Prologue
During that escort accident, I recognized Yi Huan at a glance as the child bride who gave me dry biscuits and sat in the sedan chair when I was young.
I remembered Yi Huan for many years. But she no longer remembered me and had hooked up with someone else. Thinking of the two favors I had shown her, I could let bygones be bygones and was willing to sacrifice my status for her, so that she could have a stable and prosperous life in the future.
It's easy to tell from her reaction that she was forced to follow me. But she shouldn't have gotten involved with someone else after giving herself to me. It was her repeated escapades that angered me. After the novelty wore off, it was hard to think of Yi Huan. When I noticed her again, I suddenly realized that her previous annoyance was all a trick. I promoted Yi Huan as a concubine, a favored concubine, and even carefully selected a wife who treated her well. But she never feigned her unwillingness. If she dared to poison my child, I would abort her child with that adulterer.
Blood ties are just blood, they mean nothing. But she scolded me, as if it was hard to accept. I didn't care. Regarding our second son, I also obeyed her decision. I wasn't afraid of father and son killing each other, or the lack of an heir. I was only heartbroken that she had spent an afternoon planning a murder plot that would last for more than ten years. She was really trying to kill me!
I spent all my power and wealth saving Yi Huan's life. As a benefactor, a concubine, and a lover without a legitimate status, I ended up with nothing, trapped and cursed, with no end in sight. Someone stole my wife, and every moment I lost her, I searched for her.
They say that when the Regent's family collapsed on East Street, a man named "Waiting for His Wife" crawled onto Beggar Street. I'm not trying to control Yi Huan; it's because I love her. I'm the only one who can protect her, the only one who understands her yet refuses to give her anything. It's simply that I refuse to loosen the ropes I've tied to Yi Huan's body.
Did I do something wrong? How could it be wrong to love someone? She had no love for me, and I accepted the long-standing hatred.
———Peng Zuoyuan mutters to himself
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