After Seeking Help from My Late Husband's Ninth Uncle
Xie Lanzhen, a fair-skinned, beautiful, voluptuous widow skilled in perfumery, & Huo Xingyuan, a prince who is like a distant moonlit mountain before others but insatiable in private
Xie Lanzhen married up into the Duke of Ying's household. Her husband was gentle and refined, and the couple lived in harmony. Everyone said they were a perfect match. Who could have imagined that disaster would strike without warning? Her husband fell from his horse and died, and her mother-in-law blamed her for his death, tormenting her in public and in private. She kept to herself and lived cautiously, becoming the dullest presence in the Duke's household, a place otherwise bursting with color and life.
One day, she learned that her father had become embroiled in a major case and might be in mortal danger. Xie Lanzhen searched every corner of the household, but no one would help her. As she trembled with fear and confusion, the look in the eyes of her husband's ninth uncle, Huo Xingyuan, suddenly came to mind. His gaze had been so intense and profound that it made her heart flutter, yet it also gave her a glimmer of hope.
She stopped him beneath the corridor and pleaded softly, “Ninth Uncle, please help me.”
After Huo Xingyuan helped her, he took liberties with her in all kinds of ways, both openly and subtly. Xie Lanzhen was on edge, afraid that if their affair came to light, she would be drowned in a pond and die.
Just then, Xie Lanzhen's older brother came to the capital to sit for the spring examination, forcing the Duke's household to let her leave and permit her to marry of her own choosing. Her sister-in-law even carefully went over her brother's classmates and friends with her, offering advice on finding a husband.
On the night before she was to leave, Huo Xingyuan burst into her bedroom. His gaze turned cold as he bit down on her and said, “You've already had an affair with me, and you still want to go out and marry whoever you please? Just how many men have you been seducing?”
When Huo Xingyuan saw his nephew bring his new wife to serve tea, he felt all the blood in his body rush to one place.
The young woman stood beside his nephew, smiling demurely, a perfect match for him. A hint of a newlywed bride's bashfulness still showed on her face.
Huo Xingyuan forced himself to endure, but she kept appearing in his dreams.
He told himself that she was his nephew's wife, that he shouldn't want her and should forget her. Just then, bandits were causing trouble in Bingzhou, and he volunteered to go suppress them. He would use time, blood, and fire to quell his desire for this woman. Three years passed, and the bandit menace was gone. He had not dreamed of her in a long time. It was all over.
But when he returned, weary from the road, to the Duke's household, its courtyards overflowing with flowers, he glimpsed the young woman weeping beneath the wisteria. Everything he thought he had forgotten surged into his mind and heart. His heart raced, sending blood coursing fiercely through every limb.
In that moment, he knew with absolute certainty: he wanted her, and he would have her.
Notes:
1. Her late husband is dead and will not return.
2. Strangers in public, intimately familiar in private.
3. The focus is on romance. I love a slow, tension-filled push and pull.
Theme: True love is impossible to escape
