Chapter 2
Xie Zeyuan frowned.
“Wife, when I married you, I made myself clear. I asked nothing else of you, only that you be dutiful to my mother.”
“I know you wouldn’t deliberately mistreat her. You’re simply young and a little too heedless.”
“We must trouble Mother to bear the burden of running this household for a few more years.”
The household tallies and keys had barely warmed in my hands before they were back in my mother-in-law’s.
She affected reluctance, putting on the airs of an elder.
“Ah, I’m old. I thought that once my eldest boy had a wife, I might enjoy a few quiet days. But work is my lot in life.”
“Very well. You must take the trouble to learn at my side for a few more years, my daughter-in-law. Then I can leave this household to you with an easy mind.”
Xiaocui stepped forward to argue, but I caught her arm and answered respectfully,
“You’re quite right, Mother. I’m still young. There is much I must learn from you.”
Back in our rooms, Xiaocui was practically gnashing her teeth.
“I thought she was a good one. Turns out she’s another old witch.”
“Pretending to let you run the house without explaining a single thing, inside or out. She was laying a trap all along.”
“Miss, how are we going to hit back?”
I took off my hair ornaments.
What was the hurry?
My stepmother had entered the Zhou household barely a month after my own mother died.
She, too, had tried to keep me under her thumb at first. Within a few years, hadn’t I put her through the wringer?
In the hottest days of summer, I had Xiaocui heat three great tubs of water for her.
Morning, noon, and evening, the household maids and serving women caught her and pressed her into the bath.
We nearly scrubbed the skin off her.
Then she produced a brat who thought that having something between his legs entitled him to strut about in front of me.
I didn’t punish him. I merely walked him to school every day.
On the way, he would encounter either a female ghost or a tiger.
People I’d hired to dress up, of course.
But the little fool fell for it. Every day he arrived at school with wet trousers.
As for my father’s mistress, Hongxiu, she was a friend I’d made in a pleasure house, specially enlisted to keep him occupied.
With her help, if my stepmother hoped to whisper against me in my father’s bed—
She could forget it.
I patted Xiaocui’s head.
“Fetch water for my bath.”
I was a new bride. And what mattered most for a new bride?
Serving her husband, naturally.
For all Xie Zeyuan’s fine words, he was still a man.
The glow of our wedding hadn’t faded yet.
My judgment had been sound. His character might leave something to be desired,
But traveling the length and breadth of the country had given him a fine physique.
With his clothes off, his lean waist and firm stomach promised inexhaustible strength.
In only my underclothes, I slipped my arms around his waist to help him undress.
His face stayed solemn, but his ears turned scarlet.
Once the lamp was out, I couldn’t see his expression. For those first nights of marriage, though, our bed creaked well into the night.
I yielded sweetly to him, my voice catching.
“Husband… I was at fault today… I’ve only just come here and don’t understand the household. I’ve wronged Mother.”
Sweat beaded his forehead, and he didn’t pause.
“You’re new here. It isn’t surprising the servants wouldn’t tell you… What I said today was only to preserve Mother’s dignity.”
“Just take a little more care to be dutiful in future.”
With such an understanding husband, naturally I did all I could to please him.
He was moving vigorously above me when a sudden pounding came at the courtyard gate.
It was Nanny Du, my mother-in-law’s attendant.
“Young master, the weather’s changed. The old madam has brought you a quilt.”
Xie Zeyuan hurriedly got up, and I quickly made myself presentable as well.
When we opened the gate, the night was deep and heavy with dew.
Yet my mother-in-law stood in the courtyard in thin clothes, several serving women at her back.
Nanny Du motioned for a maid to hand Xiaocui a thick brocade quilt.
Xie Zeyuan frowned.
“Mother, the night air is cold, and you’re not well. This isn’t worth coming yourself.”
Nanny Du hastened to agree.
“I offered to bring it, but the old madam wouldn’t rest until she came herself. If she catches cold, her cough will start again.”
My mother-in-law held his hand, her words pointed.
“Who else takes care the way a mother does? His father died so early. All these years, every stitch he wore, every bite he ate, every bed he slept in—which of them hasn’t required his mother’s care?”
Xie Zeyuan thought of his father, dead so young, and of all the years his mother had remained a widow for his sake.
His brief impatience dissolved into guilt, and his voice thickened.
“Mother, you’re getting on in years. Your health matters most. Let me take you back to rest.”
He accepted a cloak from Nanny Du and draped it over his mother himself.
Mother and son left with their arms around each other. I could hear her admonishing him as they went.
“It’s getting colder by the day. The girl in your rooms is young; she may not think of everything. You must look after yourself.”
“Look at these thin clothes. You mustn’t catch a chill…”
How close they were.
Beside them, I seemed like an outsider who had torn them apart.
Once they were well away, Xiaocui spat.
“What a trick. Really, what newly married couple doesn’t have a thick quilt?”
“That old witch is doing it on purpose, isn’t she?”
Now I understood. With all the Xie family’s wealth, surely they could have found a virtuous daughter from any great house.
Yet they’d come seeking a wife from our modest Zhou family.
So people had heard about them already.