Widowhood Made Me a Seductive Concubine

Next book: A Widow and a Widower

Her new husband goes off to war on their wedding night. A year later, news comes that he has died.

The marriage Jiang Yuning worked so hard to secure has become a prison, condemning her to spend the rest of her life alone.

Unwilling to spend her whole life a widow, she flees her husband's home in the middle of the night. Bandits attack her on the way, and in the distance she spots a dignified man in fine clothes atop a fine steed. He becomes her only lifeline.

Jiang Yuning forces herself to run up to him. In her panic, she injures her eyes and weeps tears of blood.

"Please, sir, save me. I will repay you."

What man could refuse to save a beauty weeping blood?

Jiang Yuning is taken to the man's estate. Temporarily blind, he is the only person she can depend on.

By chance, she learns that he is the crown prince, Xiao Hanshan. She begins deliberately drawing close to him, claiming her eyes hurt or that she feels unwell, coming up with all sorts of excuses. He answers her every need.

Jiang Yuning thinks he has fallen for her, but he has never said he will give her a place by his side. Unable to bear it any longer, she goes to ask what he thinks of her, only to find him discussing state affairs with someone else.

He tells her to leave.

That night, Xiao Hanshan orders her to learn how to please a man. When she refuses, he threatens her life.

After three months of arduous lessons, Jiang Yuning is sent to a separate estate in a sedan chair.

The blindfold is removed, and a man strokes the corner of her eye with his finger. It is the minister who attended the meeting at the estate that day: Zuo Chancellor Jimo Jin.

She suddenly falls into his arms, eyes brimming with tears. "Please take pity on me, sir. I don't want to be punished again."

She cannot see the look in his eyes, only hear him say yes.

Months later, Jimo Jin says he wants to marry her.

Jiang Yuning is delighted, but that night, Xiao Hanshan learns of it and has her confined.

"Ah Ning, have you forgotten who you belong to?"

Jiang Yuning goes cold all over and can only weep.

After many days of fear and worry, Jiang Yuning successfully climbs into the bridal sedan.

Only three months into the marriage, Jiang Yuning feels unwell and calls for a doctor.

"Congratulations, Madam. You're pregnant."

The voice is all too familiar. It is clearly her husband, the one who was supposed to be dead!

Her former husband asks her, "We've been apart for nearly two years. Who is the father?"

She is about to say it is her current husband's, but her face suddenly turns pale as she remembers what happened before the wedding.

The female lead is not a virgin; the male lead is.

The authorities officially declared her late husband dead, so there is no moral issue.

Recommending my upcoming novel, A Widow and a Widower

Blurb:

Qi Huan first meets Pei Yu at a temple in town.

The man kneels devoutly before the Buddha, hands clasped, long lashes lowered, ink-black hair falling loose around him. Dressed in white, he seems like an immortal descended from heaven, shrouded in fragrant incense.

When he lifts his eyes and looks over, Qi Huan is astonished.

He has the face of a beautiful woman, with an extraordinarily lovely visage like Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy.

Qi Huan wants him.

Night after night, she dreams of that beautiful Guanyin-like face, overcome with desire.

Qi Huan soon learns from the townsfolk that the man's name is Pei Yu, and he is the second son of a wealthy family. His new bride mysteriously died on their wedding night, and he was sent here to use the Buddha's holy light to suppress the evil spirit haunting him.

Qi Huan thinks Heaven itself is helping her. He is a widower, and she is a widow: they are a perfect match.

She grits her teeth and buys herself pretty clothes, perfumes herself with incense, and visits the temple every few days.

She deliberately leaves things behind, bumps into him, or acts pitiful and aggrieved. But every time, he treats her with a gentleman's propriety and never oversteps.

He wears that Guanyin-like face, untouched by the world and unsullied by earthly desires.

Qi Huan wants him even more.

It's been two years since her husband died. She raised her daughter alone and has not touched another man since, so she's nearly forgotten what it feels like.

At last, the day she succeeds, she cups Pei Yu's unusually flushed face and tempts him when he can no longer restrain himself. "Pei Lang, call me Huan Niang. Huan Niang."

The man parts his lips, glistening with dew, and repeats the words, confused but obedient.

"Huan Niang..."

Qi Huan loves seeing his cool, otherworldly self stained by desire.

At last, she drags this statue of Guanyin into the mud, making him filthy and impossible to wash clean, just like her.

After that, whenever the sunset comes, thick incense drifts through the cramped meditation room.

She leaves after dusk, leaving him in a state of utter disarray.

Until she is discovered having an affair with Pei Yu. She may not care about her own reputation, but for her daughter's sake, she needs a respectable status to silence the rumors.

She asks Pei Yu to marry her.

The man lifts his head from her neck, withdraws the hand buried in her hair, and gently shakes his head.

"Huan Niang, I can't."

Qi Huan leaves town with her daughter.

Not long afterward, someone discovers that the "male bodhisattva" from the temple has disappeared.

A short scene:

On the night she settles into her new home, a torrential rain begins outside. Someone knocks on the door in an unhurried rhythm: three knocks, the same secret signal Qi Huan always uses when she visits Pei Yu at the temple.

The door clicks open.

That Guanyin-like face, pale and strikingly beautiful from the rain, appears before her.

"Huan Niang, why did you leave?"

The man gives her the smile she loves. Soaked through and standing in the dark, he looks like a bewitching ghost.

"I've come to find you."

[The female lead is not a virgin. She and her late husband have a three-year-old daughter. The male lead never consummated his marriage or touched another woman. His marriage was arranged by his parents, and he had no feelings for his bride.]

[Before meeting the female lead, the male lead knew nothing about love and had a somewhat abnormal way of thinking.]

[In the early story, the female lead takes the lead in seducing him. Later, the male lead turns into a sinister, obsessive ghost and fights back.]

Theme: Live toward the light