“Men? Of course, I do! How many men do you need?”

He paused a moment before saying, “Is fifty enough to serve your requirement?”

Ye Qingli stared at him, utterly surprised.

Heavens, that’s rather drastic! Although it really is his style, I suppose.

“No, I’ll just need five. But all five of these men must come from honest backgrounds with no criminal records. They must also be young and loyal only to me!”

She looked at Jun Aohan frostily. “But remember: you’re never to use them as agents to further your purposes on me! I have tens of thousands of ways to kill them if I ever find them spying on me for you!”

But Jun Aohan hardly heard a word of that. Finding men with clean backgrounds was just as easy as finding snowflakes in a blizzard. He could easily pluck more than a handful from his own legion now garrisoned at the North-west. Many of them were trained since they were recruited as orphans with straight and unwavering minds dictated only by loyalty and absolute compliance to orders.

“Don’t you worry about that,” he said to her, “I’ll have the five men ready tomorrow!”

Then he remembered something he had always been meaning to ask her.

“Wait. I don’t know your last name?”

They’ve met each other more than a handful of times, but he never did ask her her name before she fled.

He must find out her name this time!

“Urm...”

In truth, Ye Qingli’s identity was not much of a secret. Yet somehow, she did not want him to know. She felt rather awkward instead.

Even in the hustle and bustle of a city as vast as the capital, to find someone who had not heard of her name was just as rare as a hen's tooth.

The streets never stopped reverberating with gossip about the daughter of the Ye Family who has been promised a haunted estate and everyone knew how much of a bully she always was and hardly anyone would dare to cross her.

It would not be hard for him to find out about her if he so much as heard her name.

Ye Qingli had always believed herself to have no relationship or whatsoever with Jun Aohan. But somehow, in the deepest crevices of her mind, was the impulse to keep her betrothal a secret.

No matter what, I have made up my mind to abscond from the marriage. I’ll have nothing to do with that accursed betrothal at all!

She would rather escape than go on with the marriage and she would speak nothing of it ever again.

I’d no longer be known as a daughter of the Ye Family anymore for all I care!

Hastily, Ye Qingli said with as much composure as she could muster, “Song. My name is Song Yunshang.” She had flippantly mentioned the name she saw on that badge!

“Song Yunshang…” Jun Aohan murmured softly, “Hmm… It’s a nice name.”

Meekly, Ye Qingli squeaked, “You can also call me by my pet name. My mother used to call me Little Leaf.”

It was partly true; her mother did really call her such during her former lifetime.

But she did not like using a name she had never grown attached to before. At least by using “Little Leaf”, she felt more comfortable.

However, Jun Aohan’s eyes flashed with delight. He could still remember what Lu Xuanji told him: if a woman tells you her name, then you’re not merely acquaintances. But if a woman tells you her pet name, then you’re no normal friends!

Ye Qingli never realized what went on in the complex mind of Jun Aohan. But she did not fail to miss the devilish grin now forming on his face.

In fact, she found herself charmed and fascinated by his eyes as if she was sinking into a rabbit hole of his enchantment.

He just looks so stern and yet handsome when he’s busy thinking!

She had lost count of the times she had stared at him. Perhaps she knew even the number of hairs he has.

Ganjz, thebrokenpen's Thoughts

Scribbles of TheBrokenPen:

• Found a phrase （鬼王府）here that refers to the glossary “Demon King Palace” once used by the previous Translator. But so far, the instances of context I found seem to point towards “a haunted estate once belonging to a prince/lord” rather than the name of an abode belonging to a monster.