From CEO to Concubine

The courtyard in front of Liang Hui's house was barren. Elsewhere, the first hints of spring were starting to surface but here it remained bleak and dreary. Ever since her children had grown up, the sounds of laughter had faded from her residence, replaced by a yawning silence that filled her days. The servants lived in fear of her temper, her sons were too busy with their own lives to pay hers any heed, and her mediocre husband had spent three weeks in a row in that pregnant whore's residence, despite her being unable to service him in bed. 

To add insult to injury, her brother had sent word that her nephew had failed to take down the Yan slave again. Every other line in his letter accused her of letting such a white-eyed wolf (1) out of her grasp when she'd had the ability to destroy him. His scolding made her resentful but she had no choice but to bear with it as she couldn't afford to lose the support of her family right now, not when she could sense her position in the Wu Household wavering. 

Lately, her eldest son had been getting on her nerves too. Bin Er had once been her greatest pride and joy. To support him in his endeavours and to ensure that as the eldest legitimate son, he would be able to inherit his father's position as head of the clan without any difficulty, she had even spoiled her second son rotten on purpose. 

But to what point and purpose? She had pinned such high hopes on him and now he was nothing better than a drunken wastrel. Not only had he started neglecting his duties in the Hanlin Academy, but he had also taken to befriending all sorts of frivolous scholars, who had incited him into wasting his time in brothels and music halls with them. Her arrogant daughter-in-law had come to complain to her multiple times that Bin Er was still pining after his old love, was regularly giving up half his salary to a prostitute who vaguely resembled the boy he dreamed about every night. 

Liang Hui had refused to believe it until Bin Er had admitted it to her face. 

"So what?" he'd spat at her when she'd confronted him about his recent bouts of atrocious behaviour. "Mother and Father went through so much effort to separate Yun Er and me, now that I'll never get him back, shouldn't you be throwing banquets in celebration?" 

"Now you're blaming your mother?!" Liang Hui had shrieked, shaking from so much anger that she'd nearly tripped over herself and fallen. "You're blaming me for caring about your future?!" 

"Is it my future or your future you care about?" had been her Bin Er's hurtful reply. Gone were his past gentlemanly airs and graces. His scholarly handsomeness, which had once made him the envy of all the young men in the capital, was now reduced to a sickly gauntness, wasting away from what the physicians had insisted was just 'lovesickness' and that the only cure available was for him to snap out of it. 

If Liang Hui had known that Bin Er was going to follow in his useless father's footsteps, she would have concentrated her efforts on Wu Lang instead. 

But it was too late now. She sighed and covered her eyes tiredly. Perhaps she was imagining it but the skin on the back of her hand looked more wrinkled than it had yesterday. She was ageing and soon she would be too old to do anything for her children, destined to live abandoned and alone in the depths of her husband's household with nothing but an empty title of 'Mistress' and a cold bed for company at night. 

She had been counting on Bin Er to bring her glory. She had been relying on Yusi to shine in the inner palace and earn her face amongst the wives of the other officials. 

And now all of them had been ruined thanks to that boy. Just like a fox demon, he had wormed his way into the dragon bed, polluting the emperor's mind and now he was turning his vengeful eyes against her family. Even her nephew's success had been blocked, her brother's carefully cultivated plans falling apart in wake of the emperor's blind adoration for a mere servant. 

To think that this Lord of Handsome Fairness Yue had once amounted to nothing more than trash in his household. Liang Hui would find this hilarious except there was nothing funny about how big an obstacle he'd become. 

To make matters worse, when she'd tried inviting her husband to scheme with her brother on this matter, instead of being grateful for the assistance, Wu Shengqi had slapped her in a sudden burst of rage and told her not to meddle in affairs that she knew nothing about. That vicious third concubine must have poured oil onto the fire too because the next morning, Steward Yang had arrived at her residence to take away the family accounts, explaining that the master pitied how exhausted she must be now that she was past her prime and that the third concubine was more than capable of sharing some of the household burdens with her.

