Huai Zhi didn't take the small incident from that morning to heart. She had been thinking about something all afternoon yesterday, and now she finally had an answer.
She thought she needed to go out.
In fact, before marrying Cui Jingci, Huai Zhi had been involved with a scholar. The scholar's family wasn't wealthy either, and for the past two years he had been preparing for the autumn imperial examination.
When she was fifteen, the scholar was eighteen. He took the imperial examination but failed. The scholar asked her to wait another three years, saying that once he passed and earned his degree, his mother would agree to let him marry her.
Huai Zhi's parents wanted her to marry early, but the marriage prospects they offered were truly unspeakable—all men of the likes of Second Young Master Sun, or else old widowers looking for a second wife.
Huai Zhi knew that her parents didn't care who she married, or whether she became someone's concubine. As long as they could sell her off for a good price, everyone would be happy.
Huai Zhi had no choice but to keep using the scholar as an excuse.
Her parents probably wanted to gamble on it too—if the scholar really did pass the examination and earn a title, then their family would have produced a graduate's wife. Besides, if Huai Zhi stayed home and worked for three more years, she could earn some money and take care of their sick grandmother.
Then suddenly they betrothed her to Second Young Master Sun as a concubine—likely because that family was offering far too much money.
Filled with anxiety and at her wit's end, Huai Zhi happened to run into Cui Jingci.
She wasn't some naive young girl who knew nothing of the world. She had privately schemed for herself a little. She thought, first marry Cui Jingci to escape the immediate crisis, then worry about the future later. If he really did die of illness, and if that scholar happened to pass the examination…
Before marrying Cui Jingci, the scholar had met with her in secret. He probably hadn't expected her to suddenly be promised to another man. His words were both reproachful of her heartlessness and dismissive of her actions—saying she was like a desperate patient grasping at any doctor, that Cui Jingci was just a sickly invalid, and how could she marry him for luck? Wasn't she just condemning herself to a lifetime of widowhood?
Huai Zhi let him scold her, silently weeping all the while. When she finally stopped crying, she asked him, "If he should die one day, would you be willing to take care of me?"
The scholar was stunned. Huai Zhi then said many sweet things, painting herself as pitiful and claiming she had no choice. Though the scholar was angry, thinking of their old feelings, he didn't outright refuse her.
This was probably the most reckless thing Huai Zhi had ever done. She was simply too afraid—afraid that the future was uncertain, afraid that one day after Cui Jingci died, she would be dragged back by her parents and remarried.
But after these past few days together, Cui Jingci had been very good to her. She regretted it now, thinking she shouldn't have harbored such intentions. Besides, how could she be the type to keep a foot in both boats, hedging her bets on both sides? If things fell apart, she would truly be facing her own doom.
The sudden impulse she'd had back then now made her uneasy. After thinking it over, she decided she would go and outright refuse the scholar.
She told Mianmian she was going out to meet a friend and didn't need her to come along. Mianmian said she wanted to follow, but Huai Zhi insisted, so she didn't say anything more.
"Would the mistress like me to prepare a carriage?"
Huai Zhi's expression was somewhat unnatural, but she still turned her head away and pretended to be calm. "No need. That place is narrow—if a carriage stops there, a crowd will swarm around to gawk."
Mianmian said okay, telling Huai Zhi to go early and return early, and to be careful on the road.
This scholar's family was fairly well-off and lived some distance from the Huai family. He had originally met her by chance outside, and when he passed the imperial examination at the county level, his parents were so delighted that they threw a grand banquet. Huai Zhi had even been invited to share a drink with them. Aside from being too obedient to his mother, this scholar was truly a good man.
But there was no helping it—Huai Zhi had no choice but to go find him again and make things clear, or else she would be walking straight to her own death.
When she found him, he was in the middle of studying. Upon hearing that Huai Zhi had come, he went out to meet her.
The scholar never expected that the person before him was Huai Zhi.
She looked as if she had transformed into an entirely different person. Not seeing her was one thing, but seeing her now was startling—though unfortunately, the woman before him wore her hair in a married woman's bun, and everything she had now was given to her by another man… He listened as she told him that she was living very well now and that he should no longer worry about her. At that, he immediately understood the discord and complications beneath the surface. He had once thought her an honest sort, but in that single instant, he saw Huai Zhi as nothing more than ordinary—no different from anyone else. He even felt that these fine clothes only made her look like a common woman decked in cheap finery.
