“Yuanzhu, I wish to move our wedding date forward.”
“Forward?”
Shen Yuanzhu was puzzled. “But isn’t our wedding set for August? It’s already mid-April now. Why such urgency?”
Shen Yuanzhu had only just come of age, her round cheeks still bearing traces of youthful innocence.
Today, she wore a peach-red embroidered gold jacket and skirt, setting off her plump, rosy face like delicate jade.
Upon hearing his words, she merely smiled with a hint of shyness.
The Xie and Shen families had been engaged for a long time. She and Xie Xuchuan had shared meals since they were three and outings since they were five—their bond could not be deeper.
Moreover, having not seen him for so long, she missed him dearly.
But before her smile could fully fade, she caught a fleeting glimpse of discomfort on Xie Xuchuan’s face.
“Yuanzhu, Wansu is already two months pregnant. In a few months, her condition will become visible. I wish to claim the child in her womb under our names, as our legitimate heir.
“If the wedding is in August, she will inevitably show. Wansu is still unmarried and living at home. If it becomes known she is pregnant before marriage, it would severely damage her reputation.”
Xie Xuchuan’s throat felt clogged with coarse hemp, choking him so he could neither swallow nor spit it out.
After learning of Jiang Wansu’s pregnancy, he had rushed back from Huizhou, rehearsing countless explanations along the way. Yet standing before Yuanzhu, he could only utter this most difficult sentence.
“What does Miss Jiang’s pregnancy have to do with my lady’s wedding date…”
Before Ling’er could finish, Nanny Luo Shi pulled her away.
Beneath the eaves of the Shen residence, only the two of them remained.
After a long silence, Shen Yuanzhu finally spoke softly, “The child in her womb… is it yours?”
Xie Xuchuan gritted his teeth, remaining silent for a long while.
He neither admitted it nor denied it.
A suffocating feeling rose in Shen Yuanzhu’s chest. She turned away, refusing to look at him—the man she had been betrothed to for over a decade, the one she had grown up riding on his back.
After a long pause, she fiddled with the beaded tassel on her white jade brooch, her voice trembling slightly. “You fear Jiang Wansu will lose her reputation for being pregnant before marriage, but aren’t you afraid that I, marrying into the Xie family, will have a child appear less than eight months later, ruining my own reputation?
“And you want me to claim this child—what about Jiang Wansu? How will you arrange for her? Do you intend to take her as a concubine?”
Xie Xuchuan looked up, his eyes reddened. “Once the child is born, we can say you had a premature birth due to distress. Don’t worry, I won’t let anyone tarnish your purity.
“Nor will I take Wansu as a concubine. The Xie family has had no precedent of taking concubines for three generations. Grandmother would never allow it…”
Xie Xuchuan’s voice softened. “I only wish for Wansu to stay with the Xie family during her pregnancy, so she can give birth safely and peacefully.
“Just one year… Yuanzhu, just one year. Once she recovers, she will leave.
“After a year, you and I… will be as we were before.”
Fearing Shen Yuanzhu’s refusal, Xie Xuchuan’s voice grew tender, tinged with pleading. “Yuanzhu, you two are acquainted. You know Wansu is different from you. She is gentle and unassertive, disliked by her father and overlooked by Madam Jiang and her elder sister.
“She struggles to survive in the Jiang household. If Master Jiang learns of her pregnancy before marriage, it would surely mean death for both her and the child.”
Xie Xuchuan spoke lightly, but his words pierced Shen Yuanzhu’s heart with a dull ache.
“She struggles to survive in the Jiang household, so after giving birth to a child for the Xie family as a legitimate heir, she can return to the Jiang household and live well?”
Xie Xuchuan stammered in response, “The child will be registered under our names. As for Wansu… I’ll buy a manor outside the city for her to recuperate. Since the Jiang family doesn’t value her, we can find an excuse, just say she’s going away to recover from an illness. The Jiang family will agree.”
Xie Xuchuan’s voice grew softer and softer. Shen Yuanzhu watched his lips move, but her vision gradually blurred.
A faint, distant chanting of sutras echoed in her ears, and the scent of burnt yellow paper ash seemed to drift to her nose.
Yes, that was when her parents had passed away one after another, and she had fallen gravely ill from excessive grief.
When her mother was laid to rest, her elder brother and sister-in-law wouldn’t allow her to attend. It was the young Xie Xuchuan who climbed through the window, found her lying there barely breathing, carried her out of the room on his back, and took her to her mother’s mourning hall so she could see her one last time.
It was also Xie Xuchuan who carried her on his back as they offered incense and bowed to her mother.
And it was Xie Xuchuan who held her firmly on his back, word by word telling her, “Yuanzhu, even without your father and mother, it’s alright. From now on, you have me. As long as I live a single day, I will be your support for that day.”
It was true that the two of them had been betrothed since childhood, but hadn’t Xie Xuchuan and Jiang Wansu also grown up together as childhood sweethearts, sharing that bond?
Looking at the handsome young man before her, whose every glance usually brimmed with affection and whose every movement was intimately familiar, Shen Yuanzhu slowly closed her eyes.
The tender feelings of youth faded in an instant.
Shen Yuanzhu said, “If you insist on acknowledging this child, you may bring Jiang Wansu back to the Xie family or keep her outside the estate. Whatever status you wish to give her, I don’t care, but making the child legitimate is nothing but a delusion.”
“Yuanzhu, I have absolutely no intention of taking a concubine or keeping a mistress.”
A flicker of pain flashed in Xie Xuchuan’s eyes. “I know I’ve wronged you, but my heart has never strayed from you. This matter is my fault, and I will make it up to you, to the Shen family, in the future.
“Yuanzhu, promising Wansu that I would make this child legitimate—I cannot go back on my word.”
“You promised?”
Somehow, Shen Yuanzhu let out a derisive laugh. “Xie Xuchuan, have you forgotten how the marriage alliance between our Xie and Shen families came about?”