Liang Hui knew that she couldn't sit back anymore if she didn't want the Wu Household and the prestige she was owed to slip out of her grasp for good. She'd known a long time ago that her husband was untrustworthy. Her sons had failed her too. Her brother had his own child to prioritise and might not agree with the plan she had in mind. 

After depending on men all her life, Liang Hui realised that she was now left with only one option. 

"Dongmei, bring me some parchment and my brush set." She could count on her favourite handmaid to make all the arrangements, she just had to write this letter to her Yusi and hope that her daughter was intelligent enough to lay low until she discovered the opportune moment to go in for the kill. 

She prayed fervently that she wasn't making another mistake. 

——————————

The end of the week brought with it a pleasant surprise for Yan Zheyun. He hadn't been awake when Liu Suzhi had sent Xiao Fu around in the dead of the night with the completed replica of the bracelet. But XIao De presented it to him first thing in the morning and to have something go right for once was the best way to start the day. 

"What's Little Master going to do about that one?" Xiao De asked, pointing at the original as he watched Yan Zheyun compare them under the pale sunlight filtering in through a crack in the window. 

Yan Zheyun hummed thoughtfully. He was very impressed by the standard of the counterfeit bracelet. Liu Suzhi hadn't requested for the original to be sent to him so Yan Zheyun had assumed that he would be relying on pictorial records of the bracelet in one of the original departments. This suited him well because he trusted Liu Suzhi as far as Yan Yun could toss him, which was to say, not at all. If Liu Suzhi had asked for the original, who knew whether the one he returned to Yan Zheyun was the safe replica or not? 

'Don't use anyone you suspect and don't suspect anyone you use.' But this saying was easier said than done. 

"Why not give the original to this servant to destroy?" Xiao De mistook Yan Zheyun's prolonged silence for a lack of ideas and offered to help with the problem in the only way he knew how to. But Yan Zheyun didn't want to assist Noble Consort Li in eradicating the evidence of her misdeeds. Just in case he would be able to take her to task one day for attempting to harm him, the bracelet had to stay. 

But this didn't mean Yan Zheyun couldn't try to find out what was wrong with it first, instead of waiting in trepidation for the noble consort to spring a nasty surprise on him. 

He placed the original back in its nondescript container and handed it over to Xiao De. "Take this to your godfather for me," he instructed. "Ask him if there is any way to figure out what is wrong with this bracelet without damaging it. Tell him that Yan Yun is indebted and will always remember his assistance in this time of need." 

Perhaps this would come back to bite Yan Zheyun one day. But that was a prospect he couldn't prepare for so it was useless to worry about it until it eventually happened. 

Xiao De shot Yan Zheyun a reassuring smile. "This servant will do his best to convince Godfather to help." 

Yan Zheyun watched him depart. Lately, this servant of his had matured a lot in temperament, which he was pleased to see. He was still lively and energetic but he executed his duties with much more confidence than before and Yan Zheyun could see head eunuch potential in him. Xiao De had done an excellent job of stirring up a ruckus amidst the eunuchs and the maids, just as Yan Zheyun had requested. Due to his great efficiency, the word of what Hua Zhixuan's suffering during his stint in Yuanyin Palace had spread overnight and by now, the entire inner palace was buzzing with it. No matter how much Liang Ruhan and the others tried to pin the blame on Yan Zheyun instead, Xiao De's story, which was the most convincing truth, had stuck and now every servant knew that Yuanyin Palace was not a good destination for them. 

When Yan Zheyun had asked Xiao De to spread the 'rumours', he hadn't known that Liang Ruhan was planning on having him take the fall instead. He supposed he should count himself lucky that he'd struck first. Otherwise, if it were the other way around, it would sound like he was the one being defensive instead. 

At any rate, Xiao De was more than deserving of a pay rise. Outstanding employees had to be rewarded as an incentive to continue working on their performance. Just because this was the imperial palace and these 'employees' had far fewer rights than the ones Yan Zheyun was used to dealing with didn't make this fact any less true. 

He sat down at his dressing table and picked up the comb he always used. As Xiao De was the only servant that he allowed to assist him with the morning toiletries, Yan Zheyun had to make do with his own subpar attempts whenever he sent Xiao De off on urgent errands. He was just about to pull his hair up into a simple ponytail and be done with it when a small voice called out to him from the entrance of the room. 

