Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Three days after I married into the Ashford family, I stumbled onto my husband’s secret.
The moon was bright and cold. Adrian stood alone beneath the eaves outside the study, a peachwood ritual sword resting in his hand as he murmured to the night sky, “The Great Way is formless; it gives birth to heaven and earth…” Moonlight fell across the elegant lines of his face, lending him a distant, almost otherworldly chill.
I hid behind a corridor pillar and understood everything at once.
Everyone knew that Adrian Ashford, the legitimate son of the Ashford household, had spent years refusing marriage because his heart was set on the path of cultivation. In the end, he had only agreed to marry me, the daughter of a minor academy official, because Lady Beatrice was desperate for a grandchild and had pressured him with the family’s honor.
As for me, I had not agreed because I was greedy for wealth, either. My family was packed into a small house with ten people under one roof. I had three older brothers, two older sisters, and twin younger sisters. Since I was little, my greatest wish had been simple: a room of my own, quiet enough for reading and embroidery, with no one coming in to disturb me.
Lady Beatrice had told me, “Vivian, as long as you give the Ashfords an heir, even if Adrian goes off to seek immortality one day, I will never stand in your way. The Ashford house will always have a place for you.”
That was exactly what I wanted.
But looking at Adrian now, so devout and so absorbed in his pursuit of the Dao, I suddenly felt uncertain. Could a man like him really settle down and give Lady Beatrice the grandson she wanted? Could he truly build a life with me?
My father, Thomas Whitmore, held a modest post in the academy and had spent his life working carefully and conscientiously, yet he had never managed to rise any higher. Fortunately, his children were many. I had three older brothers, two older sisters, and twin younger sisters, making ten of us in all. The household was crowded, noisy, and lively, but it was full of warmth.
My mother, Margaret Whitmore, was widely known as a woman blessed with perfect household fortune. Her parents were still alive, her siblings got along, her husband treated her well, and she had both sons and daughters. Whenever anyone in the capital was arranging a marriage, they would invite her to help prepare the bridal bed, saying they wanted to borrow some of her luck.
Chapter 2
Because of my mother’s good reputation, my eldest sister married the eldest son of a fifth-rank cavalry commander, and my second sister married the youngest son of a fourth-rank ceremonial official. Both marriages were harmonious, and both families were soon blessed with children.
When it came time for me to be introduced to suitors, my mother had originally believed that with my decent looks, gentle temperament, and her own reputation for good fortune, I might be able to marry into some respectable third-rank official family at most. None of us had expected that the household sending a proposal would be the Ashfords, a family whose power reached all the way to the top of the court.
When Mother received Adrian Ashford’s marriage horoscope papers, she did not sleep a wink that night. She sat on the edge of the kang bed, sighing over and over until the sound wore thin with worry.
“Vivian, do you understand?” she said at last. “The Ashford family’s seventh son, Adrian Ashford, is obsessed with seeking immortality and has turned down proposal after proposal. No noblewoman in the capital is willing to marry into that house and spend her life as a widow in all but name. Lady Beatrice Ashford must have chosen you because she knows I’m easy to bear children. She wants you to give the Ashfords an heir!”
She slapped her thigh hard. “At this rate, won’t you be left to keep an empty room all by yourself?”
Father was sitting nearby with a deep crease between his brows. After a long silence, he said, “Lord Edmund Ashford holds too much power. We can’t afford to offend them. Your eldest and second sisters are both married into official families. If this turns ugly, it could drag them into it as well. Your two brothers are also still being considered for marriage. If our reputation is damaged now, those matches may never come together either…”
Mother’s eyes reddened. She took my hand and said through a choked breath, “But I can’t bear to see you suffer, my dear.”
I patted the back of her hand gently and said in a soft voice, “Mother, don’t worry. To me, this may not be a bad thing at all.”
“If I can give Adrian a son or a daughter, the Ashford family will naturally treat me well. Gold, silver, fine clothes, and a life without want—how could that count as suffering?” I paused, then went on, “And if Adrian truly means to devote himself to immortality, the Ashfords will surely feel they owe me. They may not only be kind to me, but also look after our family in other ways. Father, my brothers, and even my brothers-in-law could all benefit. Isn’t that the best possible outcome for everyone?”
Besides, Mother had always been a woman who bore children easily. If I took after her, then there was nothing to fear.
Mother looked at me, her eyes full of both ache and relief. “My Vivian,” she murmured, “how did you grow up to be so sensible?”
Chapter 3
The two families exchanged the marriage horoscope papers soon after, and the betrothal gifts were delivered not long after that.
Lady Beatrice Ashford did everything with real grandeur. She did not look down on my humble family at all. Every item among the gifts was first-rate, and even the ceremonial betrothal geese were alive, flapping their wings and looking lively enough to challenge the servants carrying them.
On the day of the wedding, the Ashford manor was draped in red and gold, and guests filled every courtyard. The scale of it shocked the whole of the capital. After all, this was the only legitimate son of the prime minister’s household getting married. No one would dare treat the matter lightly.
But when it came time to enter the bridal chamber, my husband, Adrian Ashford, was actually dragged inside by two servants with his hands tied behind his back.
“Let me go! You damned servants, unbind me this instant!” He struggled furiously, his phoenix-like eyes wide with rage. “I said I’m not getting married! I’m going to seek immortality! If you force me, and I return as an immortal someday, I will not spare any of you!”
The servants in the room all kept their heads lowered, pretending not to hear a word of his shouting. Seeing that, the matchmaker hurried forward, lifted my red bridal veil for him, and then brought over the cross-cupped wedding wine. She forced him to drink a full cup.
“I won’t drink it! Let go of me! Bah!” Adrian glared, furious, but the wine had already gone down. Spitting it out now would do no good.
The matchmaker curtsied to me, gave me a meaningful look, and led the others out, closing the door behind them.
I vaguely heard that Lady Beatrice had had something added to the wedding wine — something that would stir a man’s desire.
Well. It really did put Adrian in an impossible position.
Now there were only the two of us left in the room, facing each other in silence. Only then did I finally get a proper look at him.
Adrian Ashford was only twenty. He was lean and straight-backed, and the scarlet wedding robes made his skin look even paler, almost like polished jade. His phoenix eyes were slightly upturned, his bearing refined and distant, and he looked like a banished immortal who had somehow wandered into the mortal world. But perhaps because of the drugged wine, his cheeks had gone faintly red and his eyes were already hazy, adding a trace of human warmth to that cold, otherworldly beauty.
Of course, it could also have just been rage.
We stared at each other in silence for a long while before Adrian finally looked away, clearly uncomfortable.