Volume One, Chapter 29: Looking for Something—No Trouble at All-O Príncipe Herdeiro Quer Divorciar? A Senhora Decidiu Permanecer Viúva!(Não estou cansado.)

The night was thick and heavy, with only a few faint slivers of moonlight filtering through the thin paper of the window panes into the room.

The candle flame flickered restlessly, casting distorted, elongated shadows that danced before abruptly settling into stillness.

Just then, a pair of lean, powerful hands, defined by prominent knuckles and as unyielding as iron pincers, clamped firmly around her throat from behind.

Xie Shu’s eyes widened in terror. Instinctively, she tried to struggle, but the moment she moved, the person behind her tightened their grip, the pain so intense she nearly blacked out.

She dared not move again, fearing that the person behind her might be provoked enough to take her life. A familiar sense of suffocation washed over her like a tide, a bone-deep dread that made Xie Shu feel as though she had been thrust back to the moment of her strangulation in her past life.

"If you remain silent, I will let go. How about that?" Though the voice behind her carried a tone of negotiation, the pressure of his hands did not diminish in the slightest.

She felt as though she had heard this voice somewhere before.

But her mind was in such chaos that she could not think at all.

Xie Shu nodded with great effort, her throat producing only vague, muffled sounds.

The next second, she was finally able to draw a ragged breath.

After a moment, Xie Shu managed to steady her nerves.

Damp, black locks of hair clung to her temples, and droplets of water slid down her jade-white cheeks, falling into the wooden tub and creating tiny ripples.

The painful memory of suffocation ignited her deepest fear. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes, while her gaze burned with a hatred so intense it seemed capable of reducing the man before her to ashes.

"Dean Pei, are you here to kill me? To silence me?" Xie Shu lifted her eyes, her gaze piercing as she demanded an answer, her voice trembling yet resolute.

At this moment, the beauty was in tears, completely unclothed. Even the square cloth she had used to cover herself had slipped, resting just across her ample bosom, leaving her graceful form partially visible through the water.

Pei Xuanqing felt a slight tremor in his heart, thinking for the first time that perhaps he had gone too far. But he quickly regained his cold, indifferent expression. "My apologies. I was anxious, and my hand was a bit heavy."

Pei Xuanqing tore down the gauze curtain from behind the screen and threw it over the tub, obscuring the scene.

Seeing that Pei Xuanqing showed no signs of wanting to kill her, Xie Shu felt slightly more at ease, though anger and humiliation surged within her like a tide.

She pulled the gauze curtain over herself and wrapped it tightly around her body. As for her chastity—having lived two lifetimes, she had long since ceased to care.

Yet, it irked her that someone else had gained an advantage for nothing. She was not pleased.

"Not here to kill me? Then is Dean Pei wearing this night-traveler's garb to steal something from the Marquis’s estate?" Xie Shu’s eyes remained locked on the man before her, filled with vigilance and provocation, while her fingers searched carefully in the water; a bronze hairpin had fallen in earlier.

"Steal? I am merely returning an item to its owner." Being seen through did not seem to annoy Pei Xuanqing.

Xie Shu understood then; she had guessed correctly. "Then, has Dean Pei found his item?"

"No." Pei Xuanqing shook his head, his gaze inadvertently sweeping over the woman's cream-like skin. An strange sensation stirred in his heart, a flicker of awareness he himself had not noticed.

Pei Xuanqing continued, "The person I took away today is dead."

"Dead?" Xie Shu frowned, an ominous premonition rising in her heart. "And what does that have to do with me?"

Pei Xuanqing leaned down, resting his chest against the edge of the yellow pear-wood tub. Supporting his chin with one elbow, he dipped the fingers of his other hand into the water, swirling them in circles. He raised an eyebrow and asked, "What does it have to do with you?"

"This person died the moment he fell into my hands. Young Madam, where in this world could such a coincidence exist?" His words were laced with suspicion. Suddenly, his hand sank, and with lightning speed, he clamped down firmly on the wrist Xie Shu had been hiding beneath the water.

Her slender arm was yanked upward, a sharp, kingfisher-patterned bronze hairpin clutched in her palm.

As her grip loosened, the pin began to fall. But with her free hand, she scooped up a splash of water and simultaneously grabbed the hairpin, lunging at Pei Xuanqing with desperate ferocity.

*Drip.*

One, two drops of red fell into the water, sending ripples outward.

With a slight shift of his feet, he dodged to the side, his palm closing over her wrist, effectively blocking the silver hairpin just inches from his chest.

It had missed by a hair's breadth!

Xie Shu’s eyes were filled with disappointment, but she yanked her wrist back the next second, turned, and leaned against the other side of the tub, wrapped in the gauze.

She knew she might not be able to harm Pei Xuanqing. But if she didn't try, how would she know if she had a chance?

Besides, he wasn't here to kill her today, anyway.

"Young Madam is truly as ruthless as the rumors suggest." If Pei Xuanqing had felt a shred of pity for her earlier, he now felt a hint of admiration. A woman who could act with such resolve was truly unexpected.

Although the bronze hairpin hadn't pierced him, it had deeply grazed his palm. Though it was only a shallow cut, no one in this world had ever dared to wound him.

This Xie Shu was the first.

"Does the Young Madam feel she has lived long enough?" Pei Xuanqing pressed against his wound, tore a strip of cloth from his robe, held one end in his teeth, and haphazardly bandaged his hand.

Xie Shu looked at him with indifference. "If you wanted to kill me, you wouldn't have let go just now."

"I have twenty elite guards in my courtyard, yet you managed to break in. For a man who is merely the Dean of the Imperial Academy, you are certainly wasting your talents, Dean Pei." Xie Shu mocked him thinly. Upon reflection, she suspected this old fox had broken into her courtyard quite deliberately.

"Speak. What do you want with me?" The water in the tub had grown cold. Xie Shu did not wish to tangle with him any longer and asked directly.

Pei Xuanqing enjoyed dealing with clever people. Today, while Xie Shu was causing a scene at the Chengen Marquis’s estate, he had slipped in, only to search high and low for quite some time and find absolutely nothing.

The man was dead; that didn't matter.

But the item that man had hidden—he had to get it back.

"That man hid something in the Marquis’s estate. It was meant to be his life insurance, but unfortunately, he trusted the wrong person." Pei Xuanqing sneered. "But fools are always like that. I believe the Young Madam is a clever person."

Xie Shu’s mind was calculating. She recalled the events of her past life, knowing only that the man had eventually been captured by Pei Xuanqing, but she hadn't paid attention to the outcome then and thus didn't know the specifics.

Still, what exactly had the Pei family lost that was worth the Head of the Pei family himself coming to pay a midnight visit to the Chengen Marquis’s estate?

"Looking for something—that's easy enough. But Dean Pei, you already owe me a favor for today." Xie Shu brought it up; she could help, but she needed a return. "Every additional task naturally earns an additional favor."

"What do you want?" Seeing the sharp gleam in her eyes, Pei Xuanqing felt that the woman half-reclining in the water was more of a fox than he was.

"I want Ning Rongsheng expelled from the Imperial Academy," Xie Shu said firmly.

Pei Xuanqing laughed. She truly did hate the Chengen Marquis’s estate to the bone!