Chapter 2

Back in my room, I had barely removed my outer robe when the door was kicked open.

Xie Jingzhi stood on the threshold with a face like ice and anger blazing in his eyes.

The maids rushed forward to stop him, but he swept a hand toward them. “Out!”

The door shut behind them.

“Jiang Qingluan, have you no shame?”

Leaning against a bedpost, I stroked my belly and looked up at him. “No shame? What have I done?”

“Tell me!” He jabbed a finger almost into my nose. “Whose bastard is that?”

I tilted my head innocently. “Is it not my husband’s?”

“You—”

“Three months ago at the palace banquet, we lost control of ourselves. Did you not tell everyone that yourself?”

His face went from red to white. “Bullshit!”

I pressed a finger to my lips and winked. “Quiet, Xie Jingzhi. The entire household knows you cannot perform. You said so yourself. Now I am saving your dignity, and you want to expose your own lie?”

He stiffened, suddenly speechless.

“Besides, who was drugged three months ago and nearly ruined my sister? If you refuse to claim the child now, do you want your head cut off?”

His pupils contracted. That struck home.

“Back then…”

I stepped closer and met his eyes. “You dragged me into this to take the blame for you. What is wrong with returning the favor? Give and take. Perfectly fair.”

He flushed all the way down his neck. “But we agreed this was a sham marriage! Once the scandal died down, we were supposed to find a chance to divorce. Now you expect me to become a ready-made father?”

I raised an eyebrow. “You may call me a ready-made mother if you like.”

He pounded his chest several times before he could breathe again. “Who is the father?”

After a moment’s silence, I answered crisply, “I do not know.”

He gaped at me. “You do not know? You put a baby in your belly without knowing whose it is?”

I lowered my eyes, letting sorrow settle over my face.

I had secretly searched for the young man. But Fahua Temple had been crowded with worshippers, and no one remembered where a pale young stranger had gone.

He was probably a traveling merchant or scholar who had left after making his offerings. There was no trail to follow.

“If you truly cannot accept this, let us divorce.”

Xie Jingzhi dropped heavily into a chair and rubbed his brow. “If we could divorce, we would have done it already.”

When the Empress granted our marriage, she had declared before the entire court, “Since you could not restrain yourselves, I shall grant your wish. The imperial decree is issued. You may not divorce.”

If we separated after only three months, she would certainly suspect we had conspired to deceive her.

He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, only exhaustion and resignation remained.

After a long silence, he said, “If the man comes looking for you, tell me first.”

I blinked. “Why?”

His lips parted. “So I can get rid of him.”

I had no answer to that.

After my sister learned of my pregnancy, she showered me with so many gifts that they nearly filled my courtyard.

At a banquet, someone brought up the old gossip and asked Madam Xie with a veiled smile, “Did we not hear that the young madam was in poor health and unlikely to have children? How did she become pregnant?”

Madam Xie smiled over her teacup. “I knelt before the Buddha for three months, chanting and kowtowing every day without fail. And now the Buddha has answered me.”

Everyone marveled and offered congratulations. Madam Xie positively glowed, her back straighter than ever.

In public, Xie Jingzhi had to play the devoted husband. Whenever we walked together, he supported my arm with great care. Outsiders praised his tenderness.

The moment we were alone, he flung my arm away as though he had touched something filthy and strode ahead without looking back.

Once, one of my sister’s maids witnessed it and reported every detail. My sister summoned me that same day, took my hands, and examined me anxiously, asking whether he treated me badly.

I thought of how Madam Xie had brought her niece Zhou Ruo into the household as soon as I became pregnant. Supposedly the girl was there to keep me company, yet her room was placed beside Xie Jingzhi’s courtyard.

If they had stayed out of sight, I might have ignored them. Instead, they paraded past me arm in arm every day like a pair of flies.

One day Zhou Ruo showed off a jade hairpin; the next, a pair of gold bracelets, always smiling as she told me Jingzhi had bought them.

She even brought me soup and smugly hinted that since a heavily pregnant woman could no longer serve her husband, she ought to be made a second wife.

I told Xie Jingzhi that she could become a concubine, but never an equal wife.

Before even entering the family, Zhou Ruo already relied on Madam Xie’s support to lord it over me. Give her equal rank and she would overturn the roof.

Besides, before our marriage we had agreed that he could take concubines, but no equal wife, until our divorce.

He sneered without lifting his eyes. “You expect me to let a bastard of unknown origin occupy my legitimate heir’s place?”

He was determined to elevate Zhou Ruo, and Madam Xie supported him.

Madam Xie even called me petty because I refused to pay for Zhou Ruo’s jewelry, claiming I had embarrassed the girl at banquets. Soon everyone whispered that the young madam of the Marquis of Yong’an’s household was so miserly she begrudged another woman a few ornaments.

How strange. If Madam Xie had money, why did she not buy them herself?