Chapter 7

Du Cheng was married now. He could hardly leave his sister-in-law alone to care for his mother.

So I chose to stay.

I never imagined he would be away for two and a half years.

At last, after all that waiting, he returned.

Yet he treated me exactly as he had before we married.

Courteous. Distant.

As politely as though we were guests.

I thought that must simply be his nature.

I set aside a young woman's reserve and tried to win his affection.

He remained unmoved.

Then he told me that the strain of his years in the south had damaged his health. Once he recovered, he would come to my room.

I believed those years without anyone to look after him had been hard.

So I tried even harder to make it up to him, attending to every detail of his comfort.

Nothing was overlooked.

Yet he only grew colder.

I began searching for the fault in myself.

It must be because, during Father's serious illness, I had often returned to my parents' home to nurse him.

I had neglected the Du household. That must have displeased my husband.

Guilt weighed on me. Whenever my mother-in-law made things difficult, I bore it alone, believing I was at fault.

…

Three months passed.

My husband gave me nothing in return.

Instead, a message came from Xiao Yunlan.

Du Cheng was secretly meeting a woman at an inn.

And that woman…

Had another man.

I rented the room next to Du Cheng and Liu Wanning's and witnessed the whole of their secret meeting.

Only then did I see him clearly.

He said, “That ugly woman Su Qingyue makes me sick just to look at her. How could I touch her? Her face is an eyesore at home and an embarrassment outside. If she weren't the Grand Tutor's daughter, why would I have married her? And she has no sense of her place. I stayed away for more than two years to avoid her. Now that I've finally come home, the shameless woman keeps finding excuses to appear in front of me every day. I can't bear it!”

Everything I had taken for genuine affection had been a performance.

He despised my face just like everyone else.

After I became his wife, he hated me even more than they did.

I embarrassed him.

He could not take me out.

Because of me, the whole capital talked behind his back.

Yet he could not bear to give up my father's connections. All he could do was endure me and keep up appearances.

That was the day I gave up all hope in him.

Then Father's condition suddenly worsened.

I had no heart for a confrontation with Du Cheng. Still less did I want Father worrying about me.

I pretended nothing had happened and devoted myself to nursing him.

But his illness only grew more serious.

People said prayers at Dajue Temple were often answered. I decided to go there and pray for him.

On the way, I was attacked by bandits.

They even drugged me with a powerful aphrodisiac.

At my most desperate moment, Xiao Yunlan appeared.

Only later did I learn that, after I married, his position had made it improper for us to meet as often as before.

When he heard I was going to Dajue Temple, he deliberately went there to arrange a chance encounter.

Instead, he arrived just as I was in danger.

The temple was far from the imperial city, deep in the wilderness. There was no way to find a physician.

Seeing that the drug was about to kill me, Xiao Yunlan cast aside every other consideration to save me.

We had grown up together, in a manner of speaking.

He was three years older.

No one outside my family knew he had also been Father's pupil.

Not an ordinary student.