Chapter 1

Chapter 1

His shoulder was half-bared.

Damp, pale skin, flushed with a soft red.

With just one glance, I could make out the faintly exposed line of his waist and abdomen-slender, but not without flesh.

My throat went dry.

For half a month before he signed the papers that would let me divorce him, Zheng Huaishu had started acting coy and refusing to fulfill his husbandly duties.

I was a woman who had borne a child.

I had tasted meat before. After going so long without, of course I craved it.

The matchmaker was good at reading the room.

With a clever little shove, she pushed Song Baoyu to my side.

I stumbled and nearly lost my footing.

Song Baoyu’s hand came to rest at my waist, steadying me.

I glanced at his palm.

It was not rough. Like a young lady’s, it was delicate and soft, yet blue veins showed beneath the skin, and it was broad and warm.

The matchmaker’s eyes curved into thin smiling lines.

“Liu Niang, you’ve seen him up close now. Are you satisfied with this gentleman Song?”

“Don’t be put off just because he’s bringing a daughter with him to marry into your household. This auntie can tell at a glance that father and daughter are both pure-hearted.”

“Song Baoyu is honest and reserved, and his daughter is sweet and quiet too. Even if the two of them don’t have any great talents, they’ll worship you like an ancestor. They certainly won’t be like that last one you picked-ungrateful and fickle, chasing one woman today and another tomorrow.”

The matchmaker did have some old ties with my late parents.

She spat hard.

Then she stomped twice on the ground as if crushing a villain underfoot.

“Back then, he was so poor he didn’t have two coins to rub together. His old father lay dead and rotting in the house for two or three days before he hung up a sign to sell himself to bury his father. It was you who worked yourself to the bone, smiled at customers, and sold pork to hold up an entire household as a woman. And now that he’s passed the provincial exam, he starts fooling around with the county magistrate’s daughter? What kind of thing is he?”

“Even if he became the top scholar in the empire, he still wouldn’t be worth the mangy dog that knows how to guard the house! Your auntie’s putting her words right here.”

Then the conversation turned back to Song Baoyu.

The matchmaker tugged at his sleeve and looked straight at me. “Liu Niang, have you taken a fancy to this gentleman Song or not?”

Song Baoyu was better-looking than Zheng Huaishu.

If we were speaking only of appearance, then yes, I had taken a fancy to him.

But if I was being honest, looking for a man now was mostly an act of spite.

Yesterday, when the divorce papers were signed, Zheng Huaishu’s side had been lively.

There was my son, Zheng Yu, holding a candied hawthorn skewer.

There was the gentle, considerate county magistrate’s daughter.

And there were the villagers, some there to watch the excitement, others to curry favor with Zheng Huaishu, their newly minted scholar-official.

At my side, there was no one.

It left a sour taste in my heart.

Back when Zheng Huaishu had been so poor he had to sell himself to bury his father, I had paid one tael of silver for him. After that, he followed behind me.

Like a silent shadow.

I told him my parents were gone too.

I said I had only given him the money because I pitied him.

I said I did not expect anything in return.

He would not listen.

For a man to follow a woman back to her family, wasn’t that the same as marrying into her household?

Most men hated hearing such a thing.

But he had only looked at me quietly.

So stubborn it made my heart warm.

On the day of my parents’ funeral,

my uncles’ sons fought over who would smash the mourning bowl and weep at the ceremony.

They said my parents had no son, and I, Huang Liu, had no brothers.

They said if a woman smashed the bowl, my parents would suffer in the underworld.

Zheng Huaishu shoved the others aside with a cold expression and stood behind me.

A little warmth kindled in my chest.

I picked up the bowl and smashed it into the face of the cousin causing the most trouble.

After the funeral, everyone in the village said Huang Liu was a shrew and would never marry in this lifetime.

I did not care in the least.

I set up a butcher’s stall at the market and gripped my boning knife tight.

Through wind and sun, I kept smiling.

When my parents were alive, they had said that as long as I had a home, there would always be someone behind me thinking of me.

They were afraid their daughter would be bullied if she married out, so in the future, they would have to choose a good live-in son-in-law for me.

If Huang Liu walked east, her live-in husband would have to shuffle along behind her.

When the marriage contract was issued, I had taken it especially to my parents’ graves for them to see.

Little Huang Liu had a home now.

The weather had been unsettled these past few days, changing from cloudy to clear and back again. Tiny drops of rain drifted onto my face.

Only then did I come back to myself and wipe my face.

How had Zheng Huaishu, who had once been so stubborn that I could not drive him away no matter how I tried, signed my divorce papers so easily?

After so many years as husband and wife, how could he not know that what Huang Liu wanted most was a home?

The rain fell harder and harder.

Seeing that I did not speak, the matchmaker’s heart went half cold.

She called out,

“Ah, this rain looks like it’s only going to get heavier.”

“Gentleman Song, take your daughter home first…”

Song Baoyu nodded. He picked up his little girl and covered her head tightly with his sleeve, preparing to rush into the curtain of rain.

“Wait. The rain is heavy.”

“If you go back like this, the child may catch cold.”

“I have an umbrella at home.”

Fine strands of rain had dampened the hair over Song Baoyu’s forehead.

He did not have time to tidy himself. He only lifted his eyes to look at me.

The little girl poked her head out from his shoulder, her bright black eyes looking at me timidly.

“Thank you… Mother…”

The tips of Song Baoyu’s ears flushed red again.

He hurried to cover his daughter’s mouth.

The matchmaker’s lips curled up once more, her eyes darting between the two of us.

Song Baoyu’s voice was mild and slow. “When the rain stops, I’ll come return it. Return Liu Niang’s umbrella.”

“No hurry.”

“In two days, when you move in, bring it back with you.”

Song Baoyu froze for a moment. Joy rose in his eyes, and he bowed to me with shy formality.

The matchmaker covered her forehead and helped him along. “Liu Niang means she’s chosen you. Hurry and call her wife.”

The rain rustled softly.

Then I heard a gentle, lingering voice say…

“Wife.”