Chapter 4

This was both to protect myself and to keep Qi Ye from being implicated.

I immediately fell to my knees. Even my voice trembled when I spoke.

“General, spare my life. Before I got married, I saw how valuable it was and gave in to greed. I stole the young lady’s longevity lock.”

“I was poor for too long, which led me to commit this disloyal and ungrateful betrayal of my former mistress.”

In a panic, I took off the gold bracelet on my wrist. I moved too quickly, and its edge scraped my skin, leaving a stinging pain.

“Please, General, for the sake of all the years I served the young lady, forgive me this once.”

“I don’t dare keep the longevity lock. I offer this gold bracelet to you as compensation.”

“Please be generous, General. Whatever you do, don’t tell the Jiang family about this.”

12.

The footsteps of the patrol were approaching from a short distance away.

I knelt with my head bowed, my heart pounding so hard that my ears hurt.

The night dew was heavy, but Xie Heng’s tone sounded casual.

“You expect me to forgive you just like that?”

“You’ve been with your young lady for years. She’s used to having you around. If I punished you arbitrarily, she wouldn’t agree to it, either.”

He bent down and took the bracelet I had offered.

The distance between us narrowed. I could even hear how steady his breathing was.

“A gold bracelet in exchange for stealing something—that’s a novel bargain. Fine, I won’t report you.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and finally dared to sit up a little straighter.

“Thank you for showing mercy, General. I’ll remember your kindness for the rest of my life.”

I hurried to my feet and turned my back on him.

“It’s very late. I won’t stay here and get in your way, General. I’ll take my leave…”

I took several steps. I was almost out of the deserted clearing.

Then a command came from behind me, slow and unhurried.

“Stop.”

When I turned around, Xie Heng was standing behind me without a sound.

He stared at my pale, rigid face for a long while, then suddenly laughed.

“You’ve used this bracelet to pay off the theft.”

“But what will you use to repay the debt of deceiving me?”

Xie Heng’s voice immediately turned cold.

“Jiang Lingyi, after all this, you’re still pretending?”

“Have I been too indulgent with you before…”

“that you dared to hide your identity and run to the frontier, then lie to me and lead me around by the nose?”

13.

Xie Heng ordered that I be taken to his command tent.

He locked me inside and spread word that I had gone missing on my way home.

My hands and feet were tied to the bed. Through a screen, I suddenly heard Qi Ye’s hoarse voice.

He had come to ask Xie Heng for permission to take a group of soldiers and keep searching for me.

Xie Heng agreed quickly. He even assigned his own guards to Qi Ye.

But how could Qi Ye find me outside, when I was right there?

I peered through a gap in the screen and saw the dark circles beneath Qi Ye’s eyes.

For days, he had searched without rest, hardly drinking any water. He looked so haggard it hurt my heart.

I tried desperately to call out to him, but my mouth was gagged.

All I could do was watch through tear-filled eyes as he returned with hope again and again, only to leave disappointed each time.

Xie Heng brought me food and water and intended to feed me himself.

I turned my face away. He didn’t get angry right away.

“Shouldn’t you have stayed in the capital? Why did you follow him all the way to the frontier?”

“I valued Qi Ye so much. I was even preparing to make him one of my trusted men.”

Xie Heng took my fingers and stroked them. His sudden smile sent a chill down my spine.

“Who could have guessed that he would marry my fiancée behind my back?”

“Jiang Lingyi, you’ve truly been heartless to me.”

I refused to touch any of the food or water brought to me. Whenever Xie Heng came close, I lunged at him, scratching and biting.

If my restraints loosened even a little, I knocked everything I could reach off the table and onto the ground.

After I made trouble several times, Xie Heng finally lost his temper.

“You’re so desperate to run away. Are you hurrying back to find that man who lucked into a good bargain?”

“If you keep causing trouble, I’ll have Qi Ye tied up and brought here. I’ll kill him in front of you.”

All my struggles stopped at once.

That was right. I now had to worry not only about myself, but also about Qi Ye, the person who had treated me better than anyone.

After spending so many years around Xie Heng, I knew exactly how to make his anger subside.

“I heard what you said to your friend that day. You said you’d only take me as a concubine.”

I lowered my head and dropped my eyes.

“I had endured enough humiliation from the Jiang family. I was still locked in the woodshed when your family’s letter of repudiation arrived. I was frightened and hurt, so I married someone else out of spite. At the time, I was simple-minded. I thought that no matter whom I married, at least he wouldn’t make me a concubine.”

My tearful voice reached Xie Heng. His body stiffened a little, and the hand holding mine gradually loosened.

“Those words were only a joke I made in passing. If I truly meant to take you as a concubine, why would I come to this harsh frontier and risk my life earning military merit?”

