On Our Wedding Night, I Came Clean to My Cousin—and Nearly Died of Kidney Deficiency - Chapter 3

My aunt patiently laid out the advantages.

If I married my second cousin, I would not have to leave her, and there would be no mother-in-law to torment me. Life with my aunt was practically heavenly and endlessly entertaining.

My second cousin might have something wrong with him after ruining his brain with too much studying, but he was decent enough. At least he had no chambermaids. He only kept one mistress outside the estate.

My aunt had asked whether he wanted to bring the woman home, but he said he knew what he was doing. Afterward, she muttered to me that he was awfully good at pretending.

She said I would not need to bear children. We could give him two chambermaids, let them have his children for me to raise, then send the women away.

My aunt’s health had been ruined giving birth to him, and she had nearly died. Fortunately, a miracle physician saved her. That was why she was adamantly opposed to me bearing children. Childbirth was a journey through the gates of death.

I did not want children either. I liked my life as it was. So many women grew stout or sickly after giving birth, and some died in labor outright. I was not about to do anything so foolish.

My aunt’s proposal sounded perfect. I immediately declared, “Then I’ll marry him!”

My involvement in the marriage negotiations was essentially nonexistent. The elders arranged everything while I carried on as usual.

But because I spent all day with my aunt, I knew my parents had demanded an exorbitant bride price. She paid without batting an eye. In her view, gaining a daughter for nothing made it worthwhile.

Sometimes, looking at her beautiful, gentle face made my heart ache.

She had raised my parents’ daughter, yet they had never given either of us a single coin. Later, once they realized how much she loved me and wanted money, they would write threatening to take me home.

At first, my aunt thought they meant it. She replied with every excuse imaginable, accompanied by a wagonload of fine gifts. My father had always held provincial posts and had little family wealth. My mother’s dowry had long subsidized his career and was probably almost gone.

Eventually my aunt understood the game. Every time a letter came, she invented an excuse and sent another wagonload of gifts.

She always said she kept me because she was lonely. But I knew she was also afraid I would suffer at home.

Even my mother was bullied by Father’s concubines, of whom he had many, along with plenty of illegitimate sons and daughters. The household was not wealthy, and my sisters sometimes came to blows over a dress or a piece of jewelry.

Father liked marrying his daughters to superiors who could advance his career.

My eldest sister became an older man’s second wife. He was twenty years her senior, and his son was older than she was. It might have been tolerable had he been handsome, but he had a huge belly, yellow teeth, and was shorter than her. He looked like an old, squat winter melon.

My second sister married a merchant. Merchants ranked low, but his family wanted ties to officials and offered fifty thousand taels of silver, so Father married her off.

My third sister was also a second wife. Her husband had beaten his previous wife to death. When my aunt and I visited her at his yamen, her face was bruised too. I wept bitterly and grabbed a blade to kill the beast myself.

Fortunately, not long afterward, her husband got drunk, fell into a river, and drowned.

If Father had possessed even less shame, he would have sent his daughters away as concubines.

I was the fourth daughter born to my mother. My parents had once considered sending me into the palace. The emperor was already fifty. I was fifteen.

At the time, I decided that if I won his favor, the first thing I would do was assassinate him so he would execute all nine branches of my clan. Why should any of us live? If one of us had to die, we could all die together.

My aunt put a stop to that plan too.