In the eighth year of Yong'an, the emperor died. Warlords rose up across the land, and the realm fractured into pieces.
Xue Chengbi, the "Cold-Faced Yama," conquered Hedong and looted it thoroughly before forcibly taking the body of the Pei clan matriarch, Princess Changning, from the powerful aristocratic Pei family.
Everyone knew Princess Changning was peerlessly beautiful, but even more notorious than her looks was her vicious heart. It wasn't until the emperor died that the Pei family confined her in their ancestral temple... and that was only a month ago.
Curious gossips learned that Xue Chengbi had once been a stable slave in the Pei household. Now that fortune had smiled on him, he had his former mistress beneath him, finally getting his revenge.
Changning thought so too. But Xue Chengbi had rescued her from the bleak ancestral temple and lavished her with mountains of gold and jade, treating her with the utmost respect.
One day, after they had spent a tender evening together, Changning lay panting against him and couldn't help asking, "Why are you so good to me?"
Xue Chengbi lowered his eyes and replied with two words: "To repay a debt."
Changning didn't believe him. She was infamous, and had only ever been a source of grudges, never kindness.
*
She had done him three kindnesses.
The first was when he was on the verge of starving to death by the roadside. The Pei household matriarch's carriage passed by, and she casually tossed him a plate of hazelnut cakes, keeping him alive.
The second was when he was secretly practicing martial arts in the night, and she happened to see him.
"You're skilled. It's a waste for you to be a stable slave. Enlist in the army."
He said, "I don't have the money for the journey."
She casually pulled a jade hairpin from her hair. "Here. Now you do."
A life-saving kindness, a chance to rebuild his life, and... Xue Chengbi ran his fingers over the words "Chengbi" engraved on the hairpin, smiling.
The only way to repay such kindness was with his own body.
Theme: Good and evil are always repaid in kind
