The Spring Tide Never Ebbs

Ruan Qixue was once a so-called Yangzhou beauty, blessed with exquisite features, a graceful figure, and skin as fair as snow.

On the day she was put up for sale, someone bought her and sent her to the Prince Jing's residence in the capital as a concubine to bring good fortune to the ailing prince.

Prince Jing, who had spent his life on the battlefield, was afflicted by an old illness and nearing the end of his days.

The people in the residence came up with a foolish plan. Ruan Qixue was carried through the gates in a small sedan chair.

*

Not long after she entered the residence, Prince Jing died.

In the eyes of outsiders, Ruan Qixue's lowly status made her utterly insignificant.

The old madam of the residence intended to follow Prince Jing's final wishes and have her buried with him.

The day before, Ruan Qixue had accidentally overheard the news. Her delicate body trembled, and she shuddered with fear.

*

Ruan Qixue was like a duckweed drifting on the water, with no one to rely on in this man-eating princely residence. All she could depend on was her unsullied body.

So that very night, she slipped secretly into the room of the heir to Prince Jing's title.

She knelt helplessly before him, weeping like a pear blossom in the rain, her beautiful eyes red-rimmed and filled with seductive allure.

*

The heir had lived his whole life with restraint and propriety, never once doing anything improper.

But that night, she knelt before him, tears streaming down her face as she pleaded.

As her emotions ran high, the collar of her robe loosened slightly, and two tears fell with a soft pat onto the hollow of her fair collarbone.

He watched with interest, an inscrutable light rising in his eyes.

*

Ruan Qixue thought the heir had saved her out of kindness, but he had other motives.

Every day, she risked being exposed for their secret trysts, while the thoughts of being drowned in a pond or stuffed into a pig cage played through her mind night after night.

At last, one day, she ran away.

She took her few belongings and the contract of sale she had tricked him into giving her.

With nothing else to her name, she left in a hurry.

*

During the first month on the run, nothing happened.

During the second month on the run, nothing happened.

During the third month...

One late night, someone burst into the house. She sat up in bed, clutching the corner of the quilt and staring at the intruder in a panic, unsure what to do.

He cruelly bit through her tender fingertip, then forced it down onto a freshly drawn contract of sale.

His voice was low and hoarse.