Yu Yunfei and Xia Meiqing immediately smoothed their expressions, their voices a practiced chorus of domesticity. “Yes, yes, let’s eat first.”
Bo Zhengrong was about to rise when Ding Yujun raised a hand, her gesture sharp enough to cut the air. Her face was as cold as mountain stone. “Zhengrong, sit. This is Bo Wang’s wife—the woman Qinglin and I personally chose for our eldest grandson. As his father, it was already a grave breach of etiquette for you to miss your own son’s wedding.”
“Yes, yes!” Old Master Bo Qinglin chirped, his smile wide and dotage-bright as he looked at Lu Zhiling. In this house, he followed his wife’s lead as if it were scripture. “Zhiling is a good girl. Beautiful, too!”
“Mother?” Bo Zhengrong stared at Ding Yujun in disbelief. Had this girl cast some sort of spell over the matriarch?
Seeing his mother’s unwavering resolve, Zhengrong finally turned his gaze toward Lu Zhiling. He saw a girl who stood with impeccable poise, her head bowed in a manner that spoke of traditional breeding and quiet strength. She did not move an inch, serving tea with a grace that even he could not fault.
After a tense beat, Bo Zhengrong reached out and accepted the cup. He took a perfunctory, cold sip. “Zhiling, is it? How are you feeling? A pregnant woman should prioritize her rest.”
“I am well. Thank you, Father,” she replied, her voice soft as silk. She began to straighten up, intending to vanish into the background.
“Wait.” Ding Yujun caught her hand. With a wave of the matriarch’s other hand, a line of servants filed in, each carrying a silver tray with a single cup of tea.
Lu Zhiling felt a prickle of unease. Ding Yujun squeezed her hand affectionately. “The wedding was rushed, and you weren’t given the chance to offer tea to the elders. We shall remedy that today. Come, child. First, your Second Great-Uncle.”
The room hummed with silent judgment. No one in the clan truly liked this “placeholder” mistress, yet the Old Lady was shielding her with the full weight of her authority. Forced by etiquette, the elders smiled tightly and drank the tea Lu Zhiling offered.
Once the ceremony concluded, Ding Yujun pulled Zhiling to the seat of honor beside her. A servant placed a steaming bowl of Wu Ji [Black-boned chicken—highly prized in Traditional Chinese Medicine for its “warming” properties] soup before her. “Drink this, child. Goji berries and red dates are essential for replenishing your Qi [vital energy] and blood.”
“Thank you, Grandma,” Zhiling murmured, sipping the broth while the weight of a dozen predatory gazes pressed against her.
“The Old Lady truly dotes on you, Zhiling,” Yu Yunfei remarked, her smile not reaching her eyes.
Xia Meiqing, still stinging from past humiliations, couldn’t help but strike. “Indeed. No wonder Zhiling acts so… arrogantly at home. She is clearly the grandmother’s darling.”
Ding Yujun’s expression soured. “What nonsense are you whispering now?”
Xia Meiqing hugged her eight-year-old son, Bo Zhen, to her side. “Oh, nothing. It’s just that Bo Zhen’s foot was swollen for days after she stepped on him. He missed his football match because of it.”
Lu Zhiling put down her spoon and turned toward Xia Meiqing, her face a mask of humble apology. “I am so sorry, Aunt Xia. Bo Zhen… please forgive me. I am blind; I make mistakes. I shall try my best to remain in my room from now on to avoid causing further trouble.”
“Meiqing, don’t be so petty,” Yu Yunfei added, her voice a poisonous honey. “Zhiling is pregnant. You can’t lock her away; what’s the difference between that and a prison?”
Xia Meiqing’s eyes widened. “I never said—!”
“Enough. Sit down,” Ding Yujun snapped, pulling Zhiling back into her chair. She turned a cold eye on her grandson. “Bo Zhen, your mother may struggle to tell right from wrong, but surely you can?”
Caught in the matriarch’s glare, the usually spoiled Bo Zhen shrunk back. “I… I know I was wrong, Grandma.”
Xia Meiqing sat in stunned silence. She hadn’t expected the old lady to be so ferociously protective of a “down-on-her-luck” woman. Bo Zhen, looking at the empty chair beside Zhiling, piped up, “Where is my Big Brother? Why hasn’t he come back?”
“Bo Wang is unwell. He is resting at Dijiangting,” Zhiling said.
“So he’s not coming?” Bo Zhen’s face twisted with annoyance. “I thought you were so capable, getting into our family. It turns out your husband won’t even attend a banquet with you. He probably hates the sight of you, doesn’t he?”
The dining hall plunged into a deathly, airless silence on this remark. Bo Zhen was a child, but his words cut to the bone. Who was Bo Wang really avoiding? His “wife,” or his father who had just returned?
Bo Zhengrong’s face was a mask of fury. Yu Yunfei and Xia Meiqing scrambled to serve him, hoping to drown out the tension with soup.
The Second Great-Uncle sighed heavily. “Zhengrong, I don’t mean to criticize, but you cannot let Bo Wang continue like this. This lack of filial piety is a stain on our name.”
“He is probably truly sick,” Yu Yunfei tried to intervene. “I’ll have Dr. Qin check him.”
“Sick?” the Second Uncle scoffed, putting down his chopsticks. “He doesn’t live at home because he has no respect for it. We all know what kind of man he is. A scoundrel who humiliates the Wang family, a tyrant who drives people to leap from buildings… fifteen years in the gutters have rotted him. He is ignorant, ruthless, and a disgrace.”
Lu Zhiling sat perfectly still, her spoon slowly stirring the dark broth of her soup.
