Bo Wang looked down at the slender, pale arms wrapped tightly around his waist. He could feel her heart hammering against his spine, a frantic rhythm that matched the bobbing of his Adam’s apple.
“I don’t want to be alone,” she whispered, her voice thick with unshed tears. “It’s… uncomfortable.” She buried her face into the broad expanse of his chest, hiding from the predatory eyes of the clan.
“Is that so?”
A sudden, dark smile broke across Bo Wang’s face—a look of pure, chaotic triumph. He scooped her up effortlessly into his arms and turned to face Bo Zhengrong. His expression was a masterpiece of nonchalance. “Forgive me, Father. My wife is a bit too clingy tonight. I’ll be taking her back to our room now.”
With that, he strode out of the hall, carrying Lu Zhiling as if she were a prize he had just snatched from the jaws of a wolf. She clung to his neck, her body melting into his in a show of perfect, submissive obedience. Behind them, the bodyguards hesitated, caught between their orders to restrain him and the sheer audacity of his exit.
“Enough!”
Ding Yujun’s voice cracked like a whip. She glared at Bo Zhengrong, her face a mask of royal displeasure. “Zhengrong, you are the head of this house and this conglomerate, but tell me—as an old woman, do I still have a say in my own great-grandchild’s welfare? This child is my priority. Let the couple rest. I will be the one to apologize to our guests.”
No one dared let the matriarch apologize. The room hummed with frantic, polite denials as the servants moved to reset the table, but the damage was done. Yu Yunfei stood behind her husband, her eyes flashing with a fleeting, poisonous heat. This was the first time Bo Wang had openly defied his father without facing the lash of family discipline. Something was shifting.
The banquet ended in a hollow, grim silence. On the sixth floor, a maid hurried into Xia Meiqing’s suite. “Madam Xia, the Master did not go to Madam Yu’s quarters. He has retreated to his study.”
Xia Meiqing, draped in silk and applying a layer of priceless cream to her face, let out a sharp sneer. “Yu Yunfei spent the whole night sowing discord, trying to play the gentle martyr. It seems she finally tripped over her own feet.”
“She couldn’t even scratch the Young Master tonight,” the maid giggled.
“True,” Xia Meiqing mused, her expression turning serious. “But did you see the Old Lady? She was beaming at that blind girl like she was a rare treasure. I thought she’d given up on Bo Wang, but she’s giving Lu Zhiling an incredible amount of Mianzi [Face/Social standing]. She’s accepted her.”
“Should we worry, Madam? If she gives birth to the eldest great-grandson…”
“Let Yu Yunfei worry,” Xia Meiqing said, watching her eight-year-old son, Bo Zhen, play games on the sofa. “She’s the one who spent years ensuring Bo Wang would never inherit. If a new heir is born, she’ll be the first to lose sleep. I’ll keep my hands clean while they tear each other apart.”
The Bo family’s tradition of primogeniture was a heavy shadow over them all. Even if the rules had modernized, the core belief remained: the eldest ruled. Yu Yunfei had panicked for fifteen years to keep Bo Wang out; she wouldn’t stand idly by now.
“You two are so boring,” Bo Zhen blurted out, not looking up from his screen.
“Go practice your fencing, Zhen’er,” his mother snapped. “You need to impress your father. Bo Tang is already light-years ahead of you.”
Bo Zhen rolled his eyes. “This family rightfully belongs to Big Brother anyway. I don’t know what you two concubines are even fighting over.”
Xia Meiqing’s face turned a violent shade of green. She hurled a bottle of lotion at him. “Concubine?! You’ve lost your mind!”
Bo Zhen dodged it with practiced ease. “Do you and Aunt Yu have marriage certificates? No? In the old days, that makes you a Yitai [a secondary wife or concubine]. If Dad really wanted to marry you, would he have waited eight years?”
Xia Meiqing stood trembling, her breath heavy. “I am young! Your father will put my name on the genealogy [Zupu—the sacred family record] eventually!”
“Maybe,” Bo Zhen shrugged, standing up to leave. “Or maybe a younger girl will come in and you’ll just be another Aunt Yu. If you ask me, we should be clinging to Big Brother’s coattails now. He’s the one who’s actually going to win.”
