“Don’t take it off.”
Jiang He’s voice trembled with unease as she firmly grabbed the hand that was undoing its belt.
The man had already taken off his upper garment, revealing lean, well-defined muscles. A long, jagged scar across his body was especially striking.
His handsome brows furrowed slightly as he looked at her in confusion.
“If I don’t… how are we supposed to do it?”
Jiang He had transmigrated into a novel. Her two sets of memories had only just merged, leaving her mind in a daze.
Why did I have to run into something like this the moment I got here?
“I… I…” Too much information flooded her mind all at once, leaving her brain completely frozen. She stammered, unable to come up with a convincing excuse.
Avoiding eye contact with the unfamiliar man, her gaze drifted downward by accident. It landed on their overlapping hands… then moved just a little lower.
The bulge beneath his clothing…
Jiang He immediately let go and quickly looked away.
The man standing before her watched her in confusion. After a moment, he finally spoke.
“There isn’t much time left before Qingming Festival next year. If we don’t have a child by then, how are we supposed to explain it to Father?”
This…
“I’m… not ready yet,” Jiang He replied, forcing herself to speak.
Xie Zhao looked at her in surprise.
“That’s not what you were saying just now.”
Uh…
“Well… my lower abdomen hurts a little. I think my monthly cycle is about to start. Let’s do it another day.”
At last, she had found a reasonable excuse. Whether he believed her or not, she just wanted to get him out of the room first.
A moment later, he grabbed the clothes hanging by the bedside and walked out.
Hearing the door close behind him, Jiang He finally let out the breath she had been holding.
She had transmigrated into a novel.
Not only that—she had become the male protagonist’s vicious ex-wife, the infamous villainous supporting character who met an especially miserable end.
It was the thirtieth year of the Dacheng Dynasty.
After the Crown Prince died suddenly, the Imperial Grandson, Xie Zhao, who had been leading troops on the frontier, rushed back to the capital to attend the funeral.
Unexpectedly, assassins sent by his political enemies ambushed him on the way. After suffering multiple stab wounds, he fell from a cliff.
As every protagonist who falls off a cliff inevitably encounters a miraculous stroke of luck, Xie Zhao was no exception.
Below the cliff was a swift river.
Clinging tightly to a floating log, he drifted downstream until Jiang He’s father, who was out collecting business debts, discovered him.
Seeing that the unconscious man still refused to let go of the log despite being on the brink of death, Jiang Father was moved by his overwhelming will to survive and decided to save him.
Anxious to return home, Jiang Father found a doctor to treat his wounds before taking him along on the journey.
Xie Zhao was incredibly fortunate.
Despite his severe injuries and two months of exhausting travel, he somehow survived.
Aside from losing his memory, he suffered no lasting complications. After nearly half a year of recuperation, all his injuries had healed.
Jiang He calculated the timeline.
According to the original story, he would remain here for another two years.
Two years later, his memories would gradually return. He would then return to the capital and reclaim everything that rightfully belonged to him.
As for Jiang He—the wife who had forced him into marriage by leveraging his life-saving debt…
Well, he didn’t simply kill her with a single stroke.
After all, he was the protagonist. He still possessed a basic sense of morality.
No matter how badly the original Jiang He had treated him, it was an undeniable fact that Jiang Father had saved his life.
It was also an undeniable fact that they had been properly married.
However, given his status, it was impossible for him to spend the rest of his life with only her.
Likewise, the noble daughters of the capital would never accept living beneath the daughter of a merchant.
Unfortunately, the original Jiang He never grasped reality.
She also forgot that the marriage itself had been built upon a lie.
In her eyes, Xie Zhao was still the live-in husband her family had taken in.
How could she possibly tolerate such a husband taking concubines?
Relying on the favor of saving his life, she constantly pushed her luck.
They argued almost every day.
Every few days she would curse Xie Zhao as an ungrateful wretch, loudly proclaiming everywhere that he was merely the son-in-law her father had married into their family.
