Chapter 2

By then, I had gone numb.

I waited for Qi Mingzhi to explain. Better still, to tell me it was all a joke.

He only looked at me coldly.

“Yueniang, we’ve been married four years, and you haven’t borne a single child. The Qi line can’t end with me.”

“Now that Xi’er is pregnant, I have to think of her and our son.”

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

Qi Mingzhi and I came from the same village. We had grown up together and been betrothed since childhood.

His father had died young, leaving his widowed mother to raise him alone. Father had pitied him. Knowing he would one day be his son-in-law, he had worked himself nearly to death helping them.

Yet when Father offended someone powerful and was thrown into prison, Qi Mingzhi used his very life to force my hand.

“Don’t make trouble, Yueniang, and I’ll get your father out. He’s old. He won’t survive much more of prison.”

There was nothing left for me to cling to.

I took the divorce letter and severed all ties with him.

Back in the village, I only wanted a quiet life. Even that proved difficult.

Old Madam Qi had already told everyone I was barren. Behind my back, people laughed and said I must have sinned terribly in a past life.

Children threw stones at me in the road. They said I would ruin the village’s feng shui and make other women barren, too.

I had no answer for them.

Four years of marriage. So many doctors, so much bitter medicine. And still, nothing had stirred in my belly.

I had thought I would spend the rest of my life alone. I hadn’t expected anyone to come asking for my hand.

When Mother returned from washing clothes that evening, she urged me to think it over a little longer.

The men in the village gave me no such chance.

Whether it was that bald scoundrel from the north village or the pockmarked widower near the entrance, some drunken man was always pounding on our gate.

“Mistress Zhao, it’s cold tonight. Let me in. I’ll warm your bed.”

“Your man threw you away. You must be aching for it. How about I scratch that itch?”

“Stop acting so high and mighty. You ought to be grateful I want you.”

The gate shook under his fists. His filthy words were worse.

A young divorced woman like me was a piece of meat dropped in the road. If it wasn’t Pockmarked Wang today, it would be Scabby Li tomorrow. Every man wanted a bite.

Butcher Zhou knew how hard things were. Through the matchmaker, he sent me this promise:

“Marry me. I’ll protect your whole family.”