A Willing Mistake, My Lady – Chapter 8
by Little PandaMarried Life
She Pursues, She Flees
This matter should be handled sooner rather than later; delay breeds complications. Under everyone’s watchful eyes, Wu Daoyuan had Chenyu’s dowry carried out, and Chuntao led people to bring it back to the East Courtyard. The property deeds for the shops were also transferred at the Yamen under public supervision. Shen Hetang went along on this trip — Jiang Chenyu, a beautiful young woman of marriageable age, couldn’t conveniently go herself.
It wasn’t until afternoon that everything was finally settled. Shen Hetang hadn’t expected Jiang Chenyu to be so efficient — while they were at the Yamen that afternoon, the young woman had already hired masons to bisect the entire Jiang Manor with a high wall. The work would take two days to complete, which showed just how much she loathed Wu Daoyuan.
“Is everything settled?” Seeing Shen Hetang enter, she flew over like a swallow.
“Mm, the deeds for one shop and one estate are all here.” She handed the items to her.
She didn’t take the items first. Instead, she looked straight at him, her eloquent eyes glistening, then threw herself forward and wrapped both arms around Shen Hetang’s neck, pressing her slightly baby-fat cheek against his cool neck. Her voice carried a nasal quality as she said, “Thank you, thank you.”
She couldn’t tell whether the fragrance was rose or Chinese rose; it burrowed straight into her nose. Jiang Chenyu’s lips moved as she spoke, as if gently kissing her, making her neck tingle with each movement.
“If you have something to say, say it properly. Get down first.” Why was the difference between people so great? She was pressed against her soft as tofu; she unconsciously rested her hand on her waist, only to realize she’d been led astray again.
“Thank you for appearing in my life… sob…” Once freed from that beast’s control, Jiang Chenyu couldn’t hold back her emotions, hugging Shen Hetang tightly and refusing to let go.
Shen Hetang had wanted to pull her off, but warm liquid spread across her neck. A sixteen-year-old girl who had been dealing with her stepfather alone all this time — when she was sixteen, she was still a middle schooler. Fine, she was feeling wronged right now; let her hug if she wanted to hug.
“Don’t cry anymore. From now on, you have nothing to do with that person. You’re free to do as you wish — he can’t control a single finger of yours anymore. If he bullies you again, I’ll go beat him to death for you, alright?” Shen Hetang soothed her while patting her back.
“Pfft!” The person who had been feeling wronged moments ago burst into laughter upon hearing Shen Hetang say she would go beat Wu Daoyuan to death.
Yet some words seem to carry a magnetic field of their own. On a later day, those words would come true — only the roles of speaker and listener would be reversed.
Spring rain fell in a steady patter on green leaves through the night, and the early morning air carried the fragrance of earth. The dividing wall was now complete, separating the rectangular courtyard into two squares, a clear demarcation like the Chu River and Han Border1.
Jiang Chenyu had a new gate opened; as long as the silver was sufficient, building a new entrance only took a few days. She didn’t know what was happening in the West Compound — there had been no movement for days, as if Wu Daoyuan had truly been wounded.
After finishing everything, Jiang Chenyu and Shen Hetang found themselves with idle time. Free from trivial worries, they began a leisurely slow life. What Jiang Chenyu loved most was making herself look beautiful, circling in front of her husband a few times, then going to the kitchen to personally make soup for him.
During the day, Shen Hetang read books to understand this world as quickly as possible. At night, people here went to bed when it got dark, but it wasn’t as if they could just sleep — recently, Jiang Chenyu kept wrapping herself around her. If this continued, the truth would come out sooner or later.
But she couldn’t yet reveal that she was actually a woman. In the past two days, she kept dreaming strange scenes — cold northwest wind, ash-grey faces, desolate border towns, slick veteran soldiers smoking, drinking, and brawling. Then the scenes would shift to a jade-faced young general on a tall horse, wearing bright robes and armor. The images played frame by frame like a film, yet remained blurry. She wanted to see the person’s face clearly, only to find him putting on a mask again.
Intuition told her this was related to the original body’s owner, but the dreams were too fragmented to confirm. Even if they were real, so what? Now she was just an ordinary person who knew some martial arts — she couldn’t take on the original body’s burdens. Better to hide in the shadows and watch how things developed.
It was just that the first night she dreamed of these things, some scene had terrified her into a cold sweat. She had sat up stunned for a long time, and then Jiang Chenyu had taken advantage of the chaos — wiping her sweat, then holding her and gently patting her. Seeing that she didn’t dislike it or resist, she became increasingly bold.
At night, Jiang Chenyu insisted on holding her hand to sleep, sometimes pressing against her in gauze robes. In Jiang Chenyu’s eyes, she was probably just a block of wood with no romantic sense, only tossing her a thin quilt. A beauty trying every method to get close, delicate as a flower bud, hair smooth as silk, eyes that could hook and electrify — if she were a man, she would have experienced the full weight of words like ‘languid allure’ and ‘jade body sprawled.’
But even though she was a woman, she couldn’t stand having a tender, beautiful young girl unintentionally teasing her every night. On the spacious bed, the same scene always played out — she pursued, he fled, and escape was impossible.
She wrapped the squirming girl tightly in a thin quilt, not letting her move around. Giving her one hand was the limit; at least Jiang Chenyu knew when to quit and would behave for a while holding her hand.
She needed to find a way to go out and find work. Being glued together day and night, sooner or later, she’d be finished.
Footnotes
- Chǔ hé hàn jiè — literally 'Chu River and Han Border.' A famous Chinese idiom originating from the historical border between the Chu and Han factions during the Chu-Han Contention (206–202 BCE). It now refers to a clearly defined boundary between two opposing sides, often implying 'never to cross paths.'
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