As she wept, she suddenly shivered, pulling the quilt tightly around herself as she curled up desperately, as if still nestled against Tao Wenkan's broad, warm chest.
She had thought that with so many heavy thoughts weighing on her mind, she would surely find it difficult to fall asleep.
But perhaps because her emotions had risen and fallen so dramatically today, draining much of her mental energy, she gradually succumbed to her body's exhaustion and closed her heavy eyelids.
Shao Zhen had a dream.
In the dream, Madam Xu declared that if Tao Wenkan refused to marry Wang Jing, then he was refusing to acknowledge the kindness she had shown in raising him through the years. Seeing that Tao Wenkan remained silent for a long time, she ordered her maidservant to fetch a length of white silk several feet long, making as if to hang it from the roof beam.
"Very well, very well. Since you refuse to acknowledge me, then what meaning is there in my living on?" Madam Xu wailed in a sorrowful voice.
In an instant, the room was in chaos. Several maidservants surrounded the woman, crying and shouting, "Madam, please, you mustn't do anything foolish!"
"Madam, why must you torment yourself so?"
"Master, oh Master, just do as Madam wishes. Would you truly stand by and watch Madam die?"
Madam Xu, while sobbing and wailing, shot meaningful glances at the unmoving Tao Wenkan.
Watching this scene of utter turmoil, Shao Zhen's heart clenched as she stole a glance at her husband's expression. She saw his face clouded with difficulty, and finally, with eyes full of regret and guilt, he looked deeply at her. "Shao Zhen, I have wronged you… but I cannot abandon Auntie."
That gaze—so gentle yet so cruel—was like a dull blade thrust into her chest.
Seeing him about to walk toward Madam Xu and Wang Jing, she reached out to stop him, but he walked so quickly that she couldn't even catch a glimpse of his sleeve. She grasped at empty air.
"Tao Lang, no! Don't, don't!" Shao Zhen watched his tall retreating figure and collapsed weakly to her knees.
It was as if a hand had seized her throat, making it impossible for her to breathe, let alone form complete words.
How could he make her fall in love with him, only to turn around and abandon her without mercy?
But no matter how she called out, how she begged, she could only watch helplessly as he took Wang Jing's hand. The two changed into wedding robes and, amid the urgings of the guests, walked together into the great crimson curtain. The warm glow of the wedding candles outlined their intertwined silhouettes.
Had Shao Zhen awakened, she would have discovered that there was indeed a hand with distinct finger bones closed around her neck.
In the darkness, Yun Cheng fixed his gaze upon her with unerring precision.
Beneath his palm, the woman's neck was very slender—as if he could snap it with the slightest effort—but her pulse beat against his fingers with strong, steady rhythm, revealing a resilience and toughness that stood in stark contrast.
He had specially sought out a stronger Soporific Incense, so that she might pass peacefully, with less suffering. She was clearly in a deep sleep, her delicate brows slightly furrowed, as if she had already sunk into a profound nightmare.
Shao Zhen, Shao Zhen. He silently recited her name, like a mantra that could smooth away the knot in his heart.
If only he could eliminate her tonight, he would sever this unnecessary desire, return to his normal state, and be troubled no more.
Otherwise, she appeared in his dreams every night, giving him no peace by day or night.
Even with his robust constitution, he couldn't withstand it for long.
Just as he was about to tighten his fingers—plip. A single scalding tear landed on the back of his hand. Then, more and more tears fell, sliding over his finger bones, leaving no trace, yet seeming to brand marks so deep they could never be erased.
His movements froze.
She was crying—and crying hard.
This realization stirred a nameless restlessness in Yun Cheng. Yet he had been emotionally detached since childhood, never having felt so-called sympathetic resonance at the sight of anyone's tears. Even when faced with his own mother Sui Shi weeping, his heart had never stirred in the slightest.
At the same time, he felt a hint of novelty, like an ignorant child who must have an explanation for everything.
Groping in the dark, he touched her chin, then her soft lips, and then her cheeks—smooth beyond imagination.
His fingertip finally caught a single warm, damp tear.
