Chapter 1: Elite Hunter Meets His Match

 

"Report—"

The word detonated through the great hall like thunder splitting silk.

"This year's top scholar hails from Zhuyue City, with Chaoyang City following closely behind. The third-place winner is from Xincao City."

Time crystallized. Gold-rimmed jade cups hung suspended in aristocratic hands, wine trembling at their lips. Dazzling dance skirts collapsed mid-twirl, their occupants frozen in postures of sudden gracelessness. The officials who had been trading jokes and political pleasantries across the dais transformed into statues of collective mortification, their gazes skating past one another like stones across ice.

Muxing City had failed again. The silence tasted of old shame.

The Grand Minister—a man whose political survival depended on transforming defeats into strategic retreats—finally spoke. "Our Muxing has long been in decline. Understandably, we couldn't outperform these great cities." He let the excuse breathe before administering the antidote. "But no matter. There will be opportunities next year. It's a festive occasion, so let's not dwell on trifles. Raise your cups!"

The hall exhaled. As if choreographed, the assembly erupted into aggressive revelry—laughter pitched too high, toasts clinking too loudly, as though volume alone could bury their inadequacy beneath layers of noise.

The Grand Minister turned his head, and his gaze snagged on the figure seated to the left of the great hall.

That man.

He tilted his head with the casual arrogance of someone who had never needed to earn attention, revealing features that belonged on temple paintings—fine brows, magnetic eyes that seemed to hold secrets and mockery in equal measure. The thin, pale yellow gauze robe he wore was an act of calculated indecency, clinging just enough to suggest what lay beneath. His eyes gleamed with amber light, predatory and warm.

He seemed utterly indifferent to "opportunities for next year," to Muxing's repeated humiliation, to anything beyond the immediate gratification of his senses. He sat with his legs folded in elegant repose, drinking with the single-minded focus of a man communing with pleasure itself. Tilting his head back, he let the last drops of wine trace a path down his throat, darkening half of his lotus-root silk collar with careless abandon.

Having drunk his fill, he dismissed the dancing girls who had been draped across him like ornamental scarves and began surveying the hall's entertainment with fresh hunger. His gaze moved across bejeweled skirts and painted faces with the practiced assessment of a connoisseur selecting fruit at market.

Young, vigorous, and shamelessly romantic—the type who treated life as an extended banquet laid out solely for his consumption.

The Grand Minister smiled and shook his head, withdrawing his gaze. Some appetites were beyond governance.

As the weight of that imposing attention lifted, Ji Bozai's shoulders dropped fractionally. He swept his eyes across the ladies performing before him, just about to gesture toward another when a wine cup came hurtling through the air like a golden comet.

He dodged with minimal effort, head tilting just enough. The cup sailed past, close enough that he felt its wind. His frown of irritation transformed into something else entirely as a bamboo-mist-colored silk skirt unfurled before him like a flower opening to moonlight, revealing slender, snow-white ankles that seemed to glow against the dark stone floor.

"Mercy, my lord."

The skirt settled as its owner dropped to her knees, her waist bending with the fluid grace of a willow in wind. Her voice cut through the hall's din—crisp as an oriole's first morning song, sweet enough to make men forget their own names.

Ji Bozai's eyebrows lifted in involuntary appreciation.

Now this was delightfully promising.

The skirt had fallen wide, revealing a figure that seemed designed to torment men's better judgment. Her goose-yellow waistband was cinched so tightly around her waist that it could barely be grasped in two hands—a deliberate cruelty that emphasized everything above and below. Her bosom was full enough to strain propriety, yet her shoulders remained slender and delicate as spring branches. Her double-looped bun was sleek as lacquered midnight, her nose tip as white as powdered jade. That small, delicate mouth quivered as she poured out apologies in a voice like honeyed wine.

Standing before her, looming like a mountain of righteous fury, was Left Minister of Revenue Qian Li. His natural rotundness had been amplified by rage until his entire face had scrunched into something resembling an angry dumpling.

"Go pick it up for me right now!" His bellow rattled nearby wine cups.

"Yes, please calm your anger, my lord."

She stumbled to her feet with convincing distress and tottered in Ji Bozai's direction, her steps small and quick.

The golden cup had struck the stone pillar behind him before clattering to rest beside his foot—a convenient geographical coincidence that Ji Bozai intended to exploit fully.

He watched her approach with the lazy interest of a cat observing a particularly entertaining mouse, hoping to snare her gaze. But the young lady kept her eyes downcast with what seemed like genuine terror, her lashes casting shadows on her cheeks. She merely muttered, "Excuse me," before bending low to retrieve the wayward cup.

He clicked his tongue—a soft sound of disapproval and intrigue—and placed his foot deliberately on the cup's rim.

The young lady froze. Then, slowly, she looked up at him with what appeared to be trepidation, though something sharper flickered in those misty black eyes before they went soft and helpless. "My lord?"

Her voice was a weapon she wielded without seeming to know its power.

Ji Bozai smiled, the expression all charm and dangerous intent. "Keep me company for a drink, and I'll give it to you."

