Chapter 1

When Wei Yanzhi returned, my maid had just brought in the freshly brewed medicine.

Steam curled from the dark liquid, veiling his face.

He took off his outer robe and smiled at me. “What perfect timing. Were you waiting for me to feed you?”

As he spoke, he took the bowl and came toward me. With practiced ease, he scooped up a spoonful, blew on it, and held it to my lips.

I stared at him blankly. After waiting all these years, I could finally go home.

When I did not move, he raised a brow.

“What is it? This medicine works best while it’s hot.”

I smiled without a sound, took the bowl from his hand, tipped my head back, and drained it in one gulp.

Perhaps I drank too quickly. I choked and began coughing uncontrollably.

Wei Yanzhi patted my back with concern, his voice tinged with amusement.

“Why the rush? No one is going to steal it from you.”

“Why are you being so good today? Not making a fuss until I feed you?”

I sat up straight and managed the faintest smile.

“There’s no need. There never will be again.”

He faltered. His expression slowly darkened, and his voice sank.

“Are you still angry with Ah Ke?”

He sighed and reached out to embrace me.

“She’s only childish. She isn’t bad at heart. Since you’re all right, can’t you let it go?”

I avoided him without making it obvious and answered coolly.

“What if I really had died?”

He froze, then shook his head helplessly and laughed.

“With me here, how could that ever happen?”

Of course. My husband was the greatest divine physician under heaven. There was no poison he could not cure.

Shen Ke had poisoned me plenty of times over the years. At worst, she had blinded me or taken my voice; at best, she had left me covered in rashes or sick with diarrhea. Wei Yanzhi had always cured me with ease.

Why should this time have been any different?

He gazed at me, a faint smile glimmering in his peach-blossom eyes, every inch the indulgent, doting husband.

As though everything I had suffered was no more than a little farce to him.

How had it come to this?

At first, he really had cared.

We were still newlyweds when Shen Ke slipped Myriad Stars poison into my wine. A rash erupted over my entire body and itched unbearably.

Wei Yanzhi flew into a rage. After curing me, he took up his sword and went to sever all ties with Shen Ke.

Yet scarcely three days later, her tears defeated him.

Shen Ke had tried to hang herself.

By the time he arrived, she had already kicked away the stool. The noose had left angry red welts around her neck.

Shaken and terrified, Wei Yanzhi gathered her into his arms, overcome with guilt and heartache.

“She was distraught and only wanted to vent. She never meant to poison you. Ah Qiao, let this matter rest.”

After he returned, he rubbed his brow wearily as he told me.

Only then did I learn that he and Shen Ke had once promised themselves to each other.

He had vowed that if he still loved no one else at twenty, he would marry her.

Unfortunately for her, he met me on his twentieth birthday and fell in love at first sight.

Shen Ke raged and made scenes, but he sent her to the southern borderlands, determined to marry me.

“I did fail her in the end. Ah Qiao, you and I are husband and wife, one in heart and body. Could you yield to her a little too?”

From then on, I retreated again and again, yielded again and again—until today, when she used a deadly poison on me.