The Prisoner of Beauty - Chapter 10
Chapter 10: The Blind Lord
Wei Shao’s hand holding the sword slowly lowered until the tip pointed toward the floorboards, yet his posture remained rigid, his gaze locked unmovingly on Xiao Qiao’s face.
The pupils of his eyes seemed frozen like ice. Perhaps because he had just crossed the threshold of sleep, or due to the reflection of the crimson wedding candles beside them, his eyes held a translucent, amber-brown hue—resembling the color of polished fossilized resin.
Stared down by a pair of eyes like that, Xiao Qiao felt her entire body seize with tension. She dared not make a single erratic movement, her eyes instinctively widening into round saucers as she passively returned his gaze.
A stray draft leaked in from an unseen crack in the woodwork, causing the candle flames to flicker gently. The silhouette of her profile cast against the wall shifted with the dancing light.
As if suddenly snapping back to reality, Wei Shao’s broad shoulders shifted. Without a downward glance, he smoothly sheathed the sword back into its scabbard with a data-rich, crisp cha. Depositing the blade on the mattress, he sat on the edge of the bed, leaning over to tug on his leather riding boots. Then, grabbing his sword once more, he rose and strode out of the room without a backward glance.
Xiao Qiao watched his retreating figure until it vanished, finally letting out a long, shuddering breath.
Yet, just as he reached the edge of the carved folding screen, Wei Shao abruptly halted his stride and turned his head back. The breath Xiao Qiao had not finished expelling instantly caught like ice in her chest.
"This location is not suitable for your continued stay," he said evenly, his voice entirely devoid of warmth. "Tomorrow, I shall have men escort you back to Yuyang."
With that final declaration, he turned and departed for good. His silhouette rounded the screen, the heavy timber doors creaked open with a low ya, and his heavy footsteps gradually receded into the distance until they were swallowed by the quiet night.
Xiao Qiao finally finished her ragged breath. Bracing herself against the wooden edge of the bed, she slowly sank onto the floor mat. Only then did she realize her hands were trembling violently and her back was completely drenched in a cold sweat. Her thin inner silk tunic clung uncomfortably to her skin, sending a localized chill straight to her bones.
Wei Shao made his way toward his private study, halting just outside the pavilion to survey his surroundings.
Even during the day, the ancient Xin Palace felt vast and empty due to the sparse number of retainers currently stationed there. Now, at the fourth watch of the night—the absolute deepest, darkest hour before dawn—the entire estate was locked in profound silence, its servants still buried deep within their dreams.
His gaze drifted to the massive silhouette of the Tantai tower, its jagged contours sharply outlined against the ink-black night sky.
A moment later, he ascended the towering structure built upon its massive rammed-earth foundation. Leaning against the wooden balustrade, he bared his chest to the piercing, bone-chilling winter wind, staring out at the stone ramparts and the endless, silent plains beyond.
As he stood lost in thought, a faint rustle of footsteps echoed behind him. He turned his head, using the brilliant starlight above to recognize the form of his Campaign Chancellor, Gongsun Yang.
"The Lord should be enjoying his blissful wedding night. Why stand alone against the freezing wind of this balcony?" Gongsun Yang offered a respectful bow, walking closer with a refined smile.
Gongsun Yang, courtesy name Buen, was a native of Zhangqiu, Taishan, and was currently forty years old. In his youth, he served Wei Shao’s late father, Wei Jing. Due to his low-born origin and the abundance of legendary talents under Wei Jing's banner, he initially remained obscure. After Wei Jing's tragic death, the Youzhou region was surrounded by hostile warlords on all sides. Gongsun Yang utilized his extraordinary silver-tongued diplomacy to maneuver between rival factions, saving Youzhou from annihilation multiple times. He was subsequently elevated and heavily relied upon by the matriarch, Lady Xu. When Wei Shao assumed absolute control of the military, Gongsun Yang accompanied him through every bloody campaign, rising to the rank of Campaign Chancellor. He was Wei Shao's premier strategist and closest confidant.
When the Qiao family of Yanzhou had initially dispatched an envoy to propose this strategic alliance through marriage, Wei Shao had been absent on campaign. By the time he returned, his grandmother, Lady Xu, had already accepted the betrothal on his behalf. Infuriated, Wei Shao had initially prepared to dispatch riders to hunt down the Yanzhou envoy and tear up the treaty. It was Gongsun Yang who had used cold, clinical logic to pacify his lord, ultimately convincing him to accept the match.
