Chapter 3

To think a prisoner of war could still be so arrogant. Despite all the humiliation she’d endured, not only had her pride remained completely unscathed, but she could even sit there making lofty remarks as though none of this had anything to do with her.

Was Jiang Ji really being held here against her will?

Yan Qingzhuo found her increasingly difficult to understand.

“What do you mean by that?” Yan Qingzhuo asked in a low voice.

Jiang Ji tilted her head again. This time, half her face disappeared completely behind the crimson curtains, leaving only one eye visible as she looked at Yan Qingzhuo.

A smile still lingered on her lips. “I heard the Eldest Princess spent three years in prison. You’ve barely been released, yet you already dare to kill someone on your wedding night. Such remarkable courage.”

Her words dripped with sarcasm.

The original “Yan Qingzhuo” had indeed been imprisoned for three years after failing to seize the throne. Even though ​stolen content​she’d been released, Yan Huaijin had remained wary of her ever since.

But what did any of that have to do with Jiang Ji?

“What’s it to you?” Yan Qingzhuo raised her eyes.

Jiang Ji replied unhurriedly, “Defying an imperial decree is a capital offense punishable by the extermination of one’s entire clan, down to nine degrees of kinship.”

In other words, if Yan Qingzhuo defied the imperial decree, Jiang Ji, as her wife, would inevitably be put to death as well.

On the surface, that certainly seemed to be the case. But considering how much the Emperor of Great Liang enjoyed tormenting people, she hadn’t finished playing with them yet. Who would actually be allowed to die?

Wait.

Setting the Emperor of Great Liang aside, Jiang Ji wasn’t the kind of person who feared death in the first place. Why would she try to stop her?

Could it be that “Yan Qingzhuo” was still useful to her?

There was only one way to find out.

Yan Qingzhuo curled her lips into a smile and walked toward Jiang Ji.

Jiang Ji was visibly taken aback, clearly not expecting Yan Qingzhuo to make such a move. A frosty chill instantly settled over her beautiful eyes, and she frowned as she asked coldly, “What are you trying to do?”

“What’s the fun in just watching a show?” Yan Qingzhuo approached the bed step by step, pulled off her cloak, and tossed it to the floor. “Why doesn’t the Great Marshal take part in the performance herself?”

“You dare! You…”

Before Jiang Ji could finish speaking, Yan Qingzhuo pressed down on her shoulders and shoved her onto the bed.

“You’re nothing but a cripple! What wouldn’t I dare do?”

Despite her fierce words, Yan Qingzhuo carefully observed Jiang Ji as she fell backward. Only after confirming that Jiang Ji really had been crippled and had barely any strength left did she dare lean over her. She seized one of Jiang Ji’s wrists with one hand, pressed her knee against the back of Jiang Ji’s leg, and pinned her completely to the bed.

The wooden bed creaked loudly from their struggle.

Remembering the flash of silver she’d seen earlier, Yan Qingzhuo quickly reached for Jiang Ji’s sleeve. Jiang Ji tried to pull away, but she was a step too late. Yan Qingzhuo had already caught hold of a cord and pulled it out.

“A jade pendant?”

At the end of the cord hung a piece of black jade set with silver fittings. The glimmer she’d seen earlier must have come from this.

“Give. It. Back.” Jiang Ji enunciated each word.

If Jiang Ji had been merely toying with Yan Qingzhuo before, now she looked genuinely furious. Her face darkened, and a vicious gleam appeared in her eyes. The surrounding air suddenly seemed to grow as heavy as black iron beneath the weight of her anger.

Yan Qingzhuo quickly tossed the “hot potato” back to her.

“It’s just a jade pendant.”

The moment the black jade landed in Jiang Ji’s hand, she hurriedly picked it up and tucked it into her sleeve. In that brief movement, Yan Qingzhuo noticed that Jiang Ji’s fingertips were trembling uncontrollably.

So it seemed her hands and feet really had been crippled.

Yan Qingzhuo breathed an inward sigh of relief. She was just about to find an excuse to leave when, the moment she turned around, a powerful force suddenly seized her sleeve and violently threw her onto the bed!

Before she could react, Yan Qingzhuo found herself staring into a pair of pupils as black as ink. Like two glass marbles, they reflected the panic she hadn’t managed to conceal.

“You really are asking to die.” Jiang Ji’s voice was dark and menacing.

She’d gone too far.