"L-Little Master." 

It was Qiu Ji. Yan Zheyun's mouth curled up imperceptibly. Was this boy finally tired of waiting? Yan Zheyun had gone through all the trouble to keep him at an arm's length, ignoring or dismissing Qiu Ji's clumsy offers to assist him in his bedchamber, while still ensuring that he wasn't ill-treated. Xiao De was responsible for ensuring that Qiu Ji wasn't bullied by the other eunuchs and had more than enough to eat and wear on top of comfortable lodgings. 

Yan Zheyun had been waiting for an opportunity for Qiu Ji's loyalty to be tested but this hadn't arrived yet. And now, it seemed as though Qiu Ji had psyched himself up to make the first move. Yan Zheyun could only wonder if he was doing this out of desperate concern for his own prospects or because he was facing pressure from an instigator to worm his way into Yan Zheyun's good graces. 

[Sorry, kid. I feel bad because, in my world, you'd be in Junior High, but I was bitten once by a snake and am now scared of ropes for the next ten years (2). If I let my guard down around you, there's no guarantee that I, or Xiao De, Brother Hua, and even Gracious Consort Yao, for that matter, wouldn't be a pile of bones in the imperial burial grounds come next spring.] 

There was a time and place for pity and it wasn't here and now. 

"What is it?" he asked lightly, fiddling with the simple jade hairpins on the table as he picked them up one by one for inspection. 

Qiu Ji asked in a deferential little voice whether he could help with anything. 

"This servant noticed that Big Brother Xiao De is off on an errand and was worried that Little Master would have trouble with your hair or clothes."

The offer seemed sincere, conscientious even. Before, because Yan Zheyun had been hiding the fact that he removed the bracelet regularly and kept it in the room, he hadn't dared to allow Qiu Ji the opportunity to snoop around. Now that the replica sat safely on his wrist and the original was on its way to another location, he didn't have the same qualms as before. 

He'd been so passive ever since entering the imperial city that everyone had assumed he was a helpless lamb ripe for their slaughter. With the recent events that had happened, they'd probably changed their minds about him now. But rather than allow them to recuperate and change tactics, he was more inclined towards setting a trap of his own. 

Yan Zheyun put the pins back in their box and beckoned for Qiu Ji to go over to him. He was genial as he patted the shy boy on the shoulder and chatted to him about how he was adjusting to his new role here. 

"You're right," Yan Zheyun said. "Xiao De will probably be a while longer yet, help me comb my hair with the flower water? I'm not used to doing so on my own." 

Qiu Ji's face lit up. "Yes, Little Master!" He picked up the sandalwood comb and dipped its teeth in the bowl on the table, which contained an infusion of wild cedar, hibiscus leaves, and jasmine (3). He ran this gently through Yan Zheyun's silky black strands before asking him if the pressure was all right. 

Yan Zheyun gave him a reassuring smile. "You're a thoughtful one," he praised and Qiu Ji shook his head meekly as a faint blush coloured his cheeks. 

"This servant is just grateful for the chance to be of use," was his obedient reply. "Big Brother Xiao De sets such a good example, this servant hopes that one day I will be able to do my best for Little Master too!" 

Yan Zheyun made an assenting noise. If Qiu Ji's allegiances truly lay with Yan Zheyun, he would be more than happy to give the boy the chance to prove his worth. Even if his abilities turned out to be mediocre, he would have decent treatment here at Yuyang Palace. 

But if Qiu Ji turned out to be working for someone else…then Yan Zheyun wouldn't mind making a fine example out of him. 

This display of peace and harmony between a concubine and his young servant lasted all the way until a messenger eunuch requested an audience with Yan Zheyun. Exchanging a curious glance with Qiu Ji, Yan Zheyun stepped out into the main chamber to receive him. 

"This servant greets Lord of Handsome Fairness Yue and wishes him a golden morning! Lord Yue, His Majesty has sent for you to attend to him in Tianlu Pavilion after morning court is over, if you could please finish getting ready, this servant will escort you...."