Her father, nearing forty, recently married a stepmother three years younger than he is.
His new wife is sixteen, beautiful,
but timid and shrinking, vain, and utterly lacking the bearing of a marquis's principal wife. She even stammers when she speaks to him.
Watching his father, who had always kept women at a distance but was now acting like an old house suddenly on fire, Xiao Yan felt contempt.
After his father died in battle, his stepmother was widowed.
Since she had lost her husband so young, Xiao Yan decided that if she stayed quietly at the marquis's household and mourned his father for the rest of her life, he would provide for her in her old age and see her through to the end.
-
Jing Xian was the daughter of an ordinary minor official. Her parents married her off as the second wife of the forty-year-old Marquis of Yongchang.
The marquis was no longer young, but he was handsome and gentle, and treated Jing Xian like a precious jewel.
Then, in an accident, her husband died in battle.
Jing Xian cried until she had no tears left, then resolved to remain chaste for her late husband for the rest of her life.
Her stepson had always been as cold as ice toward her and had never treated her as his mother.
Jing Xian trembled whenever she saw him.
Until one night, her stepson entered her room and asked mildly, "Would you like a child to raise?"
Moved to tears, Jing Xian thought her devotion had finally been rewarded, and agreed.
She had borne no children in her marriage and had no one to depend on. Perhaps adopting a stepson to raise would make the years ahead a little less dull.
Later, on countless spring nights filled with rippling desire, Jing Xian pushed at the man pressing down on her and begged, trembling and in tears, "Eldest son, I... I only wanted to adopt a child..."
Again and again, the man traced her lovely brows and eyes, his voice hoarse yet resolute. "How can an adopted child be as dependable as one of your own?"
Father's version
As Xiao Yu lay on the brink of death, there were only two people he could not stop worrying about: his eldest son, with whom he had been distant for years, and the young wife he had married by any means necessary.
Thankfully, fate had not abandoned him. He survived against the odds and returned victorious at the head of his army.
After returning home, he treated his wife and son with ever greater tenderness and attentiveness.
Yet amid his wife's joy, she often seemed to want to say something but held back.
Sometimes she would hurry out of her room to greet him, her clothes disheveled and her face flushed.
His eldest son, too, had inexplicably begun to show him hostility and defiance.
A son born in his later years, a lovely wife in his arms: Xiao Yu felt his life was nearly perfect.
There were many things he no longer wished to dwell on.
Xiao Yu stopped his son at the door, where the young man waited with an impatient, covetous gaze, and smiled.
"Eldest son, Xian Niang has happy news."
He said calmly, "You're going to be a big brother."
Xiao Yan's icy gaze passed over his father and fell on Jing Xian inside the room, her face pale as she cradled her pregnant belly. Suddenly, he laughed softly too.
A big brother?
* A father and son vying for the same woman: a refined father, old but still vigorous × an honest, gentle stepmother × a hypocritical young stepson
* The male lead's ancestors on both the father's and son's sides were grassland people, accustomed to the idea that a son may inherit his father's wife after his death
* The romance between the leads begins only after the heroine's marriage to the father has ended, and they never remarry
Theme: Learn from the past, which cannot be changed, and pursue what lies ahead, which can still be attained
