Chapter 3

“Nanny Li told me you agreed to it this morning. Are you trying to back out now?”

“Agreed to what? What did I agree to?”

“Playing dumb won’t work! Starting tomorrow, you are coming with me to evaluate those young masters and young lords. How old are you now? When I was your age, Wenmu could already run and climb trees! Aren’t you anxious?”

My earlobe hurt too much. Auntie’s grip strength had really increased over the years.

I had no choice but to nod in agreement. “Anxious, anxious, I’m anxious.”

Only then did she release her hand and drag me back. Just as we turned a corner, an earth-shattering roar of laughter erupted from the training grounds.

Liu Min, me, the Great Jing’s only female general, lost all face today.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

The very next day, I met the young master who was highly praised by Auntie and the Nanny.

Dressed in a romantic moon-white robe and holding a folding fan, looking endlessly suave, he saw me and gave a slight shake of his head. “How old are you, Miss?”

“Personally, I believe it is best for a woman to be gentle and virtuous.”

“What are your future plans, Miss? If you remain in the military camp mingling with those brutes after marriage, it truly wouldn’t be proper. It would be better to stay home to serve your husband and raise your children.”

With every sentence he spoke, I wanted to sigh more. Using just my thumb, I snapped a chopstick in half single-handedly.

The opposite side fell completely silent.

That matchmaking session fell through.

Following that, a mountain of blind dates piled up on me. As long as I returned to the Ji Manor, Aunt Ji would inevitably catch me.

I finally managed to get a moment of free time and slipped away from under her nose. Before I could even catch my breath, I saw Ji Wenmu tossing pebbles into the pond. Wherever a fish swam, he threw a rock at it, hitting the spot every time.

He was clearly absent-minded. I sneaked up behind him and punched him in the back, startling him so badly that all the pebbles in his hand plopped into the pond.

His chain of reactions startled me as well.

“What the…”

Before I could finish, his expression drastically changed.

He stepped back, but right behind him was the pond. His foot slipped, and he tilted backward toward the water.

I instinctively reached out to grab him. Just as I was about to catch him, he suddenly twisted his body, dodged my hand, and crashed into the pond with a massive splash.

The fish were frightened and scrambled to scatter.

I wiped the splashed water off my face and watched Ji Wenmu thrash around a couple of times before standing up in the water. I put my hands on my hips and stared at him for a while, completely failing to understand why he was so repulsed by me that he would rather fall into the pond than let me grab him.

“What, is little General Ji finding the weather too hot and wanting to cool off? You should’ve said so earlier. If you had, I would’ve stood further away when you jumped in.”

Rarely did he not talk back. Instead, he avoided my gaze and waded to the shore to climb out.

“Haven’t seen you for a few days, did someone saw off your mouth?”

He remained silent. A silence so profound it made my heart panic a bit. I walked over and crouched beside him, leveling my line of sight with his. He glared at me, then as if suddenly remembering something, shifted his gaze away.

“You’re not still mad at me, are you? It was just one kick, and you were the one who ran your mouth first.”

He snorted, then asked me, “Aren’t you going to see whatever young master or young lord today?”

“You knew I was suffering and you didn’t even come to save me?”

I hadn’t seen him for days. The military camp was quite large, and we basically never ran into each other. I thought he didn’t even know I had been captured by Aunt Ji, but it turned out he had deliberately left me to die.

“What could possibly happen to you…” he muttered softly, starting to wring the water out of his robes.

My ears were sharp, and I heard him clearly. My eyes couldn’t help but dim a little. I was just about to say something when I suddenly caught sight of a faint mark on his neck, which looked exactly like a set of teeth marks.

Several fragmented memories abruptly flashed in my mind. Although they weren’t entirely clear, I vaguely felt that those teeth marks had something to do with me. My heart went cold, and my entire body froze in place.