Promise of a Broken Vow - Chapter 19
Pei Huai stepped into the main room and immediately saw Niaoniao lying on the bed.
“Niaoniao, I’m back-”
He walked joyfully to the bedside and reached out to hold her hand.
But it was icy cold to the bone.
The expression on his face froze instantly, and he could no longer deceive himself.
Niaoniao was truly dead.
He felt as if his heart had been gouged out alive.
Only a bloody, mangled hole remained.
“Niaoniao, don’t be angry anymore, I’m back to stay with you, I already know I was wrong, you are the kindest and most beautiful woman in the world, how could I ever call you vicious, you can hit me if you want…”
A metallic taste rose in his throat, and he suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood, droplets splattering onto Niaoniao.
The blood was warm.
But it could not warm Niaoniao.
“Marquis, Marquis, please restrain your grief, Madam has already passed-”
Zhao Yao rushed forward, her eyes brimming with tears as she cried.
But before she could finish, Pei Huai kicked her hard in the chest.
She was in so much pain that her vision went black, but Pei Huai grabbed her chin.
“She’s dead, are you happy now, do you think you can take her place?”
His gaze was cold and blood stained his lips, like the King of Hell claiming lives.
Zhao Yao was so frightened her face turned pale, only daring to shake her head.
“I would never dare.”
“Get out!” he roared, sweeping his vicious gaze over everyone: “All of you, get out!”
Pei Mingnan hurriedly helped the trembling Zhao Yao up and fled as if escaping.
After that day, Pei Huai neither ate nor drank, nor slept nor rested, keeping vigil by Shen Niao’s ice coffin.
Old Mrs. Pei tried to persuade him, Pei Mingnan tried to persuade him, but it was all useless.
He even picked up a knife and wounded both of them.
“This is what you owe Niaoniao, what you owe!”
Watching the two of them flee in panic.
He appeared utterly crazed, throwing his head back in wild laughter.
Then he threw himself onto the ice coffin, gazing at Niaoniao inside, and suddenly tears fell from his eyes.
Bits and pieces of the past floated before his eyes.
Niaoniao looked at him with a gentle smile, her gaze incomparably soft.
It was as if they had returned to the very beginning.
“From now on, let’s live our days well.”
“My dear Pei, come back soon.”
Clearly, they were just one step away.
Just one step away from being together forever.
Why did the heavens have to punish him like this?
Even if there had to be punishment, it was his fault, his disloyalty, his betrayal, his lies-why did it have to take Niaoniao’s life?
“Niaoniao, I was really wrong, can you come back?”
His voice was mournful and hoarse, as if he might cough up blood the next second.
But it was too late.
Everything was too late.
No one would ever care for his wounds again, no more would he tease her with a roguish grin, no more would she blush and scold him playfully as a scoundrel.
No one would ever leave a light on for him late at night.
He had no home anymore.
In the sixth year after their marriage, he, Pei Huai, no longer had a home.
The Marchioness’s coffin remained unburied for a long time. The court was abuzz with rumors, but no one dared to persuade the crazed Pei Huai.
It was the Empress who finally sent someone to say a single sentence to Pei Huai-
“Even in Niaoniao’s death, you still refuse to let her go?”
Pei Huai’s rigid eyes moved slightly, and two lines of tears fell.
That night, Shen Niao’s maid Zhier came to find Pei Huai.
She handed over the two sachets.
Zhier’s gaze was icy cold:
“One was picked up by Madam under the tree when she went to Zhenyu Pavilion, the other was embroidered by Madam before her death.”
Zhenyu Pavilion?
Pei Huai was stunned for a moment, then suddenly realized something, his face turning deathly pale.
“Niaoniao-”
Zhier’s face was covered in tears, but she gritted her teeth and spoke with hatred: “That’s right, Miss knew long ago that you kept a mistress. It was your beloved Yaoyao who sent someone to deliver the message. Miss knew everything, but for the sake of your relationship, she never said a word, not a single word…”
After speaking, she couldn’t say another word and turned to leave.
Pei Huai looked at the two sachets in his hand, then suddenly opened the red one. A slip of paper was revealed-
“May you be well, may I and you endure long.”
“Same wish.”
It was his handwriting.
But-he had never written such a thing!
But even if it was fake, so what.
The betrayal was real.
The deception was real.
With trembling hands, he opened the other sachet. Inside was another slip of paper-
“This life has already been in vain. One misstep led to another, you and I cannot escape the fate of Lan Yin and Xu Guo.”
Lan Yin and Xu Guo. (A start fair as orchids, an end adrift like willow down. Metaphor for a marriage beginning in beauty but ending in separation.)
“Pei Huai, from beginning to end, the only one who broke my heart was you.”
“I am truly the most foolish, the most stupid, the most muddleheaded person in the world.”
“You don’t trust me, you don’t trust me…”
“So this is what you really thought.”
Niaoniao’s hopeless, hollow tears, belatedly, finally fell upon his heart.
Each one weighed heavily.
At this moment, overwhelming regret surged forth.
Wrapping him tightly within.
He could not struggle, could not break free.
He could only be devoured by grief and remorse, again and again.
Until death.
The next day, the coffin was buried.
In full view of everyone, Pei Huai clung to the coffin, crying and laughing.
Everyone present understood-
Pei Huai had completely lost his mind.
Because of his wife’s passing, the god of war who never changed expression on the battlefield had gone mad.
In the palace, Empress Shen took her young nephew away, personally conferring the title of Marquis upon the infant son of the Pei Family, thoroughly cutting off Zhao Yao and her son’s hopes.
When Pei Huai was lucid, he wrote a letter of divorce, casting Zhao Yao aside. Pei Mingnan knelt for a long time but was wounded by Pei Huai’s sword.
He was blinded by rage.
No one could stop him.
Pei Mingnan no longer dared to appear before him.
Gradually, the Marquis’s Estate emptied out. Mrs. Pei took Zhao Yao’s mother back to their remote hometown, not daring to show their faces.
Most likely, they would live out their days in destitution.
The once-prosperous Marquis’s Estate had fallen into ruin.
Only the maid Zhier still refused to leave.
When others asked, her eyes glinted with a fierce light.
“I want to watch him die.”
“When he’s dead, I’ll go.”
She hated Pei Huai to the core.