“Zhengrong,” the uncle continued, “if you continue to coddle him out of pity for his ‘suffering,’ the Bo family fate will be written in the scandal sheets.”
“You are right,” Bo Zhengrong nodded, his voice cold.
At his words, the floodgates opened. The family began to pick apart Bo Wang’s character like vultures over a carcass, contrasting him with the “golden child,” Bo Tang.
Clack.
Lu Zhiling dropped her spoon into the porcelain bowl. She raised her head, her “vacant” eyes finding the Second Uncle’s direction. Her voice was a blade of ice. “Second Uncle… Bo Wang is indeed unwell. He was injured. He was injured on Nanyang Road—the very land the Bo family just acquired.”
The silence that followed was absolute.
It was a subtle, lethal strike. She had just reminded them that the wealth they were currently celebrating had been bought with Bo Wang’s blood.
Bo Zhengrong’s face darkened to a bruised purple. “What did you say?”
Lu Zhiling straightened her back. “I was merely explaining to Second Uncle that Bo Wang is not unfilial. He is simply… broken. Please do not misunderstand him.”
Just as the air in the room threatened to ignite, a small gasp came from Jiang Fusheng. “Young Master?”
Every head turned. Bo Wang was leaning against the doorframe of the hall, clad in a tobacco-gray shirt that draped over his lean frame. He looked lazy, dangerous, his lips curved into a wicked, half-smile. He had clearly been listening.
“Big Brother!” Bo Zhen started to rise, but his mother pinched his thigh, forcing him back down.
Bo Wang sauntered to the table and pulled out the chair next to Zhiling. “Are you better?” she whispered.
“Not dead yet,” he drawled as he looked at his Second Uncle and grinned. “I managed to crawl over. Sorry to disappoint.”
Bang! The Second Uncle slammed his hand on the table.
Yu Yunfei rushed to intervene. “Eat, eat! Bo Wang is just in time. Butler Wen, bring the soup!”
A moment later, two servants hauled in a tureen the size of a small cauldron. It was placed directly in front of Bo Wang. The broth was a thick, milky white, with bones piled high and the heavy, gamey scent of mutton filling the air.
Bo Wang’s carefree expression didn’t just fade; it curdled into a dark, suffocating gloom.
“Bo Wang, your father specifically ordered this mutton soup for you,” Yu Yunfei said, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. “It has sea cucumber and wolfberry. It’s very… nourishing. Try it.” She ladled out a bowl, placing a large, marrow-filled bone on top.
Lu Zhiling’s heart stopped. Mutton? Bo Zhengrong was his father—how could he not know about Bo Wang’s visceral phobia? To force a man who couldn’t even stand to count sheep to eat their flesh was a deliberate, sadistic cruelty.
Bo Wang sat motionless. The air around him grew cold enough to frost the glass.
“If you cannot even face a petty shadow of the past,” Bo Zhengrong sneered, “what great things can you ever hope to achieve?”
Yu Yunfei pushed the bowl closer. As she did, the broth swirled, and a boiled sheep’s eye rose to the surface—a pale, sightless marble staring up at him.
Lu Zhiling felt a surge of nausea.
Bo Wang stared at the eye. He let out a soft, jagged chuckle. “Since none of you want to enjoy this meal… then no one eats.”
He stood up, snatched the sheep’s eye from the soup, and slammed it onto the table. With a violent, sweeping motion, he overturned the massive tureen.
CRASH.
The milky broth, the bones, and the ginseng exploded across the table, splashing onto the expensive suits and silk dresses of the Bo clan.
“Disobedient!” the Second Uncle roared, shaking with rage.
“A scoundrel from a gambling den!” another cried, wiping his watch.
Bo Zhengrong stood up, his voice a low, terrifying growl. “What do you want? Do you have no respect for your elders?”
“Heh.” Bo Wang turned on his heel to leave.
“You’ve gone too far!” Bo Zhengrong unbuttoned his jacket. “Wen Da! Hold him down!”
A family beating was coming. A public humiliation. Ding Yujun looked on with agony, but she was silenced by her son’s fierce gaze.
Lu Zhiling stood up, her steps hurried and “stumbling.” She suddenly clutched her throat. “Ugh—”
Bo Wang stopped, looking back at her with a frozen, icy stare.
“Zhiling, what is it?” Ding Yujun rushed to her side.
“Ugh…” Lu Zhiling doubled over, looking deathly ill. She grabbed Ding Yujun’s hand, her voice weak and trembling. “Grandma… don’t blame him. The smell… the mutton soup was too strong. I couldn’t breathe. Bo Wang only wanted to… to move it away for me. He saw I was suffering. He didn’t mean it.”
The room was stunned. Moving it? He had flipped the damn table.
But Ding Yujun caught the lifeline instantly. “Of course! My poor girl. It’s the pregnancy. How could Butler Wen be so careless as to put such a pungent dish in front of a pregnant woman? Bo Wang was only protecting you. Go, go back and rest.”
Lu Zhiling reached out, her fingers finding Bo Wang’s warm, scarred hand. She squeezed it gently, then wrapped her arms around his sleeve, leaning her entire weight against him. She looked up at him with a pale, fragile face—the picture of a woman who needed her husband.
“Stay with me…” she whispered, her voice a soft, desperate plea that only he could hear.
Bo Wang looked down at her, his eyes unreadable. But for the first time that night, the murderous tension in his shoulders flickered. He took a step forward—with her.
“You dare take one more step and see what happens!” Bo Zhengrong bellowed.
Lu Zhiling didn’t wait. She turned and threw her arms around Bo Wang’s waist, burying her face in his chest and hugging him with every ounce of strength she had. “Please,” she sobbed into his shirt, “just take me away.”