The day the Yu family sent her off to be married, they had to scrape together even her dowry.
“She’s a sickly thing. If she lives three months, we’ll have gotten our money’s worth.” Those were her father’s exact words.
They thought she’d be easy to control: frail, quiet, and always lowering her head around others, like a quail with its neck in someone’s grip.
So naturally, she was the one sent to bring good fortune to her husband. And naturally, she was the one sent to her death.
At the residence of Xie Zheng, Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, many brides entered, but few came out alive.
On their wedding night, a blade rested at her throat and a divorce letter lay before her. Xie Zheng waited for her to cry, beg, and tremble all over.
She didn’t tremble.
She took the divorce letter, read it, then looked up and smiled at him.
“Commander,” she said softly, “the Yu family bet I’d die, and you bet I’d obey.”
“You both bet wrong.”
