Snake Bond - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The truth was, I had found that temple strange from the very beginning.

There was only one abbot in the entire place. He casually arranged a room for me, then never said another word to me.

That night, I was the temple’s only guest.

Normally, I could never sleep in an unfamiliar place.

But I had no idea what kind of incense had been burned in that room. I slept deeply.

When I woke the next morning, my whole body felt weak and sore, and my lower abdomen was painfully swollen.

My neck and thighs were covered in hickeys.

There were faint marks around my wrists, like they had been scraped raw by something binding them…

I panicked.

The aching swell in my lower abdomen and the marks on my body were far too familiar to a married woman who had been trying to conceive.

Terrified, I clutched the edge of the quilt as tears fell one by one. Chu Ran’s face appeared before my eyes.

Who had it been last night?

I looked toward the calming incense in the corner of the room.

Could it have been the abbot?

But I did not dare confront him. I was the one who had been violated. If word got out, the consequences would be unimaginable…

Most importantly, what would I do if my husband, Chu Ran, found out?

I could not bear to imagine his disappointed gaze falling on me, or how much it would hurt, or how I could possibly beg him to stay.

So I fled in utter panic, then secretly found a physician as quickly as I could and asked for a contraceptive decoction and some ointment.

Fortunately, Chu Ran had gone out of town this time to purchase silk and would not be home for two or three days.

That was just enough time for the marks on my body to fade.

But the shadow in my heart would not go away. Day and night, I could barely sleep. I did not even dare leave the house, let alone go anywhere near the temple. I spent every day washing my face with tears.

When my husband Chu Ran finally returned, I used the excuse that we had been apart too long and I had missed him terribly, then could not wait to share his bed.

My upbringing had been strict since childhood. Everything between husband and wife had been taught to me by Chu Ran, and in the six years of our marriage, he had always been the one to take the initiative…

So Chu Ran had never seen me like that before.

I would never forget the way he looked that night, pressed against my neck, eyes bloodshot, demanding me again and again, calling me “Zhao Zhao” over and over.

I was in agony, because I felt I had done something unforgivable to Chu Ran.

So I responded to him with even greater passion.

A month later, I was pregnant.

I did not know why Heaven would play such a cruel joke on me.

Why did it have to be after that night at the temple?

Why give me this child then?

I was terrified, because my belly was larger than that of an ordinary woman one month pregnant.

I was unbearably afraid that the contraceptive decoction I had drunk before had failed, and that the child in my womb was not Chu Ran’s.

I feared the truth would be exposed.

I also worried that the contraceptive decoction might have harmed the child inside me.

This pregnancy had truly not come easily, and it filled me with constant anxiety.

Thankfully, the physician said my belly was large because I was carrying twins.

I also secretly asked the physician who had prescribed me the contraceptive decoction. Only after he confirmed that the medicine would not harm the children now in my womb did I relax a little.

But when I thought of the mad old woman Chu Ran and I had run into on the road today, my heart clenched all over again.

She kept lingering near the temple. Had she recognized me?

Had she seen something she should not have seen that night?

Had she discovered something?

I did not dare think about it…

I could not let anyone know any of this. I could not allow even the slightest risk of exposure.

And I absolutely could not lose Chu Ran.

So that night, after Chu Ran and I finished bathing, I lay in bed and listened until his breathing evened out and he had fallen completely asleep. Then I took the knife Chu Ran had given me and left the house.

Tonight, I was going to kill that mad old woman and the abbot.