The scholar felt he had been blind to have fancied such a person. Though there was some resentment at having been deceived by her, in the end, perhaps out of pride, he did not continue to make a fuss.
As if he would still covet a married woman! If she ever tried to come back to him in the future, he would absolutely refuse to acknowledge her!
Seeing that the matter had been resolved so easily, Huai Zhi couldn't help but feel pleased. Before leaving, she even wished him success in his upcoming examinations.
After leaving that place, Huai Zhi headed back to the Cui residence.
When she returned, it was still early—around three in the afternoon, not yet evening. As Huai Zhi passed by the garden, she noticed Cui Yongxin and two or three young ladies chatting in the waterside pavilion within the garden.
They appeared to be her close friends from the boudoir, who happened to be visiting today as well.
Huai Zhi shrank her head and tried to slip past along the edge, but the sharp-eyed Cui Yongxin caught her and called out.
A piercing "Huai Zhi!" was like someone grabbing her by the scruff of her neck—at that call, she could no longer take another step.
"Who is this? Has your household been broken into by a thief?" one of the young ladies, around Cui Yongxin's age, asked.
The Cui family's standing was not low. In the previous dynasty, Vice Assistant Minister Cui and the current Grand Secretary had both been ministers valued by the late emperor. Though the Grand Secretary now held power, the Cui family was hardly in decline. When the young ladies of several noble families gathered together, they all flattered Cui Yongxin, and sensing her dislike of this person, they joined in the teasing as well.
Cui Yongxin gave a cold snort and said with disgust, "She's the wife my eldest brother married for luck!"
The expressions of the others shifted slightly.
They all knew that Cui Jingci had taken a wife, and after learning who his bride was, they had privately mocked the match plenty.
They all said it seemed Cui Jingci truly was too ill to go on—otherwise, how could he have married someone like that?
They had never seen this village girl before, and had imagined her to be either a sallow-faced, gaunt rat spirit or a burly, coarse-featured she-devil.
The noble young ladies had rarely interacted with those they called the lowborn, and so they had all painted her in their minds as ferocious and hideous, their impressions hardening into rigid stereotypes with no room for deviation.
Now that they saw Huai Zhi in person, they were rather disappointed—how was she not at all what they had imagined?
Huai Zhi stood there in the sun, letting them look her over. The sky hadn't darkened yet—the sun hadn't even set—and the air was still thick with an unbearable mugginess. It wasn't like being in the waterside pavilion, where blocks of ice were kept in ice basins; even if the wind blew through from all sides, it was still cool there.
Cui Yongxin called her over, and Huai Zhi went. It was hot here.
Cui Yongxin asked her, "Where did you go? When you saw us, why did you sneak around like that? How embarrassing."
How would Huai Zhi dare say who she had gone to see? She hung her head and lied, "I just went to see a friend…"
When Cui Yongxin heard it was a friend, her face twisted with even greater disdain. She said, "Some poor, shabby household—I don't see what's worth meeting."
The others chimed in with a few sounds of agreement, then took turns mocking Huai Zhi several times over.
Huai Zhi was slow with words. She only felt these remarks were harsh to the ears, yet she didn't know how to talk back.
But last time, Madam He had been present—an elder, so it wouldn't have been proper for her to talk back. Cui Yongxin, by rights, was not an elder but a junior. If she insulted her, Huai Zhi couldn't just stand there and take it dryly. In the end, she couldn't hold back and shot back a retort: "They're all friends. Why can you meet yours, but I can't meet mine?"
Unexpectedly, she suddenly talked back like that. The crowd that had been laughing and joking instantly fell silent—but soon, they settled in to watch the show.
Sure enough, Cui Yongxin's expression turned extremely ugly. Her face darkened as she said, "You think you can be compared to me?"
Then Cui Yongxin remembered how, earlier at Lianxin Courtyard, Huai Zhi had said she burned incense for the late madam every day. This made her even more furious. The living couldn't even be seen, yet she spent all day worshipping a dead person—wasn't that just looking down on her own mother?!
