Yang Mutao found it both laughable and absurd: "You love me, yet you do such a thing? Have you no shame left? Do you not know the meaning of propriety and integrity?"
"I love you, I truly love you," Madam Yang knelt on the ground, her cries mournful, "Master, I was momentarily confused, I know I was wrong, I know I was wrong, I beg you, please forgive me."
For any man, to witness his wife's infidelity with his own eyes and not be enraged to death on the spot was a testament to his formidable self-restraint.
Yang Mutao slapped her again, his wrath unquenchable: "In your dreams."
Exposed before both Yang Mingyi and an outsider, Madam Yang burned with shame. She pleaded desperately, yet Yang Mutao showed no trace of compassion for their shared years as husband and wife. When she was at the Zheng family, she had been the cherished legitimate daughter. After marrying Yang Mutao, she was the mistress of the household, always basking in glory and prestige.
Never in her life had she suffered such utter humiliation.
She had been unfaithful, and she certainly felt guilty, but was this entirely her fault?
"Master, what exactly do you intend to do?"
Although Yang Mutao and she had been husband and wife for many years, there was little affection between them. He treated Madam Yang with only the requisite respect, and nothing more. "I am divorcing you."
"I am pregnant. Will you still divorce me?" Madam Yang clung to her last shred of hope: "Don't you want a son?"
Yang Mutao looked at her stomach: "Is the child in your belly truly my son?"
The steward, lying on the floor, averted his eyes shiftily. Madam Yang said: "Yes!"
Yang Mutao: "How long have you been with him behind my back?"
Madam Yang paused, lowered her eyes, not daring to look at him. After a moment, she said: "For... for two months."
Yang Mutao roared: "Tell me the truth!"
Madam Yang, not daring to hide it any longer: "...Over three months."
"The child is also just over three months. What a coincidence!" Yang Mutao said, his face dark.
Madam Yang's face turned pale, and a wave of cramps gripped her stomach, but she couldn't attend to it now: "Master..."
"You probably don't know. Before Yi Ger was born, I fell from a horse and injured my body. My ability to have children was already difficult. The physician said my hopes of having more children were probably futile, but he didn't say it was absolutely impossible, so I never gave up. Yet, after all these years, with so many women in the rear courtyard, I only have Yi Ger. When you suddenly told me you were pregnant, I thought Heaven had finally opened its eyes, could not bear to see me without an heir. Now, you damn well tell me, could such a coincidence exist in this world? Could it?" Yang Mutao shouted, his voice hoarse.
His eyes were bloodshot, each furious question crashing over her like a wave. In all their years of marriage, she had never seen him so unhinged, so consumed by rage.
She was stunned, momentarily speechless.
She couldn't be certain who the child's father truly was, but in her heart, she desperately hoped it was Yang Mutao's.
When she first discovered the pregnancy, she had been terrified. But the deed was already done—what good would fear do now?
She was a woman, her heart yearning for a child more than anyone could know. She constantly told herself that this child was hers and Yang Mutao's. After repeating it so often, she had almost come to believe it herself.
For Yang Mutao to say this meant he would not even acknowledge the child.
Feeling utterly trapped, she steeled herself, swallowing her shame and panic as she lashed out, "Is this entirely my fault? Fine, I betrayed you! But I still love you! Does that even count as real betrayal?"
What monstrous logic is this!
Fang Zichen looked at Madam Yang, utterly dumbfounded.
Love?
She loves him, yet she cheats?
If this doesn't count as betrayal, then what does?
Physical infidelity and emotional infidelity both seem equally serious.
They are like two different piles of excrement, even if the color or shape differs, both are equally foul.
"I have been your wife for decades! Count the days—how many have you truly devoted to me? I am a woman! I long for tenderness, for care! Yet you, year after year, stuff the rear courtyard with new concubines. You indulge yourself freely, so why can't I?" Madam Yang pushed herself up from the floor, her body trembling, her words a bitter blend of accusation and tearful despair.
"I gave you the position of Mistress," Yang Mutao frowned. "Was that not enough?"
Madam Yang trembled all over. "Not enough! It's not enough! You know that's never what I wanted! You know full well what my feelings for you are, yet you turned a blind eye! When I saw you laughing and talking with those bitches, do you know what I thought? I wanted to kill them! Kill every last one of them! But I knew you wouldn't like that, so I endured it... I endured for decades! I'm going crazy! I simply couldn't bear it anymore!"
"So you cuckolded me?" Yang Mutao spat, jabbing a finger toward the steward. "And you couldn't even be bothered to be selective? This is what you chose? You chose to cuckold me with a wretched man like him? You are truly something else." Meeting Madam Yang's mortified expression, he continued, sentence by sentence: "Zheng Xiaoling, have you forgotten? It was you who begged to marry me back then, desperately clinging to the idea. I wasn't the one begging for you. Have you forgotten? I told you then. I said I didn't love you, and that I could never have only you in this lifetime. You were the one captivated by my looks, you were the one who said it didn't matter. And now you dare lay the blame at my feet? What right do you have? Where does your shame lie?"
Fang Zichen: "..."
It seems I'm learning a bit too much.
Should I leave now?
But... the best part of a show is always yet to come. He really couldn't bear to go.
Madam Yang was speechless.
Every word Yang Mutao spoke was the truth.
In his youth, Yang Mutao was famously known as a handsome man in Fu'an Town. If he hadn't possessed considerable good looks, he couldn't have charmed Wu Huifang into leaving Yuanzhou with him using just smooth talk.
Furthermore, one only needed to look at Yang Mingyi to glimpse the captivating charm he must have had in his younger days.
Madam Yang was fond of him, but Yang Mutao was heavily focused on enjoying himself back then and had no intention of settling down. She pleaded with Old Lady Zheng. Old Lady Zheng also doted on her niece and thought that a marriage between the two families would strengthen their bonds, so she agreed.
Madam Yang thought that once she entered the household and lived under the same roof, it would be easier to get close to him. She believed her looks and charm were outstanding and saw no reason why she couldn't win Yang Mutao over.
However, reality proved that a rake's repentance only came from one of two things: either he had seen through the red dust of the world and was ready to enter the Buddhist order, or his former indulgences had left him physically incapable.
[看破红尘 (Kànpò hóngchén): lit. To see through the red dust of the world; fig. To become disillusioned with the mortal world, often leading to a spiritual or monastic life.]
Yang Mutao's heart seemed cast from iron. Over the years, no matter how she tried to warm it, it remained cold.
Keeping solitary vigil in an empty room ultimately led to loneliness. It was at this time that the steward appeared. His attentive inquiries, his warmth, his gentle care—it was everything Madam Yang craved. She soon succumbed.
The first time, she still felt remorse, panic, and felt she had wronged Yang Mutao. But as the instances multiplied, those feelings of regret and fear vanished completely amidst the repeated pleasures. She even... began to feel it didn't matter.
If Yang Mutao didn't know how to cherish her, there were others who would. She was not unloved.
If Yang Mutao could take concubines, why couldn't she find a man?
Fang Zichen was just watching the drama with great relish when suddenly, a wave of heat surged up from his lower abdomen.
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