"If the Advisor is not wrapped safely beneath his warm silk quilts, why are you out here counting the frost?" Wei Shao countered smoothly.
Gongsun Yang let out a soft laugh. "This old servant was thoroughly drunk last night. Upon waking, sleep refused to return. Seeing the celestial river burning so brightly across the heavens, I decided to ascend this tower to read the stars. I did not expect to cross paths with my Lord."
Stepping up to stand beside Wei Shao, the strategist continued in a gentle tone, "In the southern lands, there is a popular proverb: 'If the Luoshui River possesses ten parts of divine grace, the two Qiao sisters claim eight.' I originally dismissed it as hyperbole from the poets. Yet, watching the ceremony tonight, the younger Qiao daughter truly lives up to such praise. Under the heavy scrutiny of your battle-hardened officers, she displayed not a shred of fear or weakness—a true, dignified noblewoman. For my Lord to acquire such a breathtaking beauty is a matter worthy of grand celebration."
An image flashed across Wei Shao’s mind: a delicate, pale face that had clearly been terrified out of its wits. Her eyes had been opened as wide and round as a startled deer's, and he had clearly seen her long eyelashes trembling in the candlelight, yet she had desperately forced her features into a mask of composure before his blade.
After a long silence, Wei Shao replied coldly, "It was merely a calculated compromise made upon your advice, a temporary convenience. There is nothing to celebrate. Tomorrow morning, I shall have her sent on the road to Yuyang."
Gongsun Yang paused slightly, stealing a glance at his master's indifferent expression. He smiled faintly. "Very well. The regions south of the Yellow River must be dismantled slowly; one cannot afford to be reckless. Now that the alliance is formalized, the Lady can journey to Yuyang to serve your grandmother and mother, fulfilling your filial duties while you focus entirely on your grand campaigns. It is a harmonious arrangement."
Wei Shao offered no reply, merely letting out a noncommittal chuckle.
"Tonight, as I watched the heavens," Gongsun Yang sighed suddenly, his eyes drifting back to the cosmos, "the Emperor's star within the Purple Forbidden Enclosure appeared utterly obscured, choked by a dense, white spiritual haze. I fear the realm will soon fracture into absolute chaos, and the common people will endure unimaginable misery."
Wei Shao followed the direction of his finger, looking up at the sprawling, brilliant tapestry of stars. Seeing nothing but bright points of light, he remarked, "Your supernatural insights are something I have always revered, Advisor."
Gongsun Yang shook his head. "My Lord praises me too highly. I am merely a man skilled at wagging his tongue. If we speak of true divine men, there is an absolute master in this generation to whom I owe half my education. His surname is Wang, his given name Jin, and he styles himself The Old Man of Baishi. He is the twentieth-generation direct lineage disciple of the Mohist School. Not only is he a master of horizontal and vertical geopolitics, but he also possesses intellect that scales the heavens, alongside a miraculous mastery of the traditional Qihuang medical arts. Compared to his profound wisdom, this servant is a mere firefly beneath the blazing moon—utterly insignificant."
Wei Shao raised a sharp brow. "Where is this divine figure now?"
"In my youth, I wandered the four corners of the earth trying to gain entry into the Mohist gate," Gongsun Yang recounted wistfully. "Heavens did not fail me, and I finally met the Elder. Though my natural talent was too mediocre for him to accept me as a true disciple, I was fortunate enough to receive three months of his personal guidance—wisdom that has sustained me for a lifetime. Ten years ago, I chanced upon him by the roadside, only to discover he had re-entered the mortal world, wandering the realm disguised as a simple physician to save the destitute. A decade has passed since then; I know not where his bones rest. If he still draws breath, he must be well past his three-score and ten."
A sharp gust of winter wind whipped across the platform, causing Gongsun Yang to erupt into a violent fit of coughing. During his early years on campaign, he had sustained a severe internal injury. Though the wound had closed, it left behind a permanent, debilitating weakness that caused frequent respiratory ailments, slowly wasting his health away.
"The cold is fierce tonight, and your constitution is fragile. Allow me to escort you back to your chambers," Wei Shao commanded immediately.
Gongsun Yang frantically declined, insisting he could walk back on his own. Wei Shao did not force the issue; instead, he unfastened his own heavy, luxurious fur cloak and draped it over the strategist's thin shoulders, watching silently as the older man navigated his way down the wooden stairs.
