Xi Yan jabbed a finger as slender as a spring onion hard against his forehead. "Hu Xiaotian, don't spurn the courtesy I'm showing you. If you refuse the wine of goodwill and insist on drinking the wine of punishment, one word from me will have these birds skinning you alive. And that precious princess of yours, heh heh..." She laughed, her smile unspeakably sinister and vicious. Yet with her peerless beauty, no expression, however malicious, could make her repulsive.
"What about her?" Hu Xiaotian asked. It seemed she had already investigated Princess Anping's identity thoroughly.
An icy, murderous aura settled over Xi Yan's flawless, lovely face. "If you refuse, I'll slaughter every last person in your party."
Hu Xiaotian drew in a cold breath. This enchantress was capable of carrying out her threats. If he truly enraged her, she might well do exactly that. "Why take out something between us on other people?" he asked.
"No one can change my mind once I've decided something," Xi Yan said. "Hu Xiaotian, everyone saw you slice apart the embroidered ball I threw. If you refuse to marry me, how am I supposed to face anyone? You have only two choices: marry me or die."
Hu Xiaotian truly did not know whether to laugh or cry. In all his years, even counting both his lifetimes, he had never encountered a girl like this-one who actually tried to force a eunuch into marriage. "Girl, we do know each other, after all," he said. "With those looks of yours, even if you aren't exquisitely lovely beyond compare, you're certainly seductive to the bone. Any man who marries you must have earned that blessing in his previous life."
Xi Yan found his words somewhat grating, but they were compliments, at least, so she accepted them with