Once A Servant

"We were going to be outlaws running from Sun Haowei's wrath! There was no guarantee if our plan would even succeed. The less people knew about it the better. If you didn't know anything, you'd be safe." 

"And after we were gone, someone needed to look after Bi Yu." Tai Cheng added, with an awkward shrug. "We couldn't trust anyone else. It was just…the right thing to do."

Yue Niang glared at her husband. He should have just kept his mouth shut! Did he not realise what it sounded like? 

"So you left me behind. And used me." Lady Yu said morosely. Her posture, normally perfect, had collapsed under the realisation, her shoulders folding forward like a paper crane drenched in water. 

She felt terrible. All the anger she held leached out of her, leaving behind an uncomfortable grief, and what made it worse was that she actually understood why they did what they did.