A Desperate Husband Is a Substitute - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Pei Yihan had been practicing swordplay with the Crown Prince when his face was accidentally cut.

I heard the news in the rear courtyard and hurried straight to Pei Yihan’s study.

I cupped Pei Yihan’s chin with a few fingers and examined the wound carefully.

The cut was beneath his eye. Though it was only an inch long, it was dangerously close to his eye.

Pei Yihan turned his face away unnaturally.

Looking at my fingertips, I finally realized my behavior had been rather forward.

Pei Yihan and I had been married for a year.

Outwardly, we had always treated each other with courtesy and respect. In truth, we were a couple in name only.

There had certainly never been any intimate gestures between us.

Pei Yihan had risen to an official post of the highest first rank at a young age, and carried himself with solemn dignity.

Before our marriage and after it alike, though I admired him in my heart, I was also afraid of him.

“How did you get hurt this badly?”

Pei Yihan was extraordinarily handsome.

After we married, on the few occasions he spoke to me, I was so captivated by that face of his that I failed to hear a single word.

Every time he caught me staring blankly at his face, he would always frown with a dim, disappointed look, then leave with a flick of his sleeve.

In truth, I knew very well that he had always been tired of me.

Everyone said that marrying Pei Yihan was far above my station.

Even I thought so myself.

I took the ointment the physician handed me.

“Will this wound leave a scar?” I asked.

The words had barely left my mouth, and the physician had yet to answer, when Pei Yihan’s originally indifferent expression changed at once.

With a sweep of his sleeve, he dismissed the physician.

He seemed somewhat angry.

I carefully applied medicine to Pei Yihan’s wound.

Only when I drew closer did I discover just how deep the cut was.

I was afraid that even after it healed, it would still leave a scar.

My expression grew even more worried.

“Is my face good-looking?” he suddenly asked.

He reached out to stop me from applying the medicine, forcing me to meet his eyes.

We were far too close.

His gaze was intensely invasive, as if every thought in my heart could be laid bare before him.

I was about to avert my eyes, but his other hand pressed against my waist.

With the slightest exertion of his arm, I toppled straight into his lap.

“Mm?”

His expression remained indifferent.

“It is,” I answered, bracing myself.

I truly had no idea what he meant by acting this way today.

“Then do you like it?” he asked next.

“I do.”

That was not a lie. I had always been obsessed with Pei Yihan’s looks.

Whenever I read storybooks, I always imagined the male lead with his face.

“Do you like me, or do you like my face?”

The expression Pei Yihan wore when he asked this was completely different from before.

There was an indescribable threat in it.

I bit my lower lip, torn, and thought hard.

Pei Yihan had always kept his distance from women.

By the time our marriage was being discussed, he was already twenty-two. At that age, the other talented young gentlemen in the capital were already fathers. Only he had remained unmarried all this time.

There were quite a few noble ladies who adored him as well. Some had even confessed their feelings to him in public.

All of them were coldly rejected by him, without the slightest regard for their dignity.

So why had he chosen me in the end?

In the past, I had been close with Pei Yi. Pei Yi was Pei Yihan’s nephew, and around the same age as me.

Like me, he liked reading storybooks.

Like me, he liked men.

I had once asked him if he knew the reason.

He said, “My young uncle was being pressured too hard to marry. Other women annoy him, but every time you see him, you run faster than a mouse seeing a cat. If he marries you, you definitely won’t covet his body, and he’ll be able to preserve his chastity.”

It was true. I had the lust, but not the nerve.

“Why does he need to preserve his chastity?”

Pei Yi cautiously looked around, then leaned mysteriously close to my ear and said, “I suspect my young uncle is like me. He doesn’t like women.”

“And he already has someone in his heart.”

When I heard that, I felt as if the sky had collapsed.

Thinking of this, my heart jolted!

Could it be that Pei Yihan knew I had already learned his secret, and was deliberately testing me?

“Lord Pei is handsome and elegant, like an immortal banished to the mortal world. Anyone would like him.”

“And compared to Pei Yi?”

I had not seen Pei Yi for a year.

Back then, when the Pei Family threw him into the military camp, his grin stretched almost to his ears. His face was practically splitting from how hard he smiled.

That damn girl. What incredible luck!

Seeing me lose focus, Pei Yihan’s face darkened, and he pinched me at the waist.

My expression turned rather guilty.

I absolutely had to keep this secret for Pei Yi.

Avoiding Pei Yihan’s gaze, I lowered my head and said to myself, “You two are uncle and nephew, so naturally there is some resemblance.”

“Although Pei Yi looks a little delicate, on the inside, he’s still very manly!”

Pei Yihan cut me off. “Stop. Don’t say any more.”

The arm wrapped around my waist loosened slightly.

The two of us remained silent like that for a long time.

The important point was that I was still straddling his lap.

Suddenly, a pain struck my lower abdomen.

A warm flow surged out.

I instantly realized that my monthly courses had arrived.

I had no idea where the strength came from, but I shot to my feet at once and pushed Pei Yihan away.

With a nervous expression, I hurried toward the door.

“Now that this face is injured and no longer resembles him, have you grown tired of it?”

I had already run outside when I suddenly heard those words.

Me: ??

Resembles who?

This monthly course truly came at just the right time!

I only hoped I hadn’t stained Pei Yihan’s clothes.