Su Che's courtyard stood in stark contrast to Su Wan's refined scholarly elegance. The ornate beams and painted rafters exuded a gaudy opulence, where the stench of alcohol mingled with the lingering scent of incense, all blended with the cloying sweetness reminiscent of spoiled desserts. Most servants wore expressions of obsequiousness or cautious wariness, moving with near-silent steps as if afraid to disturb something.
When Emma was ushered in, she immediately felt countless eyes scrutinizing her—curious, pitying, and schadenfreude-filled. She was assigned to a small room near the young master's study, slightly better than the back quarters but still sparse. She shared it with two rough maids responsible for cleaning, whose gazes toward her carried obvious aloofness and a hint of fear.
"The young master has instructed that you will now attend to his writing and ink in the study, and also organize his books," the housekeeper announced coldly. "Be smart about it. Don't upset the young master."
"Yes, ma'am," Emma replied meekly, eyes lowered.
Her "service" career was fraught with invisible daggers and swords from the moment she stepped into the study.
Su Che clearly had no intention of letting this "self-trapped" prey off easily. On the first day, he deliberately ground the ink excessively thick, then criticized Emma's grinding as "uneven in color." He carelessly piled precious ancient texts, then berated her for organizing them "without any order." He even approached her suddenly while she was bent over wiping the bookshelves, his alcohol-laden breath brushing her neck as he tried to catch a flicker of panic on her face.
But Emma remained as unresponsive as a log soaked in water. When he criticized the ink, she silently ground it again, her wrist steady and pressure even, until she produced ink beyond his faultfinding. When he disorganized the books, she would flawlessly retrieve the exact volume he needed next time, neatly categorized as if they had never been disturbed. When he edged closer to test her, she would step back half a pace, timely and imperceptibly, continuing her task without so much as a change in her breathing rhythm.
Her silence and steadiness formed an invisible wall, deflecting Su Che's frivolous advances and probes. Time and again, he felt like punching at a deep pool of water—not only did it make no ripple, but it made him look like a clown.
This frustration bred a deeper, provoked anger.
"Act! Let's see how long you can keep it up!" Su Che slammed a teacup to the ground, shards scattering at Emma's feet. She merely crouched silently, carefully gathered the pieces, wrapped them in a cloth, and resumed dusting the bookshelf as if nothing had happened.
Su Che stormed out in a rage.
Emma wasn't entirely unaffected. In unseen corners, her fingertips would tremble slightly, her back drenched in cold sweat. But she understood better than anyone that here, showing even a hint of fear meant certain ruin. She had to be colder than stone, harder than ice.
She began to observe—not just Su Che, but every soul within the courtyard.
Su Che's sycophantic servant, Lai Fu, was greedy and cowardly; the matron seemed dissatisfied with the young master, whose extravagance often strained the household's finances; and several slightly attractive maidservants engaged in open and covert rivalries...
She gathered these details without revealing a trace of emotion, weaving an invisible web. She never sought out friendships, but when Lai Fu was punished by Su Che for botching a task, she "just happened" to pass by. She handed him a clean handkerchief to wipe the ink from his face, saying nothing. When the housekeeper fretted over the month's expenses, Emma "casually" mentioned that the jade hairpin the young master had gifted to an outside actress a few days prior seemed quite valuable.
Yet for her, the most valuable discovery came not from living souls, but from Su Che's disorganized bookshelf. One day, while tidying his chaotic shelves, Emma stumbled upon a torn yet carefully repaired primer. On the title page, the words "Su Che" were scrawled in crooked characters, their ink once blurred by water droplets, leaving traces of shame. Beside the book lay several essays covered in hasty, messy handwriting, crisscrossed with vermilion ink marks. The only annotation read: "A rotten log is hard to carve."
Emma's gaze lingered briefly on the starkly contrasting handwriting before she filed them away expressionlessly. Suddenly, she understood something. This spoiled eldest son might have once struggled painfully between others' expectations and his own mediocrity. Beneath all his arrogance and brutality now, perhaps lay a heart wrapped in despair and self-loathing.
