Aren’t I the Primary Husband?

*The title is from the male lead's perspective.

Xin He was born poor and had a first love when she was young.

He was Wei Yue, the third young master of the Duke's household, born to nobility and bright as the moon in the sky. She had spent only a few years doing menial work in the household, and Wei Yue didn't even know who she was.

All she dared to do was hide in the shadows and secretly watch him.

Until one day, Wei Yue discovered her.

The pampered third young master glanced at her and ordered his attendant, "Throw her out."

Xin He was driven from the household, thinking she would never see him again.

But she never expected that

Many years later,

Wei Yue would lose his family and become a convict slave.

Xin He spent one tael of silver to buy him and take him home.

*

After buying Wei Yue, Xin He kept him in a dark cellar.

She knew he looked down on her, but she insisted on possessing him and defiling him, leaving marks all over his body. If he didn't do as she wished, she would humiliate him in every way. Yet after their moments of tenderness, she would kiss him devotedly, spend her last savings, and carefully provide for him.

Wei Yue had never been treated like this before, like a dog being kept as a pet.

He knew Xin He loved him, but he despised her low status and hated that she did whatever she wanted with him. So he took advantage of her love, hurt her, and said the cruelest things he could think of.

Until one day,

he realized that Xin He might not love him anymore.

She came home less and less often, and when she did, she carried another man's scented sachet.

*

Not long after buying Wei Yue, Xin He found her birth parents.

She was transformed into the only daughter of a marquis's household, one of the most esteemed noblewomen in the capital, and betrothed to Prince Qi, Li Cixiu.

Li Cixiu wasn't fond of his fiancée.

She had gone missing as a child and grown up among common folk. She couldn't even read.

Still, she seemed honest enough, and her family had considerable influence, so he reluctantly accepted her.

Yet on the day news of their engagement spread,

a man came to find him.

Wei Yue showed the kiss marks on his neck. Calmly, he said something utterly mad: "Your Highness, care to guess who left these marks?"

Only then did Li Cixiu learn that

his supposedly honest fiancée was keeping a lover on the side!

#Who's the kept lover? The one who isn't loved!

Please read these content warnings:

*This is a romance-focused novel. All male characters are sexually inexperienced, and the ending is open. The plot focuses entirely on the push and pull of the leads' relationship. It's not a story about building a career or a power fantasy about a hidden king returning.

*This is pure wish fulfillment, with a tragic-romance flavor. At its core, it's a story of three people who love and hurt one another. The woman forcefully takes the man, and the man forcefully takes the woman; both of them also pursue the other unrequitedly. Everything in the plot and setting serves the author's tastes. The relationship is between deeply flawed people, and all the leads have their own shortcomings. If you can't accept that, please use the search function to find a story that suits your tastes rather than asking why the author wrote this kind of story or these characters, or repeatedly telling the author what you like and asking them to change the story to suit you. This isn't a commissioned story. If you don't like it, find something you do like. Also, don't try to extract moral lessons from a melodramatic story. Please don't judge what the author is like or label them based on the characters and plot. I've received too many such comments since opening the story, and they will all be deleted. Please distinguish fiction from reality. This is a historical fantasy setting, so don't impose modern assumptions on it. The warnings are clear enough: this story isn't suitable for readers with a lot of triggers or extreme character allegiances, whether to the male or female lead. If it's not to your taste but you come in and keep making irrelevant comments, those will be deleted too. Respect is mutual. If you don't respect the author or the readers who enjoy this story, the author won't respect you either. When buying the story, please buy it one chapter at a time. The author's tastes are dark and bizarre, and you might hit a trigger in any chapter and be thrown off, so don't buy the whole thing all at once. If you see something that bothers you, drop the story in time.

*The setting is entirely fictional. The background draws on the Jin dynasties, but to make it easier to understand, the noble ranks are based on those of the Northern Zhou, Sui, and Tang dynasties, and the currency on that of the Ming and Qing dynasties. The story includes fantasy elements such as witchcraft, occult arts, talismans, formations, and supernatural phenomena. Please don't overanalyze the historical details.

*When the female lead became engaged to Prince Qi, she had no written agreement or marital relationship with Wei Yue. There is no moral issue here.

Blurb written on March 15, 2025

Please add my upcoming novel of the same genre, I Humiliated the Untouchable Before I Died, to your reading list! Blurb:

Wu Rao was a musician kept by the Zhang household. Her status was low, she was sickly and frail, and her greatest wish in life was to become a concubine to one of the young masters and live out her days in peace.

The ninth young master of the household was gentle and kind. Just as Wu Rao was about to attach herself to him, the eldest young master discovered her.

The eldest young master, Zhang Xuezhong, was pampered, noble, and arrogant. The young man looked at her coldly. "Know your place. A musician shouldn't dream of marrying into a noble family."

Wu Rao was driven out of the household, with little time left to live.

Before she died, she unexpectedly learned that there was a Gu parasite on Zhang Xuezhong. If he didn't want anyone to discover his secret, he would have to do as she said.

*

Zhang Xuezhong never imagined that an ordinary day would find him stopped by a lowborn musician who claimed to have leverage over him and used it to force him to fulfill her demands.

He assumed she'd ask for money or valuables,

but when he frowned and bent down to put his ear near her,

the next thing he heard was the woman saying, "Marry me."

Somehow, she had gotten hold of his secret and was using his weakness to threaten and toy with him.

This noble and dignified scion of an aristocratic family had recently said she wasn't worthy of becoming his younger half-brother's concubine. Now he had no choice but to marry her, and she even forced him to bend down and kiss her, calling her "my dear" in front of everyone.

She was going to die, and before she did, she was determined to drag him into the mire with her.

Seeing how he endured it all yet had no choice but to obey, Wu Rao was completely satisfied. On their wedding day, she finally died content. When he lifted her veil, she left him with a cold corpse.

*

In this dynasty, nobles and commoners were strictly divided.

The nobility wouldn't even marry commoners. The Zhang family had been ministers for generations and wielded unmatched power, yet their eldest young master, Zhang Xuezhong, was going to marry a lowborn musician.

She was like a speck of mud clinging to him. Zhang Xuezhong didn't like her, but had no choice but to endure her.

On their wedding day, the musician died alone before they could even exchange vows.

Everyone thought he would be glad, but no one expected the wedding to go ahead that night.

The man was obsessive and mad, as if she hadn't died. He held a corpse as they performed the wedding rites and paid respects to his ancestors. Afterward, he shut himself away. The servants outside his window could always hear him murmuring, as though speaking with his new wife.

After Wu Rao died, she couldn't be reincarnated.

She thought those six months of madness were just a dream, and that everything would end when she died. But her soul was pulled back to her corpse. Only then did she realize Zhang Xuezhong had never buried her.

He became dark and deranged, keeping watch over her remains and sleeping beside them day after day, feeding her with his own blood, his eyes bloodshot. "Are you really not coming back to life?"

He held her corpse and kissed her neck. "Then I'll die with you. I only stayed alive so I could die for love with you."

Theme: What goes around comes around.