Chapter 3

I went back to the bedroom.

Without a divorce letter, I couldn’t leave the estate even if I wanted to.

Outside, gongs and drums began to sound. The festive notes of a suona drifted across several courtyards and into my ears. My personal maid hurriedly lifted the curtain to plead with me. “Miss, please give in a little. He’s always been reckless. What will you do if he really brings her into the family?”

I lay on the bed with my eyes open.

“Go and ask him for a divorce letter again,” I told her, my voice hoarse.

She gritted her teeth and went. But the person who pushed open the door was Pei Feng.

“Zhao Qingzhi, you’ve run out of tricks, haven’t you? All you can do is threaten me with a divorce.” He leaned in, then dropped onto the edge of the bed. “Get up. Fengxing has prepared the tea to pay her respects to you in the front courtyard.”

I gave him a calm look.

I swallowed down the swollen ache in my throat.

But my voice still came out rough.

“I won’t be drinking that tea.”

“I’m not fortunate enough to enjoy it. Please give me a divorce letter, General Pei.”

Pei Feng raised a brow. “So you’re admitting defeat?”

I nodded. “I admit defeat.”

The smile on his face froze for a moment.

A flicker of bewilderment passed through his eyes.

It was as though he had built a stage, prepared a monkey show, and expected an opponent as difficult to defeat as the god Erlang—only for that opponent to surrender before the fight began, leaving all his fighting spirit with nowhere to go.

Pei Feng licked his lips restlessly.

“Don’t you hate Fengxing more than anyone?”

“I’m taking her as my concubine, and you’re not angry at all?”

“I am angry,” I said very softly, like the last breath of a drowning person calling for help. “But if I tell you I’m angry, will you kill her for me?”

My words frightened him.

He stared at me, as though trying to judge whether I meant them.

His voice tightened. “Surely the grudge between you can’t be that serious? She was only a baby when your mother died. And haven’t you already had her beaten fifty times?”

I asked him why it shouldn’t be that serious.

After Fengxing’s mother had driven the mistress of the house to her death, she hadn’t dared to make trouble openly again.

But giving birth to Fengxing must have drained all the poison from her body. Otherwise, if Fengxing had died in the womb, her mother would surely have broken out in mouth sores and festering wounds on her soles.

Pei Feng choked on his reply again. “That tongue of yours really doesn’t spare anyone.”

The wind gently blew the door shut.

Suddenly, I wanted to pour out all the grievances inside me.

I told him how harsh Father had been with me all those years, while always treating Fengxing tenderly. Once, for instance, I had spent more than ten days and nights untangling a set of falsified accounts. I finally persuaded him to let me spend a few days escaping the heat at our estate outside the city—only to find Fengxing had already been there for more than half a month.

Father had sounded perfectly justified.

“I’m doing this for your own good.”

“You’re the legitimate daughter of this household. You’ll run a family as its mistress one day. Naturally, you need skills to rely on. How can you think only of enjoying yourself?”

That was how I had comforted myself too.

After all, with the mistress of the house dead so early, Father had put me in charge of the household.

But his favoritism, day after day, was more than I could bear.

The northern fox pelts I had asked a merchant caravan to buy became the fur coat on Fengxing’s back.

Of the snuff bottles I had found to help Father curry favor with his superiors, one soon ended up in Fengxing’s hands.

Even…

“Even what?”

“Nothing.”

There was no need to bring up the pale-yellow purse again.

In any case, Father favored her.

The things I fought with all my strength to obtain came effortlessly to Fengxing. She always stood at the finish line where I should have been savoring my victory, flaunting everything she had enjoyed long before me without the slightest effort.

Now she wanted a share of my marriage too.

I would never agree.

If he wanted to take her into the household, he could give me either a divorce letter or three feet of white silk to hang myself with.

Pei Feng fell rather quiet. “You never told me any of this.”

I didn’t like showing people my weaknesses.

But one thing had led to another. Or perhaps because the man before me was the one who shared my bed, I wanted to try telling him the hurts I couldn’t share with anyone else.

A trace of remorse appeared in his eyes. “I’ll send her away.”

At that moment, the tears gathering in my eyes finally fell.

How many times had it happened?

At last, between Fengxing and me, someone had chosen me.

The burning in my throat eased considerably. I said gently, “The bookshop owner says there’s no set of Yunzi to be bought, but I can go with you to apologize to Grandfather.”

Pei Feng ruffled my hair.

He kissed my temple. “I’ll go and get rid of her right now.”

As usual, he rushed toward the door.

But when he reached it, he stopped abruptly. Then he leaned against the doorframe and laughed so hard he could barely straighten up. “Ha! Zhao Qingzhi, you really put on a convincing act! You even invented a bookshop owner. You almost had me fooled.”

As he spoke, he pointed around the room.

The dowry chests in the corner were still locked. The dressing case I had brought with me hadn’t been moved either.

“If you really want a divorce, Zhao Qingzhi, why haven’t you packed?” As though he had caught me out, he winked mischievously. “Next time, put on the whole act. Even a village wife running home to her mother knows to take a couple of chickens or ducks with her.”

Suddenly, I smiled.

Drawing my outer robe closed, I studied him as though he were some peculiar curiosity.

“Pei Feng, if Fengxing hadn’t ruined things for me, I would never have married you.”