She spoke sparingly, stopping at just the right moment. Yet her uncommonly mature composure and the occasional, precise "reminders" she offered began to stir complex feelings among the more observant courtyard dwellers toward this new, silent maid—a mix of apprehension and a faint sense that she might be someone to leverage.
Even Su Che couldn't explain why he felt so restless in her presence alone.
Staring at her placid, unruffled face, his gaze felt like ice water splashed on his heart, yet strangely ignited a burning sense of insulted shame. He was never short of women who fawned, cowered, or played hard to get. But he'd never encountered one like her—her gaze wasn't that of a servant toward her master, nor even that of a woman looking at a man. It resembled the expression of a clay statue of a judge in a temple, silently judging his soul. This left him feeling utterly flustered and a hint of panic that his secrets had been exposed.
He changed his approach, pushing a vibrant piece of fabric toward her with a tone laced with condescension and testing. "Follow this young master, and you'll be well rewarded."
Emma regarded the silk without a flicker of delight, merely bowing respectfully. "Thank you for your generosity, young master. But my lowly status makes such finery improper. It might invite gossip and trouble you. If you would not mind, might I have its value in silver instead? I hear the mistress has been scrutinizing the household accounts rather strictly lately."
Once again, she effortlessly saw through the trap hidden beneath his sugary words, deflecting it with a feather-light counter and even subtly reminding him of his own financial strain. Su Che stared at her lowered eyelids, feeling like a clown performing on stage, only to have the audience see through every trick in his bag. Frustration and the urge to conquer coiled around him like two venomous snakes, tightening their grip. A nameless rage flared within him, yet he could not vent it. All he could do was order her to "get out" with bitter hatred.
Emma withdrew calmly. She knew these favors were poison coated in honey—accepting them would mean tacitly accepting a certain identity, making escape nearly impossible. She had to remain absolutely "clean" and "useful" to carve out a sliver of breathing room for herself in this den of wolves... and perhaps a chance to change something.
She even began attempting "counseling," though in the most subtle manner. When Su Che grew irritable after being punished by his tutor for academic shortcomings, she would silently gather the scattered, torn pages after he hurled his books aside. Carefully smoothing them out, she would speak in a tone as flat as water—partly to herself, partly directed at him: " What a pity. This anthology bears the handwritten annotations of a late Confucian master—unobtainable in the marketplace. I recall that during the Jinghe era, Lord Wen'an, Ai Miao, once praised this work highly, saying it contained thoughts on securing the nation and stabilizing the state."
She mentioned the "Emperor Jinghe," the "Lord Wen'an," and the "thoughts for securing the nation and stabilizing the state," attempting to stir the corners of his soul where perhaps a shred of shame or ambition still lingered, using concepts far beyond Su Che's current mindset.
Su Che usually scoffed at her, calling her "pretentious," but occasionally, when alone, watching Emma's calm figure as she organized the books, observing her eyes that seemed to see through everything, a faint, almost imperceptible flicker of something unusual would pass through his heart—something he himself was reluctant to acknowledge. This girl was unlike any woman he had ever met. It wasn't like she was resisting; it was more like... looking down on him?
This thought irritated him, yet it also complicated his obsession with Emma. Beyond pure possessiveness, it stirred an indescribable, complex desire—to either utterly destroy her or completely conquer her.
Day after day, Emma struggled to maintain her precarious balance amidst this endless dance of probing, testing, and invisible confrontation. She walked a tightrope above an abyss, each step a heart-stopping gamble. She had no idea how long this equilibrium could last, or when Su Che's patience would finally snap.
All she could do was seize every moment—observing, learning, preparing. She sensed the sky over the Su residence growing increasingly oppressive, as if a greater storm were quietly brewing. Her only recourse was to steel herself before the tempest arrived and... protect the girl she had fought so hard to send away, now watching silently from afar.
In the dead of night, she would peer through the narrow window toward Su Wan's courtyard. Was it peaceful there? Had Gu Liang recovered from that fright?
She clenched the thin corner of her quilt, its icy touch keeping her alert. The road ahead stretched long and treacherous, a den of tigers she must traverse alone.