Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I hadn’t been lying to Lin Qingyan. I really did intend to get married.

Ever since I started working at the Prince’s Mansion, matchmakers had been coming to my door to propose matches for me.

After I turned them down enough times, the people of Locust Flower Alley all began looking at me strangely.

After all, everyone my age already had children old enough to run errands.

The year I transmigrated here, I was an unregistered vagrant. As luck would have it, Cangzhou had just been hit by a flood.

I assumed someone else’s identity and came to the capital to seek relatives with the Lin Family. Only then did I finally settle down in ancient times.

On the household register, I was a man, so I could only be a man.

Otherwise, in a dynasty with such strict laws, an unregistered refugee like me who had impersonated someone else would be beheaded and displayed as a warning.

I was also grateful that I had disguised myself as a man back then. It was the only reason I could live freely, learn a trade, and take on work.

The person I planned to become engaged to was my neighbor, Liu Qiaomei.

She was two years older than me, a widow, and had a three-year-old daughter.

I often helped her watch over her home and courtyard, driving away drunken thugs and ruffians.

She was grateful, so she mended my clothes for me and cooked me meals from time to time.

A while ago, Liu Qiaomei invited me to Tianjie to watch street performers.

On the way home, she suddenly asked me, “Xiaowu, what do you think of me?”

In the dusk light, I looked at her blushing face and understood what she meant.

After thinking it over, I told her, “Qiaomei, the reason I have not married all these years is because I like men. It is something the world cannot tolerate.”

After Liu Qiaomei heard that, she was silent for a long time.

It wasn’t until we reached her front gate that she said softly, “What if I am willing to be a pair of fake spouses with you?”

That night, Qiaomei and I sat in the courtyard and talked for a long time.

Propping her chin on her hand, she looked at the cluster of peonies in the courtyard and said softly, “Getting married is meaningless, really. My parents took fifty taels of silver from Wang Daniu as a betrothal gift and sold me off like goods. The year Wang Daniu got drunk, fell into the river, and died, I actually felt relieved. Whenever the slightest thing went wrong, he would beat me. The year I gave birth to Shuangshuang, if you hadn’t saved me, I would have drowned myself in the lake with my child. If she grows up only to be sold off like goods by someone like Wang Daniu, then she might as well die early.”

After hearing that, I didn’t know how to comfort her.

This was the way of the world. No one could change it.

When I first transmigrated here, I had no household registration and wandered from place to place. More than once, I was nearly sold into a brothel.

In this world, women were goods, livestock, servants-anything but people.

Liu Qiaomei saw that I said nothing.

In an extremely soft voice, she said, “Actually, the night Wang Daniu died, I was hiding nearby. I saw you pour a pot of water onto the bridge, and it froze very quickly. When Wang Daniu passed over the bridge, a pebble struck him in the leg. He slipped on the ice at once, lost his footing, and fell into the water. And you just stood quietly beneath the bridge arch. You didn’t shout, and you didn’t save him. You watched him die before turning and leaving.”

I glanced at her and said gently, “Qiaomei, you saw wrong. That night, I was drinking with Wang Hu at the restaurant. I never left.”

I did not agree to Qiaomei’s proposal.

Qiaomei cried and said, “Xiaowu, Shuangshuang needs a father!”

Under the laws of this dynasty, if a widow did not remarry, her children had to be returned to the clan.

Sometimes, those in power truly knew how to corner a woman when they wanted to encourage population growth, forcing her to willingly jump into a fire pit.

Wang Daniu’s family lived in the countryside, and his parents were a snobbish, grasping pair.

If Shuangshuang returned to the Wang family, who knew what kind of life she would have?

I thought of Shuangshuang’s adorable little face, sighed, and said, “Tomorrow, I will come to propose marriage.”