Chapter 4

Chapter 4

“Do you know what you did wrong?”

The iron chain was pulled up, and my husband stood at the edge of the well, looking down at me.

Three days had passed.

I reeked from head to toe. I was on the verge of death, yet even life and death were no longer mine to decide.

Disgust flickered across his face, and he took several steps back.

My wet nurse rushed forward, sobbing as she gathered me into her arms and hurriedly wrapped me in thick clothing.

“The young madam just suffered a miscarriage! How could she possibly endure this in the dead of winter?”

“She isn’t that delicate, is she?” My husband frowned. “She only soaked in the water for one night. Yi’er said nothing would happen…”

Before he could finish, I fainted.

I truly could not endure it.

I burned with fever for two nights straight. At the most dangerous point, even the physician told them to prepare for my funeral.

My husband had not expected that deep well to be so damaging, and he had expected even less that Jiang Yi would lie to him.

She had ordered the servants to lock me up for three days, but told my husband I had only been confined for one night.

My husband kept watch in my room for an entire night.

When Jiang Yi sent someone over, he raised his hand and smashed a cup.

After several attempts, Jiang Yi stopped making a scene. Until, late that night, a cry of alarm rang out.

“Bad news, Young Master!”

One of Jiang Yi’s people rushed into my room, shouting.

“The concubine-she jumped into the well!”

My husband’s expression changed, and he swept his sleeves aside before striding out.

At that very moment, I also came to, coughing dryly until blood came up.

“Young madam!”

My wet nurse hurriedly wiped the blood from my lips.

My husband paused with one foot already over the threshold and glanced back at me. But it lasted only an instant. Then he turned and ran outside.

“She clearly didn’t jump at all. She’s just standing by the well putting on a show. Who does she think she’s fooling?”

The maid shut the door, indignant on my behalf.

My wet nurse, pained for me, signaled for her to be quiet, then comforted me. “A concubine is only a concubine. She can never overturn the household-”

“Bring me paper and a brush.”

I cut her off and forced myself to sit up. “Quickly.”

I did not care if my husband and Jiang Yi jumped into the well in each other’s arms. Right now, my mind was frantically repeating everything I had learned during those three days and nights in the well.

It had shaken me to my core.

Most of it I did not understand, but the parts I could understand had already exceeded the limits of what I could bear.

I had to write it down.

“Young madam, your body still hasn’t recovered…”

I dismissed everyone around me.

“Shut the door. No one is allowed in.”

I ordered my wet nurse to guard the door to my bedchamber, then rose and went to the desk. With trembling, feverishly excited hands, I gripped the brush and copied out the contents in my mind.

Not just foreign words, but the geography of the world, the technology and political systems of various nations.

They had even spoken of the era I was living in now-dark, war-torn. Yet to them, it was merely an exam point brushed over in one or two sentences. What shone far more brilliantly was the century that came after.

On the other side of that small opening in the deep well was a classroom from a hundred years in the future.

When I was submerged in that deep well, trapped in a narrow iron cage amid foul, corpse-stinking water, all I could do was lift my head and look through the iron bars at the round-cornered darkness above me.

I did not understand. I truly did not understand.

They had only taught me how to survive in the inner household, how to put my husband first, how to get along with concubines and my mother-in-law.

But no one had ever told me about the world beyond that narrow, round-cornered sky.

It was as though I had been born only to become someone’s wife.

All I could do was swallow it down whole and record as much as I could.

Tears streamed uncontrollably down my face, blurring the ink. I wiped at my cheeks in a mess, emotions surging inside me.

The brush in my hand did not dare stop for even a moment.

Because I firmly believed that one day, I would understand.

Just as I firmly believed that my life still held many, many possibilities.