Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My husband returned from war with a delicate young girl at his side.

“Ning Huan, this beauty was presented to me by the Jiangdong Aristocratic Family. From now on, she will be like a sister to you. You two must get along.”

I laughed. “My surname is Liu. I am a princess of Han. What is she, that she should be my sister? Do you even hear yourself?”

My husband’s expression darkened. “I have only just returned victorious to the capital. Do not make things unpleasant.”

“Fine, fine. I won’t say anything.”

I closed my mouth and circled the beauty, looking her over. She hid pitifully behind my husband.

“What are you looking at?” My husband reached out to shield her.

It reminded me of those years past, when chaos broke out in Chang’an and the rebel army stormed Weiyang Palace.

Back then, he had reached out just like this to stand before me.

“As long as I, Tan Sanque, am here, no one will harm a single hair on the princess’s head! If you want to kill her, you will have to step over my corpse first!”

Thinking of the past, my gaze slid over the beauty’s slender neck.

“I’m looking at such a fine head. It would make an excellent wine cup to display on my curio shelf.”

The beauty had only been pretending to be frail.

At my words, she was truly frightened, trembling like chaff in the wind.

My husband seized my wrist and dragged me to the rear courtyard. “Ning Huan, Baoping is only eighteen. Why are you scaring her?”

“Only eighteen…” I was momentarily dazed. “Tan Sanque, when I was eighteen, you told me you wanted one couple for one lifetime, and that you would offer the empire itself as your betrothal gift.”

My husband’s face shifted slightly. “She is a beauty sent to me by the Jiangdong Aristocratic Family. I could not refuse.”

I sneered. “Could not, or did not want to?”

A gloomy shadow flashed across his face.

“Ning Huan, do not make this difficult for me. For your sake, I have gone ten years without taking a consort and could not form marriage alliances with the aristocratic families. That is why my rule is so difficult now, why everything I do is constrained.”

“As my wife, why have you never once considered my position?”

I let out a cold laugh.

When he went off to war, I held the imperial capital for him, rebuilt the internal administration, and even while ten months pregnant, I was still raising military provisions. I had nearly died in childbirth.

Before the new year, my two daughters died one after another. He did not come to see them. In less than three months, he returned to the city with a beauty in tow.

And yet he asked why I never considered him.

Seeing my silence, he walked over and wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

“Even with Baoping here, you are still my first wife. She and I are only putting on an act for appearances. What do you have to be afraid of, hm?”

He leaned in as if to kiss me. I looked at him with a half-smile.

His face darkened. “What is that look in your eyes?”

I laughed coldly. “When I look at you, I see nothing but dry bones in a grave.”