Little Brother's Wife, Open the Door

[A sweet, innocent widow lives under the same roof as her brother-in-law, and the two gradually fall in love.]

Tan Yulou is most afraid of her brother-in-law.

Unlike her late husband, he is stern and rigid, bound by propriety. In the height of summer, he makes her kneel until her knees are rubbed raw.

Yet his profile resembles her late husband's, with deeper-set features and a stronger jaw. She thinks that if he wore her husband's clothes and carried his sachet, she wouldn't be able to tell them apart in the dark.

She shakes her head, gently fanning herself with a palm-leaf fan in the summer night. It must be the heat making her think such things.

She drinks cool wine, and, hazy with drunkenness, sees a firefly flutter past the screen. She rushes over barefoot, afraid the little creature will fly into the candle flame.

"Clatter!"

The night wind rattles the doorframe. She reaches out to close the door, but sees a tall figure standing there, his outline hidden in the dark. Her eyes grow damp. Forgetting that her robe has slipped askew, she throws herself at him and clings to him, crying, "Husband..."

Her husband makes love to her, but not with his usual gentleness. She cries and tells him how much she misses him, but he only grows rougher.

When morning comes and the curtains fall back, Tan Yulou wakes from her drunken stupor and knows her husband cannot return. So she buries what happened. But when she sees her brother-in-law sternly rebuke someone in front of the clan, she is no longer afraid of him. She looks at his thin, cool lips, knowing how much he likes to lick them.

Then, on a sunny day, her husband returns.

Standing in a shaded corridor, she begs him in a piteous voice not to let her husband learn what happened between them.

With his military background and years as a merchant, Xu Conghuai has a formidable presence. Tan Yulou is truly afraid he might snap her neck.

But he only replies in a low, severe voice, "One last time."

She nods quickly, not realizing whether he means this is the last time he'll help her lie, or the last time they'll make love.

But there is no going back. She discovers that she is pregnant.

To give the child a legitimate name and status, she hesitantly turns her gaze toward her vigorous young husband.

[Reading Guide]

#Stand-in romance

#Brother-in-law takes the husband role

#A battle to protect the original wife

#SC (explained in the story)

Theme: The separation of love and desire.