Her Imperfection for Wifehood - Chapter 47.1

Chapter 47.1

A-Jing’s home was destroyed by the flames of war, and with it, the few beautiful memories she and I shared were reduced to ashes overnight.

On nights we shared a bed, we used to talk before sleeping about how we would have our own little home in the near future.

We gave it a common name—Jingyin Ju.

Now, though.

There is no her, and there is no me.

How can one call it home?

The day I picked A-Jing up from the nightclub, I was eager to give myself to her. Because I knew clearly that paper cannot wrap up fire.

The entire truth would eventually come to light.

So, I wanted to cherish the time and intimately twine with my deeply loved great hero before Wei Zhengqing’s and Kahn’s conspiracies were exposed by A-Jing.

She is so innocent. She is so clumsy. She is so foolish. She is so domineering. She is so gentle…

How many facets can one person have? I am honored to have seen the most sides of A-Jing.

A-Jing is a true gentleman, adhering strictly to propriety.

If I hadn’t taken the initiative to offer myself, if I hadn’t repeatedly tempted her, she would never have taken my virginity under those circumstances.

But I couldn’t wait.

A-Jing was exhausted that night and slept soundly. I was also tired, but I couldn’t bring myself to sleep.

She thought I was asleep.

After a night of indulgence, before A-Jing woke up, I called the Wei house and asked the driver to pick me up.

I was afraid. Afraid of seeing A-Jing’s deeply affectionate eyes, afraid of hearing her tenderly call me “Yinyin,” afraid of her embrace, and also afraid of her kiss… afraid that I myself would stay behind regardless of the consequences.

I couldn’t leave myself behind, so I left A-Jing a note.

Telling her—I love you, and only you.

Leveraging A-Jing’s sincere devotion to me, I helped Kahn achieve his goal: to ruin the reputations of An Jing and An Xi, to bring shame to the An Corporation, and destroy its credibility.

But I failed to complete the “mission” Wei Zhengqing gave me: to become the Young Madam of the An family, to capture An Xi’s heart, and to sow discord between An Jing and An Xi.

What Wei Zhengqing wanted was always the An family’s wealth. His agreement for me to approach An Jing as the singer Hongying was merely to gain A-Jing’s sympathy later on, making it easier for me to marry into the An family.

Developing feelings for A-Jing was unexpected.

But Kahn twisted this “accident” into a “plan” and told it to An Jing.

I know A-Jing believed it.

I still remember the day the newspaper published the photo of A-Jing and me kissing. She came to pick me up. She held my hand and said with absolute conviction: Come with me.

In that moment, I felt like a thousand arrows were piercing my heart.

How I wanted to just follow her and leave, to wander the world with her, to brave the storms with her, to face life and death with her. As long as it was with her, any way was fine.

What she didn’t know was that the photo was actually one of the traps set by Kahn.

So, how could I leave?

After enduring humiliation for so many years, how could I fail at the last step? Let her hate me. Hating me now might allow her to retain some thought about our feelings for each other.

What I told A-Jing several months ago about Aunt Hong and Wei Zhengqing’s old story was true, and the child was also real.

However, that child was not me. She “died of illness” in the second year after being taken to the Wei house.

I was born in the old town. My father was once a worker at Zhengqing Department Store. He fell into debt after being tricked by others and was severely beaten by debt collectors, eventually dying from his injuries.

Our house was taken as collateral, but it still wasn’t enough to cover the debt. Those people wanted to take me and my younger sister as payment. My mother fought desperately to stop them. With nowhere to turn, she led my brother, my sister, and me to kneel before Wei Zhengqing and beg for help.

Yes, Wei Zhengqing took a special interest in me.

So, he paid off our debts. The condition was that I had to take on the identity of Wei Yinxia and live in the Wei house, following his instructions.

My mother was placed under the constant watch of a rough man arranged by him, posing as a married couple, living with my younger brother and sister.

The original child had never seen outsiders after being brought home, and after I took her identity, I also didn’t see outsiders for several years. We were all just tools for Wei Zhengqing.

The original child had a fragile life. I don’t know the cause of her death. My life is tough; I endured.

Aunt Hong lost her own daughter and was grief-stricken. When life seemed hopeless, Wei Zhengqing brought me, an “orphan,” to her, giving her a small glimmer of hope to live. Who was more unfortunate, Aunt Hong or me?

So, Aunt Hong became the “mother” I nominally depended on.

From the day I entered the Wei house, Wei Zhengqing would instruct someone to bring either my younger brother or sister to see me once a month.

Of course, the meeting location was always random.

Initially, my brother or sister would happily tell me that they had meat to eat every day and seasonal new clothes, but they couldn’t go out together.

They could only play at the doorstep, and when they were playing, my mother would be locked inside the house.

When my mother went out to sell vegetables or wash clothes, they would be locked inside the house instead.

The place they lived was very remote, and the house was dilapidated. Over time, some residents moved away, leaving only the “family of four” living there.

As my brother and sister grew older, the frequency of my visits changed from once a month to once every two or three months.

They grew taller but thinner, and the smiles had disappeared from their faces.

They said that if they dared to disobey, dared to try and escape, or dared to ask me for help, “Father” would really beat them to death.

