The Birth of a Villainess

With sure and soundless steps, Lin Xiaofei left the Western Courtyard with a soft smile on her face.

However, when she was far enough, the smile on her face was wiped off and a cold glint flashed from her eyes as she turned her head to look at the direction of the Western courtyard.

That's right. The next time they do something again. Lin Xiaofei will forget the fact that the Lin Family was a pawn she needed, to throw the entire Jing Capital into ruins and throw them along with everyone else.

It didn't matter if she will lose a pawn or two if they were proved to be useless to her.

"Young miss!" Bai Lu dashed to her, holding her skirt and being careful to not slip on the icy ground.

Her young miss disappeared from her room once Bai Lu and Su Tang arrived in the Courtyard where Lin Xiaofei lived. They even came to serve her before the sun rose but found their young miss wasn't anywhere.

They tiredly looked for Lin Xiaofei and finally found her walking near the pond between the Western and Eastern courtyard.

"What is it?" Lin Xiaofei calmly asked. The sharpness of her stare was gone as soon as Bai Lu arrived and called her name.

"Young miss! Where did you go? We've been looking for you." Bai Lu panted and bend her body to catch her breath.

Lin Xiaofei paused before striding, leaving a panting and tired Bai Lu on the steps, "Let's go back. My business here is done."

"Business? Is young miss doing business now? But what and where?" Bai Lu scratched her head after seeing that weird look her young miss was giving her before following behind her young miss who walked in front of her.

When they got back to their courtyard, Lin Xiaofei had Bai Lu and Su Tang boil some water for her to use when bathing. The winter season was almost done but the cold weather still bothered everyone.

Unlike the wealthy and noble, the poor and commoner would only be blessed with a small fire to survive the cold. Their clothes were also not that thick and didn't have the luxury to acquire fur coats to block the cold wind.

Lin Xiaofei remembered that she was the pitiful one who suffered more than the poor and commoners. Inside the dungeon with her limbs missing, her torn flesh was rotting, and her dirty and thin clothes that she wore for more than a month barely even protected her from the cold.

Every night, the time where it was the coldest, Lin Xiaofei thought that she would die from freezing, but she didn't.

She survived the cold but didn't survive the endless torture she had to undergo.

Opening her eyes and letting the picture of her past self vanish from her sight Lin Xiaofei clenched her fist tightly.

She swore that she will never suffer in that kind of torture again in this lifetime. However, she won't be too sure if others would survive for months as she had before when she makes them undergo the same torture.

"Young miss… The bath is ready."

…

After taking a bath and changing her clothes, Lin Xiaofei stepped out of the gates of the Lin residence with a veil covering the lower half of her face.

She made her maidservants wait for her in her courtyard and didn't take them with her. Having an entourage that announces to the world that she was a young noble lady from the Lin family would only hinder her plans.

Thus, she made them wait for her until she was done.

Lin Xiaofei walks to the market where loud merchants were trying to attract the passerby and other possible customers to buy their products

She stopped in front of a restaurant that didn't have a lot of customers and looked around before stepping inside.

The sweet and delicious smell of food immediately entered her nose. The restaurant she had visited was large but it wasn't popular among the nobles.

Contrary to the flashy interior of the restaurant, the customers who came to eat and stay were all wearing a commoner's clothing and slippers. With this kind of environment, no one from the higher-ranked families would try to approach it in fear of rumors being spread about them and catching the diseases of the poor.

However, Lin Xiaofei knew that once these nobles found out what was really inside the restaurant, they would regret it and wish they came to know the secret of the restaurant and rope them into their sides.

Once seated in of the tables on the second floor, a waiter who saw her rushed to her side with a bright smile, "Miss, what do you want to order?"

Lin Xiaofei took a glance at him and said, "Just bring any dish."

The waiter nodded his head and was about to leave when he was stopped by Lin Xiaofei.

"Where's the person in charge of this place?" The waiter raised his eyebrows to his hairline once the young woman seated in one of the chairs asked.

He looked her up and down, and was pleasantly pleased with what he saw. The bearing of the young woman in front of him was extremely rare and proved that she was a young lady from a noble birth but she wore a veil thus, the waiter was unable to see her features.

"The manager is upstairs. Does the miss have something for the manager?" The waiter answered since it wasn't new to all of the people who worked in that restaurant to be asked about the location of their manager.

Lin Xiaofei didn't answer his query and stood up before she said, "Take me there."