Ten years after the marshal and I had vowed never to have children, I learned that he had bought a house on the outskirts of Beiping and was keeping another woman there.
In just three years, they had even had two children together, one of them still in the womb.
Heartbroken, I cried until I could barely catch my breath over and over again.
The trusted members of the household who knew the truth all came to urge me to be magnanimous and let it go:
“It’s perfectly normal for a man to have several wives and concubines. The marshal has stayed faithful to you alone for all these years. You should be grateful.”
“You come from a family of scholars. Your ancestors studied the books of the sages, so you should know the saying: of the three ways to be unfilial, having no descendants is the worst. He’s a man, and he has all this family property to pass down. How could you expect him not to have an heir?”
With my eyes swollen and red, I turned my head away and looked at Xu Jinhuai, who still said nothing.
In the end, I was the first to give in:
“They are, after all, the Xu family’s children. Bring them here. I’ll treat them as my own. But remember… this is the only time. The last time.”
At my words, Xu Jinhuai abruptly stood up.
I thought he was going to fetch the child. Though my heart was against it, I was already thinking of sending the servants to prepare a couple of rooms.
But the next second, a pair of military boots stopped in front of me:
“Rong Ying isn’t like you. She’s never known hardship, and she studied abroad. She’s very open-minded.”
“She’s already doing me a disservice by willingly having children with a married man like me. How could I take her children away and leave her alone out in the world?”
“Qingyan, I’m not asking your opinion. If you insist on refusing to let her into this house… then I’ll just have to buy her another house nearby, so our family can live close together.”