Xie Heng fell silent for a while. At last, his voice softened.

“This time, I was wrong. I didn’t make my feelings clear, so you misunderstood.”

“Let the past go. We’ll start over. I won’t make you a concubine. You’ll be my only principal wife in this life.”

No. Whatever Xie Heng said, I would only acknowledge Qi Ye. He was the husband with whom I had performed the rites before Heaven and Earth.

But I obediently lifted my head, my voice turning gentle.

“Then let me write a letter to Qi Ye. He’s a good person. I used him to escape the Jiang residence, but I don’t want to keep dragging him into this.”

14.

Xie Heng took the letter and checked it over and over.

Only after confirming that it said I could not bear the hardships of frontier life and wished to divorce Qi Ye did he send it to him.

Through a gap in the screen, I watched the light in Qi Ye’s eyes gradually go out.

Xie Heng concealed his smugness and deliberately put on a magnanimous expression as he advised him.

“Women raised in the capital are bound to be pampered. You don’t need to be too upset. I can find another suitable woman for you here at the frontier.”

“As long as a man is willing to earn merit and build a career, he can marry any sort of woman later.”

Qi Ye’s eyes swept toward the back of the tent, then lowered.

He clasped his hands in a formal salute.

“The general is right.”

15.

Not long afterward, the enemy army at the frontier advanced again, and the fighting immediately intensified.

Xie Heng was busy until late every night.

But the number of soldiers he assigned to guard the outside of my tent only kept growing.

After he finished his military duties, he would remove his heavy armor. A tired crease always sat between his brows.

Even so, he forced himself to look gentle as he brought me food and tried to feed me.

I had been imprisoned so long that I was depressed and miserable. I could barely eat, and every night I woke in a panic from nightmares.

Xie Heng began using Qi Ye to threaten me.

“If you keep refusing to obey, I’ll send Qi Ye to the front line.”

“Then we’ll see how many breaths he can last under the enemy’s blades.”

I forced myself to swallow a few bites, but my stomach turned so badly I nearly vomited.

My body swayed. Xie Heng hurried to support me.

“Fine. If you can’t eat, leave it. Don’t cry. I won’t force you.”

After receiving the letter about the divorce, Qi Ye grew even quieter and colder in the army.

Xie Heng was unwilling to waste his talent, but he could not tolerate the fact that we had once been husband and wife.

So he kept assigning Qi Ye the most dangerous and difficult missions.

But Qi Ye completed every one.

The fighting at the frontier grew more intense.

Every soldier in the camp could see it clearly. Though Xie Heng was unwilling, he could only follow military regulations and record Qi Ye’s merits, promoting him.

Xie Heng pinched my thin, pale face. His tone revealed no anger or happiness.

“Your former husband is advancing quickly. He’s still so young, yet he’s already a Thousand-Man Commander. If he earns a few more merits, he’ll soon catch up with me, the general.”

I pressed my lips together and refused to answer.

The next day, I saw Qi Ye again through a gap in the command tent.

The boy who had seemed so young and green had grown up. He was even taller than I remembered.

The youthful softness between his brows from our wedding night was gone.

Qi Ye stood straight, his whole body carrying the fierce presence honed on the battlefield. When he looked up, there was even a cold, murderous edge in his eyes.

My heart suddenly hurt.

There were many new scars on his arms. The last time we had met, they had been unmarked.

One after another, each wound had bought him another step up the military ranks, another Thousand-Man Commander’s insignia.

In this battle that had turned the tide, Qi Ye had bought a way forward with blood. I didn’t know how much he had suffered.

I tried to move my arms and legs, but my wrists and ankles were still tied.

That night, when Xie Heng returned to the tent, he saw me sitting in a daze, my expression gloomy.

I refused to pay attention to him. For no reason, he suddenly flew into a rage.

“You heard the news from the capital about the Xie family, and you smiled like that. Do you think I can’t do anything to you now that the Xie family is in trouble?”

An urgent message from the capital said that officials had found letters related to a rebellion in the Xie residence.

Though the investigation eventually established that the Xie family had been framed, hundreds of members of the household still had to kneel outside the palace gates for an entire day and night. In the end, the Emperor did not publicly punish them.

But anyone with sense could see that the Emperor had begun to be wary of the Xie family.

Were those letters about rebellion a scheme by an enemy—or had the Emperor seized the chance to warn them?

Everyone in the army had their own guess.

“Your former husband really is capable. He even joined the force of the Xie family’s enemy. It seems I underestimated him.”

“He has no standards at all. He’s willing to be someone else’s pawn, someone else’s lapdog.”

“Now his reputation in the army is almost overshadowing mine. Ordinary methods won’t be enough to deal with him anymore.”