In the sixth year of their marriage, Wen Liang's husband, Pei Yuyuan, fell for the new young maid in their home.
The maid had just arrived in the city. She was lively and adorable, still innocent and childlike, and sweetly naive.
Pei Yuyuan personally decorated her new room: pink curtains, a pink princess bed, pink bunny slippers. Everything was so dreamy and lovely.
He seemed to have forgotten how he once endured ninety-nine lashes from Wen Liang's father just to marry her, nearly losing his life in the process.
He had also forgotten that, ever since their first year of marriage, he had made a pilgrimage to Tibet every year to climb a sacred mountain, kowtowing with every step for eighty-one days before he could obtain a single talisman of peace.
Just three months ago, he had personally hung the sixth talisman around her neck.
Back then, she was still all he could think about. He had said tenderly, “May all the gods in heaven protect my A Liang, keeping her safe, joyful, healthy, and free from worry every year.”
But now he held the clothes the young maid, Tian Tian, had taken off just last night, greedily inhaling their scent.
He said they smelled of a young girl.
Wen Liang did not cry. She simply took the talisman from around her neck, set it alight, and flushed all the ashes down the toilet.
