Chapter 31: Lewd Ghost
Since a marriage certificate had already been established, things like the other party’s household registration and travel permit that could be filed with the government officials naturally had to be laid out.
Yan Bei knew Wang Huan’s family background very well.
Just before suddenly receiving the imperial edict that year to return to the capital city to serve as regent, he killed the teacher who had taught him for three years.
Because that person had taken advantage of Yan Bei’s youth and revealed a slip-up, secretly writing a letter to send out information about the prince’s mansion.
Although the thief was cautious and left no identity information, someone had targeted the prince’s mansion, which was an indisputable fact.
And not long after, the imperial palace sent that imperial edict, so Yan Bei turned his gaze toward the former emperor.
The prince’s mansion had generationally regarded loyalty to the sovereign and protecting the country as the first family precept, but if the imperial family would not tolerate him, was Yan Bei supposed to reason with them?
He ordered the teacher’s cause of death to be concealed, then sneaked into the capital city.
That time, he encountered two accidents: one was getting to know the true face of the Du Family relatives ahead of time, and the other was being tricked by A Li’s mother into becoming her son-in-law.
It started without any warning; he squeezed into the crowd at the guild hall, following a group of failed scholars scrambling for short-term labor jobs, and a conflict arose. Then a man named Zhang Wei stepped forward at that moment to help him out of the trouble.
The two joined forces to resolve the trouble, and after fleeing together to the woods outside the city gate, Zhang Wei pulled out a wine gourd to share a drink with him, telling him that he was from a manor on the outskirts of the capital and was managing the several hundred mu of land left by his cousin.
Zhang Wei also asked about his background.
Yan Bei was after all the dignified Prince Jingyang; creating a fake identity that was indistinguishable from the real thing was extremely easy for him.
He said his surname was Cheng, he was the seventh in line, his father had died early, and his mother had named him Cheng Qi; he was a failed scholar in the metropolitan exam. The reason he was at the guild hall was that he no longer had extra travel expenses to return home.
He smoothly took out his travel permit and asked Zhang Wei to take care of him.
Zhang Wei said his employer, who was also his distant cousin, had now lost both parents, and all family affairs were handled by him. If Yan Bei was willing to go back with him, arranging a job for him would be no problem.
Yan Bei’s trip into the capital was secretive; once any information leaked, it would bring many troubles.
He was troubled by having no stable place to stay, so upon hearing Zhang Wei’s proposal, he was naturally willing to go.
The village Zhang Wei mentioned was only twenty li from the city gate, making it very convenient to enter and exit the city. Moreover, the village was open, backed by mountains and bordered by woods, so it was easy for his people to contact him and for him to hide.
Upon following Zhang Wei and arriving at the employer’s place for the first time, he saw Zhang Wei’s cousin, the landowner miss whose parents had both passed away.
At that time, she was reclining on a bamboo couch inside the window, seriously reading a book, with only half of her jade-carved-like profile visible, but her whole person framed by the green gauze, leaning obliquely, just like a heavenly immortal.
In the Northern Lands, Yan Bei had seen plenty of valiant and heroic women, such as his second sister, like a skyrocketing cannon who would grab a knife at the slightest disagreement. Women like that were certainly dazzling, but they only showed their fierce side.
And the young ladies in the capital city seemed overly soft.
But this Wang Huan, perhaps because she had single-handedly supported the family business since childhood, actually possessed both qualities!
At first glance, her exterior was soft as silk around the finger, but looking deeper, her inner strength was like tempered steel.
The hand holding the book was plain and slender, with nails trimmed to just a tiny bit, a section pink like a pearl shell and a section transparent, yet her page-turning motion was so crisp and neat that it easily made one think she could snap shut the book and strangle a wolf.
Yan Bei prided himself as a upright man, yet from that day on, he overturned his self-perception.
He had always thought himself a righteous Liu Xiahui, for whom any beauty was illusory, but that day he discovered he wasn’t so upright after all—he was just a lecher!
In short, Yan Bei stayed.
With cover, his actions with the shadow guards had far fewer troubles.
The landowner miss’s family was small; including Zhang Wei, there were only five or six people in total, so there was no risk of identity exposure at all.
To cover up his lecherous nature, he was taciturn in front of others and tried his utmost to avoid meeting Wang Huan.
But unexpectedly, she actually took the initiative to propose marriage to him!
That day he was bathing in the woodshed and noticed someone moving through the door crack.
