(If Father and Third Brother can have her, then I...)
Two years after Master Pei died, his young widow, Feng Yao, still wept like a flower in the rain whenever she spoke of him.
Her parents planned to find her another husband from a prominent family and urged her:
"Although Third Master has changed his ways and now treats you, his stepmother, with respect, who knows what will happen when the eldest son returns and takes charge?"
"Marrying the Prince of Han may make you a secondary consort, but he'll treat you well. That's better than staying here, having to rely on others and suffer their mistreatment in the future."
Feng Yao refused. But when she thought of the eldest son of the Cui family, who was about to return home, her eyes still reddened.
Everyone knew that Pei Du, the eldest son of her late husband's first wife, detested her as his stepmother. He had opposed her marriage from the start. Now he had secured permission to leave mourning early and was returning home, so she was sure she would be in for a hard time.
But was that really how it would go?
-
Pei Du saw his stepmother for the first time on his fifth day back home.
He had gone to a teahouse to meet someone, while she happened to be listening to opera in a private room.
When he looked over, she was lowering her head to fix a button that had accidentally popped off her collar.
Perhaps she hadn't noticed the wind blowing open the private room's door, revealing her slender neck and a glimpse of her pale chest.
He looked once, then turned his gaze away.
He knew she was meeting her lover, but he wasn't interested, until he discovered that...
That so-called lover was none other than his younger brother.
Pei Qin, who was also one of her stepsons.
-
Much later, Pei Du went to the estate to audit the accounts and happened to find Feng Yao recuperating there.
She walked toward him along the corridor, nodded, then turned to leave.
"Madam," he called after her.
She turned around. "What does the eldest master want with me?"
Pei Du's face was in shadow, his expression unreadable.
"Nothing. I just wanted to tell you, Madam..."
"If you insist on staying with the Pei family, coming to me is your best option."
-
Feng Yao used her innocent face to ruin two men in the Pei family.
Pei Du despised his father and younger brother for giving in to temptation.
Until one day, he followed in their footsteps and became the third man to fall at her feet.
#The heroine's name is not in the Pei family genealogy, and she is not related by blood to the male leads. By the time she gets together with them, her publicly acknowledged mother-son relationship with them has also ended. 2025/3/24
Theme: Live life well
