A Good-for-Nothing

2. The Plan of His Stepmother

Translator: DragonRider

The flight took off on time. Shortly after that, the plane encountered some minor turbulence and jolted pretty hard. He Zheng felt a pain in the ear and involuntarily opened his eyes.

All passengers around him were soundly asleep. That man who had swapped seats with him, in particular, was sleeping with his head tilted to the side and his scalp against the wall of the cabin, which He Zheng found was a very uncomfortable sight.

He Zheng slightly moved aside to avoid potential physical contact with that man.

It was as he turned sideways that he noticed that the man who had originally sat in the seat on his other side was gone.

He Zheng curled his lip and ignored it, lowering his head to look down at the lacquered wooden casket in his arms.

The casket was very pretty. It was hard to tell exactly what kind of wood it was made of, but the sides of it were covered with sculpted reliefs, which presented a large bird with clouds and fog coiling around it. The patterns were uncommonly exquisite. Such was the craftsmanship of the casket that people could tell a mile off that it was of extravagantly high value.

He Zheng gave the casket an affectionate stroke with his fingers.

The patterns on the surface of the casket — the wings of the bird, to be precise — seemed to be quivering in response to the movement of his fingers. Since He Zheng was from a long line of exorcists after all, he didn’t take fright at this kind of rare occurrence but squinted his eyes staring at the raised pattern.

The pattern fell into stillness, as if it had been lifeless all along.

He Zheng knitted his eyebrows. Though from a family of exorcists, he was merely a trifle more daring than common people. Since he had no exorcist skills of any kind, after seeing that the pattern was still as usual, he consoled himself that he must be hallucinating.

However, when he raised his head, he found that something was wrong —

All those passengers who had been sitting around him were gone, and He Zheng was now standing at the doorway of a room.

The door was unlocked and there was a narrow gap between the door and the door frame.

An unpleasant female voice came from inside the room.

“…Master, please stop dithering. Is it really that big a deal to have him make some minor sacrifice for Master? Everybody knows that Li Zong is… ” The voice paused fleetingly and then continued, “As chance would have it, He Zheng is also a… Maybe they’ll grow fond of each other, which will make Li family and He family actual affine.”

After a while’s silence in the study, He Zheng heard his father’s voice. “How would people think of me if I let my own son marry into another family? The reputation of He family still means something to me!”

The female voice instantly got excited. “Get your mind out of confusion, will you? Wasn’t what He Zheng did on your birthday a couple of days ago humiliating enough? Everybody’s been laughing at us ever since. This is a golden opportunity for us. Just marry He Zheng to Li Zong. Li Zong is far more suitable a match for He Zheng than the man he gave love confession to at any rate, is he not?”

“Well…”

The one who was speaking was none other than He Zheng’s father, and the one he was talking with was Qiao Peiyu, He Zheng’s stepmother.

He Zheng sneered. No wonder his father had been so insistent that he marry Li Zong. It turned out that that woman had given his father pillow talk. What angered He Zheng even further was that his stepmother had deliberately chosen Li Zong, whose name had always been what he hated to hear the most.

“Master –Master –” Qiao Peiyu affectedly burst into tears. “Master, I know that He Zheng is the son of your first wife, that he’s her only son, which is why you don’t have the heart to let him marry into another family. But your injury is too serious and you really need that half of a dragon scale owned by Li family. Were there any other option — any option at all — I wouldn’t hesitate for a single moment to give my consent even if you want Yu’er to marry into Li family.”

She sobbed, “But Li Zong deems our Yu’er unworthy of him because of her gender. He is very handsome, and He Zheng likes men anyway. I don’t see where the harm is in marrying him to Li Zong.”

The room fell silent again. He Zheng knew that clearly his father wavered in his determination.

Anger instantly welled up inside He Zheng. He raised his foot and was just about to kick the door open and rebuke his stepmother when the door was abruptly opened and Qiao Peiyu showed up. Startled, He Zheng yelled in his mind, ‘Shit! She’s going to see me!’