Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The medicine didn’t work.

I waited for a long time, but Ling Xu showed no reaction. However long I waited, that was how long he lay with his back to me.

I sighed, and his silhouette stiffened.

I got up and began taking off my clothes. Without the medicine, I could only rely on myself.

Fortunately, I understood Ling Xu well enough to know what he liked.

But it had already been two years. I didn’t know whether his tastes had changed.

He cursed me wildly. “You poisonous woman. You whore. You beast!”

I ignored him. The Divine Voice said he was merely saying one thing while meaning another, and that I needn’t care what came out of his mouth.

The Divine Voice was right. Very soon, Ling Xu could no longer tell lies. He became honest and began responding to me.

It had been a very long time since I had felt so content.

I loved my husband dearly.

By day, I worshipped Buddha. By night, in the secret room, I made love with my husband.

It was as if time had skipped back two years, to before that mistress appeared.

Ling Xu had once been endlessly considerate toward me. Knowing I loved sweets and enjoyed opera, he would cross an entire city every day to buy my favorite pastries, and from time to time he would accompany me to the opera house.

Our days after marriage were wonderful, and the days before marriage were just as dear to me.

Especially during the period when the Ling Family had fallen on hard times. Ling Xu’s friends all stopped associating with him. He only came to me. Only me.

After the Ling Family restored its good name, and my parents met with an accident while escorting goods, Ling Xu promised in front of everyone that he would marry me, give me someone to rely on, and have only me for the rest of his life.

It made me so very happy.

It was all that mistress’s fault. She came from a brothel, with a face like spring blossoms, a waist soft as silk, and talent besides.

Ling Xu compared her to me and said I didn’t act like a girl.

I was so hurt. So angry. When he said that to me, I wanted to die right in front of him so he would regret it for the rest of his life.

But the moment I saw that mistress’s face, I no longer wanted to die. If I died, wouldn’t I simply be making room for her?

I would not die. I would not let her through the door.

She cried and fell to the ground, and Ling Xu called me a jealous woman and told me to go to the Buddhist hall and reflect on myself.

I reflected for two years and still could not understand.

Thank goodness the Divine Voice appeared in my mind.

If my husband did not want to stay by my side, then all I had to do was make sure he could not leave, right?

Unable to find Ling Xu, the Ling Family grew more and more anxious.

They posted notices everywhere, reported it to the authorities, and seized the mistress to interrogate her about Ling Xu’s whereabouts.

Only my Buddhist hall remained quiet.

At first, Ling Xu would curse me and try to escape. The Divine Voice told me to tear open the scabs on his legs, leaving them dripping with blood.

A month passed. Now, whenever he saw me enter the secret room and light the candles, he would silently watch me.

I knew he was longing for my arrival, but he was shy and reserved, unwilling to say it aloud.

The wound on his leg had not healed. He walked with a limp, dragging a long chain from his ankle, not nearly long enough to let him leave the secret room.

He was often silent, despondent, and self-mocking.

“I am already a broken body. Why are you still keeping me?”

I cupped his face and forced him to look at me, wanting him to see the sincerity in my eyes.

“Because I love you. It has nothing to do with your looks or status. Husband, I will not let you leave me.”

Even if you are in pain, even if you are shattered, I still love you.

His eyes flickered, as though he had remembered something, and emotion flowed through them.

Tonight, he seemed especially overcome with desire, impossible to satisfy.

The Divine Voice spoke coldly. “If you’ve had enough, get up.”

I was indeed a little tired and did not want to continue.

So I pushed Ling Xu away at once.

He grabbed my hand in astonishment. “You… you don’t want any more?”

The Divine Voice told me not to speak, to put my clothes on and leave directly.

For several days in a row, I only brought him meals. I did not speak, and I did not stay.

The Divine Voice said, “If you leave him unsettled, his heart will be full of you. He will think of you every moment. Do not worry that he will resent you. Right now, you are the only person he can rely on.”

There was no need to explain it to me. My one virtue was obedience.

As a child, I listened to my parents. After marriage, I listened to my husband.

The only time I disobeyed was when he wanted to bring that mistress into the household, and I ended up neglected in the Buddhist hall for two years.

The servants all scattered, and no one looked after me.

When I fell ill, I drank cold water and endured it. When I was hungry, I had to cook and tend the fire myself.

I recited Buddhist scriptures by day and recited them by night.

Everyone in the Ling Family said it was my sin for angering Ling Xu, and my sin for making my husband detest me.

But no matter how I thought about it, I could not understand.

I had never changed.

Why had Ling Xu suddenly come to hate me?

He disliked the smell of the kitchen on me, yet when he had fallen on hard times, he often ate at my house and said the meals I cooked tasted like home.

He disliked my shallowness and roughness, yet he had also said I possessed immense strength and was born different from other girls.

Why?

I could not help going to find Ling Xu. His eyes turned toward me, and his voice was gentle. “You’re here, Ah Cai.”

He had been much gentler recently. The Divine Voice had not even told me to hit him.

I stared at him without speaking.

His eyes flickered. He raised a hand and gently wiped my cheek. “Why are you crying?”

I gripped his hand tightly. “Were you truly that happy with her? Reciting poetry with her, answering couplets, mooning over wind and flowers together… was it bliss?”

His lips parted slightly, and his body began to tremble. He pulled me into his arms. “No. No, Ah Cai. Don’t be angry.”

In my mind, the Divine Voice said, “He is not regretting it.”

I knew.

He was afraid.

He held me in his arms, clinging to me tightly, terrified I would swing my arm again.