fly into a rage, to slam the table, to throw things, even to order someone to slap her across the face.
After all, he was always so grave and dignified—he never raised his hand himself. But none of that happened. He only stared at her, for a very long time, saying nothing.
Cui Yunchu couldn't deny that a flicker of fear ran through her.
She had died once before, and she knew that dying was a painful thing. In this life, she had finally carved out a sliver of dignity, found a thread of warmth. How could she be willing to die again?
Her mother wasn't good enough. She didn't deserve the prestigious Cui family. Not even as a concubine—becoming a household maid would have been a blessing earned over many lifetimes.
But could her mother have given birth to her alone? If Cui Qingyuan hadn't taken off his clothes, would she not have come into existence?
Did he truly bear no fault at all?
"My Lord," a servant's voice came from the doorway. "A message has arrived from the palace. The Emperor summons you—he asks that you go to the palace immediately."
Cui Qingyuan finally withdrew his gaze. Without a word, he left the desk. The steward hurried forward to straighten his robes and prepare for the journey out.
Cui Yunchu watched his retreating figure. Just as he was about to step out of the study, she suddenly said, "Gu Xuan. It wasn't Shen Xiabai who killed him. It was me. Do you want to know why?"
The Prime Minister stopped in his tracks but did not turn around.
The steward, perceptive as ever, quietly withdrew.
Cui Yunchu said, "In the eighth year after you left, my mother died too. The servants in the household neglected me, and Gu Xuan, rotten to the core since childhood, tried to violate me."
"I kicked him in the groin, nearly cutting off his family line. So the Gu family retaliated against me. You returned just in time to save my life. Even though you scolded me for being unruly and stirring up trouble, at that moment, I was grateful to you in my heart."
Even if he never once asked her for the truth of what had happened.
"Gu Xuan must die. If he doesn't, I will carry this grudge for the rest of my life."
She had thought it over for a long time, and concluded that the only person who could help her achieve her goal at that moment was Shen Xiabai, who had already fallen for her.
And it turned out exactly as she'd expected—he accepted the burden in silence, and true to what Yunfeng had said, he risked his very life for her.
Even though she still couldn't bring herself to accept it, he was, without a doubt, the first person who had ever been willing to put his life on the line for her.
Her grandmother loved her, and Yunfeng loved her too, but those kinds of love were not enough to make up for what she'd been through. Only a love that was absolute and exclusively hers—a total devotion—would ever make her bold enough to scheme without holding back.
