Lying on the couch, he was deathly pale and unconscious. Both legs were frozen stiff, knees bruised, swollen, and unrecognizable.
They had to be wiped with cool water several times before gradually warming the water to rub them slowly.
Xiao Cong Jing personally brought imperial physicians from the palace. With a stern face, he stayed half a day and only eased after hearing the physicians’ words.
When A Ying and the others went out to decoct medicine, Xiao Cong Jing looked at the youth on the couch and sighed softly, lamenting “karmic ties.”
Then he said to Xin Yi, “Since Second Shen is staking his life to marry you, this hall will go to the palace in a few days and request His Majesty to grant the marriage for you. Better than him continuing to act foolish. If there’s a next time, these legs will truly be ruined.”
Xin Yi tugged her lips, but there was little smile in her gentle eyes. “No need. I won’t marry A Jie.”
Xiao Cong Jing never expected to hear such words.
He was stunned on the spot, staring at Xin Yi for a long time before confirming it was her true heart. He laughed in extreme anger, his eyes darkening. “Does Miss Wu have a grudge against Second Shen, so you want to put him to death?”
Seeing Xin Yi not answer, Xiao Cong Jing felt even more that she was guilty.
His tone grew colder. “I’ve never seen Second Shen love someone like this, willing to dig out his heart for a girl, disregarding life and career. If Miss Wu had no intention of being with him, you shouldn’t have provoked him from the beginning!”
Xiao Cong Jing left.
He stormed out in fury.
The ground dragon heated the room, with extra lamps lit.
After feeding medicine to the youth on the couch, Xin Yi quietly stroked his injured leg, waiting for him to wake.
So when Shen Ru Jie opened his eyes, he saw the woman’s delicate and graceful brows and eyes.
She rested her head by the couch, their ten fingers intertwined. She looked charmingly naive and pitiful, as if she were already his wife.
Xin Yi had been dozing off but was woken by the system’s voice.
She rubbed her sore neck and lifted her head. Sure enough, Shen Ru Jie had woken up.
Before she could speak, the youth spoke first. “Xin Yi, shall we go pick wedding dress styles early?”
His dark eyes flickered slightly, as if afraid of upsetting her. “Your body is weak and not suited for bearing children. If you really want, we can adopt a nephew from the Wu family to raise. I’ll treat that child as my own.”
Xin Yi was stunned, then curved her eyes at him.
She shyly nestled over to stroke the youth’s face, then licked his dry, waterless lips like he usually did to her, before proactively entwining his tongue tip.
During the days accompanying Shen Ru Jie in recovery, rumors began to spread in the Capital City, extremely unpleasant ones.
Especially since the youth had knelt for three full days in front of the Wu Mansion, determined to marry the woman divorced by his elder brother.
Thus, Xin Yi’s reputation spread. From sickly discarded wife, she became a vixen, a beauty that brings calamity, a shameless woman who shamed her family.
Even some drunk bastard publicly joked that she appeared dignified but was actually lascivious, surely having practiced bedroom arts privately with men to hook Shen Gui’s bastard brother so inseparably.
Xin Yi didn’t care.
She ate and drank tea as usual, occasionally practicing bedroom arts with the pitiful youth on the sickbed. Anyway, she was leaving soon; if he wanted to eat, let him have a few more bites.
On the day Shen Ru Jie fully recovered his leg injury and no longer needed medicine.
Xin Yi straightened her sweat-dampened robe and got off him. Her lips were still vividly red, but her eyes had cleared.
That evening, she took a carriage away from the marquis manor, bringing no hairpins or jewelry, only the maid A Ying.
A Ying had changed her view of Shen Ru Jie these days and spoke with some reluctance. “Miss… are we really discarding the Second Young Master?”
Her response was indifferent. “Mm, discarded.”
After nightfall, the marquis manor was deathly silent. In the south garden side room, Shen Ru Jie had smashed everything smashable. Porcelain vases, cups, tables, chairs, screens—all shattered on the floor. No one dared enter to clean.
Their lady had left a letter and returned to the Wu family, probably to cut ties with the Second Young Master. He was mad enough to kill; whoever went in to console now would be courting death.
Amid the wreckage, only that desolate youth figure sat dejectedly, clutching the hairpin she had left by the pillow.
Sharp enough to pierce his palm, yet he felt nothing.
She said she did not want to marry him, not one bit.
Previously, annoyed by his persistence, she merely wanted to use the Wu family to brush him off, so even if the Wu family people truly agreed, she still would not marry.
The side room quieted down for a good while, with no further sounds.
The maid responsible for cleaning originally wanted to steel herself and go in to check, but just as she reached the door, she heard the Second Young Master seemingly crying.
It was a deeply suppressed, pained cry, like a snapped string.
The maid knew well that servants like them could not witness their master’s distress, so she quietly retreated.
After returning to the Wu family, Xin Yi still lived the life of a sheltered young lady.
However, the rules here were even stricter than those in the marquis manor; not only could she not sleep until the sun rose high, but she also had to pay morning and evening respects to her father and mother.
The brothers of the Wu family feared she would go back on her word and become entangled with Shen Ru Jie again.
Thus, they tried to indirectly introduce promising young talents to her, but she firmly refused them all.
Shen Ru Jie came twice, both times on rainy nights.
Outside poured a torrential downpour, carrying the piercing chill of midwinter, cold as needles piercing the bone. Xin Yi simply peered through the raised window lattice and saw that pale youth soaked through.
