Chapter 3 - The Broken Phoenix
While the bailiffs stripped the mansion down to its bare structural beams, I walked directly into Dong Lani's private quarters in the East Wing.
"Get out of my room!" Lani shrieked, rushing in after me. "You have no right to search my personal belongings!"
"Your belongings?" I smiled faintly as Xiaoi marched past her, opening Lani's jewelry box and dumping its contents onto the wooden table.
Among the silver hairpins and pearl earrings lay the gleaming, crimson-tinted jade bracelet—the Red Phoenix. The heirloom my dying mother had placed on my wrist when I was eighteen years old.
I picked it up gently, wrapping it in a silk handkerchief, feeling the cool, familiar stone against my skin.
"That was a gift!" my daughter Mei yelled from the doorway, her small hands balled into fists. "I gave that to Teacher Dong! You can't take it back!"
I turned around slowly, looking down at my daughter. The softness I used to hold in my eyes for her had completely vanished, replaced by an icy, absolute clarity.
"Mei," I said, my voice dangerously soft. "This bracelet belonged to your grandmother. A woman who bled to build the fortune that fed you, clothed you, and bought the very shoes on your feet. You gave away her legacy to a stranger because you thought her jade made your tutor look 'cheap.'"
"Teacher Dong is special!" Mei cried, tears streaming down her red cheeks. "She plays with me! She doesn't force me to sit for hours practicing calligraphy like you do!"
"Then let Teacher Dong teach you what happens when you have no food on your table," I replied.
I turned to Dong Lani, who was sweating under the cold intensity of my gaze. "Where are the silk dresses you bought last month using the household ledger?"
"I... I wore them! They are my clothes!" Lani stammered, clutching her collar.
"Purchased under the Wei accounts," Xiaoi noted, pulling out a stack of unpaid receipts. "Totaling eight hundred silver taels. Master Qui signed the merchant drafts under the assumption that Lady Wei would cover them at the end of the quarter. Since Lady Wei has severed the accounts, the tailors and jewelers will be arriving at noon to collect the payment directly from you, Miss Dong."
Lani’s face turned white as sheet. "Eight hundred taels?! I don't have eight hundred taels!"
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"Then I suggest you sell the jewelry your lover gave you," I said coldly, tucking the Red Phoenix bracelet safely into my breast pocket. "Assuming, of course, that his gifts weren't bought on my credit as well."
I walked past them without another word, leaving Dong Lani trembling amidst her unmade bed and my children staring at the suddenly empty, echoing hallways of their home.