They also said that Mother was beaten until she bled a lot and was confined to bed for a month before she could finally get up.

I checked my brother and sister’s bodies. They gradually started showing fresh and old scars from whippings. My sister even cried in my arms, saying she didn’t want to go back, that she was scared, and that she was in a lot of pain.

That man had extended his vile hands toward my sister’s maturing body.

I raised an “objection” to Wei Zhengqing.

But he simply said lightly: It’s good enough that they’re alive today.

After that, my “objection” turned into a “plea.”

I begged him not to let the man harm my family again. The condition in exchange was that I had to willingly and obediently learn how to serve men and how to please them.

I learned all those disgusting things. I successfully gave my virginity to A-Jing, but my body had been touched from head to toe by the old nanny who taught me about sex years ago.

My family’s lives were far more important than my own life, just like A-Jing considered the An Corporation and An Xi more important than herself.

From surviving secretly to making a living, this was the price each of us in my family had to pay.

Going to Sincere Garden to play the piano was my idea.

I suspected that Wei Zhengqing’s most favored partner was the An family. Over the years, the An Corporation had developed rapidly under An Jing’s efforts, far exceeding Wei Zhengqing’s expectations.

On the surface, he always contradicted An Jing, but in reality, he secretly admired her, though he was unwilling to admit it.

At Sincere Garden, I could learn many things outside of theory and also get close to many officials and wealthy people. An Jing was one of them.

And the An Jing I knew at Sincere Garden was different from the Boss Jing others talked about.

The Boss Jing people talked about was cold-blooded and ruthless, with a dagger hidden behind a smile. The Boss Jing I knew was domineering and fierce, but also gentle and innocent, and a little… oblivious.

She was the most different woman I had ever met.

I deeply admired her.

Admiration turned into love.

After An Xi returned to China, Wei Zhengqing promised that as long as I could marry into the An family, facilitate business cooperation between the two families, make An Xi devoted to me, and make him forget past grievances with the Wei family, he would give my family a sum of money and their freedom.

I deliberately “ran into” and courted An Xi, but all my efforts on him were in vain. He didn’t like me, and I didn’t like him either.

We were both just putting on a show.

I could tell, and I believe he could feel it too.

Since he didn’t expose it, I had to grit my teeth and continue the act. As I kept acting, I lost control.

I fell in love with his sister. I fell in love with a woman.

This terrified me and left me helpless.

It wasn’t until A-Jing came to find me, kissed me, and said to me—Yinyin, I like you.

That was the first time in my life I felt what happiness was.

I desperately wanted to tell her: You are my great hero, and you have been since I was very little. But I couldn’t.

I was Wei Yinxia, the Second Miss of the Wei family, Aunt Hong’s daughter, not the little girl she pulled out of the water.

Love came without warning, and it grew deep.

The kinder A-Jing was to me in the days that followed, the guiltier I felt because of Kahn’s involvement.

Kahn didn’t know my true identity. He just saw me as the illegitimate daughter despised by Wei Zhengqing, a pawn he could manipulate at will.

He was the first to realize that A-Jing had developed genuine feelings for me, so he persuaded Wei Zhengqing, and we decided to play along with the situation. I agreed to their plan. Only this way could I “negotiate” with Wei Zhengqing and beg him not to let Kahn “destroy” me.

I wanted to give myself to A-Jing pure and clean. Without Wei Zhengqing’s protection, how could I have escaped the torment of the devil, Kahn?

Every step of the trap and scheme targeting the An Corporation and A-Jing seemed to go smoothly.

The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind.

It wasn’t until Kahn and the An Corporation were mutually wounded that Wei Zhengqing finally let down his guard.

He kept his word and released my family. I took them to a house I had purchased earlier in the old town that very night.

The man who had tormented them for nearly ten years was killed on the spot by the “killer” who helped me find them, as soon as he opened the door.

He deliberately did this in front of my family. Wei Zhengqing was silencing a witness, and also warning us to “keep quiet” if we wanted to live. Otherwise, the man’s fate would be ours.

Wei Zhengqing, like Kahn, was a devil who disregarded human life.

Even though the man deserved to die.

After so many years, I almost didn’t recognize my mother.

My mother was a few years younger than Madam Wei, but she looked more than ten years older.

She was skin and bones, half her hair was white, her back was hunched, and she couldn’t even stand straight.

They were pitiful, but I didn’t feel guilty toward them because this situation was not caused by me. Like them, I was also a victim.

That night, I handed all my savings and the money Wei Zhengqing gave me to my mother. I touched my brother and sister’s emaciated faces and said my farewells to my mother.

—Mom, I’m repaying the life you gave me with these years of enduring humiliation and this money. Every day from now on, I will live for the person I love. From this point on, my life and death, and the lives and deaths of my brother and sister, have nothing to do with each other. Please pretend you never had a daughter like me.

In the past, our lives were tightly gripped by others. If we didn’t obey orders and do things against our conscience, we couldn’t escape death.

Our lives were like grass, which is what we, the inherently lowly ants of the bottom class, were like.

From birth to death, we had no choice.

From the day I stepped into the Wei house, every step I took was fraught with thorns, and every step was like walking on thin ice.

I had finally finished.

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