Worthless Child
Blood streamed down the coachman's head. At the sight of Bai Jingxian's ferocious expression—like a demon bent on devouring a man alive—the coachman's strength drained from his body and he toppled from the carriage, dropping to his knees and kowtowing in desperate apology.
"Young Master, spare me! Young Master, forgive me! It isn't that I couldn't see—that child ran out at me all of a sudden, and I was afraid I might hurt someone!"
Standing in the upper gallery, Bai Jingyan felt rage surge up so violently that the hand gripping her hand-warmer turned bone-white. She could not fathom how her second uncle had ever come to father such a creature.
She knew that human nature could be wicked. She had known, in her past life, exactly what Bai Jingxian was capable of—and yet she had never imagined he would be so cruel and bloodthirsty even at this tender age.
A thousand times, ten thousand times unjust, she thought, that this creature should ever be brought into the Zhenguo Duke Estate. On the day she had been reborn into this life, she should have ordered Shen Qingzhu to kill him on the spot and leave no seed of future calamity behind.
Killing intent leaked from Bai Jingyan before she could stop it, and Chun Tao flinched.
"Eldest Miss?"
"Let's go down."
Bai Jingyan cast one deep, unreadable look at Bai Jingxian, then turned away.
Reclining with his legs stretched out atop the carriage, Bai Jingxian narrowed his eyes at the child crying in terror in the old woman's arms at the head of the carriage, then climbed down.
The coachman, clutching his still-bleeding head, hastily scrambled aside on his knees to clear the way, terrified the arrow might come for him again.
Bai Jingxian approached the old woman and the child, looked down at them, and smiled—a shadowed, skin-crawling smile.
"The child… cough, cough… the child was picking herbs to bring me when… cough… she was afraid the cloth-wrapped herbs would be crushed under the wheel. If they were crushed, they couldn't be used. And so we ended up troubling you, Young Master. We beg you to be magnanimous…"
The ailing old woman gathered the child in her arms and tried to rise. The moment she lifted herself, Bai Jingxian kicked her to the ground. The little one tumbled from her arms and rolled across the ground, and the old woman, frantic and helpless, could only cry the child's milk-name over and over.
Before the old woman could even get back to her feet, Bai Jingxian stamped down on her back and ground his heel. Unable to bear the pain, the old woman vomited blood and coughed all the harder.
The dust-covered child, still hugging the herbs to her chest, began to wail louder than ever.
"Grandmother! Grandmother!"
Bai Jingxian put his full weight into his right foot and crushed it down on the old woman's back. Then he bent at the waist and spoke with the face of a rakshasa—a man-eating demon that torments the damned in hell.
"You'd rather I get injured than lose your little bundle of herbs, is that it? Your gall has swelled, hasn't it! I am a son of the Zhenguo Duke Estate. If so much as one hair on my head is harmed, a lowly commoner like you couldn't pay the price even by laying down the lives of every one of your ancestors!"
As savagery flashed across Bai Jingxian's eyes, even the onlookers recoiled a step or two in fright.
Bai Jingyan had come down from the upper gallery, and hearing his words felt like fire roaring up into her heart. Truly, his mind had been possessed by a demon—otherwise he could never have believed himself fit to guide anyone at all.
Stepping off the last stair, she spoke with a face drained of all color.
"Chen Gengsheng!"
Chen Gengsheng had some martial training. Seeing Bai Jingyan's expression harden, he moved at once, and in barely three strikes he had pinned Bai Jingxian down against the carriage.
"Where did this gutter-born commoner crawl from, to dare lay hands on me!"
Bai Jingxian had never imagined anyone stronger might appear. Chen Gengsheng held him pressed against the carriage, unable to move so much as an inch.
Eyes bloodshot, Bai Jingxian flailed and cursed as he struggled.
"I am a son of the Zhenguo Duke Estate! How dare a lowborn wretch lay hands on my body! When my grandfather returns, he'll have your nine clans—all nine generations—exterminated!"