Then, for reasons he himself could not explain, he brought his fingertip to his lips and tasted it carefully, savoring the strange, salty bitterness.
The astringency at the root of his tongue seemed to tug at his heart, as if he could somehow understand her sorrow and grievance.
He had heard all about what happened at the Tao residence today.
At the time, he had been somewhat surprised that the young woman actually had some spirit, daring to overturn her previous submission to Madam Xu and Wang Jing. He hadn't expected that she was, in the end, merely a rabbit wearing a tiger's skin, secretly licking her wounds in the night.
Distracted by these thoughts, he heard her very faint voice: "…Tao… Tao Lang…"
Leaning down to make out the words murmuring from her lips—"Tao Lang"—Yun Cheng's eyes darkened in an instant, like a deep, murky pool.
Even in her dreams, she thought only of her husband, Tao Wenkan. Even though Tao Wenkan couldn't protect her in the slightest and had caused her so much grievance.
Yes, she was loyal and devoted, respectful and fearful of him, avoiding him whenever she could.
Even though Tao Wenkan had told her she could come to him if she encountered difficulties, there was a scale in her heart—as if accepting kindness or help from any man other than Tao Wenkan would be deeply troubling.
And he—who prided himself on being able to control all matters, who disdained to keep company with those celebrities who wallowed in wine, women, and idle talk—had in the end been led by the nose by the basest of desires. How was that any different from beasts that coupled on pure instinct?
Yun Cheng suddenly realized how foolish his actions today had been. The more he refused to face the fact that he had lost control, the more urgently he wanted to kill Shao Zhen to paper over the cracks, and the more it proved his own incompetence.
Fortunately, he had come to his senses before the water was irreversibly spilled.
He slowly released his grip, stared at her for a moment longer, then vanished into thin air like a specter.
It was not because he had gone soft, nor because he couldn't bear to do it.
The next day, Shao Zhen slept until the sun was high in the sky, feeling unusually groggy.
Perhaps it was her imagination, but she thought she detected a faint, elusive scent of pine resin around her.
This cold, austere pine fragrance—she had only ever smelled it on one person.
At the thought, she immediately dismissed it as nonsense and cast the suspicion from her mind.
While doing her makeup before the mirror, she learned from Xiaowen that after she had left yesterday, Madam Xu had fainted from a surge of rage. Fortunately, it was nothing serious—the physician had applied needles and she woke up shortly after.
Shao Zhen secretly breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this.
Though she loathed Madam Xu's behavior, there was no doubting the woman's sincerity toward Tao Wenkan. If Madam Xu had truly come to harm because of her anger, Shao Zhen would have felt guilty. She assumed Madam Xu would not want to see her right now, so she sent a servant to deliver nourishing stew to the Tao residence—and sure enough, it was turned away at the door.
Good thing she hadn't gone in person, or Madam Xu's dagger-like glares would have pierced several holes through her.
She could naturally anticipate that Madam Xu and Wang Jing would come seeking revenge sooner or later, but what she hadn't expected was that the first to make a scene at her doorstep would be her stepbrother, Shaolin.
Perhaps she had grown too accustomed to peaceful days—she had nearly forgotten that the Shao family was still lurking behind her, watching with hungry eyes.
Fortunately, Tao Wenkan had left her a retinue of guards. Shaolin arrived in a huff, nostrils flared with arrogance, only to be intimidated by the gleaming white blades the guards flashed, and had to slink away with an ingratiating smile.
When Xiaowen returned from the gatehouse, she was beaming with satisfaction. "They want to bully our mistress? Pah! He's not even worthy of that. Now he's not even fit to carry our mistress's shoes."
Shao Zhen also felt a pang of wistfulness. In the old days, when she lived under the Shao family's roof, dependent on their whims, Shaolin had lorded it over her, relying on Shaoye and Madam Cui's favor, ordering her about and making endless trouble for her.
Now that she had married into the Tao household, no matter how displeased he felt, he had to tread carefully.
