Ensnared - Chapter 6

Shen Zhou had apologized, but that didn’t mean he would fall in love with me.

The System had said the more the villain slept with someone, the more he would love them. Seduction could be a shortcut.

But instead of immediately devising ways to entice him, I went out and bought cloth and cotton.

The moment I returned, my maid Mingyue began fretting over me.

“My lady, even if you truly want to settle down with your husband, there’s no need to buy such poor-quality fabric all at once. It’s so coarse it hurts my hands. Imagine how uncomfortable it would be to wear! You’ve always had the finest food and clothing, yet now…”

Unlike Qingliu, Mingyue had been sold into the household.

At eight, she had been bound by a lifelong contract. Because she was close to the original owner’s age, she became her personal maid and usually attended only to her daily needs.

But as she hadn’t been born into the household, her standing was lower than Qingliu’s.

I’d found Qingliu so foolish that, over the past few days, I’d put Mingyue in charge of attending me instead.

Seeing her distress, I said, “The fabric may be coarse, but it can keep people alive through the winter. You’re always telling me how poor you were as a child. Your family didn’t have a decent set of clothes, and your sickly grandfather shivered beneath a thin quilt. Now that you’re older, have you forgotten those days?”

“Of course not, my lady.” Mingyue’s eyes grew moist. “But you used to listen as though they were just amusing stories.”

“That was my ignorance. I assumed that however hard poor people’s lives were, they still had food and clothing. I treated your stories as jokes and never believed a word. But after walking through the streets today, I found out you were telling the truth.

“I grew up in the capital, where all I saw was Great Zhou’s wealth and prosperity. Yet Guixiang County is only four or five hundred li away, and people here don’t have enough to eat or clothes to cover themselves. It’s only midwinter; we haven’t even reached the coldest days, and elderly people have already frozen to death at home. I can’t imagine how many families across Great Zhou’s vast lands will be torn apart by a single winter.

“Our Cui clan prides itself on its illustrious name. We’re forever talking about the common people, about bringing them prosperity and creating a harmonious world. Yet while they struggle, I live in luxury as a daughter of that clan. How ironic is that? Now that I know how hard their lives are, I should help them as much as I can.”

My speech fired Mingyue with enthusiasm. She offered to contribute money and hire older women to sew the clothes, but I refused.

She did have some savings, but they were her only security.

The moment she was sold into the Cui household, she lost the support of her birth family. This world was so unfair to women that a little money of her own was her only slim hope of securing a place for herself in the world.

I took out some banknotes and told her to buy two batches of fabric and cotton the next day.

One would go to impoverished families outside the city so they could sew for themselves. The other would stay here. She was to hire some deft-handed women to help make clothes and quilts for the street children before the New Year.

Kindhearted Mingyue ran off clutching the fabric, eager to have a batch of clothes ready that very day.

I watched her leave, then turned to find Shen Zhou standing by the doorway with a bag of pastries.

It was dusk. The last light of the setting sun rested on his shoulders, softening him.

He watched me quietly, a new admiration and respect in his eyes.