Chapter 2
Edward Quan ·
“Your underlying health is sound. This came from an external substance. Half a year of quiet care should restore you completely. It won't affect the rest of your life.”
At last, my suspended heart settled.
Fortunately, I still had the chance to begin again. That vile pair and my cruel mother-in-law hadn't destroyed my whole life.
After seeing him out, I composed myself and went to the old madam's courtyard.
Before I entered, laughter reached me.
Warm, harmonious, full of family happiness.
“Suisui grows naughtier every day. Don't run off again. You nearly frightened your parents to death.”
“Thank goodness Jingyan searched so hard. What would we have done?”
“Quiet. Don't let Shen Anran hear. Keep pretending you know nothing.”
Every word reached me with icy clarity.
I walked slowly inside.
The laughter stopped. Every face stiffened in panic.
Lu Jingyan turned, alarm flashing in his eyes. He hurried over with feigned gentleness.
“Why are you here? It's cold outside. Be careful.”
The old madam immediately put on her kindly face.
“Anran, come and sit. You're frail. Rest properly. Producing an heir for the Shen family is what matters.”
The woman beside her, with gentle features, was the one from last night.
Su Wanrou.
She bowed with pretended shyness, concealed triumph in her eyes.
“Forgive me, cousin-in-law. My naughty child disturbed the household. Fortunately, Cousin took the trouble to find him.”
I watched their clumsy performance and smiled faintly, my voice mild.
“Living alone in the capital with no one to care for you, and a frightened child besides—of course my husband should look after you more. We mustn't let gossip wrong you and the children.”
Her face went white. The triumph vanished.
Lu Jingyan missed the irony entirely.
Thinking me gentle and generous, he happily took my hand and led me away.
His palm was hot.
I felt disgust to my bones.
Three years of pretense. Three years of calculation.
Everyone in the Shen household had acted together.
Only I had been deceived by sincere love.
On the cool evening walk back, he held my hand tightly and promised solemnly, “Anran, we have a long life ahead. I'll protect you forever. I'll never let go.”
I looked down at our clasped hands.
Only a wasteland remained inside me.
No need.
I no longer wanted his protection.
5
After a little rest, Lu Jingyan couldn't restrain himself and hurried away again.
I knew he had gone to his woman and children.
I changed into plain clothes, took a plate of pastries I had made, and went straight to the secret courtyard.
I would tear apart this veil of falsehood myself and leave no retreat.
I knocked softly.
After a while, Su Wanrou opened the gate, her clothes disordered, an intimate flush still on her face and red marks stark against her neck.
Seeing me, she panicked, then forced herself steady.
“Cousin-in-law? What brings you here so late?”
“I heard the child was frightened. I made some pastries and came to see.”
I walked in and calmly surveyed the room.
Warm and comfortable, thick with cosmetics, everywhere showing traces of daily life.
Complete and cozy.
A real home.
Behind the screen, a figure stiffened. Even its breathing stopped.
I knew Lu Jingyan was there.
Su Wanrou pretended composure and shyness.
“Thank you for your concern. My husband happened to return just now. We hadn't seen each other for some time and forgot ourselves. You must think us foolish.”
She deliberately adjusted her gauze robe to reveal the marks on her neck.
Every word boasted.
“Cousin treats me very well. He's wonderfully gentle in bed. An attentiveness you've never experienced.”
I listened without anger.
All his vows and tenderness had been illusions.
He called me proper and dull, then turned and lavished affection on someone else.
A teacup broke softly behind the screen.
Lu Jingyan's restraint and panic had reached their limit.
Still heedless, Su Wanrou glanced toward him and said softly, “I don't seek a title. Only to remain beside him every year, our family together. I would want nothing more.”
I looked up, my gaze passing through the screen toward the hidden figure.
My voice was clear and light.
“Then I wish you exactly that. A reunited family. Together every year. Never parted.”
Something heavy fell behind the screen. Porcelain shattered sharply.
I couldn't be bothered watching more.
I turned and left.
False affection, a sordid affair, filthy hearts—I had seen it all.
Nothing held me anymore.
That night, Lu Jingyan didn't return.
He sent a begonia-shaped jade hairpin and word that official duties kept him occupied.
I set it aside carelessly.
With all the old tokens, I put it away.
From now on, they had nothing to do with me.
6
I packed a few things and quietly left for an herbal cottage in the mountains beyond the city.
Wen Muyan lived there.
My only true friend, and the person I could depend on for the years ahead.
As children, we had both lost our parents early. We had warmed and supported each other.
Exceptionally gifted, she apprenticed in medicine and resolved to travel the world healing people.
I had been shut inside a grand household, married, and bound by love.
The cottage smelled of fresh herbs.
Peaceful and clear.
Wen Muyan was drying medicine.
Seeing me, she paused, then hurried to embrace me.
“Anran? You haven't visited for ages. What brought you out of the city?”
In her warm arms, the feelings I had suppressed for days finally broke.
I had remained composed while witnessing the affair, discovering the schemes, and watching the lies.
Only before her did I not need to pretend strength.
“Muyan, I married the wrong man,” I choked out. “He has a mistress and two children. He deceived me for three years. The coral beads were soaked in musk to keep me from having children. Three years of lies and calculation.”
She went rigid, then furious, holding me tighter.
“You fool! I told you not to lose yourself in romance. A bastard like that isn't worth a moment of grief.”
“If the bond is filthy, throw it away. If you want to leave, I'll take you now. Wherever you go, I'll stay with you.”
Through tears, I nodded hard.
“That's why I came. I want to leave with you. Travel among mountains and rivers, heal people, and get away from that sordid household.”