Panic flooded her eyes with admirable speed. "But… I… Minister Qian summoned me to his side first…"

"He won't take you away. He has a terrifyingly fierce wife at home. Forget about concubines, he doesn't even have a single maid in his back courtyard." He reached out and gently pinched her chin between his fingers, his mood brightening considerably at the contact. "I, on the other hand, might just take you back to my residence."

Before the young lady could react—or perform whatever calculated response she was preparing—the man drinking beside them suddenly choked, wine spraying from his lips in an ungraceful arc.

"You said the same thing to the last dancing girl," Yan Xiao sputtered, wiping his mouth while his eyes danced with malicious amusement. "Can't you come up with something new?"

Ji Bozai cast him a sidelong glance sharp enough to draw blood and snorted. "Mind your drink."

"Young lady, don't be fooled by his handsome face and believe his nonsense," Yan Xiao turned to her with exaggerated solemnity, playing the concerned elder brother. "This man's home is as bare as can be, yet he's dallied with countless flowers of spring. If you truly wish to follow someone home, you'd be better off with me. At least I keep my word."

The young lady turned to look at him, and Ji Bozai watched her gaze drop deliberately to the official insignia embroidered on Yan Xiao's sleeve. Her entire posture shifted—spine straightening, chin lifting just slightly. When she spoke, her voice had lost its tremulous quality.

"My lord, my name is Ming Yi. Ming as in 'bright moon,' and Yi as in 'sweetheart.'"

Ji Bozai: "…"

She had changed allegiances faster than a sail turning to catch new wind. The shamelessness was almost admirable.

Yan Xiao clapped his hands in delight. "Bright Moon Sweetheart, what a lovely name! Come over here."

She rose with visible happiness, then glanced at Ji Bozai. Her eyes attempted to convey apology, a desire to please, and—most insulting of all—a hint of regret, as though she were a discriminating buyer who had discovered a hairline crack in an otherwise perfect vase and was now forced to abandon the purchase.

That hint of regret, while not deeply wounding, was spectacularly offensive.

"Explain yourself clearly," Ji Bozai said, his voice sliding between amusement and genuine irritation as he caught her wrist and pulled her close enough to smell the jasmine in her hair. "What's wrong with me?"

Ming Yi's eyes widened with theatrical shock as she shook her head frantically. "How could a lowly servant like me dare to say anything is wrong with my lord, who sits in such an esteemed position?"

"Then why do you want to go with him?"

She fidgeted with her fingers, a gesture of nervous deliberation that he suspected was as calculated as everything else about her. Her smile was apologetic but firm. "My lord, you are… good, of course, but you don't yet hold an official position. This lord is different. His insignia indicates he's at least a third-rank official."

High-ranking officials were excellent prospects, after all. Large mansions with heated floors, hefty monthly stipends that could be skimmed, proximity to power. If she could secure such a position, she could live in comfort while the household's legitimate members squabbled over inheritance rights.

Ming Yi's eyes brightened at the mercenary calculation, practically glowing with entrepreneurial spirit.

Yan Xiao stared at her for a heartbeat before erupting into genuine laughter. "Haha! Good, good! This girl is amusing and quite perceptive!"

Ji Bozai's face darkened like storm clouds gathering over mountains. He waved Yan Xiao away with an imperious gesture and pulled Ming Yi onto his lap—a power move that left no room for negotiation. Snatching a piece of jade from the table, he pressed it into her palm with deliberate force. "Here's a reward for you."

Ming Yi looked down at the coolness in her hand and gasped, her small mouth forming a perfect circle of surprise that might have been genuine. "This is top-grade mutton-fat jade. It's so precious!"

Ji Bozai affected nonchalance, though satisfaction bled through his casual tone. "It was just awarded by the Grand Minister. I'm the only one among the Three Departments and Six Ministries to receive one."

"Wow." She blinked, and for a moment he saw the calculations racing behind those deceptively innocent eyes. "Then my lord must be truly remarkable."

"It's nothing special, just slightly better than this third-rank official next to me." He raised an eyebrow, throwing down the gauntlet. "I'll give you one more chance. Who do you choose?"

Ming Yi caressed the jade in her arms like a lover, her fingers tracing its smooth surface. Her eyes moved rapidly between the jade and Yan Xiao's face, weighing competing currencies. "Well, if I choose him, will my lord take back the jade?"

"Yes." Ji Bozai nodded without hesitation, curious to see what price would tip her scales.

To his astonishment, even knowing the cost, the little mercenary stroked the mutton-fat jade with visible reluctance before extending it back toward him like a child surrendering a beloved toy.

"What he said makes sense. Someone of my lord's stature surely wouldn't bring someone back to his residence. I fear it would be an empty joy, so I'd rather seek peace of mind." Ming Yi pointed at Yan Xiao with the decisive gesture of someone closing a business transaction. "I wish to go with this lord. Please grant me this, my lord."

"…"

In his twenty-some years of life—years filled with women who had thrown themselves at him, begged for his attention, competed for his favor—Ji Bozai had never experienced such concentrated, calculated rejection.

He smiled, though the expression held no warmth whatsoever. His thumb brushed across her lips—a gesture that could have been tender but felt more like a threat. "I can't grant that. Among all the dancing girls in the hall tonight, you're the only one I fancy."

Yan Xiao raised an eyebrow, unable to resist. "You also said that earlier…"

"Shut up."

"Oh."

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