When Shen Ningyue returned to the Heir's courtyard, it was nearly dusk.
The twilight draped the courtyard in a layer of hazy gray gauze. The lanterns under the corridor had not yet been lit, making the entire yard seem somewhat desolate. She stood before the study door, looking at the half-open window. The window paper reflected the dim yellow candlelight and a seated silhouette.
He was there.
Today was his day off, and he was reading in the study.
Shen Ningyue withdrew her gaze, lowered her eyes, and unconsciously twisted the handkerchief in her hands.
If it were just after they got married, what would she be doing right now?
Carrying a pastry box and brewing a pot of his favorite tea, she would cheekily push the door open, walk up to him with a radiant smile, and ask softly, Are you tired, My Lord? I brought you some pastries. Take a break before you continue reading.
Then, he would look up.
Look at her.
His eyes full of tenderness.
Using the excuse of serving the pastries, she would lean close to him, her arm brushing against his shoulder as if by accident. He would hold her hand, pull gently, and make her sit on his lap.
She would push him playfully, not using much force, and ultimately half-heartedly nestle into his embrace, listening to him whisper words that made her heart race.
Back then, she thought she had grasped everything.
Back then, she felt that as long as she took the initiative and put in the effort, she could keep this man's heart firmly on her.
Care, sweet words, intimate touches—these were her weapons, invincible and always effective.
But now...
Shen Ningyue stood there, looking at the window glowing with candlelight, and suddenly felt a bit ridiculous. Those weapons seemed... to have lost their effect.
Or rather, the person whose heart would be moved by these weapons had changed.
Pei Ciling had changed.
Shen Ningyue slowly walked under the corridor and stopped on the steps in front of the study door. Through that door, she could hear the occasional rustling sound of pages turning inside.
One after another.
Like some sort of silent urging.
Yet she did not knock.
Nor did she push the door straight open like before and call out My Lord with a beaming smile.
She just stood there.
Stood for a long time.
Her mind was a mess, filled with thoughts from recent days that she had deliberately ignored but which followed her like a shadow—
After the Marquis's one-month ban, and after Pei Ciling joined the Three Thousand Battalion, things between them had become different.
He said he was busy.
Said his duties were heavy.
Said he was tired.
He would still spend the night in her room, still sleep in the same bed with her. It was just that when the two lay there, their bodies were extremely close, close enough to feel each other's body heat and breathing.
But their hearts...
Shen Ningyue closed her eyes.
Their hearts seemed worlds apart.
She had tried to take the initiative, reaching out to wrap her arms around his waist, pressing her face against his back, and softly calling him My Lord. But he only stiffened slightly for a moment, then gently patted the back of her hand and said, Go to sleep, we have to get up early tomorrow.
That action, that tone, was as gentle as treating a child who needed comforting.
It wasn't disgust.
It wasn't apathy.
It was just... politeness.
Shen Ningyue opened her eyes and curled her lips. It was hard to tell if the curve was pointing up or down; only she knew how bitter it was.
Existing in name only.
These words suddenly popped up from the bottom of her heart like a thorn, ruthlessly piercing her softest spot.
They were like a married couple in name only.
Oh, no, she was just a concubine. She didn't have any proper official status. The position of the Heir's legitimate wife was empty, reserved for some future lady from a prestigious family.
They couldn't even be considered husband and wife.
Then what was she?
Nothing but a concubine, a plaything that could be neglected, forgotten, and replaced at any time.
She remembered back then, when Pei Ciling held her in bed, whispering those promises in her ear—
Wait for me...
In the future...
I won't let you suffer any grievances...
Listening to him then, her heart beat so fast. She felt she was the luckiest woman in the world: lucky to have been reborn, lucky to have stepped onto the right path, lucky to have snatched the best man.
Thinking about it now...
Shen Ningyue suddenly wanted to laugh.
The future?
What future?
The Marchioness would not agree. That seemingly gentle but actually domineering mother-in-law had never looked her straight in the eye from the very beginning. The Marquis would allow it even less, and the Old Madame couldn't even be bothered to mention her.
Even if Pei Ciling had the heart for it, what use was his heart alone?
She finally understood one thing.
Initially, she thought that as long as she captured Pei Ciling's heart, she captured everything.
How truly ridiculous.
What was the use of getting only his heart?
In this Marquis's mansion, how many people cared about his heart?
Only by gaining the approval of the majority could one truly establish a firm foothold. But she had taken the wrong path from the start—she thought that by stealing her older sister's marriage, she could steal her sister's destiny, not knowing that destiny never lay in marriage, but in the person themselves.
She was not Shen Ninghuan, after all.
Putting someone else in the same position wouldn't lead to the same path.
Shen Ningyue lowered her head, looking at her shadow cast on the ground. The shadow was stretched long and faint by the twilight under the corridor, like a puddle of water that could be blown away by the wind at any moment.
For the coming days, let it just be like this.
She suddenly felt very tired.
Not physically tired, but emotionally exhausted. It was the kind of exhaustion from holding on for too long, staying tense for too long, fighting for too long, only to suddenly realize that everything was meaningless.
She wanted some peace and quiet.
To think carefully about what she should do... from now on.
Shen Ningyue turned around, did not knock, did not enter, but silently returned to her own wing room. The door gently closed behind her, isolating everything outside, and isolating that seated silhouette reflected on the window paper.
...
Inside the study, the candlelight was bright.
