Xiu Niang looked at the reflection of her face in the mirror. It may be that too much powder had made her a little pale, so she carefully scooped a bit of lip coloring and applied it evenly on her cheeks.

"'Chang Geng' is the childhood name I gave to you," Xiu Niang said. "The people of the Central Plains have a saying: 'Qi Ming in the east, Chang Geng in the west.'* It raised at dusk, the warden of carnage, ominous. Flowing in your body is the world's noblest yet filthiest blood. Born to be a disastrous monster, there is no other name more fitting than this."

*东有启明，西有长庚; Dōng yǒu qǐmíng, xī yǒu chánggēng; Chang Geng(长庚; lit. Excellent West One; English name is Lucifer) is how people of ancient China refer to the planet Venus when it raised at dusk(evening Venus), an unlucky star.

Qiming (启明; lit Opener of Brightness) refers to the morning Venus.

Chang Geng replied coldly: "Was I not the result of when you wandered to the western mountains and got captured by bandits? Even all ten fingers cannot count the number of my 'fathers' - the son of a prostitute and a bandit, what is this nobility you spoke of?"

Xiu Niang was stunned for a brief moment. She did not look back.

A hint of pain flashed across her expressive eyes.

However, it quickly subsided, and her gaze fell into calmness.

Chang Geng's earliest memory was inside the mountain hideout of bandits. Xiu Niang always locked him inside a cabinet that reeked of the musty scent of old wood.

Through the small cracks of the rotten wood, a young and tiny Chang Geng could see those drunken mountain bandits barging in.

Those cruel and savage men either beat her, or ravished her, right in front of little Chang Geng's eyes.

In the beginning, the bandits were very strict with guarding Xiu Niang. Slowly, seeing that she was weak and fragile and did not know how to resist or defend herself, they became more relaxed with her. Later, they even let her out and made her serve them the same as the other old servants in their camp. Xiu Niang had poisoned all the wells and the hundreds of altar of wines; even God did not know how she had his much poison on her.

She used a small bowl to fetch some of the poisonous well water for Chang Geng to drink. However, after he actually swallowed it down, she seemed to regret it and desperately dug at his throat to make him vomit it back out.

Xiu Niang put the half-dead Chang Geng into a bamboo basket and carried him on her back, a steel knife in her hand. If they came across someone who was not yet dead, she would move forward to stab them.