The Courtyard Full of Fragrance - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Drugged again.

When I pushed open the study door in my rather revealing attire, “Fu Rongjing” was reading.

At the sound, he looked up.

He froze as if someone had cast a binding spell on him.

In an instant, his ears and neck flushed red.

I pretended not to notice.

Throwing myself into his arms, I sobbed pitifully.

“Husband, there was something wrong with the wine Mother sent today.”

“If you don’t help me, I’ll die.”

“Fu Rongjing” was shocked.

“Fu Rongjing” tried to push me away.

But he didn’t dare move.

Because the moment he moved, he would feel my soft, curving body.

So he could only stiffen his neck and lower his voice.

“Madam, I can’t-”

I swallowed his refusal with a kiss.

He didn’t even dare breathe.

When I pushed him down onto the couch, he was so inexperienced that his whole body went rigid.

His eyes were squeezed shut, and he did not dare look at me at all.

Only when I began undoing his belt did he suddenly open his eyes and grab my restless hand.

He was probably truly afraid I would die.

After several rounds of agonized struggle, he finally gritted his teeth. “Madam, I… I’ll do it.”

I asked him, all aggrieved, “Do you know how?”

His lashes trembled lightly, and he kept stammering. “Y-you can teach me. I… I learn very quickly.”

He did indeed learn quickly.

His stamina was astonishing, too.

Before I, his “teacher,” had even taught him half of it, he had served me until I had no strength left.

It was late into the night before he finally fell asleep from exhaustion.

Only then did I stroke his face and peel off the thin mask.

Beneath it was a handsome face utterly different from Fu Rongjing’s.

Shen Weichu.

I knew him.

Last year, he had returned from the western campaign as the youngest general of real promise.

I heard that on the battlefield, he had injured the very foundation of his manhood.

After he returned to the capital and received his title, His Majesty had intended to grant him a marriage several times, but he had refused them all.

That must have been why Fu Rongjing felt safe letting him disguise himself and play the part.

I felt a little sad.

So the man tonight was not my husband either?

But I was an honest, dutiful woman.

I was terribly frightened.

I absolutely did not dare expose him.

I could only pretend I knew nothing.

I put the mask back on him.

Then, feeling wronged, I continued sleeping.

I had been honest since childhood.

Before I married, my half-sister had been furious at my lack of ambition.

“Fu Rongjing only gave you a few cheap coral beads, invited you out a few times, and whispered a few sweet words to you, and now you insist on marrying no one but him.”

“Silly girl, if a man won’t spend silver on you before marriage, he certainly won’t after.”

“How can you be so honest? At the very least, make him give you more things. Take what you can.”

She was born enchanting.

She knew how to handle men.

She had seen all sorts of storms.

Back in Xianzhou, men had lined up to spend money on her and give her gifts.

How could she understand how rare it was for a plain, honest woman like me to be pursued and flattered by a man whose looks and family background were both first-rate?

And so, after we married…

Fu Rongjing never touched me.

I remained honest and obedient.

Barely a month after the wedding, Fu Rongjing rescued an orphaned girl from the blades of mountain bandits and kept her outside the city.

I remained honest and obedient.

Even over two months ago, when I learned that the orphaned girl had taken an arrow for him and was gravely injured, hovering near death…

And that, in order to avoid affecting his official duties while still spending three months with that orphaned girl as an ordinary married couple, he had paid a fortune to have a human-skin mask made and arranged for his friends to take turns pretending to be him…

I still remained honest and obedient, acting as though I knew nothing.

He must have been afraid I would find out and make a scene.

On the day he left, he warned me coldly.

“Qin Suihe, a dull and boring woman like you has only one virtue: obedience.”

“From now on, be obedient. Don’t come hovering in front of me, and don’t even dream of winning my heart.”

“As long as you behave yourself, you can continue being the Heir’s Wife.”

Of course I was honest.

But I was clumsy with words.

One day, in front of my mother-in-law, who was eager for a grandson, I accidentally let it slip that Fu Rongjing had never touched me.

After that day, there was always something extra added to my food.

We honest women would never dare go outside and find some wild man.

So, to cure the drug’s effects and stay alive…

I could only come find my own “husband” every day, and pray that today’s husband was the real Fu Rongjing.

Alas.

What a pity.

It had been over a month.

Not a single one had been him.