Chapter 3

One hairpin could not pay for the display the Gu family wanted, but it was enough to wring Gu Huaizhang's heart.

Sure enough, he immediately said there was no need for her to suffer such an indignity.

Listening from beyond the wall, I suddenly felt that eight thousand taels had been far too low an offer.

It was not that they could not pay. None of them wanted to cut into their own flesh. They were simply waiting for me, the lawful wife, to preserve their prestige at my expense.

6.

I was about to leave when Shen Xuerong suddenly called me back.

“Sister, Huaizhang truly has your interests at heart in refusing a divorce. Once you leave the Gu family, what good family will take you? Rather than become someone's second wife and raise another woman's children, wouldn't it be better to stay?”

Her voice was gentle.

“The children will be dutiful to you. I won't compete with you either.”

My mother-in-law nodded repeatedly.

“What man in this world doesn't take concubines? Only you are so jealous. Xuerong is willing to tolerate you. You should be more generous.”

I almost laughed.

“She takes my husband and my position, and now she's the one tolerating me?”

Gu Mingzhu snorted.

“You're in such a hurry to divorce. Who knows whether you haven't already set your heart on someone else? I hear you're very close to the young master of the Pei family…”

Before she could finish, I slapped her.

She stood stunned, clutching her face.

“Dare invent another story about my virtue, and I'll tear that mouth of yours apart. You like Pei Zhaochuan. You've chased after him with gifts more times than anyone can count, and he hasn't accepted a single one. So you're taking your anger out on me?”

“I am not!”

“Don't you know why Pei Zhaochuan doesn't like you? Such spite, and still you dream.”

Gu Mingzhu sprang up with a shriek.

“And what's so good about you? My brother loves Sister Xuerong. You shamelessly clung to the engagement. That's why he wouldn't touch you—”

“Pursuing another woman while you're betrothed is called breaking your word. Knowing Pei Zhaochuan avoids you, yet going around slandering every woman who has dealings with him, is called having no shame.”

I looked at her swelling face.

“You and your brother are very much alike.”

“You… You dared hit me?”

She lunged at me, but the maids held her back.

I turned to Shen Xuerong.

“And you. If you only wanted to marry Gu Huaizhang three years ago, why did you keep sending letters to Prince Ning's residence? The Duke of Anguo's daughter was about to marry him, yet all you wanted was for him to break off their engagement.”

Shen Xuerong went white.

“Sister Lu, don't slander me.”

“Gu Huaizhang was your fallback, but he mistook it for true love. If the duke's household digs all this up again, can the Shen family survive a second time?”

Someone suddenly seized my shoulder.

Gu Huaizhang gripped me and slapped me across the face.

The blow was hard. My ears rang, and I tasted blood.

Everyone froze. Even Gu Huaizhang looked stunned.

He quickly found a justification.

“You insulted Xuerong and struck Mingzhu. You've gone too far.”

I slapped him back.

The crack rang out. One side of his face rapidly reddened.

“If you dare do it, I dare say it. If you dare hit me, I dare hit back.”

Gu Huaizhang stared at me.

I did not retreat.

“There is nothing wrong with loving Shen Xuerong. But you want her while keeping me here to protect your reputation and manage your property. You call it devotion. It's only greed.”

Shen Xuerong wept and tugged at his sleeve.

“Huaizhang, I didn't deceive you.”

For the first time, he did not immediately comfort her.

My mother-in-law began questioning her urgently about the letters and Prince Ning's residence. The more Shen Xuerong explained, the more tangled her story became.

I did not stay to listen. I turned and left.

In the end, the wedding feast for his coequal wife was canceled.

The Gu family told outsiders that the timing was unsuitable. In truth, my mother-in-law could not bear to spend the money, and she had begun to wonder whom Shen Xuerong had actually wanted to marry.

That night, Gu Huaizhang came to the West Courtyard again.

The mark of my hand was still on his face. He stood outside my door and asked whether I was hurt.

“You didn't ask before you struck me,” I said through the door. “Isn't it a little late now?”

After a silence, he said he would make Gu Mingzhu apologize, then investigate Shen Xuerong's letters from those years.

“That's between you.”

“Mingqi, must we come to this?”

“We didn't come to this together. You chose her every time, and expected me to stay where I was.”

There was no answer.

After a while, his footsteps receded.

Qingdai replaced the cold cloth on my cheek. She was so angry her eyes had reddened. She asked whether I wanted to stay at the Lu residence for a time.

I shook my head.

I had neither the divorce agreement nor a complete inventory of my dowry.

The more urgently the Gu family tried to force my head down, the less I could afford to turn my back on them.

7.

Two nights later, I woke with a start to a weight pressing on my chest.

The room was unlit. A man lay on top of me, his hand reaching inside my clothes.

Before I could cry out, he clamped a hand over my mouth.

