chapter 2

In my last life, Wei Heng was the first to find a hairpin, but it was mine.

A smile had just appeared on his face when Su Qingye said coldly, “You cannot even recognize Ah Zhi’s hairpin. It seems you can only marry the Third Young Lady.”

My sister later married into the marquis household.

Whenever she and her husband quarreled, she came to Wei Heng in tears.

He ached for her and would murmur, “If it were me, I would never make you cry. Not even once.”

At first, I tried to comfort her too, but her eyes would fill with tears before I had spoken three sentences.

Wei Heng needed only a few words to coax her back into a smile.

In private, my sister told me how well he treated me.

Everything I wore, from my dresses to my hair ornaments, was of the finest quality.

Su Qingye, by contrast, was cold-faced and warm-hearted, keeping every thought locked inside and forcing her to guess what he felt.

It exhausted her, she said.

When those words reached Wei Heng, he blamed me instead.

He said I should not have dressed so ostentatiously in front of my sister and that I would never have secured such a fine marriage if she had not magnanimously stepped aside.

The accusation sat bitterly in my heart.

When had Su Qingye ever mistreated my sister?

Every piece of clothing, every meal, every comfort she enjoyed in the marquis household was the best money could buy.

He was simply reserved and did not speak every concern aloud.

One day, unable to endure any more, I asked Wei Heng, “If you regret it so much, why did you marry me in the first place?”

He stiffened, as if I had struck the truth, then answered coldly, “Xiao Ran, besides marrying me, did you have a better choice?”

The words silenced me.

We quarreled bitterly, and that very night he moved into his study.

From then on, whenever my sister visited, she complained that her husband was inattentive and Wei Heng complained that I was unreasonable.

Their perfect harmony made them seem more like soulmates than he and his lawful wife ever were.

I found them together under the moon and wandering through spring gardens, their shadows merging on the ground.

If I showed the slightest displeasure, Wei Heng called me jealous and petty.

He said my poetry and painting were inferior to my sister’s and that my heart was narrow besides.

After hearing it often enough, my heart withered petal by petal, like blossoms stripped away by an autumn wind.

Then came the quarrel between my sister and Su Qingye on his birthday.

He had failed to find the piece of warm jade she had been asking for, and in a fit of anger she ran away.

Assuming she had gone to the general’s estate as usual, Su Qingye rushed there.

When he discovered she was absent, a few sharp words were enough to send him and Wei Heng into a fight beneath the veranda.

Red-eyed, Wei Heng shouted, “If I had known you would treat her like this and make her cry every day, I never would have sacrificed myself! I reached for the middle and still lost everything!”

I stood behind a half-folded screen inside the room.

The words pierced my heart so deeply that I could not speak.

After he hurried out to search for my sister, I quietly packed my clothes and returned to my parents’ home.

Mother merely sighed when she saw me.

My sister was still missing, she said, yet I had chosen that moment to imitate foolish wives who ran home after a quarrel and cause everyone more trouble.

My elder brother rebuked me even more coldly.

I had been spoiled since childhood, he said, and possessed none of my sister’s gentleness or good sense.

Everywhere I looked was desolate.

The world was vast, yet there seemed to be no place for me in it.

So I gathered my valuables and traveled south to Jiangnan alone.

At the time, I did not know I was carrying a child.

When Wei Heng finally found me, he brought my sister with him.

She was pregnant, and he supported her at every step as though she might shatter.

The instant he saw me, he launched into a furious rebuke.

“Ah Zhi worried about you even while carrying a child, yet you vanished without a word and made everyone fret over you!”

I stood beneath the veranda and watched the anger distort his face.

Something inside me went utterly still.

Stroking my still-flat belly, I asked calmly, “I am pregnant too. Did you ever worry about me?”

His expression changed at once, but his voice only grew harsher.

“You ran all over the country while pregnant? Xiao Ran, how could you be this willful?”

I stared at him and finally understood.

He was not the husband I wanted.

Later, I ended the pregnancy and asked for a divorce.

He refused, raging that I had killed his child without consulting him and cursing me as selfish and obstinate.

I moved to a separate residence and lived there alone.