My Husband's Lover (4)

I stormed inside Dingxiang's room and asked, "What are you trying to pull?"

He smiled shamelessly while saying, "What do you mean by that?"

"Don't play dumb with me."

"I do not play dumb, Yanyu. With my intelligence, it is impossible play such role. But sometimes, when you are too smart, you forget things. For example, I forgot to mention about the flower-patterned dress of the woman who was with Liqin."

"Are you threatening me?"

"Oh, no. Threatening is for small minds. Great minds only warn. But you do not have to worry. You cannot possibly be the only one who wears flower-patterned dresses in this house."

"Thanks for the warning. Since you're so kind, let me warn you too. I've tried to kill someone I hate. Doing it the second time won't be hard. But you don't have to worry. You can't possibly be that hateful for me to kill you in the middle of the night."

He smiled until the end, but I noticed a small change. When I closed the door, I heard a glass smash. How nice it would've been if I had seen that furious face. His smile had been irritating me since breakfast.

I went to my room to vent my anger. I drew Dingxiang and tore the drawings. But it was not enough. I needed to talk and I needed an audience. The only person - or God - whom I could talk to was the old man. Since he was God, I took it that he was watching me at that moment. So I started speaking about how much I wanted to kill Dingxiang. It felt weird without anything specific to look at so I drew the old man.

"I'm not a creative person, but I can get creative when it comes to killing someone I hate. I have thousands of ways to kill that moron with just one knife. Skinning, stabbing, gouging out his eyes. Just to name a few."

"But can you really do those things?"

"Thank goodness you're here. Complaining to a drawing started making me feel weird as well."

The old man sat beside me and asked, "So can you really do those things? Skinning? Stabbing? Or gouging out his eyes?"

"Of course not. I'm a thinker and a talker, not a doer."

"You were so calm when you talked to Dingxiang, but now you are fuming."

"I was fuming there as well, but I knew he wanted to see this kind of reaction. Of course I didn't want to let him win."

"But with you are acting right now, I think he wins."

"It doesn't count if he doesn't see it."

"So how are you going to help Liqin? How about your Operation: QinWei forever? You cannot just think and talk."

"Guowei is the only one who can help Liqin. I guess I'll just have to sit back and relax. In the novel, he'll leave and he'll hear about Liqin's imprisonment while he is away. He'll abandon his duties and rescue Liqin right away."

"That is according to the novel. I think you have noticed that the novel missed many things that happen in this world. The imprisonment and the rescue take place in one chapter, but how many days is one chapter in this world? How many days of torture?"

What the old man said was correct. I could not just wait for Guowei to rescue him after a few days. But Guowei was the only one who had the authority to resist Dingxiang.

"I know what to do now," I said. "I'm going to stop Guowei from leaving. Do you know when he'll leave?"

"I have no idea. But I think the servants are talking about it in the kitchen."

***

They were cooking tofu again. Breakfast, lunch, supper. It was always tofu just cooked in different ways. Did they not have other foods here?

"Are you really going with the master in the capital?" a woman asked.

"Yeah. I'm going to bring many, many things," a man enthusiastically replied.

"But you don't have any money, do you?" another person chimed in.

"The master gave me a few silver pieces."

The other people wowed.

"So when are you going to leave?"

"Tonight."

I didn't have much time for planning and begging. What reason could I give him to stop him from leaving? Maybe I should just be shameless. I decided I would just bug him the whole afternoon.

I was about to leave when I heard Yanyu's name being mentioned.

"I feel bad for miss Yanyu." It was Jie's voice.

"Why? What happened?"

"She doesn't believe in God. But she bought the painting of Yue Lao."

"She wasted money on that painting," the woman said. "She doesn't have to worry about their marriage because the master has never looked at other women at all."

"The master hasn't looked at her as well."

"If I were the master, I would treat her the same way," the man remarked. "She pushed herself into this marriage. Now the master has no choice but to share the house he got from the emperor with them. What's worse is he has to live with Dingxiang. And I also heard that the miss tried to kill the master's friend. She invited Liqin for a swim and after a while, she tried to drown him. But it backfired. That's why the two were found in the lake."

That was right. Yanyu did not deserve sympathy. She might have had her own reasons for her actions. But just because her actions were explainable did not mean they were excusable.