By the time he chased out, Wang Huan was standing smiling in the courtyard, hands clasped behind her back, boldly eyeing the body wrapped in his coarse cloth clothes.
It was clearly improper by etiquette, but her pair of bright almond eyes were full of gentle frankness, making Yan Bei seem petty for wanting to cover up!
She said, Young Master Cheng, do you have a wife? If not, I intend to take you as my husband; I hope you will seriously consider it.
It was early summer, the weather fine, and Yan Bei perhaps had his head muddled by the heat, his legs going weak as he stumbled in place!
His father had passed early, and he had succeeded to the position early.
From childhood to adulthood, almost everyone and everything revolved around how to become a competent new Prince Jingyang.
His mother had indeed constantly proposed marriages to him, hoping he could marry early, give birth to a child early, and soon have a virtuous wife.
But he had no time to think about it.
And he had certainly never imagined that a marriageable young woman would peek at him bathing and then actively propose to him!
He ran off without a word.
Though he was a lecher, he wouldn’t bite the hook right away, right?
He wasn’t stupid!
He could tell that her gaze clearly lusted after his body!
What did she take him for?
Huh?
A male courtesan?
If not for needing a place to stay, he would have long ago…
The next day, she came again.
This time bringing the deed for her three hundred mu of land, as well as a box of large and small silver ingots.
It was clear they were pieced together. So that should be all her possessions, right?
She said they would all be given to him as betrothal gifts.
Yan Bei felt a rush of blood to his head!
He was a seven-foot man in his prime, full of vigor—was he the type to covet this betrothal gift?
He was angered into running off again.
He went to the town and stayed for two days. Those two days he tossed and turned, unable to close his eyes.
Meanwhile, because of lacking cover, the shadow guards arriving frequently had drawn attention at the inn.
It wouldn’t happen at the Wang family. A single household with its own courtyard, surrounded by mountains or woods. He himself had a separate residence in the manor.
Actually, getting married wasn’t impossible, right?
Men marry, women wed—it’s only natural, and anyway he had to marry a princess consort.
Since he was a lecher, and she lusted after him too, why not?
Just as he was agonizing over whether to shamelessly go back, the shadow guard reporting progress told him that the prince need not worry—Miss Wang had already started looking at other people.
Yan Bei raced all the way back to the Wang family.
He clung to his last shred of reason and made a condition, saying he needed some time to properly prepare the wedding.
But that woman didn’t follow the usual path for marriage either!
She agreed readily on the surface, but the very next night, she knocked him out with a cup of wine and impatiently supported the dazed him to complete the wedding ceremony.
When he woke, the room was full of amorous charm, everywhere adorned with festive red.
His body was clean, more than half of it pressing on her, with her earring in his mouth!
On the pillows placed side by side, their tangled black hair was spread all over.
And his one hand was precisely circling her lower back!
At that moment, Yan Bei’s mind was full of crashing waves!
He ran for the third time!
This time he ran very thoroughly.
On the way fleeing back to the prince’s mansion, he slapped himself a total of more than twenty times.
Wang Huan was two years younger than him. She was still a landowner young lady who had never traveled far. She should be innocent and naive about the world.
She was ignorant, and he followed her ignorance?
Men marry, women wed—just like that?
In the first three months back at the mansion, he forced himself to forget this marriage.
In the latter three months, he started thinking he wasn’t a man.
No matter what, he and Wang Huan had already consummated their marriage.
Leaving without a word was unrighteous.
There was still more than a month until the scheduled return to the capital, but the days were becoming harder and harder to endure for some reason.
Finally that day, riding south into the mountains and gazing at the red clouds like wedding candles on the horizon, he couldn’t hold back and raced back to the capital city early.
On the way there, he had prepared his words for humbly begging forgiveness, but upon seeing her, he was once again startled.
She was pregnant.
And about to give birth!
Calculating the dates, it was nine out of ten his!
Damn it.
For the wedding and consummation, he had been tricked into it.
Before he could even savor the taste, she made him a father!
No one took his husband’s authority seriously at all!
He wanted to divorce her!
He didn’t want this wife anymore!
But a pregnant woman couldn’t take stimulation.
He decided to wait until she gave birth to the child before settling accounts with her.
And he absolutely never imagined that this time, she would once again give him a shock.
A final shock—separating them by life and death forever, leaving him no chance to bring up divorce.
