Devil Gambit - Chapter 55 : The Princess in the Ash

Jiang Xun was transmigrated as a cannon fodder. Her mother died when she was young, her stepmother schemes against her, and her father abandoned her in a village. But Jiang Xun didn’t panic, and she was a person who always won by virtue.

Thieves would say, “Stop hitting me, I’ll change careers!”

Thugs would say, “Stop hitting me, I’ll return the money!”

At the Jiang family banquet, guests were watching her every move, waiting for her to make a fool of herself. “I heard that she’s been living in the village for eleven years and has a country bumpkin-like feel to her. If I were the Jiang family, I wouldn’t risk her embarrassing me by letting her attend.”

Mr. Jiang said to her, “Stay behind your mother and don’t speak lest you embarrass yourself.”

Her stepmother nodded. “The Qin family’s patriarch, Qin Mufeng is noble, benevolent, and abstinent. Don’t even think about someone like him; he’s completely out of your league.”

Sure. She didn’t intend to marry into a rich family anyway. She just wanted to beat up the man in the rumors. But why was this man following her around all day every day?

Book I: Lost ThingsTristan Abrascal is a thief, one of many making their living under the perpetual twilight of the greatest city in all of Vesper. Quick wit and a contract with a capricious goddess have always kept him one step ahead, until one night he crosses a line by accident that burns all the bridges he had left. But not all is lost, as his mentor offers a way out of peril that turns out to be more than a simple escape.It is also an opportunity to get even with the infanzones, the nobles he’s lived under all his life, and it so happens that Tristan has a full ledger’s worth of scores to settle with them.Lady Angharad Tredegar has fled halfway across the world, leaving behind a ruin of a life: her family butchered by a ruthless enemy, their estate torched and their nobility revoked. Yet no matter how far she flees the blades of assassins follow, and she finds herself growing desperate for any protection. She has one relative left to call on, her estranged uncle, but she finds that the safety he offers comes at a cost.Angharad has sworn revenge, however, and her honour will allow for no compromise. She will do what she must to survive so that one day bloody vengeance can be visited upon her enemies.The paths of the two take them to the doorstep of the Watch, but for desperate souls like them enrolment is a lost cause. They will have to do it the hard way instead, by surviving the trials on the isle known as the Dominion of Lost Things.Where every year many go, and few return.Book II: Good TreasonsThe trials of the Dominion are over.The four survivors have become students of Scholomance, enrolling together as a cabal, yet even on those infamous grounds they soon learn none are beyond the reach of their pasts.Angharad Tredegar is returned to a semblance of the world she left behind, but finds her honor sorely tested by bargains offered - every bit as tempting as in the stories and even deadlier.Tristan Abrascal needs answers. Mysterious enemies keep trying to abduct him, his classroom does not exist and he’s now had several conversations with dead people. Worst of all, his carrots keep dying.Maryam Khaimov is going mad, which would worry her less if it were happening on schedule. More frightening yet is the possibility that she is not, and there truly is someone else going around wearing her face.Song Ren must forge the others into a functional unit, all the while fending off enemies on all sides: rival cabals, vengeful countrymen and the deluge of implacable foes her companions simply cannot seem to stop attracting.Failure is not an option, for Song must bring back honor to her family’s name whatever the cost: it is the only way to keep their disgrace from literally eating them all alive.And as the four chase shadows in Scholomance, in the distance looms the greater test awaiting them in the Asphodel Rectorate. Asphodel is a faded power, the rotten carcass of what it once was, but under that rot looms darker things - of which monsters might just be the least dangerous.Besides, is treason really such an evil when you have the best of reasons for it?

Tang Qiu was a substitute bride–forced to take her half-sister’s place and marry the young master of the Jiang family, a deformed cripple with less than 6 months left to live.

“Who would have thought that even a sickly whelp like Jiang Shaocheng would find himself a bride?”

“I hear that he’s practically on his deathbed and he’s only marrying the Fengs’ daughter to improve his lifespan.”

Tang Qiu ignored the whispers around her and focused on her husband-to-be, who coughed violently in his wheelchair. At the altar, after they had said their vows, she lifted her veil and knelt in front of Jiang Shaocheng, pressing a hesitant kiss to his lips.

The marriage contract was signed. No matter his physical deformities, he was now her husband.

She wasn’t afraid of the scars that marked his face, nor was she repulsed by him being confined to a wheelchair. Every morning, she made him breakfast, attended to his needs, and thought of little else beyond her duties as a wife.

“Young Master Jiang is a cripple who can’t get it up,” her best friend argued. “When he dies, you’ll still be untouched. You should set your sights higher.”

“A sickly invalid like Jiang Shaocheng can’t give you happiness,” her ex-boyfriend insisted. “I’ll wait for you.”

But Young Master Jiang only scoffed. “I have plenty of time left to be with her.”

Later in their marriage, Jiang Shaocheng wanted to enjoy his little wife in all ways–the press of her lips against his, the brush of skin on skin; the way a husband and wife were supposed to. But Tang Qiu refused him, blushing. “No, we can’t. The doctor says you can’t exert yourself.”

Jiang Shaocheng’s desire was surging through him, a heat in his core that demanded to be satiated. He cursed, I should have gotten rid of that doctor and the wheelchair long ago.

But he yearned to make love to his little wife, and so he revealed his true identity. In the blink of an eye, the deformed cripple transformed into a powerful businessman–tall, dark, and handsome. He quieted Tang Qiu’s protests, his body positioned over hers, his arms caging her as she lay on the bed. His voice was low when he asked, “What about now?”

Xu He had been his sister’s control group since he was a child. His elder sister was fair, juicy and good at giving birth. She was the heart of the Xu family, a flower in the village, and the talented people who wanted to marry her lined up from the village to the back of the mountain.

The little brother was only good at cooking, and he was busy from the stove to the field all day long, and no one paid attention to his disheveled face. People in the village talked after dinner, how the same parents had two very different children. With his sister as a comparison, it must be more difficult for He ge’er to marry. 

However, there were many young men looking for Xu He, but these people who got close to him were all to find out about his sister. Xu He had been used to it for many years, but recently, even Zhang Fangyuan, who was not doing business in the village, wanted to get something from him.

After inquiring, he tried to hide, but he was stuck on the way home, but the man said: “He ge’er, your cooking is delicious, and it will be even better if you are my fulang.”

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