Left alone at the balustrade, Wei Shao instinctively cast his eyes back toward the cluster of stars Gongsun Yang had pointed out.
“The House of Qin has lost its stag, and the entire realm hunts it down.”
Within Wei Shao’s burning ambition, a crystal-clear map of the future had already been drafted.
The Yellow River split the realm into North and South. To the south lay the central plains, the fertile heartland of Luoyang; to the north lay the ancient, martial territories of Yan, Zhao, and Wei. A decade ago, when his father was still alive, the northern territory was fractured among more than ten competing warlords. Today, the vast majority of those factions had been swallowed up or ground into dust. The remaining minor lords were insignificant, surviving merely by leaching off the powerful.
In the entire, sprawling expanse of the North, only Chen Xiang of Bingzhou remained strong enough to challenge his supremacy.
His immediate, absolute objective was to completely annihilate Bingzhou, seizing the territory known as the "Granary of Western Long." Once the North was unified under his iron banner, he would turn his eyes southward toward the territories below the Yellow River, eventually marching west to claim the supreme seat.
In that grand strategy, the geography of Yanzhou was a crucial element. It served as a highly convenient highway for any future southern campaign. By utilizing the prestige of the Wei family to protect the Qiao clan's current sovereignty over Yanzhou, it was effectively equivalent to having the Qiao family act as his personal border guards, keeping that southern corridor clear for his eventual arrival.
His grandmother, Lady Xu, possessed a profound, long-term vision; she had clearly recognized this geopolitical reality, which was why she overrode his hatred to accept the match. Naturally, this was also the sole reason why Wei Shao—despite the intense psychological revulsion it caused him—had ultimately listened to Gongsun Yang and allowed the marriage to proceed.
Since the age of ten, he had lived on the back of a warhorse, following his father—the Imperial Inspector of Youzhou—to fight the brutal Xiongnu hordes who crossed the northern borders, campaigning as far as the wild lands beyond the Great Wall. In his eyes, his father was a god among men.
Ten years ago, the Qiao family’s treacherous breach of faith had caused the agonizing deaths of his revered father and eldest brother. He had never believed their pathetic, sniveling excuse that "the warning envoy was intercepted and slaughtered by bandits halfway." To him, the Qiao clan were animals beneath contempt, no different from the rebel Li Su of Chen County. A day would come when he would wipe them off the face of the earth to satisfy his vengeance.
Marrying the Qiao daughter now was simply using their own weapons against them. Aside from the intense personal disgust the union triggered, he saw absolutely nothing wrong with the transaction.
As for the daughter of the Qiao family…
He shifted his gaze downward, looking toward the distant windows of the Sheyang Pavilion from which he had just emerged. Through the absolute dark of the palace grounds, that single window still radiated a faint, warm glow of vermilion candlelight, appearing exceptionally conspicuous against the blackness.
“She can only blame her own wretched fate,” Wei Shao thought coldly.
The memory of her first appearance during the ceremony flitted through his mind—the way she had been led toward him step by step by her attendants.
Her face was passable enough to look at, he supposed. But as for her body... if one were to scrape all the flesh from her bones, it probably wouldn't even weigh a handful of ounces.
The corner of his lips twitched into a faint, mocking sneer.
Following Wei Shao's abrupt departure, Xiao Qiao abandoned all intentions of sleeping. She wrapped herself tightly within a thick silk quilt and sat frozen in her room until the first rays of dawn broke through the window.
The master of the house never showed his face again. By the time Nurse Chun and the lids entered the chambers with warm water and basins for her morning wash, a humiliating rumor had already swept like wildfire through the servants' quarters of the Xin Palace: The new bride has utterly failed to please the Lord; on the very morning after the wedding night, she is to be banished from his presence and cast off to Yuyang.
Yuyang was the ancestral foundation of the Wei clan, the seat where Wei Shao’s grandmother, Lady Xu, and his widowed mother, Lady Zhu, currently resided. Under normal circumstances, it was entirely proper for a daughter-in-law to travel to the ancestral home to serve her elders and fulfill her filial duties. However, to be packed onto a carriage and shipped away on the literal second day of her marriage…
It was a public slap to the face. It was an unmitigated disgrace.
Nurse Chun had initially tried to maintain a calm mask in front of Xiao Qiao, but she eventually reached her breaking point. Dismissing the younger maids from the room, she grabbed Xiao Qiao’s hands, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"My Lady! This servant heard from the courtyard that a servant who woke at the fourth watch saw the Marquis leaving these chambers. Why did he leave at such an ungodly hour? Did you... did you forget my warnings from last night and somehow enrage him, causing him to banish you to Yuyang today?"
