Chapter 5
When my mother-in-law arrived to make a scene, Lady Yan was fussing over Lihua.
Lihua had claimed she’d twisted her ankle while climbing the mountain to pray for Lady Yan’s health.
But once my mother-in-law began berating her to her face, everyone learned she’d ridden back with her brother-in-law on one horse, abandoning her sister alone and causing her miscarriage.
Lady Yan’s expression changed at once. She looked ready to strangle Lihua herself.
When Yan Changxi learned of it, his face grew dark as a storm.
The situation was far too much like that earlier outing.
How could he fail to understand why Wei Zhao had abandoned me and brought Lihua home instead?
Whether or not they were having a secret affair, they had shared a horse, behaving intimately.
Who could say whether anything had happened?
Lihua couldn’t defend herself. Lady Yan made her kneel in the ancestral hall and confined her to the house.
Yan Changxi suspected her of infidelity too and called her a promiscuous whore.
It was said that when their quarrel grew heated, Lishu was slapped so hard her face twisted sideways.
That evening, Wei Zhao came to see me, full of guilt.
I refused to let him in. He knelt outside my door, weeping that he’d failed our child.
Only late at night did a servant help him away.
Once he’d gone, I took out my menstrual cloth and told my maid to burn it secretly.
See?
It took only a little money to bribe a physician.
Whether it was a miscarriage or simply my monthly bleeding was whatever I said it was.
After that incident, Wei Zhao paid me much more attention.
I seized the chance to ask him for introductions. Guilty as he was, he granted every request.
With my money and his connections, we advanced several of my male cousins on my mother’s side.
We pressed on, made connections with imperial suppliers, and secured several large overseas trading contracts. The business reached new heights.
Within six months, we had become imperial suppliers ourselves, and the family grew stronger.
By contrast, Lihua was having a miserable time.
Yan Changxi suspected she’d been involved with Wei Zhao for some time. He thought her tainted and would rather take several co-wives than touch her.
Even Lady Yan, once so generous and kind, abandoned her former warmth and found fault with everything Lihua did.
More than once, she said a singing girl’s daughter was wanton to the bone after all.
First she’d stolen her sister’s fiancé. Having won him, she didn’t cherish him, but went after her sister’s husband too and drove a wedge between them.
Lady Yan’s words cemented the belief that Lihua had strayed and carried on with her brother-in-law.
Her reputation was ruined. She became a laughingstock among the capital’s noblewomen.
Meanwhile, Yan Changxi’s concubines became pregnant one after another.
With his indulgence, each freely defied Lihua, enraging her until she spat blood.
As their sons and daughters were born in succession, she became someone anyone in the household could bully.
She had the empty title of principal wife, but the co-wives and favored concubines trampled her underfoot.
She’d always accused me of humiliating her. Now her words had finally become a prophecy.
Another six months passed. Yan Changxi fell from a horse and was paralyzed from the waist down, left utterly incapacitated.
Lihua had neither his affection nor any hope of children of her own to rely on.
That meant she wouldn’t even have to reach old age. Once the concubines’ children grew a few years older, there would be no place left for her in the household.
With nowhere to turn, she went to Wei Zhao again.
After all, she was the woman who’d once set his heart racing, yet whom he’d never possessed.
She had only to crook a finger, and he fell into her trap.
As they made love and their passion deepened, Lihua demanded that Wei Zhao cast me aside and marry her.
He hesitated.
“Lishu may not have my heart, but she’s my lawful wife and has done nothing wrong. How could I divorce her?”
Smiling, Lihua traced circles on his chest.
“My dear Zhao is so merciful. Even now, all you think of is divorce.”
“A woman, showing herself in public all day, building such an enormous business—who knows whether it’s because she’s giving herself to men?”
Wei Zhao’s pupils contracted sharply.
Lihua continued, “More than once, I’ve seen her enter inns with those men and shut the door in broad daylight. The sounds… even famous courtesans would be ashamed beside her.”