But she quickly shut the lattice, pretending not to see him.
Since she had no intention of caring for him, she did not know that he had caught a raging fever from enduring the cold rain half the night.
Even in his dreams, he called out “Xin Yi.”
When he awoke, he saw only Xiao Cong Jing keeping vigil by his bedside, his face grim as he spat in exasperation, “You, a marquis manor young master with a bright future ahead, actually tormenting yourself like this over a woman! Even if you died on this bed today, she still might not soften her heart enough to come glance at you!”
He thought these words would snap Shen Ru Jie out of it.
Unexpectedly, after the youth heard them, his face turned deathly pale yet eerily calm, his dark eyes desolate and barren. Then he abruptly vomited a large mouthful of blood, staining the snow-white silk quilt a vivid crimson.
Xiao Cong Jing stared blankly at that blood for a long moment before remembering to summon the imperial physician.
Another month passed, and Xin Yi had stayed in this world long enough.
She called over A Ying, who was arranging a few branches of white plum blossoms, returned her slave registry, then stuffed several banknotes and land deeds into her embroidered pouch. She said they were for her future dowry and told her to keep them safe, not to give them to anyone.
A Ying nodded foolishly. “This servant knows. No one besides Miss will know. But… this servant has no plans to marry yet.”
Xin Yi leaned idly against the window, pinching a writing brush as she practiced calligraphy. Upon hearing this, she curled her lips in a light, indifferent smile. “Then keep them for now on my behalf. We can talk when you have plans.”
The young lady of the Wu family died; it was said she had slipped and fallen into the lake.
When her body was found, it had already been soaked white by the lake water, and her maid A Ying had cried herself into a faint.
Shen Ru Jie heard the news while in a camp tent in the Capital Suburbs, discussing state affairs with Xiao Cong Jing.
He wore dark robes, his handsome face gaunt. Upon hearing it, he stiffened for a moment, then resumed his tasks with an unchanged expression, as if utterly unaffected.
Seeing him like this, Xiao Cong Jing quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
Though the youth appeared unnaturally calm—almost eerily so—as long as he did not lose his mind, it was a good thing.
Then, at dusk, when Xiao Cong Jing lifted the tent flap again, his heart jolted, and he stood completely stunned.
Shen Ru Jie’s hair had turned entirely white.
“Shen Er…” His throat felt parched and constricted.
The youth seemed utterly oblivious, his tone and expression perfectly normal, without a trace of extra grief.
He merely looked up and asked, “What is it, Your Highness?”
“N-Nothing.”
Xiao Cong Jing observed Shen Ru Jie with trepidation for half a month and found that, aside from his white hair, nothing seemed amiss.
He did not appear saddened and continued bustling about in the camp tent every day.
One day, he even went on a whim to Drunken Immortal Tower to buy sugar-crisp pastries and said he planned to visit a cloth shop for new clothes.
Xiao Cong Jing thought he had recovered and moved on.
Until the other man smiled and told him that he was getting married.
Xiao Cong Jing felt his breath catch for a moment.
He was deeply reluctant to confirm his suspicions—they were too absurd—but he still asked, “You… who are you marrying?”
“Xin Yi.”
Wu Xin Yi.
The Wu Xin Yi who had died long ago, whose corpse in the grave had likely rotted away by now.
And so, that day in the Capital City, a grand procession blew horns and beat drums all the way, with a lavish ten-li red dowry. It was the marquis manor’s young master taking a bride.
An eight-carrier sedan chair in grand style, guests assembled like clouds—even the children on the streets and alleys set aside their malt sugar candies to run over and join the excitement.
Everyone was curious about who the bride was, for his romance with that Wu family girl had stirred up a citywide storm of rumors, known everywhere in the capital.
Unexpectedly, just two months after Wu Xin Yi’s death, he had forgotten her and was marrying some other little lady. It seemed his feelings had not run that deep after all.
It was only when the guests saw a spirit tablet placed in the bride’s position, inscribed with the words “Wu Clan Xin Yi,” that they realized too late: the marquis manor’s young master had gone mad!
He had even draped a red veil embroidered with conjoined twin lotuses over the tablet!
Dragon-and-phoenix red candles for welcoming a departed wife.
Shen Ru Jie was already strikingly handsome, and in his crimson wedding robes, he resembled a demon immortal—captivating no matter how many times one looked.
If his wife saw this face, she surely would have liked it very much.
After the wedding rites, the manor fell silent, as if only he remained.
Shen Ru Jie returned to the side room and, by the flickering candlelight, lifted the tassel-fringed red veil—as if beholding the bashful, flushed cheeks of the woman beneath.
“Xin Yi.”
He smiled faintly, then carefully and preciously placed his wife’s spirit tablet atop the silk quilt on the bed, positioning it alongside another tablet prepared in advance.
Wu Clan Xin Yi had married Shen Ru Jie and was now his wife forevermore.
The night wind flipped the window lattice, and the red curtains nearby swayed. The bridal chamber stood empty.
The only thing missing was the nuptial wine that should have been on the table.
Two exquisite, intricately patterned silver wine cups appeared before the grave of the long-departed little lady of the Wu family.
The youth’s body had long grown as cold as the tombstone. When he died, he still clutched in his hand an embroidered pouch adorned with xin yi flowers.
It did not matter that she had abandoned him once.
They had completed the wedding rites and shared the nuptial wine.
Even if she entered Yama’s hall, she was his wife and could not deny him.