Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Ling Xu was breathing in less than he was breathing out.

I was a little scared.

“My husband cannot die.”

The laughter in my mind was full of contempt. “Don’t worry. The male leads in angst novels are all thousand-year turtles and ten-thousand-year tortoises. They only ever watch the heroine lose a kidney and miscarry, then spend the rest of their lives regretting the lover they lost.”

I did not understand what the Divine Voice meant.

I found bandages in the chest in the secret room, pulled out the candlestick, and wrapped Ling Xu’s wound.

He had already passed out.

I carried him back onto the bed.

Carrying him here and there made me break out in sweat. I was so tired.

The Divine Voice gave no further instructions.

I lay down beside Ling Xu and draped his arm over my waist, as if he were holding me while I slept.

My heart settled. It had been so long since I slept with my husband. I missed it so much.

Ever since he kept a mistress outside, he no longer wanted to see me. He no longer wanted to touch me.

I meant to sleep, but I could not help crying again.

The Divine Voice sounded disdainful. “How useless. What are you crying for? Get up and clean up. The Ling Family is looking everywhere for him. Don’t give yourself away.”

Choking back sobs, I wiped away my tears.

I got out of Ling Xu’s arms and rummaged through the chest. I found several fine red ropes, sturdy and smooth, without any fraying.

There were other things in the chest too. I did not look closely. I took the red ropes and tied Ling Xu up.

The Divine Voice hissed softly. “Your ancestors really knew how to have fun.”

I did not know how to tie up a person. When I was little, I had only seen my father tie up pigs, so I could only imitate that as best I could.

After settling Ling Xu in place, I left the secret room, shut the door, and returned to the Buddhist hall.

The Buddhist hall was quiet. There were only two servants there who liked looking at people with the whites of their eyes.

I did not know where they were now.

I tidied the offering table, went back to my room to change, burned the bloodstained clothes in the stove, and cooked a pot of congee.

After eating, I went back to kneel on the prayer mat and recite sutras.

Unlike the confusion and pain of the past two years, my mind was clear now.

The Divine Voice told me that I loved my husband. Though this love made him suffer a little and hurt his body somewhat, he would understand.

After all, I loved him so much it hurt.

I had to make sure my husband heard every day that I loved him, that I loved him even more than that mistress did.

The mistress loved his handsome face and his wealth, but I loved him for who he was.

But he would not listen to me. He did not want to see me. I loved him so much that I had no other choice but to lock him up.

Once he heard me and understood my feelings, he would not blame me.

Everything the Divine Voice said was right.

For my husband, I would obey the Divine Voice no matter what, even if it meant making him suffer a little.

The next day, Ling Xu developed a fever. His whole body burned hot, and I spared no effort feeding him water and medicine.

When he woke, he cursed me as a vicious woman.

The Divine Voice told me to slap his mouth. I was afraid that delaying even a second would affect the result, so before the voice had even finished speaking, my slap had already landed. Then he stopped cursing.

The Divine Voice truly was powerful.

On the third day, he could not keep food down, so I forced it into him.

He vomited it back up.

The Divine Voice told me to take the long, thin whip from the chest and strike him with it.

For my husband, I could only do as it said.

At first, my husband still cursed me, but later his voice changed pitch. He could only gasp, and he could also properly eat the food I fed him.

I became even more obedient to the Divine Voice.

On the fourth day, the Ling Family came looking.

They asked whether I had seen Ling Xu.

I rolled my prayer beads between my fingers and shook my head.

Then they left.

Everyone knew that Ling Xu’s legal wife was jealous and had shut herself away in the Buddhist hall in a fit of anger.

Every time he came to see me, he came secretly when no one was around.

The mistress was proud and insisted that she would only enter the household if I nodded my consent.

He did not want anyone to know he was forcing his legal wife to bring his mistress into the family.

That night, I returned to the secret room and fed him some food.

His fever had broken, and the wound on his leg had already scabbed over.

The Divine Voice told me, “If you want to secure your place in the Ling Family, you still need a child.”

That was true. Once I had a child, my husband would not neglect me so much.

I rummaged through Great-Grandmother’s chest and found a packet of medicine. I mixed it into water and fed it to Ling Xu.

I was already familiar with the affairs between men and women, so naturally I knew the general purpose of the things in that chest.

I hoped the medicine in this packet still worked.