Chapter 2

Chapter 2

It was the fifth year of our marriage.

Yan Ci returned from the border.

He arrived at the mansion late one night.

I was exhausted, yet I still followed the rules of the household.

I sat in the front hall, a single lamp lit, waiting for him.

Yan Ci had likely forgotten these rules long ago.

He looked quite surprised when he saw me.

“You’re not asleep yet?”

I smiled submissively.

“I was waiting for the General.”

Yan Ci’s eyes flickered.

After a long silence, he pulled me into his arms and sighed.

“It has been hard on you, Madam. From now on, I won’t leave again.”

I froze.

My heart, which had been dead and silent for so long, suddenly gave a small throb.

That night, he didn’t leave.

His kisses were fierce, leaving me almost breathless.

“Husband…”

He gripped my waist, his voice husky.

“Call me General, and I’ll spare you.”

After that night, he acted like a young man in the first throes of love.

Every few days, he would bring me gifts-the kind of things girls like.

Hairpins, jewelry, candied fruits, and pastries.

At the time, I didn’t know.

I didn’t know that his return to the capital was because his beloved had given birth to a child.

Just as I hadn’t known that when he married me years ago, it was because his beloved had married someone else.

I was completely in the dark.

I was simply, innocently happy.

I thought that life was finally going to get better.

Until that night.

Yan Ci stumbled into my room, drunk.

This time, he didn’t blow out the lamp.

He just sat by the bed and studied me.

He had never looked at me with such tender, lingering affection before.

Then, he called out a name.

“Changhuan.”

I felt as if I had been plunged into an ice cellar.

Who didn’t know Meng Changhuan?

The only female general in the dynasty.

Renowned for her military achievements, her fame rivaled Yan Ci’s.

With her white horse and red-tasseled spear, she was the epitome of spirited brilliance.

That night, Yan Ci’s movements were different from usual; they were incredibly gentle.

But I couldn’t stop crying.

The moon was a stark, shimmering white, dissolving into my tears until it became my very pupils.

I saw the banquet from many years ago.

The young general, acting out of spite, had tossed an Evening Magnolia behind my seat.

I saw the inner courtyards of the General’s Mansion over all these years.

I saw how I had counted every beat of the night watchman’s drum, weeping until dawn.

I was in so much pain I felt I might die.

Yan Ci was completely oblivious.

He lay over me, his shadow nearly swallowing me whole.

Yet he called out, tenderly, longingly, over and over again.

“Changhuan, Changhuan.”

In the years that followed, I kept to my duty and treated him with the formal respect due to a guest. Even my mother-in-law, the harshest of critics, could find no fault in me.

I once overheard Yan Ci sighing to his subordinates.

“The Xue woman is virtuous, but alas, Zhuxin is not the one in my heart. My heart died at the border long ago.”

I had stopped caring long ago.

And yet, for some reason, my heart still ached.

Later, Meng Changhuan died in battle.

Yan Ci locked himself in his study, refusing to see anyone.

I didn’t want to deal with him.

But his subordinates were at their wits’ end. They came to me, begging me to go in and check on the General.

When I entered, the study was unlit.

Yan Ci embraced me from behind.

“Meng Changhuan, don’t go.”

His voice was thick and slurred, laced with the sound of weeping.

“You married someone else, and I accepted it… You had a child, and I accepted that too…”

“But why did you have to die…”

On the desk, many unsent letters were scattered.

I saw the heading on every single page.

It was always “Changhuan.”

I stood there in the darkness, listening to his crying for a long, long time.

Then, I decided to grant him his wish.

I pulled those letters, so heavy with deep affection, out one by one and spread them on the floor.

I was cowardly by nature.

From childhood to adulthood, I had never done a single rebellious thing. I didn’t even dare to speak loudly.

But now, I suddenly didn’t want to go on like this anymore.

I set the letters on fire.

I didn’t wake him.

The love letters burned until they were ashen and curled, like paper money offered to the dead.

“General Meng is dead. Since you are so devoted, you should go and accompany her.”

The firelight flickered across my face, casting shifting shadows.

I stroked Yan Ci’s cheek and whispered softly.

“Do you hear that? She’s so lonely, Yan Ci.”

“Go stay with her… Go and die…”

“I’ve already burned your love letters for her. You’re next…”

The tongues of flame suddenly leaped higher, licking at the hem of his robes.

I stood up and walked out into the night.

I didn’t know where I was going.

I couldn’t go back to the Xue Family, and the Yan family was not my home.

The world was so vast, yet where could I go?

Servants ran past me in a panic, shouting, “Fire!” “The General is still in the study!” “Quick, go get the Madam!”

How stupid, I thought.

Why call for the Madam?

The Madam won’t put out the fire.

I looked at my own reflection in the pond.

She had always kept her eyes downcast and her expression demure, like a clay bodhisattva.

She had no temper and allowed anyone to mold her as they pleased.

But now, her eyes were curved with mirth.

She was actually laughing.

She said to me:

“Xue Zhuxin, you are free.”