Although Zhao Dieyi sympathized with Su Qinghan's plight, she dared not provoke Jiang Lan. Powerless to help, she took her leave with her grandfather.
The banquet ended. Su Qinghan had finally endured it, and she breathed a long sigh of relief.
All she wanted now was to go home and bathe, to scrub herself clean from head to toe.
If she could, she would have chopped off Jiang Lan's hand. Never in her entire life had she suffered such humiliation and violation.
However, just as she was about to leave the villa with Su Changkong and the others...
Jiang Lan's leisurely voice, tinged with a smile, suddenly rang out from behind her, causing Su Qinghan to stop in her tracks.
"The moon is lovely tonight. I wonder, Miss Qinghan, if you might have time to admire it with me?"
Su Qinghan's mind went blank. A pallor spread across her exquisitely beautiful, flawless face.
She had thought that if she yielded and submitted during the banquet, Jiang Lan would let her go.
But upon hearing his words, she suddenly realized how laughably naive she had been...
Scheming against Lin Fan while simultaneously threatening and coercing her; the two things weren't in conflict at all.
The color drained further from Su Qinghan's face. Her hands clenched into tight fists, and her entire body trembled.
A look of grim resolve—the willingness to die—flickered in her cold eyes.
She would rather die than be defiled. All that had happened today was the absolute limit of her compromise...
Although Su Qingyao wasn't the sharpest, she could vaguely guess what Jiang Lan's words implied. 'A man and a woman, alone in the middle of the night, admiring the moon?'
Her little face instantly turned ashen. She looked at her sister, her eyes filled with worry and fear, and her small hand gripped her sleeve, terrified she might agree.
"Sister..." She shook her head frantically, like a pellet drum.
"Qinghan..."
Su Changkong's expression turned incredibly grim. His fists were clenched so tightly that the veins on them stood out.
He had seen how Jiang Lan had taken liberties with Su Qinghan during the banquet.
As her father, he was naturally furious. But the Su Family was weak; before a behemoth like the Prime Minister's Mansion, they were less than ants.
At first, he had indeed hoped to forge an alliance with a more powerful family. But after seeing how casually Jiang Lan treated his daughter, as if she were a mere plaything, he had a sudden realization: that alliance was nothing but his own wishful thinking.
In their eyes, even if a sparrow perched on a high branch, it would always remain a sparrow. A plaything. It could never become a Phoenix.
No matter how cowardly or weak he, Su Changkong, was, he could not bring himself to push his own daughter into a fiery pit.
He looked at Su Qinghan and spoke with uncharacteristic firmness.
"Qinghan, you don't have to force yourself. The Su Family may be weak, but we won't be pushed around by just anyone..."
"Father, take Qingyao home. I'll be back soon."
But before he could finish, Su Qinghan cut him off.
She shook her head gently, her expression becoming utterly calm in her cold, star-like eyes.
Su Changkong froze, not understanding what she meant.
But Su Qinghan didn't seem to intend to explain. She gently pried her sister's hand from her sleeve, then turned and walked toward the garden pavilion.
Fresh wine had already been set out there.
Jiang Lan stood by the pavilion's railing. His white robes fluttered around his tall, slender frame as he wiped his hands with a clean Silk cloth.
Moonlight spilled down like a dusting of fine snow. Mist rose from the edge of a nearby pond, shrouding the area in a hazy veil and lending him an almost ethereal, otherworldly air.
"The moon is indeed beautiful tonight."
Su Qinghan's cool voice sounded from behind him, remarkably calm. It held none of the anger, resentment, or humiliation he might have expected.
Jiang Lan seemed slightly surprised. He turned and smiled. "I thought you wouldn't come."
"When Young Master Jiang extends an invitation, how could I dare refuse?" Su Qinghan replied coolly.
Her gaze fell on the Silk cloth in Jiang Lan's hand.
'He's wiping his hands again. If he finds touching me so disgusting, then why does he insist on doing it?'
Jiang Lan gave a nonchalant smile and went back to admiring the moon.
Su Qinghan watched him, a little surprised. Then she, too, tilted her head back to gaze at the bright moon suspended in the vast, deep sky.
The night breeze stirred, lifting a few strands of dark hair from her forehead. She, too, seemed to grow lost in thought.
"Miss Su, please sit."
After what seemed like both an eternity and a fleeting moment, Jiang Lan's voice broke through Su Qinghan's thoughts.
She was surprised. Jiang Lan had dropped his previous frivolous tone; calling her "Miss Su" sounded almost respectful...
Su Qinghan obediently sat down and watched as Jiang Lan personally filled the cup before her.
Anyone else might have felt overwhelmingly flattered, but she remained unnaturally calm, trying to discern Jiang Lan's true intentions.
She even began to suspect. 'Is he poisoning the wine, just like he threatened he would earlier today?'
"Relax, it's not poisoned." Jiang Lan sighed, looking as if he knew exactly what she was thinking and it was giving him a headache.
'If I want to win this heroine over, force alone won't be enough.'
'I have no doubt that with her personality, she'd take her own life before I could even make a move.'
'At this stage, could I really expect her to hold back for her family's sake? She may be the heroine, but she's no Saint.'
"I don't believe you."
Su Qinghan felt she already had a firm grasp of Jiang Lan's shamelessness, so she didn't believe a word he said.
'Right now, I can still choose to end my own life. If I'm poisoned and fall unconscious, won't I be completely at his mercy? He'd said as much himself earlier today.'
"If you don't want to drink, then don't. It's truly saddening to have one's good intentions so misunderstood." Jiang Lan shook his head and began to pour and drink for himself.
Su Qinghan scoffed internally. She didn't believe his bullshit for a second.
'Men's mouths are full of lies.'
'Especially a man like Jiang Lan—handsome, with nothing but a pretty face, and born with an Innate advantage.'
In the pavilion, Su Qinghan sat quietly, as elegant and otherworldly as a flower reflected on the water's surface.
Jiang Lan paid her no further mind, simply drinking cup after cup. Eventually, even Su Qinghan began to have her doubts. 'Did he really just ask me here to admire the moon with him?'
'He hadn't acted like this at all during the banquet, not in front of all those people.'
'And yet now, when they were alone together in the dead of night, he was acting like a perfect gentleman, a regular Saint.'
"Are you wondering, Miss Su, why I haven't made a move on you yet?"
Just as Su Qinghan was puzzling over this, Jiang Lan's voice, leisurely and tinged with amusement, suddenly broke the silence.
"Yes." Although she was vexed by his bluntness, she still gave a slight nod.
"Naturally, it's to keep you on edge. To make you curious about me, so that I can capture your heart, step by step..."
Jiang Lan smiled, his tone utterly sincere.
Su Qinghan froze. When she processed his words, her lips parted and she breathed a single word: "Shameless."
'Of course, she didn't believe him. He was clearly toying with her. Does he really take me for some brainless, ordinary woman?'