At that moment, Yan Qingzhuo knew she’d thoroughly enraged Jiang Ji—all because of a jade pendant.

She lay motionless on the bed, holding her breath and forcing herself to appear calm while her mind raced desperately for a solution.

But Jiang Ji suddenly frowned. Her arm went limp, and she collapsed against the side of Yan Qingzhuo’s neck, letting out a soft, muffled groan.

In an instant, a trace of bewilderment and confusion entered Jiang Ji’s eyes. She propped herself up on her arms again, seemingly unable to understand what had just happened to her. Even the viciousness in her expression had disappeared.

Like a small animal, she leaned closer to Yan Qingzhuo’s ear and sniffed, making Yan Qingzhuo’s scalp prickle. Before Yan Qingzhuo could react, Jiang Ji went limp and collapsed again.

Her fingers gradually loosened their grip on Yan Qingzhuo’s clothes, and Jiang Ji simply rolled over and lay on the bed.

Still dazed from being thrown down earlier, Yan Qingzhuo scrambled to her feet, using both her hands and legs. She had no idea what Jiang Ji was trying to do now. All she saw was Jiang Ji rubbing her neck in discomfort.

When Jiang Ji turned her head, her eyes, which had been as dark as charcoal ink moments ago, were now tinged with crimson. Tears even glistened at the corners of her eyes, and her raven-feather lashes trembled ever so slightly. Her silken hair spread across the bed like satin.

Dazzling red, alluring black, and burning white. The woman on the bed presented such a striking visual contrast that Yan Qingzhuo could hardly take it in. Yet when Jiang Ji turned toward her, her face remained cold, like the bitter, bone-piercing ice of the deep sea in the dead of winter, so frigid it almost hurt to look at her.

Strangely, however, that one eye remained ​bailiantales.com​utterly impassive, as though covered by a layer of ash, completely at odds with the expression on her face.

So Jiang Ji shifted again, turning her head fully to reveal her other eye.

In an instant, her gaze seemed to shimmer with life. The wickedness in that eye now matched her expression perfectly. Candlelight poured over Jiang Ji’s brow bone and the bridge of her nose, illuminating a tiny black mole beside her nose, no larger than a pinprick.

The obsessive intensity in her eyes had yet to fade when Jiang Ji suddenly laughed.

She was laughing, yet she made no sound. Leaning back against the bed, her body shook so much that even the hem of Yan Qingzhuo’s skirt trembled along with her.

Then the tears came. A single crystal-clear droplet slid along the bridge of her nose and disappeared into her dark red wedding robes.

This woman was probably insane.

Yan Qingzhuo tugged at her skirt, her heartbeat quickening slightly.

She quickly stood up, pinched her numb fingers, and asked in a low voice, “You… your left eye. You can’t see out of it?”

With half her face buried against the bed, Jiang Ji stared fiercely at Yan Qingzhuo with her right eye, as though trying to carve her image into her mind.

After a long moment, the smile remained on her lips, but her voice was calm and cold.

“Get lost.”

Yan Qingzhuo glanced toward the window. The maid who had been spying on them had probably heard the commotion and already left.

With that problem taken care of, Yan Qingzhuo quickly retreated several steps, putting some distance between herself and Jiang Ji.

“Anyway… anyway, a cripple like you is nothing but a mood killer.” Yan Qingzhuo didn’t forget to maintain her persona. “Stay here. I have other matters to attend to. I don’t have time to play with you.”

She took a few steps toward the door but stumbled over the cloak lying on the floor. She was just about to kick it aside when she remembered how Jiang Ji’s wrist had felt when she’d first grabbed it. Her wrist bones had been as cold as ice, without the slightest trace of warmth or vitality.

The “Eldest Princess” was hardly a kindhearted person, but Yan Qingzhuo couldn’t ​stolen content​help feeling a little guilty.

She picked up the cloak and casually tossed it onto the bed. With a cold expression, she said, “It’s already stained with your filthy blood. How unlucky. You can have it.”

With that, she pulled the folding screen across and sat down at the table in the outer room.

She picked up her tea and took a sip, only to find that it had already gone cold. She’d also given her fox-fur cloak to Jiang Ji, and now waves of cold kept running through her body.

Perhaps it was because the original owner had spent three years in prison, but this body was truly in terrible condition. Yet Yan Qingzhuo had absolutely no memories of those three years. Even her other memories were fragmented, flickering in and out of existence.