On the other hand steam filled the bathroom, blurring the glass. Lu Zhiling stood under the rushing water, her eyes clear and sharp beneath the mist. She knew she had taken a risk tonight. By shielding Bo Wang, she had openly offended Bo Zhengrong, the true titan of the Bo family.
I’ve already stepped into the mud, she thought. No sense in worrying about the splash now.
She dried herself and slipped into a short, crimson silk bathrobe, tying the sash tightly. She lingered, hoping Bo Wang had left. After the way he had looked at her earlier—as if he wanted to devour her soul—she wasn’t ready to face him.
Still after a while she opened the door. The air in the room was heavy with the scent of tobacco and that familiar, woody musk. Bo Wang was sitting on the edge of the bed, his presence like a physical weight.
He was playing with her small bronze dog, rolling it over his knuckles with a flamboyant, effortless grace. The sight of him—wearing her sacred Buddhist beads while playing with her childhood toy—made her heart skip a beat.
He looked up, his gaze sweeping over her. Her hair was damp, clinging to her shoulders, and her legs were pale and slender against the red silk.
“You did it on purpose?” he rasped, his voice thick and low. “Wearing such short pajamas again?”
“I… I will buy more tomorrow,” she stammered, turning toward the sofa.
“Come here.”
The command was soft, but it brooked no refusal. Lu Zhiling walked over until her toes touched his shoes. Bo Wang sat before her, his long legs spread, creating a space for her to stand between them. “Sit.”
“I can feel you moving, Bo Wang,” she whispered, her “blind” eyes fixed on a point past him.
“I haven’t even touched you yet,” he said, his voice languid and dangerously sexy as he leaned back, loosening his collar. “What exactly can you feel?”
Heat surged from her neck to her ears. “That’s not what I meant.”
Bo Wang didn’t answer. He reached out and grabbed the end of her red silk sash, giving it a slow, deliberate tug that pulled her into the space between his thighs.
The proximity was suffocating. She could feel the heat radiating from his body. “Bo Wang… I’m pregnant.”
His gaze turned frigid. His fingers entwined in the red silk, slowly tightening the hold. “Lu Zhiling, don’t play hard to get. I want you now. Be sensible.”
She took a step back, but the sash came undone, trailing through his fingers like a ribbon of blood. She clutched her robe shut, her heart hammering.
“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice turning to ice. “I don’t have much patience. I won’t give you another chance. Have you thought it through?”
Lu Zhiling nodded. “I have. You are too important to me, Bo Wang. Too important to drag down for a moment of… pleasure. You deserve someone worthy.”
“And the mutton?” he sneered.
“I don’t like it either,” she said softly. “If you hate something, it’s no pity to never try it. I just want you to be well.”
Bo Wang stared at her for a long, agonizing silence, his eyes so dark they were like twin abysses. Then, he let out a harsh, mocking chuckle. “Don’t be so self-righteous. You don’t know the first thing about me.”
“But I hope you’re happy,” she blurted out.
“How long does that hope last? A month? A year?” He stood up abruptly, tossing the bronze toy aside and storming toward the door.
Slam.
The silence that followed was a blessing. Lu Zhiling collapsed onto the bed, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She had survived another night.
The next morning, the mansion felt like a house of glass.
“The Old Lady’s praise has made people restless,” Lu Zhiling told Jiang Fusheng as they descended the stairs. “We need to leave for the teahouse. The auction is in a few days.”
But they weren’t fast enough. A maid intercepted them. “Young Madam, Madam Yu invites you for a chat.”
Yu Yunfei was waiting in a sun-drenched side hall, a plush cat in her lap. But she wasn’t alone. Gong Zihua stood there, clutching her handbag with white-knuckled intensity.
“Zhiling, come in,” Yu Yunfei said with a honeyed smile.
Gong Zihua froze. Zhiling? Aunt Yu? Her mind raced—how had Lu Zhiling clawed her way back into the Bo family’s inner circle?
“The new YL collection [A fictional high-end luxury brand] has arrived,” Yu Yunfei said, pulling Zhiling to sit beside her. “I noticed your wardrobe is a bit… sparse. Let’s pick some pieces together. I’ve arranged a private runway show for you.”
The curtains in the center of the hall parted. A tall, statuesque model in towering heels stepped out, the floor-to-ceiling lights reflecting off silk and jewels. It was a display of obscene wealth, a velvet-lined trap designed to see exactly what Lu Zhiling was made of.