The intricately carved grape-patterned wooden bed was exceptionally large. Each panel was carved from a single piece of purple sandalwood. Simply gathering enough wood to make such a bed would likely take several years. Without five to eight years of dedicated work, it would be impossible to carve such exquisite and lifelike patterns.
Such an elaborate and elegant bed was typically part of a dowry that wealthy families prepared for their daughters from a young age, requiring over a decade of effort to create a single bed.
Given the Ji family’s wealth and resources, Ji Cheng could indeed have such a bed as part of her dowry.
Shen Che’s surroundings gradually changed. The ceiling, floor, and folding screens were no longer those of the Shen Manor, becoming unfamiliar and eerie. He could even see through multiple roof ridges the character “Liu Manor” written above the main gate.
Ji Cheng, haphazardly wrapped in white gauze undergarments, lay contentedly on the bed. With a creak, someone pushed open the door. Wearing a dark blue silk robe adorned with treasure vase patterns, it was none other than Liu Jun, known for his preference for male companions.
Shen Che wanted to step forward—how could Ji Cheng lie before Liu Jun in such a state? But another consciousness within him insisted that Ji Cheng and Liu Jun were husband and wife.
Still, Shen Che couldn’t suppress his anger. Even as a married couple, they should behave properly. Why was she acting like a seductress? Shen Che strode forward, but although the people and objects before him seemed clear, they were like the other side of a cloud layer. No matter how he walked, he couldn’t reach Ji Cheng’s side.
As he walked, the bed Ji Cheng lay on retreated. When he ran, it sped away, always maintaining the same distance.
Exhausted from running, Shen Che glared at Liu Jun, who was approaching Ji Cheng, with eyes blazing with fury. He longed to gouge out Liu Jun’s eyes and break his legs with a kick. But Liu Jun was oblivious to Shen Che’s presence. He reached the bedside, drew Ji Cheng into his arms, and tapped her nose, saying, “Just bathed? You smell wonderful.”
Liu Jun buried his nose in Ji Cheng’s neck, inhaling deeply, while his hand improperly slipped inside her robe at the chest. Shen Che was beside himself with rage. As he was about to exert his strength, the door was abruptly pushed open, and a little girl ran in, calling, “Father, Mother.”
Ji Cheng hastily pushed Liu Jun away and pulled up the quilt to cover herself.
Liu Jun reluctantly got off the bed and frowned at the little girl, saying, “Yaya, why didn’t you knock before entering? What did Father teach you?”
Yaya pouted, looking aggrieved, and ran back to the door to pretend to knock.
Ji Cheng couldn’t help but laugh, teasing the little girl for a while before having the wet nurse take her away.
Shen Che stared at the little girl, his mind reeling with shock. Ji Cheng had had a child with Liu Jun?!
As soon as the wet nurse carried the little girl away, Liu Jun, still filled with desire, began to fondle Ji Cheng again, burying his face in her chest.
Ji Cheng giggled and dodged, covering her chest to prevent his advances. She complained, “Stop it. I wasn’t breastfeeding to begin with, and now it’s been three months since I gave birth to Yan’er, but it still hasn’t stopped.”
Shen Che watched, a vein throbbing at his temple. Perhaps any man would be this angry when faced with infidelity. This rage was earth-shattering, allowing Shen Che to cross the boundary and approach Ji Cheng’s side.
Without a word, Shen Che reached out and pulled Ji Cheng off the bed. With his other hand, he struck Liu Jun, sending him flying back into the door, coughing blood.
Ji Cheng was shocked and furious, shouting, “Shen Che, what right do you have?!” She struggled to pry Shen Che’s hand off her.
“What right, you ask?!” Shen Che retorted. “When I let you marry Liu Jun, was it for you to… do this with him?” Shen Che couldn’t bring himself to say the words, feeling as if even speaking of it would set his heart ablaze.
Ji Cheng stopped struggling and instead curved her lips into a smile. “Since I’ve married him, why can’t I be intimate with him? What married couple isn’t affectionate?”
“Don’t you find his preference for men repulsive?” Shen Che pointed at the pathetic Liu Jun.
Ji Cheng laughed, “I don’t mind. He’s my husband, he respects and loves me, and I can’t get enough of him. Did you think I didn’t understand your intentions? You thought that after I married him, we couldn’t possibly become true husband and wife, and you could continue to abuse me, didn’t you?”
While Shen Che was still fixated on the word “abuse,” Ji Cheng continued with a laugh, “But no matter what kind of person he is, as long as he’s my husband, I’m willing to spend my life with him. So what if he likes men? It’s no stranger that some people like cats and others like dogs. He and I are true husband and wife. I’ll accompany him for life, bear his children. As long as I respect and love him, he’ll eventually be moved by me. Look how happy we are now.”
Suddenly, Shen Che had a realization. Although his plan had seemed perfect, how could any man not be moved by someone like Ji Cheng? Even if Liu Jun preferred men, who could guarantee he would only like men for his entire life?
“Come with me,” Shen Che said, unable to bear hearing Ji Cheng call Liu Jun her husband. “He’s not your husband, and he never will be.”
Ji Cheng stumbled as Shen Che pulled her, but she kept looking back at Liu Jun, who lay collapsed by the door, tears streaming down her face. “Husband, husband, although Acheng was unchaste before marriage, now that I’ve married you, I will never bring shame to your Liu family.”