Yan Qingzhuo propped her cheek on one hand and leaned against the table, staring blankly at the tiny candle flame near the windowsill.

Testing Jiang Ji like that had been somewhat reckless, but at least it had produced a good result. She’d managed to send away the spy planted by the emperor and confirmed that Jiang Ji was indeed crippled.

Even crippled, Jiang Ji was still capable of fighting back. Yet even at her angriest, she hadn’t intended to kill Yan Qingzhuo. That meant the identity of “Yan Qingzhuo” really was useful to Jiang Ji.

And that jade pendant must be very special to her.

Whatever Jiang Ji was plotting against her, there was no point dwelling on it. If Yan Qingzhuo wanted to stay alive, she would have to win over the female lead. She absolutely couldn’t afford to be so impulsive again.

Yan Qingzhuo unconsciously raised a hand to touch the side of her neck. That cold yet soft sensation seemed to linger there, refusing to fade. Along with the faintly pleasant scent of Jiang Ji’s breath, it slowly seeped into her lungs and spread throughout her entire body.

She let out a long, slow sigh, then heard another faint, mocking laugh from behind the screen.

For some reason, the laughter suddenly didn’t seem quite so frightening anymore. Instead, it felt like an invisible thread buried deep inside Yan Qingzhuo’s body, tugging at her and leaving her strangely uncomfortable.

It was clearly laughter, yet it sounded desolate and full of sorrow.

·

The breathing outside gradually grew softer.

Soon, a dull thud sounded. It was the sound of someone’s head hitting the table.

The smile at the corners of Jiang Ji’s lips slowly faded. Her injured hands and feet ached with a pain that seemed to gnaw into her very bones, but she’d long since grown accustomed to it. What she found unbearable was the way her body trembled involuntarily.

One of her eyes remained buried against the bed, while the other peered through the folding screen, barely making out Yan Qingzhuo’s wavering, indistinct silhouette.

Before coming to Great Liang, Jiang Ji had already heard about the Eldest Princess’s reputation. Yet now that she’d met her in person, she found that things weren’t quite as she’d expected.

Even with her martial arts completely crippled, killing a pampered princess would be as easy for Jiang Ji as crushing an ant.

She’d thought the same thing earlier—if the princess refused to behave, she’d simply crush her to death.

But now she’d changed her mind.

Yan Qingzhuo looked fierce and had a little cunning, but unfortunately, there were far too many flaws in her disguise. She was definitely not the notorious, insane, debauched woman everyone described.

So what kind of person was she, exactly?

Jiang Ji fluttered her eyelashes slightly and rolled over, gazing at the intricate wooden carvings above her head. Once again, she caught the fragrance lingering in the air, a scent reminiscent of sandalwood incense burning in a temple.

Yan Qingzhuo was a Qianyuan.

Jiang Ji had undergone special training since childhood, making her extremely insensitive to Qianyuan pheromones. Yet the moment she’d caught the scent of the pheromones Yan Qingzhuo had unconsciously released in her panic, she’d unexpectedly felt a surge of arousal for the first time in ages. She’d even gone limp against her will.

Thinking about it made Jiang Ji furious, and the corners of her lips curled upward again of their own accord.

Anger excited her, and the unfamiliar thrill she’d been missing for so long excited her just as much. She moved her legs and kicked the irritating fox-fur cloak onto the floor, only to pull at the wounds on her legs.

Bracing herself with all her strength, Jiang Ji slowly raised her upper body and looked down at her legs.

Blood seeped from the reopened wounds, staining her already eye-catching wedding robes an even deeper red. Before long, the area beneath her had become sticky and soaked.

But blood didn’t seem to be the only thing leaving read the original at bailiantales.com her wet and sticky. There was another place, too.

Her arms gradually gave out, and Jiang Ji allowed herself to collapse naturally onto the bed. She took the jade pendant from her sleeve and, with trembling fingers, slowly pressed it against her heart.

Before she knew it, a long time had passed.

When Yan Qingzhuo woke up groggily, the arm she’d been sleeping on had already gone numb. Her eyes barely open, she reached around for her phone, wanting to check the time.

Crash!

The sound of a teacup being swept off the table and onto the floor startled Yan Qingzhuo out of her wits. She whipped her head around and found herself staring into a pair of captivating peach-blossom eyes.

Jiang Ji was sitting in a wheelchair, resting her head on one hand as she watched her.

Daylight had come.