With two layers of anger stacking together, and seeing that Huai Zhi's backtalk had made her lose face, how could she endure it any longer?
Cui Yongxin laid hands on Huai Zhi. She viciously pinched her arm. Huai Zhi instinctively tried to shove her away, but Cui Yongxin snapped at her, "Go on, try to hit me and see what happens!"
This person—even if you scolded her, she wouldn't understand, and she had no shame at all. Better to just hit her a few times to vent the anger!
Huai Zhi's brows knitted together in pain, and she could only let Cui Yongxin discipline her. But one pinch wasn't enough to satisfy her—she pinched her several more times, and finally warned her, "If you dare go tattle, I won't let you off!"
Only then did the bystanders finally step in to mediate. "This one just can't be brought out in public. She's nothing but a marriage-for-luck thing. Why bother getting angry with her?"
A marriage-for-luck person, in their eyes, was just an object—not even counted as human. Why work yourself into a fury over an object?
One young woman stepped forward, smiling very kindly. She draped her arm over Huai Zhi's shoulder and said with a bright smile, "What's so fun about those friends of yours? Why not stay here and play with us instead."
Huai Zhi "played" with them there for a while. It wasn't until dusk, before Cui Jingci returned from his post at the yamen, that Cui Yongxin finally let her go.
Those people had always known that she wasn't close with that eldest brother of hers. Seeing how wary she was of him, they teased with a laugh, "Are you afraid of him? By the way, didn't they say he was gravely ill? Why does he still keep running off to the yamen?"
Cui Yongxin said, "A lifetime of drudgery—who knows what he's thinking. Let him do as he pleases. No one can control him anyway."
She didn't want to talk about Cui Jingci. Seeing that it was getting late, she said they should disperse.
Huai Zhi's body was badly pinched, still aching dully even as she left. She said she was accompanying those young ladies to play, but in truth it was nothing more than teasing—teasing that left her drenched in sweat and utterly humiliated.
When she returned to Lanchun Court, Mianmian immediately came up to her, asking why she had been out for so long. If she hadn't come back soon, Mianmian would have gone out to look for her.
Huai Zhi didn't mention what had happened outside. She only said that she was sweating heavily and wanted to wash herself first.
Mianmian could see that she seemed to be in a bad mood, so she simply said yes and went to have water prepared for her.
When Cui Jingci returned, Huai Zhi was inside washing herself.
He asked Mianmian, "Why is she bathing at this hour all of a sudden?"
Huai Zhi usually bathed before bed, so today's change was unusual enough for Cui Jingci to ask an extra question.
Mianmian shook her head. "I don't know. The young mistress went out today, saying she was meeting a friend. When she came back, she seemed to be in a low mood the whole time."
"A friend?" Cui Jingci didn't know Huai Zhi even had friends. With how timid she usually was, could she really make friends with others?
He asked, "Male or female?"
Mianmian said, "The young mistress didn't say."
That evening, when the two sat down to eat together, Cui Jingci asked a passing question about her outing that day. When Huai Zhi heard him ask about male or female, she felt a twinge of guilt and instinctively lied. She said, "A woman. A sister from next door."
Cui Jingci didn't press further. He had little interest in Huai Zhi's female friends.
As for what had happened in the rear garden, Huai Zhi had no intention of complaining. After being bullied, she didn't dare speak up, and during the meal she showed no sign of anything unusual, acting as if nothing had happened.
She was already used to being hit. Besides, they had only pinched her a few times—it wasn't especially painful.
When her father was furious enough to beat her, he could break a stick over her.
Huai Zhi said nothing, and even her face remained cheerful, her round eyes curving into crescents. Not even a trace of having cried in the bathhouse could be seen.
But Cui Jingci could sense that something had happened today, because Huai Zhi usually ate more than a bowl of rice, yet today she only ate a small bowl. She normally never left food on her plate, but today, by the end of the meal, she had.
He wasn't deliberately observing Huai Zhi, but he couldn't help it—what could he do when his perception was this sharp?
Cui Jingci unconsciously turned the jade ring on his finger, his brows slightly furrowed.
So, who was it that had spoiled his wife's appetite?