Chapter 3

Cui Shiyu was a fast walker.

I was even faster at crawling through dog holes.

I was home in less than an hour.

He pushed open the door and found me sitting there eating crabs.

“You haven’t been out?” he asked suspiciously.

“Where would I possibly go, husband?”

Cui Shiyu drew a deep breath, passed me, and headed straight for the inner room.

A moment later, he returned with a scented sachet.

“My dear, I made a new friend today.”

I gnawed anxiously on a crab leg. Crack, crack.

“He has a wife too.”

Even more anxious, I tackled two legs at once. Crack, crack, crack.

Cui Shiyu could bear it no longer. He took the crab legs from me and cut them open with a little pair of scissors.

He handed me the meat and fixed me with a long, searching look.

“Brother Qin’s wife also likes crabs, football, and polo. More importantly, the stitches on the sachet she embroidered are just like yours.”

I couldn’t take it anymore.

I threw down my chopsticks and clutched my chest.

“What are you implying, husband?” I cried in shock. “Do you suspect me of carrying on with this new friend of yours?”

“I never said—”

“Chunxiang!” I turned to call my maid. “My chest hurts. Fetch my medicine.”

Cui Shiyu faltered. “My dear, don’t get upset.”

I leaned against him, on the verge of tears.

“I bought that sachet from a shop in the city. Perhaps they were made by the same embroideress.”

“Plenty of women in the capital like eating crabs and playing polo. Must every one of them be me?”

Confusion crept into Cui Shiyu’s eyes. “You didn’t embroider this?”

Thank goodness I was habitually lazy.

I always bought everything in pairs.

Had Cui Shiyu looked around Qin Yanwei’s room a little longer, he would have found identical brush washers, identical ink sticks, and clothes cut from identical cloth.

Unfortunately, he had left too soon.

I sighed.

“I’ve already made your wishes clear to him. I won’t be visiting him anymore.”

Until the storm blew over.

“Really?”

Cui Shiyu was still doubtful.

Please. I wasn’t stupid. Why would I give myself away?

“Chunxiang… my medicine…”

“I believe you!”

He volunteered to shell the crabs. In the past, a speck of dust on his sleeve had been enough to send him off to bathe and change.

Now his hands were covered in crab roe as he worked and muttered,

“…That’s how it should be. How could some roadside flower possibly understand what you like?”

“Ours may have been an arranged marriage, but we’ve treated each other with respect for years. You know best how comfortable you are with me.”

“Would you like more, my dear? Another plate?”