Locking Your Heart: Late-Blooming Affection Is Cheaper Than Grass

The guests at my daughter's first birthday banquet had just left when my husband, Pei Yan, and I shared a nuptial cup, celebrating our fifth year of estrangement. He put down his cup and asked me gently, "Wanwan, if I wanted to take Consort Lin as my secondary wife, what would you say?" Before I could even process what he'd said, he gestured to my most trusted maid, Cui'er, to bring in a two- or three-year-old boy. Pei Yan's smile remained unchanged: "Rongyu, come, pay your respects to your mistress." In the candlelight, the longevity lock gleaming on the child's wrist was the very one I'd lost three years ago, the one I'd searched the entire Marquis's mansion for! I froze, my gaze fixed on the child's hand.