Pei Ciling sat upright at the desk. Spread out in front of him was a scroll of the Essentials of the Military Classics. The pages were yellowed, the ink marks like iron. His gaze fell between the lines, reading line by line, page by page, looking extremely focused.
But if someone were to look closely, they would find that those dark, deep eyes hadn't moved for a long time.
The matters of the Three Thousand Battalion weighed on his heart like a giant boulder.
He had filled a vacancy, parachuted in to become a Centurion of the Three Thousand Battalion. This was a position his father had used personal favors to secure for him, an opportunity others couldn't even beg for.
But he did not sit securely in it.
That incident.
It had already spread.
For him, the Heir of a Marquis, to take a concubine was originally not a big deal. Among the noble youths in the capital, who didn't have a few women in their rooms? Nobles like his father, who devoted themselves to only one person their whole life, were extremely rare. But the person he took in had too special an identity—
His second younger brother's original fiancee.
The younger sister of his own original fiancee.
And it was an absurd union forced upon the elders of both families, who had to hold their noses and accept it after such an unbearable caught in bed scandal.
Therefore, everything was different.
The way his superiors looked at him carried a bit of scrutiny and a bit of amusement.
His colleagues were polite on the surface, but privately kept their distance, never inviting him to drink or discuss matters. Even the soldiers under his command looked at him with something strange in their eyes—not awe, but curiosity, sizing him up, with the kind of theatrical expectation of waiting to see what joke he would make of himself next.
Especially those two Deputy Centurions.
In terms of seniority and military merits, the vacant centurion position should have rightfully gone to one of them. The two men had fought over it for a long time, completely at odds, battling both openly and in secret.
Yet, the moment he was parachuted into the role, the two abruptly stopped fighting.
They united against the outsider.
And he was that outsider.
Pei Ciling closed his eyes, the corners of his lips curving upward in a faint, self-deprecating smile.
He had nothing to complain about.
His unearned appointment was a fact, just as his moral failings were a fact.
He had stolen his younger brother's woman. Although she had not yet officially married and was only a fiancee, no matter how one looked at it, he was ultimately in the wrong. The strange looks, the distant attitudes, the insubordination of his subordinates—he had brought all of this upon himself. He could blame no one else.
All he could do.
Was to work doubly hard.
He had to thoroughly digest the military manuals, perfect his riding and archery, and fully grasp the affairs of the military camp. He arrived the earliest and left the latest every day, handling everything personally and bearing the burden without complaint. He needed to use his actions to prove that he was not a useless piece of trash relying on his family's legacy, nor a frivolous playboy who only knew how to bed women.
He needed to stand firm.
Only by re-establishing himself could he give both of them a better future.
Even if that future—
Pei Ciling paused.
Even if that future might not be exactly what Shen Ningyue envisioned. After all, what they did was undeniably wrong, and the fruit born from it could naturally only be bitter!
He thought of that woman, of the sparkling light in her eyes when she looked at him, of her careful and timid attempts to please him, of her warm and soft body pressing against him in the night, and of her gentle, enchanting voice when she called him My Lord.
He knew what she wanted.
The position of the official wife, the approval of the Marquis's estate, and a respectable future.
But he couldn't give it to her!
It wasn't that he didn't want to; he simply couldn't!
From his grandmother down to his father and mother, no one in the entire Marquis's household would ever agree to it. Given his current predicament, where even gaining a firm foothold was difficult, what right did he have to make her any promises?
He could only...
Pei Ciling lowered his eyes.
He could only try his best to treat her well, to protect her as much as possible, and to prevent those vicious rumors from hurting her. As for everything else, they would just have to take it one step at a time.
He turned to a new page and continued reading.
His mouth was terribly dry.
He casually picked up the teacup beside him and took a sip.
The tea was cold.
Not only was it cold, but it had also grown overly strong. A sharp bitterness dissolved on the tip of his tongue, leaving a harsh trail all the way down his throat.
This tea was not brewed by Shen Ningyue.
The tea she brewed was always steeped to perfection. The water was never too hot or too cold, the amount of tea leaves was just right, and it always went down smoothly.
Pei Ciling's hand, holding the teacup, paused slightly.
He suddenly realized that it had been a long time since he last drank the tea she prepared. It wasn't that she didn't brew it for him, but rather that he had been returning home late, exhausted, and would fall asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. Even on his rare days off, he would hole up in his study, unwilling to move.
It felt as though an invisible barrier had grown between them.
He lowered his gaze to the cup of cold, bitter tea in his hands. The liquid cast a dull gleam under the candlelight, reflecting his blurred features.
He suddenly felt that the room was somewhat empty.
The study wasn't particularly large, but being in it all by himself made it feel terribly hollow.
Pei Ciling placed the teacup back onto the desk and lowered his head once more to the military manual. The densely packed characters on the paper, line after line, looked like countless pairs of eyes quietly staring back at him.
He took a deep breath.
And continued reading.
Outside the window, the night deepened.
Between the study and the bedchamber lay only a short, winding corridor. The lanterns along the corridor had finally been lit, their dim yellow halos swaying gently in the wind, stretching the shadows of the two doors in shifting lengths.
The figure behind that door and the figure behind this door both sat in silence.
One with her head lowered, uttering not a word.
The other staring blankly, lost in thought.
Though separated by a mere few dozen steps, it felt as if thousands of mountains and rivers lay between them.
The moonlight was beautiful tonight.
It was just a pity there was no one to share it with...
