chapter 7
“When we met for the marriage arrangement, you showed me every favor. We exchanged letters for three months, yet not once did you tell me who you truly were.”
“You had countless chances to be honest. Instead, you enjoyed my devotion while deceiving me into this residence.”
I slid the knife into one of his existing wounds.
Qin Zhaoyuan’s face turned white as he tried to recoil.
“Yueshu, I did not dare defy my parents then. But now you carry my child. We have years ahead of us. I will make sure he inherits the marquisate.”
My smile widened.
“Of course he will inherit it. If you die, he will be the marquis’s only descendant.”
“So rest easy, my lord.”
Xiaotao clamped her hand over his mouth, smothering his cries for help.
I stabbed him several more times, making certain he could never survive.
After tossing the knife aside, I crouched and closed his eyes with trembling fingers.
Perhaps the wind had blown sand into my eyes. Two tears slipped down my cheeks and fell onto his blood-soaked robe.
Something hard beneath the fabric dug painfully into my hand.
Ah. My parents-in-law would grieve again.
The marquis’s residence held two funerals in a single day. Outside, people began saying both Qin daughters-in-law carried death with them.
My reputation did not matter much now, but I could not let it harm my brother and sister.
So I immediately fell ill.
The family physician took my pulse.
“The First Young Madam is three months pregnant. But grief has damaged her health, and she shows signs of losing the child.”
My parents-in-law were overjoyed. Again and again, they cried that heaven had opened its eyes.
Weeping, I told them,
“Once my husband’s health improved, we decided to try for a child. We feared giving Mother and Father false hope, so we said nothing.”
“Now I have a child, but my husband is gone.”
“Perhaps my fate truly is cursed. I killed my husband, and now even the child in my womb wishes to leave me.”
They hurried to comfort me.
“That vile woman did this. You must not think such things.”
The child in my belly was now their only hope. Every day they sent me bird’s nest, shark fin, and other delicacies. They dared not speak one harsh word, terrified that something might go wrong.
After several anxious days, my condition appeared stable.
Only then did they turn their attention to Liu Ruying.
They used every vicious method known to the inner household and tormented her until she barely breathed.
Once they had vented their rage, they sent her a length of white silk.
I was kindhearted.
I went to see her off.
I was now the most important person in the residence. Every servant obeyed me.
Xiaotao carefully helped me into a chair.
Liu Ruying could no longer crawl. If not for the faint rise and fall of her chest, I might have thought her dead.
“How pitiful.”
She spat blood and stared at me with murderous hatred.
“Why are you so pleased with yourself? You will spend the rest of your life a widow in this house. How are you any better than I am?”
Seated before her, I gently stroked my belly.