Grand View Garden.
From the viewing pavilion across the lake came the sharp crack of shattering porcelain.
"Who are those people? Didn't they say no boat would take Xie Guan across the lake?"
The curse was hoarse and grating, like a dull knife scraping across bluestone.
A teacup smashed fiercely into a corridor pillar, and the flying shards sent the attendants stumbling back again and again.
The culprit was a young man thin as firewood, yet draped in splendid embroidered robes.
Five or six fragrant sachets hanging from his waist had tugged his jade belt crooked, while his crown and jade hairpin sat every which way. His long, narrow donkey face was caked thickly with lead powder, but it could not conceal the sickly hollows in his cheeks—he looked exactly like a skeleton wrapped in silk and satin.
This man was Zhao Yang.
The Zhao Clan's Fourth Young Master, and Xie Renfeng's cousin.
Compared to several months ago, his complexion had grown ever paler and more haggard. A crazed gleam flickered in his eyes, as though he were afflicted by some grave illness from which he could not free himself.
When he learned that his cousin Xie Renfeng had been beaten half to death by Xie Guan, not only did he feel no pity, he had coldly cursed, "Useless trash!"
Today, having gained Madam Zhao's tacit consent, and already holding old grudges against Xie Guan, he had decided to end that bastard son's life in Grand View Garden.
"What need is there for some meticulous scheme?" Zhao Yang gnawed his nails nervously. "Kill him with one stroke while he crosses the lake, then sink the corpse into the heart of it..."
Thinking of the distinguished guests in Grand Vista Courtyard drinking and making merry at this very moment, a vicious