I was born with a honeyed tongue.
I knew how to win people over.
As a child, I coaxed my father’s wife from despising me into loving me as her own.
After I married, I charmed my icy mother-in-law into treating me like her own daughter.
But it didn’t work on my husband.
He had a woman he loved and could not have.
In two years of marriage, he had never so much as touched a finger of mine.
Once again, at my mother-in-law’s bidding, I took a nourishing soup to his study and tried to coax him into sharing my bed.
He shoved me away in disgust and flung the soup aside.
“Wen Xiaoxiao, spare me your honeyed words and hidden knives.”
“I’d sooner die than touch you.”
Oh, well.
There really was nothing I could do.
If he wouldn’t be charmed, I would simply have to charm someone else.
