She Died During the Ten Years I Didn't Love Her

She was a quiet concubine, ignored by everyone for ten years after entering the household. The principal wife bullied her, the servants looked down on her, and even I, her husband, treated her like a mere decoration. She never argued. Day after day, she embroidered, copied scriptures, and tended the begonia that never bloomed. Then one day, disaster struck the household, and I was left with nowhere to turn. She ushered me into her private quarters and poured me one last cup of tea. “My lord,” she said, “after I die, open my trunk.” I thought it held the savings she had put away over the past ten years. Only later did I learn what was inside: every time I had visited the principal wife’s courtyard over those ten years, every date I had spoken coldly to her, every tear she had swallowed alone. And a yellowed prescription. She had known all along that someone had put something in the contraceptive soup. And she had never told me.