Chapter 1

I was already twenty the year I married Wei Zhao.

The childhood sweetheart to whom I’d been promised before birth had fallen in love with my younger sister. He kept delaying, unable to make up his mind.

In the end, he broke our engagement and married her instead.

I was kept waiting, and waiting, until I became the old maid everyone in the capital mocked.

But Wei Zhao didn’t mind.

He was an earl’s only son, from generations of distinguished nobility. He could have married a titled lady of township or county rank.

Yet when I was at my lowest, he came to seek my hand, bearing lavish gifts.

By every reckoning, he was my best choice.

On my wedding day, the procession of red bridal finery stretched for miles. Even the dogs by the road received rewards.

Wei Zhao rode a fine, tall horse, his face beaming.

As my dowry was carried into the earl’s residence, my mother-in-law was equally delighted.

“Wen Lishu’s background may be a little lowly, but this dowry is substantial indeed. We shan’t have to worry about household expenses anymore.”

Wei Zhao said, “Her mother was only a merchant’s daughter. People may laugh at me for marrying her, but she’ll solve the Wei family’s immediate crisis.”

Everyone envied me for marrying above my station. The truth was otherwise.

Wei Zhao’s public reputation was that he cared little for fame or profit and disliked flattery, which was why he wouldn’t serve at court.

He also supposedly scorned money as so much dirt and refused to lower himself by managing the household’s businesses.

In reality, his abilities were mediocre. He couldn’t earn a degree in the imperial examinations, cared only for pleasure, and had no talent for trade.

Since his father’s death, the household had declined day by day. By now, it was an empty shell.

So he married me for two reasons: my dowry, and to have me manage his shops and estates and keep the household wealthy.

On our wedding night, I could tell Wei Zhao was disappointed.

He had perhaps assumed that since my sister was a beauty renowned throughout the land, I couldn’t look too bad myself.

But my mother had been an ordinary-looking merchant’s daughter, admitted to a great family only because she brought an immense dowry.

My sister’s mother, Concubine Liu, had been a singing girl whose beauty once outshone all the capital. A smile or a frown from her could haunt a man’s dreams.

So we two sisters, sharing a father but not a mother, looked nothing alike.

At best, I was pleasant-looking. No one could call me a beauty.

Wei Zhao was sorely disappointed, but my dowry had already passed through his gates.

He decided we could at least treat each other with formal courtesy. So did I.

After the wedding, we lived peacefully enough.

Wei Zhao was neither close nor cold to me, and his newly taken concubines didn’t dare overstep in my presence.

My mother-in-law wanted to put on airs, but I spoke sweetly and spent generously, sending gold and silver jewelry and fine clothes every few days. She was too occupied with those to trouble me.

Only occasionally would she lecture me.

“Your father may come from a scholarly family, but your mother’s people are vulgar merchants. Hardly fit for polite company.”

“For Zhao to marry you must be the reward for several lifetimes of good deeds.”

“Remember his great kindness. Bear him children and extend his line. Learn to manage this large household too, so outsiders don’t look down on us.”

Like Wei Zhao, she cared only for pleasure and understood nothing of management.

And while she thought my appearing in public was unseemly, she also wanted me to rush about outside earning more silver for the household, to maintain her spending and respectability.

Hypocrisy clearly ran in the family.

Even so, the arrangement suited me.

I needed the earl’s name to do business. Without it, people would make trouble for me at every turn.

I treated it as a partnership. I gave them wealth; they gave me influence.

A peaceful life would have been best.

Unfortunately, someone was determined not to let me have one.