Chapter 44

Chapter 44: Call Me Whatever You Want

Gong Yun Chi stared at Shen Tang’s back. His lips trembled. “This… I’m sorry.”

The extermination of the Shen clan was tangled up with Madam Gong. There was no clean way to separate it.

They should’ve protected the last bloodline.

They hadn’t.

To a boy as straightforward as Gong Yun Chi, facing Shen Tang—this “Brother-in-law”—was like choking on guilt he couldn’t spit out.

Shen Tang turned around, eyes cold and steady. “What good is telling me you’re sorry?”

Her voice sharpened. “I know exactly who my enemy is. What does it help to take it out on you, another victim?”

Gong Yun Chi froze, then his eyes reddened at the corners like the emotion had nowhere else to go. “Thank you,” he whispered, close to breaking.

In two short months, his world had been ripped inside out. He’d gone from a proud young heir of an aristocratic clan to a chained prisoner, his entire family sent into exile.

Forget saving anyone—his own life had only been spared because an old friend pulled him out of the mud.

When he saw Shen Tang, he’d braced himself to be grabbed by the collar and beaten bloody.

Instead, he was spared the blame.

“The one who should die is Zheng Qiao,” Shen Tang said.

She paused, and the killing intent in her next words was unmistakable. “You don’t need to apologize.”

She hated crying. Especially pretty, young crying. It made her head ache like she was about to drown in someone else’s tears.

But that blunt sentence sliced through the gray fog that had settled in Gong Yun Chi’s heart. His dead, empty eyes stirred. Something sharp and living—hatred—sparked in his chest and spread into his limbs like heat returning to frozen fingers.

His hand tightened into a fist.

“Yes,” he said, voice shaking with new force. “You’re right… the one who should die is Zheng Qiao.”

Weng Zhi let out a slow breath, tension leaving his shoulders.

Gong Yun Chi had survived horrors. His Dan Palace stage was ruined. He’d marched in shackles for more than a month, watched relatives abused by escorting constables, watched people die of wounds, sickness, and hunger. He’d lived, but the will to live had been hanging by a thread.

Medicine could keep his body going.

Only his own mind could bring him back.

Shen Tang’s voice had just yanked him toward life.

Shen Tang swallowed the urge to say something snide. Fine. Brother-in-law, then. Call her whatever.

Her gender in this world was a coin in the air. Ordinary people called her little lady. People with literary heart and martial gall insisted she was a young lord. Everyone was convinced the other side had something wrong with their eyes.

Sir Gu had been quiet for a while, but now his gaze slid over Shen Tang again, measuring. “Forgive the blunt question. Zheng Qiao exterminated the Shen clan swiftly, without leaks. How did Young Master Shen escape?”

Shen Tang didn’t blink. “I wasn’t there. I survived by luck in the chaos.”

Sir Gu’s mouth twitched. “Oh?”

Shen Tang’s smile turned sharp and ugly. “What—Madam Gong’s fifth-rank grand officer can stay at large, but I’m not allowed to get lucky and keep my life?”

The sarcasm was blatant, and it landed like a punch to Gong Yun Chi’s ribs.

He hurried to cut in, voice urgent. “Sir Gu. Lord Shen’s family were loyal and righteous. They feared neither power nor death. They would never be what you suspect.”

Sir Gu’s expression darkened.

Gong Yun Chi clearly thought Sir Gu was questioning Young Master Shen’s courage—as if Shen Tang had fled at the first chance and abandoned everyone.

Shallow. That wasn’t it.

Sir Gu’s problem was simpler, and far stranger.

When the Shen clan was mentioned—extermination, blood debt, hundreds of lives—Shen Tang’s mind wasn’t full of grief or rage.

It was empty.

Too empty.

If Shen Tang were using word-spirit to block mind reading, that would be one thing. But Shen Tang hadn’t drawn on literary qi at all. Instead, it felt like deliberate blankness—like Shen Tang had bolted the mind shut from the inside.

That kind of caution didn’t come from nowhere.

Weng Zhi caught a different detail. “Madam Gong’s fifth-rank grand officer is still at large?”

Shen Tang nodded. “That’s what I heard. But it was a month ago. Who knows if he’s been caught by now.”

Gong Yun Chi’s eyes lit up like someone had handed him air after drowning. He grabbed Weng Zhi’s sleeve with sudden strength. “Fifth-rank grand officer… Weng Zhi, Sir Gu—that has to be my Second Uncle!”

A fifth-rank grand officer was only Ninth Grade in Martial Gall, but his Second Uncle was young, gifted, and famous early—exactly the kind of talent with room to grow.

If not for this disaster, his future might’ve reached Fourteenth Grade Chieftain of the Right Conscripts.

For the first time in days, hope flashed on his face.

Shen Tang didn’t have the heart to crush it.

“If there’s nothing else, I’ll take my leave,” she said.

Being in the same room as Sir Gu—breathing the same air, knowing her thoughts weren’t safe—made her skin crawl.

Gong Yun Chi struggled upright. “Brother-in-law—”

Shen Tang forced a smile that looked more like a threat. “The formal bows were never completed. She’s gone. Drop that title.”

Gong Yun Chi’s face went white. “But—”

“I am Shen Tang,” she said flatly. “Styled You Li. Call me whatever you want.”

Anything. Just not Brother-in-law.

Gong Yun Chi swallowed hard, then nodded. “All right. You Li.”

Shen Tang gave a perfunctory salute. “Farewell.”

“Wait.”

Gong Yun Chi pushed himself up, pain clear in the tightness of his jaw. He looked at her with stubborn sincerity. “If you ever need me in the future, I won’t refuse.”

He’d wanted to say more—wanted to tell her to come to him if she ran into trouble, because a young, pretty-faced wanderer would surely meet hardship in this world.

But he couldn’t ignore the truth: he was worse off than she was.

Even with a low-ranked literary heart, Shen Tang still had an intact Dan Palace stage. Shen Tang could survive.

He… was a wounded man living on borrowed help.

So he offered what he could: a promise.

Shen Tang’s steps paused. Her expression softened, just a fraction. “Fine. I’ll remember that.”

She left.

The moment the door shut behind her, Sir Gu spoke, voice calm and cutting. “Yun Chi. How much do you know about the Shen clan? How many people are in the clan leader’s main line?”

Gong Yun Chi eased back onto the couch with Weng Zhi’s help, breathing shallowly. “Why are you asking?”

Sir Gu lifted the stack of paintings—the same ones that had made grown men sweat and lose their minds—and handed them over. “Your Brother-in-law claimed these were drawn by his ‘brother.’”

His eyes narrowed. “So tell me. How many offspring does the Shen clan have?”

Gong Yun Chi took them without thinking and opened the first.

The impact was immediate.

Heat rushed into his face like he’d been slapped. His fingers jolted as if they’d touched flame, and he flung the painting away, staring at it like it was cursed.

For a second, all he could manage was a stunned, ghost-seeing look.