Hearing this, Shen Che had a sense of foreboding. As he turned his head, he saw Ji Cheng’s free hand pull a golden hairpin from her hair and, without hesitation, plunge it into her own throat.
Blood shot out like an arrow, covering Shen Che’s face. All he could see was red.
“Acheng!” Shen Che cried out, trying to cover Ji Cheng’s wound, but the blood wouldn’t stop.
With her dying breath, Ji Cheng said, “Even if I die, I won’t suffer your abuse again.” Her eyes remained open until the end, straining to look at the dying Liu Jun.
The blood flowed more and more, eventually forming an ocean, flooding mountains and plains with rivers of blood.
Unable to bear the sight of so much blood, Shen Che sat up abruptly, gasping for air. After a moment, he looked around anxiously.
Thankfully, there was no blood around him.
And thankfully, this wasn’t the Liu Manor.
Shen Che wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, feeling chilled even on the summer night.
Glancing to the side, he saw Ji Cheng’s birth chart lying quietly on the small table.
Shen Che took the birth chart from under the jade pixiu, lifted the lampshade from the candle flame, and held the chart to the fire, watching it turn to ashes inch by inch.
At this point, Shen Che had to face a fact: Ji Cheng would probably never bow to him, and the idea of marrying her off to Liu Jun, that “lover of men,” was utterly ridiculous. Now that he thought about it, this revenge seemed less like a punishment for Ji Cheng and more like a punishment for himself.
Though the dream was false, the scenario felt incredibly real. Shen Che’s ears still echoed with Ji Cheng’s words “husband,” which stung unbearably. Even if they couldn’t be true husband and wife, just hearing Ji Cheng utter those words made Shen Che realize he couldn’t accept it.
Moreover, Shen Che remembered something else: given Ji Cheng’s nature, how could she easily accept her fate? Even if Liu Jun loved only men for life, she would likely find a way to conceive and bear children to secure her position.
The adorable little girl in the dream, who looked seven parts like Ji Cheng, made Shen Che frown, wishing he had never seen her.
Before dawn, Shen Che sat on the steps in front of the house for a long time, his elbow resting on his bent left leg, his forehead supported by his index and middle fingers. In the dream, Ji Cheng would rather die than submit, and in reality, she had no intention of bowing to him either.
Even when he used Ling Ziyun as leverage, Ji Cheng at most remained silent but refused to let him get close again. Shen Che thought it was no wonder he had such a dream.
Before, he thought he had plenty of time to wear Ji Cheng down until she compromised, but now he had become the impatient one.
Shen Che was a perceptive man. Since struggling was futile, there was no need to struggle anymore. In the past, even Han Xin could endure the humiliation of crawling between someone’s legs. Could he not endure a Ji Cheng who wanted to kill him?
He couldn’t endure it, but he had to. As the saying goes, once you have something in your grasp, you can shape it as you please. Thinking this way, he could mock himself a little.
While Shen Che had a change of heart overnight due to a dream, Ji Cheng was plagued by nightmares. Last night, she dreamed of marrying Liu Jun and having children, seemingly a happy family. But suddenly, Shen Che appeared like a fierce demon, grabbing her and dragging her away. Liu Jun chased after them, but Shen Che turned back, threw Ji Cheng aside, and said to Liu Jun, “She’s just a woman I’ve slept with, who would want her?!”
Ji Cheng fell to the ground, and her mother-in-law and sisters-in-law all spat on her. Terrified, Ji Cheng woke up suddenly and couldn’t fall back asleep. This wasn’t the first time she had had such a dream.
Ji Cheng closed her eyes and leaned against the headboard, calculating that the birth chart should have arrived two days ago, but she still hadn’t heard any news from her sister-in-law. She wondered what had happened. Her father had also left in a hurry, and there had been no letters from him in all this time, making Ji Cheng worry.
As dawn approached, Ji Cheng’s eyelid suddenly began to twitch. Remembering the old saying that a twitching eyelid portends disaster, she felt a sense of gloom and oppression in her heart.
So early in the morning, after washing up, Ji Cheng went straight to the garden for a walk. She pressed her hand to her chest, feeling that something was about to happen, but unable to pinpoint what it might be.
In the lotus pond by West Lake, white lotuses were blooming cheerfully, though, in a few days, autumn rain would leave only fallen leaves to listen to the rain. Ji Cheng, feeling chest tightness and dizziness, reached out to grasp the nearest lotus leaf on the shore. The leaf was covered in dewdrops like pearls. Disregarding propriety, she sat down by the pond, her skirt spread out and dangled her feet in the water. She gently curled the lotus leaf and brought it to her mouth, drinking the dew as if parched.
When Shen Che saw Ji Cheng, she was trying to reach a standing lotus not far away with her foot. Her silver-white layered gauze skirt was spread messily on the ground. From a distance, one could hardly distinguish between a person and a flower—a perfect, natural painting.
The sight of Ji Cheng drinking the lotus dew suddenly reminded Shen Che of her drinking bamboo dew after a night of drinking last September. Now, as then, all he wanted was to capture the dewdrops from her lips and tongue into his mouth, to quench that burning desire.
“Acheng,” he called.