But she couldn't take joy in this temporary upper hand. As the saying goes, you can dodge for a moment, but not forever. As long as Shaolin and the rest of the Shao family were alive, she could never fully sever ties with them, and she would always have to keep her guard up against their troublesome ways.
They and the Shao family had clearly come to see her as a money tree. Shaolin was swaggering around Pi County under the banner of being Tao Wenkan's brother-in-law, sullying the Tao family's reputation abroad, and now he had even traveled north to lodge at an inn in Yingdu—like a bloodsucking bedbug that simply couldn't be driven away.
No wonder Madam Xu said that Tao Wenkan marrying her was the worst misfortune of several lifetimes.
Shao Zhen had originally thought that marrying far away would completely rid her of this family, but she had forgotten that her stepmother still held the evidence of her mother's illicit affair with an outsider all those years ago.
Even though she could not bring herself to believe that the gentle woman in her memories could have done something so unacceptable to the world, if this matter were ever exposed, she would find it even harder to hold her head up before Tao Wenkan and the rest of the Tao family.
More crucially, she could not allow Tao Wenkan to continue being stained with more blemishes because of her.
It hadn't even been two months, and Shaolin had already come running to her for money again.
But where was she to find private funds?
Tao Lang treated her with such deep affection—how could she take his money to feed the mouths of those money-devouring beasts in her family? So she could only quietly make embroideries and have Xiaowen sell them for cash, at least stalling them for now and keeping them from making a scene before Tao Wenkan or the Tao household.
But the Shao family's greed was as deep as the sea. No matter how much gold and silver she threw at them, it all ultimately came to nothing.
Fifty taels of silver would last an ordinary family two or three years, but Shaolin took the silver straight into a gambling den and lost all her hard-earned money in a single night.
She didn't know how much longer she could keep fending them off.
Meanwhile, after Shaolin left the Tao residence, thinking of the guards' condescending faces, he gnashed his teeth in fury.
"Shao Zhen, you're something else. Fly up the branch and become a phoenix, and now you don't even put Young Master me in your eyes," he spat viciously. "Pah! You mud speck—what kind of lady do you think you are? Just you dare leave that house, and I'll find a chance to catch you and make you sorry!"
"Burp—" The wine he'd just drunk came back up, and he let out a satisfied belch.
Passersby caught the heavy stench of alcohol on him and hurried away, covering their noses.
Shaolin swung a punch through the air at the person who dared to look down on him. "Hey, you! Stop right there, little master's talking to you!"
The other person quickened their pace and ran even faster, while several blurred figures appeared before his eyes. He muttered, "Strange, why does he have three heads and four legs…"
Shaolin braced himself against the nearest wall, shaking his head until he finally regained some clarity.
He reached for the empty, flat money pouch at his waist, and thinking of the contempt those people at the gambling house had shown him, rage burned ever hotter in his chest. He wished he could go back and hurl every curse word pent up in his lungs at them.
Since Shaozhen had made him lose face, why should he bother saving hers?
Today, he had to get fifty taels—no, a hundred taels of silver—and go back to show those blind fools that little master here was loaded.
He refused to believe his luck could be that bad every single time.
This time, he would definitely win it all back and return to Pixian in grand style, flush with gold.
But before he could take even a few steps back, someone suddenly clamped a hand over his mouth from behind, his scream stifled in his throat. The next moment, he was dragged into a secluded alley corner, his vision swallowed by darkness as if something had been thrown over his head.
Then, clubs rained down on him like a sudden mountain storm, striking his body with heavy blows.
"Mmph—who, who are you? How dare you hit me! Do you know who I am—ouch, it hurts like hell—I'm the brother-in-law of Third Son of the Tao family! You're dead, you hear me—"
The intense pain made his eyes roll back, and he nearly blacked out.
His slurred curses gradually turned into desperate pleas, all pride abandoned: "Mercy! Grandfather, I, I know I was wrong—"
Seeing that the noisy fellow had finally gone quiet, the young man in neat, practical clothes stopped his assault, landing one last satisfying kick before lowering the brim of his bamboo hat and disappearing into the depths of the high-walled compound.