“I don’t really understand, but I feel like my sister-in-law is insulting someone.”
Shen Yunhuai said seriously, “Sister-in-law, there is nothing improper between you and me!”
Wen Jiushu looked at him skeptically, her gaze like she was looking at an idiot.
“We’re definitely clean,” she said.
A love-brain, don’t come near me. Unlucky.
If you were the father of my child, I’d have to drink ten more bowls of abortion medicine.
In the original story, Shen Yunhuai abandoned his fiancée—who had been betrothed to him—for a courtesan in a brothel. He fell into wine and lust day after day, got dragged into gambling by a group of dissolute friends, and lost everything.
When he was completely broke, the courtesan turned around and abandoned him, climbing into another man’s bed.
By then Shen Yunhuai had already been beaten half to death. He spent his days either drunk or gambling, even being tied up and forced to kneel by the bedside, listening to the courtesan moan with another man.
When the Marquis of Pingnan rushed back from the south, he only retrieved a rotten corpse from a latrine.
Tragic.
Madam Meng gave a cold laugh. “Since Yunhuai also agrees she should be divorced, then I’ll decide—”
“Mother!”
Shen Yunhuai abruptly cut her off. Meeting Wen Jiushu’s half-smiling gaze, he forced himself to say, “Sister-in-law is, after all, my elder brother’s legally wedded wife. If we divorce her on his behalf, it will be hard to explain when he returns.”
What explanation is needed?
Right now, Wen Jiushu was the one accused of adultery—and of carrying a bastard child.
And yet Shen Yunhuai was actually defending her?
“Son, are you going to let your brother suffer this great humiliation?” Madam Meng asked in shock.
Shen Yunhuai scratched his nose and muttered quietly, “Big brother might not even think it’s humiliating.”
He still wanted to hear more of his sister-in-law’s inner voice.
To see what else would happen to the Shen family.
And how exactly those “short-lived ghosts” would die.
Madam Meng heard him and was stunned. “You—are you planning to keep her in the household?”
“I think… even if she is to be divorced, we should at least ask my elder brother, or wait until he returns to decide,” Shen Yunhuai said.
Madam Meng gritted her teeth in anger.
Shen Yunhuai used to listen to her. What was wrong with him today?
Could it be that this dissolute young man had taken a liking to Wen Jiushu’s looks?
Madam Meng studied him.
Just at that moment, Shen Yunhuai happened to be looking at Wen Jiushu again while trying to hear her thoughts.
That only confirmed Madam Meng’s suspicion.
Wen Jiushu was indeed shameless, but her looks were truly stunning.
A bewitchingly beautiful face like a fox spirit’s.
Clear, cold eyes, lips like rouge, skin so fair it seemed almost translucent.
Madam Meng rolled her eyes and suddenly had an idea.
“This household ultimately belongs to you brothers. I’m just a stepmother. Since you insist on keeping her for your elder brother, I won’t interfere. We’ll wait until your brother returns to deal with it.”
If rumors of a younger brother and his sister-in-law spread…
Wouldn’t people point fingers at them forever?
Destroying Shen Yunhuai was easy. Destroying the Marquis of Pingnan, however, was difficult.
A sister-in-law pregnant with her brother-in-law’s child—
How explosive would that rumor be?
The Marquis of Pingnan would be laughed to death.
Since Wen Jiushu wanted to keep that child, she would turn it into a blade aimed at her instead.
Madam Meng’s eyes flashed with malicious calculation.
Wen Jiushu stared straight at her.
“You really are like a venomous snake,” she said. “Do you often have nightmares, Mother-in-law? Do you dream of the old marquis…”
“Nonsense!” Madam Meng’s heart jumped.
It felt as though she had been seen through.
[The old marquis’s coffin lid is going to burst open… soon it will—]
Shen Yunhuai perked up his ears.
“Will what? Say it!”
He stared at Wen Jiushu’s face. She definitely still had thoughts—but why had they suddenly gone silent?
Madam Meng glared furiously, but Wen Jiushu suddenly glanced at her stomach, her eyes playful.
“Oh my, I misjudged you, Mother-in-law. Don’t be angry—anger is bad for the fetus.”