Chapter 218
Chapter 218
Fu Yuan had called her dull.
Wen Yu had heard him with her own ears.
It was the day of Fu Yuan’s birthday banquet. He had invited many friends to his residence.
As his fiancée, betrothed to him before birth, Wen Yu naturally drew considerable attention.
Yet when she finally gathered the courage to present the sachet she had embroidered with such care, she heard those words from behind a rockery.
Everyone present was one of Fu Yuan’s friends.
At his words, they burst into laughter.
“We know Young Master Fu only likes Miss Zuihuan…”
Fu Yuan smiled knowingly and did not deny it.
Only then did Wen Yu learn that the woman he liked was named Zuihuan, a singer at Wangyou Tavern.
Fu Yuan had spent lavishly to support her and had booked the entire tavern on several occasions.
Yet Zuihuan was proud and aloof.
The more Fu Yuan liked and courted her, the more dismissive she became.
After learning of this, Wen Yu expended enormous effort to have someone obtain a portrait of Zuihuan.
The woman in the portrait wore purple and was not exceptionally beautiful.
But her cold, haughty eyes held a trace of defiance. She resembled the highest blossom on a branch in the dead of a winter night, the coldest and most striking flower of all.
Not long afterward, Wen Yu deliberately waited inside a cosmetics shop and watched Zuihuan from afar. She even purchased every powder and cosmetic Zuihuan bought.
She began dressing in purple and imitating the woman’s makeup and hairstyles, believing this would win Fu Yuan’s heart.
In reality, her imitation only made him look down on her and despise her even more.
But how could Wen Yu have understood that then?
She seemed trapped in a snare built around “pleasing Fu Yuan.” She lost herself and could not escape.
The more she tried, the worse Fu Yuan treated her.
Far from sparing her another glance, he began mocking her coldly.
Terrified that Fu Yuan would despise her, Wen Yu humbled herself more and more until she became abject.
She even tried to use an improper intimacy to keep him when he was drunk.
That act thoroughly enraged him.
Fu Yuan had already been deeply dissatisfied with his fiancée.
But his dissatisfaction was not directed solely at Wen Yu herself.
It was also directed at the betrothal arranged before their births.
As the Fu Family’s eldest legitimate son, he had been born above others and possessed countless choices in life. Whether he pursued scholarship, martial arts, or commerce, he could achieve great success.
He could make many friends and travel to many places. Yet in the matter of choosing a wife, he alone had been denied a choice.
Thus, from the first moment he saw Wen Yu, he disliked her.
It made no difference that she possessed both beauty and talent, had a gentle disposition, and was his equal in family status.
Because he disliked her, he remained distracted when she played the zither even as everyone else praised her.
Because he disliked her, all the care she put into her appearance earned nothing more than the words, “Green does not suit you.”
Because he disliked her, every virtue she possessed lost its luster.
At his birthday banquet, everyone envied him and said, “What more could a husband ask for in a wife like her?”
He laughed along. Though he clearly glimpsed a figure approaching, he deliberately said, “My fiancée is excellent in every way, but her personality is simply too dull…”
Those words were intentionally meant for her to hear.
As though identifying something “wrong” with her gave him every right to treat her “wrongly.”
And if she made even the smallest mistake, he could use it to deny her every virtue…
Wen Yu did not understand. Not until Fu Yuan lost his temper, sent her back to the Wen Family, explained the reason before her parents, and broke off the engagement on the spot.
He said, “I will not marry a shameless woman and make her the wife of my Fu Family.”
Yet immediately afterward, Fu Yuan defied his family’s objections and insisted on marrying a brothel woman into the household.
When the letter ending the engagement arrived at the Wen Family, Wen Yu became the target of everyone’s condemnation.
Her parents were utterly disappointed in her and punished her by making her kneel in the ancestral hall for two days and two nights.
Years of anguish had accumulated in her heart. During those two feverish, hazy days and nights, she looked back on her sixteen years of life and found them utterly absurd.
Wen Yu realized that she did not seem to have lived a single day for herself.
All these years, she had been constantly “disciplined,” struggling to become what others wanted her to be.
In the end, she had nothing and no longer recognized herself.
Wen Yu fainted in the ancestral hall and fell ill.
Because the engagement had been broken, her parents believed she had disgraced the family and no longer intended to keep her.
They therefore ordered the physician treating her to mix a colorless, odorless poison into her medicine.
Wen Yu happened to overhear this conversation.
But she did not scream or demand answers from anyone. In front of her father, she obediently drank the entire bowl of medicine.
Her father had named her Wen Yu. Only after growing older did she learn why.
Warm, fragrant jade…
Looking back now, the phrase only disgusted her.
The poison was powerful. She died without enduring much pain.
Her death was a good thing for the Wen Family.
At the very least, it preserved their dignity.
See? The Fu Family broke the engagement, and so the daughter of the Wen Family wasted away from grief.
Meanwhile, the Fu Family’s young master immediately married a brothel woman. How heartless and faithless of him.
From that point forward, this was how everyone in Beiding County would tell the story…
By the time Wen Yu finished, Yu Lang’s emotions were extraordinarily complicated, and cold sweat had seeped across his back.
Wen Yu looked at him with a smile on her lips. “Young Master Yu, tell me: who killed me?”
“Was it my fiancé, Fu Yuan? My father? Or perhaps the physician who wrote the prescription?”
“Or was it I myself, who knowingly drank the poison?”
Yu Lang’s expression was equally complicated. “According to the law, your father was the murderer, and the physician was his accomplice. Both bear responsibility.”
Wen Yu smiled serenely. “But I do not hate them. I drank the medicine of my own free will.”
“I am very well as I am now…”
She asked Yu Lang, “Young Master Yu, is it not pleasant for us to remain together in this dream?”
Yu Lang recoiled in fright. “Miss Wen, you were a good woman. You were simply born into the wrong family and never met a worthy man.
“Now this life has ended. If you have truly released your obsessions, should you not enter reincarnation and begin a new life?”
Wen Yu gave a contemptuous laugh. “What is the point of reincarnation? Who knows what my next life would be like?”
“I prefer this to becoming human again…”
Her hand slowly climbed onto Yu Lang’s shoulder, traced his neck, and reached his cheek. “Here, there are only you and me. We may do whatever we please, and no one will condemn us.”
“Young Master Yu, look carefully. Are you truly not tempted?”
Yu Lang’s heart was indeed pounding, but clearly from terror…
“Miss Wen, please let me go. I still want to be human. I think being human is wonderful!”
Wen Yu smiled gently, but her voice was cold. “You have no chance.”
The moment she finished, another icy voice came from behind them.
“Whether he has a chance is not for you to decide.”
Wen Yu and Yu Lang turned at the same time. A woman in red had appeared behind the beaded curtain without their knowledge.