Nurse Chun’s meaning was entirely transparent: the servants were whispering that the intimacy of the wedding night had been a disaster, that the Marquis found his new bride thoroughly deficient, and was thus discarding her back to his old home like a piece of spoiled goods.
The sheer absurdity and frustration mounting in Xiao Qiao's chest was something she simply could not articulate. She could hardly explain to her nurse that the groom had staggered in completely drunk, went to sleep without casting a single glance at her, and when she had tiptoed over in the dead of night simply to grab a blanket to avoid freezing to death, he had nearly severed her jugular under the assumption that she was an assassin.
“Just how many terrible, blood-soaked atrocities has this man committed in his life to possess a level of paranoia so severe that he lives like a hunted animal even in his sleep?” she wondered.
"I did not offend him, Nurse, nor did he lay a single finger upon my body last night," Xiao Qiao explained, her voice steady and clear. "He simply despises the bloodline I carry. My uncle negotiated this alliance with the Wei family strictly as a business transaction where both sides exploit the other. Since I agreed to step into this bridal carriage, my heart was prepared for this reality. Journeying to Yuyang changes nothing; I would have had to go sooner or later, so why split hairs over a few months? As for what the servants whisper... let them wag their tongues. It does not enter my heart, and you should not waste your tears over it."
Situations like this would not be unique. In the long days ahead, similar humiliations and cold shoulders were guaranteed to occur. She had no intention of allowing Nurse Chun to harbor false hopes, only to be crushed by disappointment time and time again. It was far better to use this crisis to set the record straight.
"Nurse Chun, though your title is that of a servant, I have always viewed you as a second mother," Xiao Qiao said softly, looking into her eyes. "I have married into the Wei family, and in this entire hostile territory, you are the only soul I can completely trust. I need your heart to be like iron. Moving forward, when crises arise, I will need you to stand firmly by my side."
Nurse Chun stared blankly, completely stunned by her mistress's words.
The morning sun was just beginning to stream through the eastern window, illuminating the side of the dressing table. The golden, warm winter light bathed Xiao Qiao’s pristine, youthful skin in a soft, ethereal glow, highlighting even the finest, delicate hairs along her jawline. She was looking at her nurse with a gentle smile, her brilliant eyes shifting with a depth that resembled liquid jewels.
This version of her young mistress was entirely familiar, yet it carried an underlying, formidable maturity. Yet for some inexplicable reason, a profound wave of courage and confidence welled up from the depths of Nurse Chun’s soul. Her entire body felt infused with a sudden, violent strength—a fierce, protective maternal instinct to shield this girl from the world at any cost.
"My Lady speaks the absolute truth! This servant has committed it to heart!" Nurse Chun wiped her tears away with a swift swipe of her sleeve, scrambling to her feet to take her position behind Xiao Qiao. "Allow me to style your hair and dress you for the journey."
Nurse Chun possessed a pair of exceptionally gifted hands when it came to cosmetics and hairstyling—a talent born of natural intuition refined by years of practice. Years ago, when Xiao Qiao’s mother was still alive, she had frequently praised her, noting that Nurse Chun had the miraculous ability to transform a woman of average appearance into a striking beauty.
The previous night, the nurse had been terrified that the fierce Marquis would be too rough and cause her delicate mistress physical suffering. She had never imagined the man would completely ignore her. The sheer indignation and offense she felt on Xiao Qiao's behalf was beyond words. It was as if a priceless, peerless pearl—carefully concealed in a lacquered box and shielded from common eyes—had been presented to a man, only for him to turn his nose up and declare it worthless.
Her initial, paralyzing terror of Wei Shao had dissolved over the course of the morning, replaced entirely by an intense, burning resentment.
“Just how blind must this Marquis be,” she thought furiously, “to look upon my precious Lady and see absolutely nothing? To go so far as to humiliate her by banishing her on the very day after their wedding?”
The heavy, traditional cosmetics used for the grand ceremony the previous night had been regal and imposing, but it had effectively masked Xiao Qiao’s natural, breathtaking radiance. Today, Nurse Chun resolved to paint her mistress with absolute perfection.
Even if they were being cast off, they would leave this estate looking so breathtakingly radiant that not a single servant in this palace would ever dare to view them as a laughingstock again!