Wang Cuixian was poor and couldn't read a single character.
At seventeen, she was traded to the Pei family for ten taels of silver and became the bride sent to bring good fortune to Pei Heling, the Pei family's second son.
Pei Heling died less than four days later.
The clan elders said her fate was too strong and had killed her husband. That very night, they put her in a flimsy coffin and abandoned her in the desolate woods by the ancestral graves.
As she lay dying, she had only one thought: If there is another life, I want to live. I want to live well.
When she opened her eyes again, the red candles were still burning. It was the second night of her wedding.
Looking at Pei Heling, unconscious on the bed, she gritted her teeth and knocked on the door of the eldest son, Pei Heqing.
She asked only for a way to survive, for him to protect her a little in the Pei household.
After a night of passion, she returned to her room, aching all over, only to find Pei Heling sitting up beside the bed, alive and well. In her previous life, he had never opened his eyes, not even before he was buried. Smiling, he asked, "Cuixian, are you my wife?"
She pulled her padded coat tight, barely hiding the mottled marks on her neck, and timidly answered, "...Yes."
*
Pei Heqing had disciplined himself and observed propriety for twenty-four years. He had lost control only once in his life.
On the second night after his half-brother's wedding, as if possessed, he developed a forbidden desire for his younger brother's bride.
After that night, he told himself: This ends here.
Just a village woman, crude and timid, not worth a second thought.
But somehow, that woman lodged herself in his heart, where no amount of cutting could get her out.
He coldly watched her scrape by in the household, watched her grow inseparable from his younger brother, watched her enter his room again and again for a few pieces of silver, trembling as she pleaded, "Eldest Young Master, please help me one more time..."
He helped her time and again, claiming to do so as her elder brother.
But only he knew that all his considerate care and the refined mask of a gentleman were bait meant to lure her in.
Then his younger brother's old illness returned. Using life-saving medicine as leverage, he forced her to come to the underground room every night and let him do as he pleased.
At first, he only watched her coldly and most often said, "All right. Come beg me on the bed."
Later, he lost all restraint and most often said, "Whatever he can give you, I can give you too. Whatever he can't give you, I can give you as well. You have me to choose from, yet you pick a sickly man. Wang Cuixian, you fool!"
*
Pei Heling transmigrates and becomes a sickly, terminally ill man in ancient times.
Oh, and he has a wife now, too.
His wife may be quiet, honest, and meekly accepting of her lot, but inside her is the resilience of wild grass, bent by a hundred defeats but never broken.
He falls hopelessly in love with her.
He teaches her to read, shields her from the wind, and gives her a warm, dignified life.
There is just one thing that bothers him: she always says she's afraid of disturbing his sleep, and refuses to share his bed in the latter half of the night.
Until one night, he wakes from a nightmare and calls for her, but she doesn't answer. He searches everywhere and cannot find her. Leaning on his frail body, he goes looking outside the courtyard, only to see her leaving his elder brother Pei Heqing's room, her clothes in disarray.
Only then does he realize:
His wife spends the latter half of the night in his elder brother's bed.
Content warnings:
1. Relationship and ending: 1V2!
2. All male leads are chaste. Contains a lot of coercive possession and other niche themes. Please don't read if that bothers you!
Theme: Soaring with the immortals, embracing the bright moon for eternity
