Chapter 2

The System said Wei Yanzhi did love me. If I could not bear to leave him, I only had to let him discover the error in the prescription. The guilt would devastate him, and he would spend the rest of his life making amends and loving me.

I shook my head, speechless. What use was his guilt to me? It was hardly worth anything.

“But Host, hadn’t you already given up on returning to the modern world?”

I fell silent.

It was true. Wei Yanzhi had treated me so well that dying by his hand had seemed like an impossible mission. I had no one waiting for me back home anyway, so I had decided I might as well stay here with him.

I had forgotten how easily hearts changed, and how hard it was to find the person one once knew.

“No. I think I’ll go home after all.”

It was only another month of medicinal decoctions. I could wait.

Shen Ke wanted to come and apologize to me.

I refused instinctively. “There’s no need.”

Nothing good ever happened when she came to see me.

Wei Yanzhi clasped my hand, his gaze tender.

“Of course there is. You are my lawful wife. I cannot let you suffer one grievance after another.”

I lowered my eyes. Once, those words would have moved me. Now they only made me sick.

People said Divine Physician Wei practiced medicine for the good of all. Whether his patient was a powerful noble or an ordinary pauper, he treated everyone alike, the very model of a gentleman.

Even in private family matters, he prided himself on keeping the scales perfectly even, judging right and wrong so fairly that no one could criticize him.

Unfortunately, he had hoped to be true to both Buddha and his beloved, only to try drawing a tiger and produce a dog instead.

Shen Ke offered me a cup of wine.

It was fruit wine brewed from peach blossoms, fragrant and seemingly intoxicating.

I did not take it.

I was allergic to peach blossoms, and Wei Yanzhi knew it.

Shen Ke surely knew as well. After all, the Myriad Stars poison that had covered me in rashes had contained peach blossoms too.

Wei Yanzhi winked at me. “Drink it. Don’t worry, I have the antidote ready. I won’t let you suffer.”

“Be good. I forced her to come apologize, so it’s only natural that she’s upset and acting a little willful. She agreed to say she was sorry. Don’t quibble over such trifles.”

Understanding dawned. I smiled, accepted the peach-blossom wine, and, beneath his gratified gaze, flung it at her.

Wine streamed from the crown of Shen Ke’s head. Combined with her incredulous stare, it made her look thoroughly wretched.

Wei Yanzhi shot to his feet and glared at me, his usually gentle face turning livid in an instant.

Perhaps knowing I would soon leave had finally eased the tightness in my chest. I no longer wanted to swallow the grievances I once had.

I smiled faintly. “I told you, I don’t need an apology.”

“The next time you stage a farce like this just to paper over the cracks and give everyone a happy ending, leave me out of it.”