The Shattered Mirror [Matriarchy]

[The full novel costs only a single-digit amount to subscribe to. Thank you all for supporting the official version.] Blurb: Qi Rusui and He Jing have been married for seven years. Everyone knows the couple are together in name only. After He Jing gave birth to a boy, Qi Rusui couldn't even be bothered to keep up the appearance of devotion, bringing one pretty young lover after another into her household. Everyone in the Qi family assumed that He Jing, born into a distinguished family, wouldn't stand for it, and would either put Qi Rusui in her place or divorce her outright. But, to their surprise, he gritted his teeth and endured it. He endured for five years. Then, on her way home with a caravan, Qi Rusui fell off a cliff. When she awoke, her memories had stopped at age eighteen, the year before she married He Jing. Female lead's perspective: Everyone in my family says my amnesia is severe and tells me not to see anyone until my memories return. But one day, when I went out, I saw the man I'd been pining for over the past three years. His name was He Jing, the most cherished and handsome young master of the He family. Now He Jing looked at me coldly, with a little boy of five or six holding his hand. He stared at me with a mixture of fear and curiosity. I wandered over in a daze to greet him. How could he have a child after all these years apart? Yet he wouldn't even spare me another glance. Then the steward came over, looking as if he wanted to say something but couldn't. He told me He Jing was my principal husband, and the child holding his hand was my son. I was struck dumb with shock. I'd secretly loved He Jing for three years. If I had married him, how had we ended up like this? The young master who had once been as proud as a peacock now looked forlorn and weathered. Before my memories return, I have to make He Jing the way I always imagined he should be: utterly cherished by me. He has always loved playing the qin, yet when I went to great lengths to find an antique one for him, he looked terrified. The steward said, “You used to hate how the lord husband played the qin all day. You smashed the Qifeng Qin, the one he loved most.” I wanted to see the son we had together, but He Jing clutched the boy and shrank trembling into a corner, looking at me as if I were a raging flood or a wild beast. The steward said, “You once despised the lord husband for failing to give you a daughter. You tormented him until he couldn't get out of bed for a week, and threw the young master, who had only just been born, into the stable.” When my memories finally returned, I realized that perhaps a broken mirror could be pieced back together, but how could we mend the shards scattered all over the floor? [Important content warnings] 1. One-on-one romance, happy ending, both leads have no prior sexual partners. 2. Focused entirely on romance, with plenty of everyday scenes. Slow-paced, with child-rearing later on. 3. Neither lead is a perfect character; both have difficult personalities. 4. Old-fashioned melodrama, with flashbacks and an angsty, bittersweet feel. A sweet story about rekindling a broken relationship. 5. Please read and discuss rationally and peacefully. We read for enjoyment, so don't fight! If the story isn't for you, please drop it and we'll meet again in another book. 6. If you're looking for a pure, fluffy female-dominant romance, the author's page has completed novels, as well as a similar upcoming title, The Shadow Guard Husband I Won in a Trade (Female-Dominant World). 7. There's also an old-fashioned story about a forced marriage, A Household Slave (Female-Dominant World). If you're interested, please add it to your collection. Happy reading! Upcoming novel A Household Slave (Female-Dominant World) If slaves are ranked in levels, Chenggui is the lowliest kind of all: a household-born slave. Simply because he was blessed with a handsome face, an outsider praised him while he was serving his master. That very night, the young master scratched his face and sprinkled it with some unknown powder, laughing at him. The young master and his companions watched him writhe and convulse on the floor in pain, mocking him without restraint. They laughed at him for trying to climb into the high branches, and at his lowborn fate. That was when Chenggui understood: he was born a slave, an object for young masters and mistresses to amuse themselves with. His father had arranged a marriage for him long ago. He grew up in constant fear until he turned sixteen, waiting to marry a female guard in the household at year's end. He would have children and remain a household slave, repeating the same life of servitude. But on the day before his wedding, the lord husband named Chenggui and ordered him to become the young master's accompanying concubine, to go with him when he married into the Marquis's household. Everyone in the capital knew that the Marquis's daughter was cruel by nature and especially enjoyed tormenting men for fun. Two young servants had already died in her bed. To escape being tormented to death, Chenggui gritted his teeth and did the boldest thing he had ever done. He climbed into Third Miss's bed. Looking at the refined woman beside him, Chenggui cried as he undid his clothes, revealing his slender, milky-white waist, then nestled against her with a soft voice. “This slave has long admired Third Miss.” “Please, have mercy and save this slave's life.” He thought he was escaping hell, but Chenggui never expected Third Miss to be far more terrifying than the Marquis's daughter. Everyone knew that the Ning family had three young misses. The first two held government posts and were outstanding women. Only the third, Ning Zhiyu, was frail, a medicine jar who never left her home. On ordinary days, she did little but sip tea and read in her courtyard. Ning Zhiyu's quiet life was suddenly disrupted by a household-born slave. She found him amusing, so she raised him like a pet cat. He was lowborn and timid, yet he relied on his good looks to climb into her bed. When thunder rumbled on rainy nights, he burrowed into her arms. He trembled with fear whenever he saw the others in the rear courtyard. He carefully, awkwardly tried to please her. Ning Zhiyu thought she wouldn't mind keeping a pet cat for the rest of her life. But the cat proved disobedient. Not only did he secretly get pregnant, he also ran away in the middle of the night, hoping to give birth to her child in the wilderness, in some poor, remote village. How could she allow that? Ning Zhiyu caught the cat and shut him in a cage, removed his claws and fangs, and kept him in the courtyard so he could never leave her for the rest of his life. Later, Chenggui held her two children in his arms and thought that even if he had no title, he should at least ask for one for the children. He didn't want them to be bullied, and he didn't want them to become slaves. He stopped outside the study and heard the woman speak in a cool, contemptuous voice. “He's nothing but a household-born slave. Letting him be a concubine is already giving him more than he deserves, and he still dares to think his children will earn him status.” Theme: Everything that came before is only a prelude