Something lethal settled into Bai Jingyan's eyes. How dare he spew threats of exterminating nine clans so freely! If this heartless thing, worse than a dog or a pig, were left in the Bai family, he would surely bring down a fatal calamity upon them all.
"Release my son!"
A woman threw back the carriage curtain and leapt down in a vulgar flurry, striking at Chen Gengsheng, clawing to drag him off, throwing a full tantrum.
"Where does a commoner get the nerve! My son is a precious young master of the Zhenguo Duke Estate! You dare hurt him? When the Duke returns, he'll kill every last one of your family!"
Because the woman was one of the Bai household's own, Chen Gengsheng could not so much as touch her without orders. Even as her nails raked and scratched his face, all he could do was dodge this way and that.
Stepping over the threshold, Bai Jingyan clenched the hand-warmer tight. An uncontrollable fury smoldered in her chest. This mother and son were—truly—foolish, base, and evil to the bone.
She closed her eyes, smothered the seething bloodlust, and gave her orders.
"Chen Gengsheng, let him go! Take men and see the coachman and the old woman to the apothecary across the street."
"Yes, Eldest Miss!"
Chen Gengsheng accepted the command and directed the Bai household guards to carry the two injured men to the apothecary opposite.
Helped to his feet, the coachman hurriedly bowed to Bai Jingyan.
"Eldest Miss, thank you! Eldest Miss, truly, thank you!"
"You! You wait right there! I will most certainly be dragging you before the magistrate!"
Glaring at Chen Gengsheng, the woman rushed to prop up her son instead, then asked through welling tears:
"Xian'er, that lowborn wretch didn't hurt you, did he?"
By the time Bai Jingyan reached the entrance of Manjiang Tower, the guests who had been watching and Soyi hurriedly cleared a path for her.
Bai Jingxian, who had been shrieking that his neck hurt, went slack the moment he saw Bai Jingyan. Then his eyes flooded with a look that made one's spine crawl—a ravenous, predatory gleam, like a wolf that had starved for months finally sighting prey. Shoving the woman aside with all his strength, he narrowed his eyes into a smile and came toward her.
"What a very pretty young lady…"
"How dare you!"
Chun Tao felt her blood run backward at Bai Jingxian's shameless words.
Afraid the man might harm Chun Tao, Chen Gengsheng hastily planted himself in front of Bai Jingyan and her maid, blocking Bai Jingxian's approach.
Bai Jingxian gave Chen Gengsheng a single sweeping look, then turned back to Bai Jingyan, whose features remained carved from ice. He circled her perhaps half a turn, and like a connoisseur appraising a fine piece of goods, moved closer—eyes brimming with excitement—to drink in her beauty in detail.
Chen Gengsheng's gaze grew heavy. Just as he moved to shove the man back, Bai Jingyan spoke first.
"Chen Gengsheng, go to the apothecary across the street. Find out how the old woman and the coachman are faring, and whether the child was hurt."
"Yes, Eldest Miss!"
Gritting his teeth, Chen Gengsheng obeyed and went.
"See there! A pretty girl knows her place after all. My grandfather, the Duke of Zhenguo, is a man even the Emperor dares not treat carelessly."
Bai Jingxian preened, convinced that this peerless beauty before him was bowing to the fearsome prestige of the Zhenguo Duke Estate.
Bai Jingyan's pupils contracted. Had she not been holding the hand-warmer, she doubted she could have resisted drawing her sword and splitting him in two.
Bai Jingxian closed the distance until only three paces separated them, raked his eyes over her once more, and said with a grin:
"Which family's daughter are you? When my grandfather the Duke returns in triumph, I'll have him go to your house and bring you back. I've never seen such a beauty in my life. You'd surely make the finest beauty pot in all the world."
At the words beauty pot, the boiling rage and fighting blood in Bai Jingyan froze solid in an instant. An air of venomous, lightless cold settled over her, as though frost had gathered in her eyes.
She could barely suppress the urge to shatter this witless beast into splinters. But she was a cripppe, stripped of her martial cultivation. There was nothing she could do. Bai Jingyan clenched her teeth and gripped the hand-warmer until her knuckles whitened.
