Do Honest Guys Need a Crematorium Too?

A stern, old-fashioned male lead who seems warm but is cold at heart x an honest, reserved, introverted female lead After being born into the Wei family as Wei Yunxian, she spent sixteen years with loving parents and siblings who got along well. She simply went along with the current and, as expected, married Cui Wenyuan, an assistant minister at the Court of Judicial Review. Their married life was loving and happy. They sometimes bickered, but they still enjoyed their peaceful life together. When they first married, Cui Wenyuan thought his wife was still young, so there was no need to rush into having a child. Before they knew it, three years had passed, and Wei Yunxian had only stopped taking her medicine at the start of this year. But this year had been one thing after another. First, her mother-in-law’s cousin’s daughter came to stay after divorcing her husband, bringing her three-year-old child with her. Cui Wenyuan was busy with official duties, and after work, he spent half his time looking after the mother and child. Wei Yunxian sometimes felt that something was wrong. When she quietly tried to point it out, her husband scolded her first, saying she was jealous of a small child and had no generosity of spirit. She had always thought of herself as gentle and virtuous. In the more than three years since marrying into the Cui family, she had never raised her voice to anyone. But ever since this cousin arrived, everything seemed to have changed. First, her mother-in-law cut back on the bird’s nest soup she regularly had. Then her sister-in-law took her brocade from the storeroom. Even her husband, who had always been as noble and unworldly as the moon, had learned to bring home osmanthus cakes to win the child over after work. Wei Yunxian wasn’t blind. She had seen that cousin wearing her fabric, and watched her husband come home at dusk and play with the child in his arms... How could she not resent it? How could she not be angry? From behind the moon gate, she watched it all. Her eyes lowered sadly as she unconsciously stroked her belly. Just a little longer. In half a month, she would be free to leave without a care. * In the capital, Cui Wenyuan of the Cui family was a peerless beauty. He treated everyone with warmth and grace, earning their admiration and respect. The only pity was that he was a widower. Matchmakers came knocking, but he turned them all away with the words, “I will never take a second wife.” Many people privately reminisced about the grand wedding between the Cui and Wei families. It was a pity that the Wei family’s daughter had been fated to die young. While traveling to a temple to pray, she encountered bandits and plunged down a cliff with her carriage. They said she had died alongside the child she was carrying. The Cui family shut its doors for three days, and even the imperial court sent its condolences. What outsiders didn’t know was that every nightfall, the Cui family’s jade-like eldest son would curl up in a corner of the bed, his eyes bloodshot, and hold one of his dead wife’s undergarments just to sleep for a little while. So when Assistant Minister Cui saw a merchant’s daughter who looked eight parts like his late wife, for the first time he thought of abducting her and locking her away at home. Until, half a month after he had locked her in a room, a little girl with a face cast from the same mold as his blocked his way in the street, fuming. “Hey, you bad man! Give my mother back!” Theme: Everyone must take responsibility for their actions