Favoring Qie Over Wife (32)

Zhao Cheng immediately dismissed this.

"Nonsense! How could benwang fall in love with two women!"

Since he loved Bai Mei Lien, it was not possible for him to be in love with Li Jia. That was what Zhao Cheng thought.

"You're not in love with Bai Mei Lien," Wen Heng Zhi patiently explained. His leg was killing him. As he was speaking, he scanned the tent for a place where he could sit. "I've been suspecting it a long time ago. If you were in love with her, you would have tried different kinds of ways to spend time with her. But you didn't. You kept her at home, and planned that she would become your wife. You liked her, but you weren't attracted to her. There's a difference."

"What difference is there?" Zhao Cheng was becoming increasingly irritated. If the woman that he was in love with was truly Li Jia, then...

—Qie hopes wang ye fulfills his promise.

No, it was impossible!

"Remember when you introduced me to Bai Mei Lien before? You suddenly received an order from Consort Mei to go back to the palace and you didn't even hesitate to leave me with her. Yet, when you saw me with Xu Qin Wang Fei..." Wen Heng Zhi touched his nose and winced.

Zhao Cheng unconsciously frowned. He really wanted to erase that scene from his mind. "That was different. Consort-mother had something important to tell benwang. There was no choice but to leave you with Lien'er."

"And if Xu Qin Wang Fei had replaced Bai Mei Lien that day?" Wen Heng Zhi couldn't really endure it anymore and bent down to massage his leg. The fractured bone needed a large amount of rest to recover, so he should not be standing around for a long time like this.

"She is my official wife, how could benwang leave her with a mere physician?" Zhao Cheng wasn't sure if that was how he truly felt, but since it was the most suitable answer, then it must have been so.

Wen Heng Zhi was too tired to argue with him and waved a hand, "Alright, alright, if you say so. It must have been me who was mistaken. If your Highness doesn't have anything more to ask, please let this humble physician retire."

Zhao Cheng also didn't want to bother with him because his questions only made his confusion grow. "You may leave."

Wen Heng Zhi quickly said his farewells and left. Perhaps, if his leg hadn't been broken or Zhao Cheng was less worried about the impending divorce and paid attention to Wen Heng Zhi's need of a chair, he would have spent more time persuading the third prince. As it was, the two of them were so distracted with other matters that the discussion of love was raised up like that, and then just as quickly forgotten.

Sometimes, the root of all tragedies were simply due to opportunities that were missed and lost.

...

Back in the capital, Song Jia unexpectedly received a letter from Zhao Cheng. It did not mention anything about Bai Mei Lien's pregnancy or their divorce, so Song Jia took it as him silently agreeing with her suggestions.

Instead, he asked her if she had already consulted a physician about her health, and told her not to stress herself too much. He also asked her if he could send him a letter at least once a week, to update him about any news from the capital. At the very end of his letter, he asked her if she could make him a perfume sachet [1].

Song Jia frowned. A perfume sachet? She didn't think that he wanted something like a love token from her. Maybe because he didn't think it was appropriate to ask for a perfume sachet from Bai Mei Lien, so he could only phrase it in such a way.

"Ruolan, tell sister Bai to make a perfume sachet for wang ye," she lazily ordered, reaching out for a slice of honeycomb cake. She had just read through the accounting books of the estate, and felt a little dizzy from looking at the numbers. Song Jia directly concluded it as a sign of her low sugar level and made Minglan order the kitchens to bake some desserts.

Ruolan looked up in shock. Wang ye wanted Bai shufei to make him a perfume sachet? She glanced at the letter that Song Jia was holding in her hand and felt anxious inside. Why is wang ye so biased? Even if his heart was thoroughly stolen by that concubine, he still shouldn't hurt wang fei and make her lose face like this. Wang fei was so good, it was really a shame that she married such an ungrateful husband.

Cursing the third prince Zhao Cheng repeatedly in her mind, Ruolan did as she was told. When she arrived in Bai Mei Lien's courtyard, the servants there did not even show respect to her, sticking their noses up in the air. As a personal maidservant of the official wife, it shouldn't have been so. However, Minglan and Ruolan were already used to this. Everybody inside the wangfu knows, Bai shufei was His Highness' favorite. And now that she was pregnant with his child, his favor towards her would only increase.

Wang fei, childless and without His Highness' support, only held the status of an official wife and nothing more. If she didn't have Prime Minister Li behind her, it was certain that these servants' behavior would become even more unruly.

[1] Commonly called Qingyang sachet, also known as "chu chu" or "shua huo" (hidden stitch).