Out of gratitude for Jiang Father’s life-saving kindness, Xie Zhao endured it all again and again.
But no one could endure forever.
Eventually, after reaching the end of his patience, the two divorced.
He gave her a considerable amount of money and told her to return to her hometown to live peacefully.
Sadly, she was intercepted and murdered before she could get there.
Her death was horrific.
She had made countless enemies in the capital, and no one was ever able to discover who had ordered her assassination.
Thinking of that ending, Jiang He shuddered uncontrollably.
Because now…
She was that ill-fated supporting character.
Once she calmed down, Jiang He realized something.
With the original Jiang He’s identity, whether she behaved herself or not, her ending probably wouldn’t have changed.
A debt of gratitude would one day be repaid.
Affection would one day fade.
Besides, Xie Zhao had never loved her in the first place.
Once gratitude disappeared, all that would remain was resentment.
How could an orphaned woman with neither power nor influence possibly survive among the women of Xie Zhao’s household?
Her tragic death was only a matter of time.
Just as these thoughts filled her mind, Xie Zhao returned.
Jiang He’s heart jumped into her throat.
Why did he come back?
He silently extinguished the lamp before lying down beside her.
Jiang He: “…”
Why is he sleeping here?
Weren’t we supposed to sleep in separate rooms?
“We…”
“Go to sleep. We have to get up early tomorrow.”
Before she could finish, Xie Zhao interrupted her.
She had no choice but to remain silent.
Still…
She wasn’t used to sleeping beside a complete stranger.
Sigh…
Well, at least the bed was large enough, with separate quilts for each of them.
…
Transmigrating to ancient times was bad enough.
Transmigrating into someone destined for a miserable death was even worse.
Jiang He barely slept that night.
The next morning, she got up with dark circles under her eyes.
Xie Zhao was already gone from the bed.
She walked into the kitchen and found him with his sleeves rolled up, crouching before the stove as he cooked breakfast.
The fire inside the stove burned brightly, its flickering glow dancing across the muscles of his sturdy arms.
Crack.
With a single motion, he snapped a firewood branch as thick as his forearm and deftly fed it into the stove.
The fire pit was already full of ash.
To help the wood burn more efficiently, Xie Zhao skillfully used the fire tongs to press some of the ashes down.
His movements flowed naturally, making it obvious he had long been accustomed to this kind of work.
Glowing embers drifted through the gaps in the stove, illuminating his face with a warm crimson light.
It was already April.
The weather had become quite warm.
(Since this is set in ancient times, all dates in the novel follow the traditional lunar calendar.)
With the heat from the stove baking against him, beads of sweat soon formed across his face.
Without thinking, Xie Zhao pulled open the front of his robe, exposing his broad, well-defined chest.
Jiang He suddenly felt a little lightheaded, her eyes instinctively darting away.
Anyone with a physique like his clearly hadn’t grown up in luxury.
She remembered that the original novel had mentioned how he had been thrown, from childhood, into the brutal training of the dynasty’s greatest military champion.
His father—the Crown Prince who had died several years earlier—had always been frail.
Unable to achieve greatness himself, he placed all his hopes on his son.
As long as the boy didn’t die, he was pushed to his absolute limits.
Xie Zhao’s childhood had been forged through sweat and tears.
Taking a deep breath, Jiang He forced herself to calm the chaos in her mind and slowly walked toward the stove.
Hearing her footsteps, Xie Zhao looked up.
A bead of sweat slid down his neck and disappeared beneath the rough cloth of his open collar.
Their eyes met.
Jiang He froze for a brief moment, her throat tightening for no reason.
She hurriedly looked away.
Ever since she was little, Jiang He had a peculiar habit.
Whenever she met an exceptionally handsome man, she only dared to steal secret glances.
The moment he looked back, she’d become too embarrassed to meet his eyes.
Apparently, even transmigration hadn’t cured that habit.
Steam lifted the lid of the pot with gentle rattling sounds, filling the kitchen with a hazy mist like a thin veil between them.
Only then did Jiang He finally feel a little more at ease.