Chapter 1

My husband liked this young woman. Over the past few days, that much had become clear.

She was bright and talented, bold and charming. She dared to visit brothels and trade verses with scholars; when they discovered she was a woman, her beauty astonished everyone. The poems she recited about the moon so captivated the Grand Secretariat’s scholars that they praised her free spirit and proud defiance. Her poetry, they said, was a reflection of its author.

Beside her, all the young women of the capital seemed like caged sparrows: timid and petty.

So when the old madam asked whether my husband had spent any of the past few nights in my room, and I lowered my head while she looked at my belly in disappointment; when my nephew Xu Xiuyuan, whom I had raised since he was small, clung only to her, feigned illness to avoid me, and complained that I was dull and strict; when my husband evaded my expectant gaze and placed a letter of repudiation on my table—

I truly envied her. I was even jealous of her.

After he returned from the Northern Wastes, I waited three nights. What came at last was my husband himself, bringing the letter to my room.

Xu Ziyi, the husband I had thought of day and night, sat down perfunctorily and tasted a few dishes.

“I hear you went to see Mother today.”

“Yes.”

I poured his wine carefully. The old madam had told me to make preparations; she would see to it that Xu Ziyi came to me tonight.

“That explains it.” Disgust flickered in his eyes. “She gave me a lecture about favoring a concubine at my wife’s expense.”

“I didn’t—”

“I don’t care to discuss anything else.” Xu Ziyi took out the letter. “Xuanmeng says she wants one man, one woman, for an entire lifetime.”

I had imagined this day, but never expected it so soon.

“If you have no affection left for me, why did you come to my room tonight?” I still hoped to find some trace of reluctance in his eyes.

He seemed to have drunk too much; his mind was growing muddled. I hurried over to steady him.

His body was burning hot. Realizing something, he swept the soup and dishes onto the floor in a rage.

I recoiled in fright.

“My husband…”

He advanced on me, step by step, until I had nowhere left to retreat and sat down on the edge of the bed.

He gripped my chin and forced me to look up. His eyes were bloodshot, filled with a desire I knew well.

“Zhou Qiongyue. So you’ve learned to stoop to this.”

Zhou Qiongyue.

We had been apart for six months. Was even the way he addressed me already so distant?

We had fallen in love at first sight, yet four years of marriage could not compete with the novelty of his “Miss Xuanmeng.”

I studied the man before me: straight, swordlike brows, bright eyes, every feeling written on his face. There was no mistaking him. This was Xu Ziyi, the man I had loved for seven years.

“Do you need me to undress you?”

My lower lip trembled, but no words came. I bowed my head and unfastened my outer robe.

The pale blue robe I had chosen so carefully collapsed on the floor. Embroidered on it were the flowering plums that had marked our betrothal. He had ridden two fine horses to death bringing that branch from the Northern Wastes, just to win a smile from me.

The rose-red undergarment, embroidered with paired mandarin ducks, was one I had sewn late at night, my cheeks burning as I worked. Once, while we were nestled close, he had teasingly snatched it away to examine it. His scrutiny made my ears burn. I tried to seize it back, only to fall for his trick and end up in his arms.

My tears fell, one after another.

September wind slipped through the window. The tenderness of the past scraped at my heart like blades of ice.

I heard my own trembling voice.

“If your heart belongs to someone else, why must you humiliate me like this?”

Xu Ziyi snorted and turned his back.

“If you’d met her, you’d understand how disgusting you are. All those years shut up in the women’s quarters, and now you’re capable of tricks like this.”

“Zhou Qiongyue, don’t you remember what you said? You were afraid of having children. You wanted to wait. I agreed to everything.”

“Now she’s here, suddenly you’re not afraid?”

All I remember is pain racking my body, as though I were covered in festering sores that made him desperate to stay away.

I clutched the plum-blossom hairpin from our betrothal. Its sharp flowers pierced my palm until it was torn and bloody, yet I felt no pain.

Even the cheapest prostitute in the pleasure quarters might have received a little tenderness. In the darkness, he hastily pulled up the quilt and went to sleep, as though the sight of me sickened him beyond endurance.

It felt as if a great hole had opened in my heart, and all night the wind passed straight through me.

If I had known… If only…

Had I known your heart had changed, I would rather you had died on the battlefield. Why had I so foolishly waited for your return, praying before the Buddha day and night? If the swords of war struck blindly, I begged that every blow fall upon me and spare the man I loved even the slightest wound.

I curled into myself, bit my lower lip, and wept all night.

Everything had begun to change that day.