On the second-floor gallery overlooking Manjiang Tower's grounds, Xiao Rongyan stood with his hands clasped behind his back. At Bai Jingxian's words, his already-black eyes darkened further still.
"Brother Xiao—isn't that the rightful eldest daughter of the Duke's estate?"
Lu Yuanfeng's heart was in his throat; he seized Xiao Rongyan's sleeve.
Xiao Rongyan, expressionless, plucked a single peanut from the plate in Lu Yuanfeng's hand.
Thud.
Bai Jingxian was struck behind the knee and dropped to his knees right before Bai Jingyan.
Nuo Ping, who had been hidden among the crowd awaiting Bai Jingyan's orders, took the man's approach as an attempt to lay hands on her and closed in at once. One kick to the chest sent Bai Jingxian tumbling down the steps.
"Seize him and bring him here!"
At Bai Jingyan's command, Nuo Ping and the guards darted forward, forced Bai Jingxian to his knees, and pinned him down so he could not move.
"Let my son go! Release my son, I said!"
The woman lunged like a hawk, grabbing and striking at the Bai guards as she jabbed a finger at Bai Jingyan and hurled abuse.
"Whose shameless household bred you, that you know no etiquette at all! You dare order servants to lay hands on a son of the Zhenguo Duke Estate? You'd best be ready to hand over the lives of every mongrel in your family!"
Bai Jingyan ground her teeth together. A vicious, graceless whelp of a creature. Unless she crushed this one's spirit and raised the Bai family's name on his back, she could not tolerate even letting him go on living.
"How dare you!"
Chun Tao's face had gone livid with fury.
"You dare insult the rightful eldest daughter of the Zhenguo Duke Estate!"
At the words rightful eldest daughter of the Zhenguo Duke Estate, the woman was so stunned she staggered backward. Had she not caught herself on the carriage, her legs would have buckled and dropped her to her knees.
The scene outside the Chongyong Marquis's gates that day had spread not only through Dadu but out into the far countryside, until no one in the land did not know the name of Bai Jingyan, rightful eldest daughter of the Zhenguo Duke Estate. It was said this eldest daughter, raised from childhood beneath the Duke of Zhenguo and the Grand Princess, held their every favor in the palm of her hand, and had inherited the Bai family's unbending iron backbone—her bearing was nothing short of extraordinary.
Bai Jingxian lifted his head and stared up, eyes wide with disbelief, at Bai Jingyan standing in the blazing lamplight of Manjiang Tower in plain white mourning robes, her face stern and grave. In her deep, still eyes lay thick revulsion and killing intent.
"That year, when your second uncle was exiled, it was your mother who aided him. Grandmother sent people out searching for you and your mother, high and low. Bringing you into the Zhenguo Duke Estate at all was the mercy Grandmother showed you. And yet you dare wrap yourself in the dignity of this estate while committing every evil under heaven?"
Bai Jingxian, though inwardly seething with reluctance, had no choice but to bow his head to Bai Jingyan. He clenched his jaw.
"They're nothing but commoners! I never even beat them to death—so why make such a vulgar fuss over something so trivial?"
At the word commoners again, Bai Jingyan felt her brows thrust sharply together. The fury in her chest blazed hotter and hotter. At last she closed the distance in swift strides and kicked Bai Jingxian hard. A guard of the Zhenguo Duke Estate darted in and pressed him down, forcing him to his knees on the ground.
"Commoners?"
Consumed by rage, Bai Jingyan could not hide the hatred flooding her eyes. Even as she spoke, her emotion mounted higher.
"The commoners you sneer at are the very reason the Bai family goes to the battlefield generation after generation, even if it means shattering bone and splitting flesh! The people of Jin pay their taxes and keep us fed and clothed! To repay that debt by any means they can, our grandfather—past sixty now—still dons armor without complaint and leads the men of the Bai family into war. The youngest of those men is ten years old! We of the Bai family hold the people of Great Jin as our own flesh and blood—and a whelp barely out of the cradle dares call the Bai family's kin commoners?"