The chains that had weighed on my heart for three years broke in a morning.
A long road lay ahead.
Freedom opened wide.
At last, I could live for myself.
7
Back at the residence, I shut myself in and sorted the past alone.
Hundreds of love letters lay neatly in a wooden chest.
All written by Lu Jingyan before our marriage.
Our first meeting in snow. A rescue. Love at first sight.
Two years of letters, every word gentle, every sentence devoted.
That winter, heavy snow had fallen.
Missing my late mother, I went out alone to watch it and slipped into an icy lake.
Amid ice, snow, and despair, a young man climbed over a wall and saved me.
In white, with sincere eyes, he promised to protect me for life.
Grateful for the rescue, I gave him my heart.
Against others' advice, despite the hostility awaiting me as a daughter-in-law in the Shen family, I insisted on marrying him.
So the rescue at our first meeting had been real.
So was the betrayal afterward.
All his loving promises had merely been ways to win me.
I lit a candle and fed the letters into the flames, one by one.
Fire danced. Ash scattered.
It burned the past and severed my attachment.
The Shen Anran who loved Lu Jingyan would no longer exist.
He stayed away for days.
The old madam grew suspicious and repeatedly sent people to inquire after me.
Soon, he sent a letter full of longing and love, telling me to wait peacefully. Once his work was done, he would come home and stay.
Beneath the blooming begonia, I took my brush and wrote.
A divorce agreement.
A few short sentences cut three years apart.
Let parting free us both. Let debts and grievances end. From now on, we have no bond.
I placed it neatly in my dressing box with the jade begonia pin and protective jade pendant.
I would take nothing belonging to him.
I would surrender none of my own dignity.
I counted my dowry banknotes: the property my Shen family had left me and what I owned before marriage.
I took no money from the Shen household.
The spring sunlight was lovely.
I changed into light everyday clothes, said goodbye to the servants, and boarded the carriage alone.
It rolled slowly through the Shen residence's gate.
After three years confined within those walls, I, Shen Anran, was finally free.
Farewell, Lu Jingyan.
May we never meet again.
8
Elsewhere, after the mistress's family troubles were settled, Lu Jingyan felt inexplicably anxious.
He couldn't sit still.
Suisui had only just recovered from a high fever.
Su Wanrou clung to him tenderly, pleading for him to stay.
But his thoughts were full of me at home.
Guilty over spending so many nights away, he wanted urgently to make amends.
He had always believed I was gentle, understanding, obedient, and patient.
That I would wait forever at the Shen residence for him to turn back.
He hastily left Su Wanrou and rode home.
At the gate, he asked anxiously, “Where is my wife?”
The servant stammered and knelt in fear.
“She went out alone today, without attendants. We don't know where. She hasn't returned.”
His gentleness vanished.
Cold filled his eyes as he strode to my courtyard.
It remained clean and elegant.
The begonias still bloomed.
Everything was unchanged.
Only the dressing table was empty.
The red coral beads that had accompanied me for three years had vanished too.
A great fear surged from within.
The sense of irrevocable loss tightened around his heart.
He began to panic.
He began to fear.
He remembered a maid who had once tried to win his favor.
When I discovered it, I hadn't spoken to him for a month.
He had exhausted himself pleasing me again and again before winning forgiveness.
He had sworn there would only be me.
In the end, he had torn those promises apart himself.
He dared not think further.
Dared not believe that the woman who had loved him gently for three years could leave so decisively.
9
He searched frantically everywhere.
Nothing.
Finally, he remembered my only close friend, Wen Muyan.
He rode madly, reaching the city gate just before it closed, then headed straight for the mountain cottage.
The gate stood open.
The herbs remained.
The people were gone.
In panic, he questioned the neighbors and finally learned the truth.
Early that morning, Wen Muyan and a plainly dressed woman had packed and ridden away, leaving the capital to travel.
No one knew where.
A neighboring aunt sighed casually.
“Such gentle-looking girls. Who'd have thought them so free-spirited? Traveling the world practicing medicine. What a life.”
The evening wind was bleak.
Lu Jingyan stood in the empty courtyard, my voice echoing in his ears.
Gentle. Distant. Resolute.
At last, he truly felt the loss of Shen Anran, who once saw no one but him.
This time, no waiting.
No forgiveness.
No turning back.
10
He returned home distraught after dark.
His trusted servant reported, “Master, before leaving, madam put something in her dressing box.”
He stumbled inside and opened it with trembling hands.
A divorce agreement, neatly written with decisive strokes.
“Let us part freely, and each find our own joy.”
Those few words stopped his breath and chilled him through.
At the bottom lay an old love knot, its edges worn, its stitches rough.
Su Wanrou had given it to him years earlier.
He had long since lost it.
So I had kept it and understood everything.
Every disguise collapsed.
Every lie lay exposed.
My visit to that courtyard, my wish that they be a reunited family—none of it had been generosity.
It had been surrendering him completely.
Panic and fury overwhelmed him.
He immediately rode through the night to Su Wanrou's courtyard.
The room was brightly lit.
She had dressed carefully and waited.
Delighted to see him, she moved to embrace him.
Before she spoke, he shoved her hard onto the bed.
His eyes held a viciousness she had never seen.
His hand closed around her throat.
“You dared provoke her? You dared boast to her? Who gave you that courage?”
Choking in pain, she struggled desperately.
The children woke and cried without stopping.
For their sake, he suddenly released her.
The murderous look remained.
Still terrified, she clutched her throat and sobbed.
“Jingyan, I only love you. I did nothing wrong! I've stayed with you for three years and borne your children. In what way am I less than Shen Anran?”