Chapter 1

My father was in prison. My mother was gravely ill.

When I begged my husband to help, he forced me to choose.

“You haven’t given me a child in four years. Now Xi’er is pregnant. I have to think of the family line.”

“Either ask to become my concubine, or I’ll divorce you.”

Xi’er was an orphan I had taken in. She seemed so timid and obedient, yet she had secretly conceived my husband’s child.

What was done was done. I chose the second path.

With the divorce letter tucked inside my clothes, I helped my aging parents back to our village.

But a woman on her own attracted trouble. Men harassed me by day; drunks pounded on my gate at night.

Just when things seemed unbearable, a matchmaker came to my door.

“Butcher Zhou, down at the far end of the village, asked me to speak for him.”

“He’s heard you’re a good, capable woman. He’s willing to support your parents, and he hopes you’ll help look after his son and daughter.”

……

I had grown up in this village, but I had never heard of a Butcher Zhou.

The matchmaker explained. He had left to fight in the army when he was young and had only returned the year before. His wife had died in childbirth, leaving him with two small children and an elderly mother.

He could earn enough to feed them all. What he lacked was a woman to manage the household.

He knew I couldn’t have children. He also knew how hard things were for me. What he wanted was someone to make a life with.

After the matchmaker left, I told Father, who was lying in bed.

Prison had been brutal to him. Already old, he had grown frailer by the day, yet he still forced himself to think this through for my sake.

“I’ve met Butcher Zhou a few times,” he said. “A big, tall fellow. Doesn’t say much. But he’s honest and decent. Every time I’ve bought meat from him, he’s given me the full weight. It’s just…”

He was worried about those two children.

If I married into the family, I would be their stepmother. And in this world, there was no harder place for a woman to fill.

I fed him his medicine, one spoonful at a time.

“Father, I don’t mind that he has children. If he already has them, he won’t resent me for not being able to give him any.”

Father went still. Then he turned his face away, tears running down his cheeks.

Yes. I couldn’t bear children.

In four years of marriage to Qi Mingzhi, his mother had spent every one of them calling me “a hen that can’t lay eggs.”

Qi Mingzhi was a dutiful son. He couldn’t bear Old Madam Qi’s endless wailing. Or perhaps he had simply tired of me. Either way, he had turned to the orphan I had rescued and taken her to bed without so much as a marriage rite.

The day it came out, she stood beside him, one hand resting on her still-flat belly, her face all wounded innocence.

“Sister, I never meant to steal your husband. I only wanted to repay your kindness.”

“Mingzhi is the only son in three generations. His mother’s nearly cried herself blind longing for a grandson.”

“Since you couldn’t have a child, I thought I could have one for him and keep his family line alive.”

She glanced at Qi Mingzhi, shy and blushing.

“But Mingzhi said he couldn’t bear to separate me from my own flesh and blood. He’d rather divorce you and marry me, so the baby and I could have a proper place in his family.”

“Please don’t blame me, dear sister. A woman who can’t bear children has committed the gravest sin of all.”