The stench of a stranger's sweat filled my nose. He chuckled.

“All alone in your bed, little lady? You must be lonely. I'll treat you well. I'll make sure you enjoy yourself…”

I stopped struggling and trying to call for help.

My right hand felt along the bedding and beneath my pillow until it closed around the dagger I had long kept sharpened.

Back at the Lu residence, Cheng Wanniang had once sent someone into my courtyard in the middle of the night.

That time, I had blinded the intruder with a pair of scissors.

Ever since, the dagger beneath my pillow had never left my side.

I drew it suddenly and thrust upward.

The man screamed, clutched the side of his neck, and rolled off the bed.

He kicked me in the waist. I struck the bedpost but did not let go of the knife.

He stumbled toward the door. I followed and stabbed him in the stomach.

“One more step, and you'll die on that threshold!”

Hearing the noise, Qingdai ran in with a lamp and blocked the doorway.

The man's legs gave way. He collapsed.

Blood quickly spread through the gaps between the floor tiles.

At the sight of blood on my clothes, Qingdai's voice changed.

“My lady, where are you hurt?”

“It isn't my blood.”

I crouched in front of the man and tapped his face with the back of the blade.

“Who sent you?”

Indistinct sounds rose in his throat. Before he could give a name, he fainted.

“Is he going to die?” Qingdai asked shakily.

“Better if he doesn't. But it doesn't matter if he does.”

I stood.

“Light every lamp in the room. Then wait. The people coming to catch me with a lover will be here soon.”

Sure enough, within a quarter of an hour someone kicked open the courtyard gate.

My mother-in-law burst in with Gu Mingzhu, Shen Xuerong, and a crowd of older servants. Gu Huaizhang followed, even his outer robe neatly in place.

Plainly, they had prepared in advance.

But all they found was me standing beneath the veranda in a bloodstained outer robe.

Blood dripped from the tip of my dagger. The man on the ground might have been alive or dead.

My mother-in-law halted.

“You… You've killed someone?”

“How quickly you came, Mother.”

I looked at the servants behind her.

“I wonder who told you a man had slipped into my courtyard?”

“The servants saw him with their own eyes!” Gu Mingzhu cried. “Who knows whether he wasn't your lover? You were afraid of being exposed, so you killed him to silence him!”

“Would a lover cover my mouth, tear my clothes, and bring drugged incense over the wall with him?”

Qingdai searched him and found a packet of powder and a length of rope.

Shen Xuerong took half a step back.

I saw the small movement clearly, but did not immediately draw attention to it.

The commotion brought Minister Gu hurrying over. At the sight before him, his face turned ashen.

I turned to him.

“Minister Gu, to swallow up my dowry, members of your family put a man in my room to ruin me. If this goes before the Capital Prefecture, how much of the Gu family's good name will survive?”

“You have no proof!” my mother-in-law said hastily. “Don't make false accusations!”

“The man is still alive. Question him under torture, and someone will find out who paid him and who opened the side gate.”

Minister Gu looked at his son.

“What is going on?”

Gu Huaizhang was deathly pale.

“Father, I knew nothing about it.”

“You knew nothing, yet you came along, fully dressed, to catch me with a lover?”

He had no answer.

I did not force them to confess on the spot.

At a moment like this, I had to be all the more careful of what they might do if cornered.

“All I want is a divorce agreement.”

Minister Gu looked at me.

“Will your father let you return to the Lu residence?”

“Where I go is no concern of the Gu family.”

“Think carefully. Once you walk out of this gate, it will be useless to beg to return.”

“Beg you? If the Gu family had succeeded tonight, tomorrow I would either be a corpse or an adulteress reviled by everyone. What could I possibly beg you for?”

Minister Gu closed his eyes briefly. At last, he barked, “Gu Huaizhang, give her the divorce agreement tomorrow.”

Gu Huaizhang jerked his head up.

“Father!”

“Her heart is no longer with you. Forcing her to stay will only harm the family.”

Every face bore a different expression.

The position Shen Xuerong coveted would finally be vacant. Yet there was no joy in her eyes.

Perhaps only now did she understand that once I truly left, the Gu family's money and prestige would not simply fall into her hands.

8.

The next day, people from Princess Changning's household came to help move my dowry.

Dozens of large chests were carried out of the West Courtyard. No one in the Gu family dared stop them.

Gu Huaizhang stood at the gate to hand me the divorce agreement. Dark circles ringed his eyes, as though he had not slept all night.

“There's still time to change your mind.”

I took the document, read it from beginning to end, folded it, and slipped it into my sleeve.

“If I hadn't had a knife last night, what would you be looking at today?”

“I never meant to harm you.”

“Do you think you're innocent just because you didn't put the knife in someone's hand yourself?”

His fists tightened.

“Other men have wives and concubines. Why must you make such a scene?”

“You want a household full of women? Can you even afford them?”