01.
When I heard that Chiến Lăng Tiêu had been wounded, I was so worried I couldn’t sleep a wink. I hurried on my way, traveling day and night without rest, afraid something might happen to him.
When his subordinate led me to him, there wasn’t a trace of happiness on his face at seeing me. He merely looked indifferent, as though my presence weren’t worth a second thought.
Even though I had traveled so far and looked exhausted, he showed not the slightest concern for me.
He merely asked in a flat voice, “Why did you come here? Don’t worry. Thanh Thanh is here in camp, so nothing will happen to me.”
Thanh Thanh was the female physician in the military camp.
I didn’t answer. I only quietly surveyed every corner of his tent.
His desk held not only books on military strategy, but quite a few medical texts as well.
His armor hung on the wall in the corner of the room, and beneath it lay a blue canvas dress.
A faint herbal scent lingered in the room.
The room was no longer as messy as before; everything had been neatly put in its proper place.
Before I could say anything, he began to explain:
“I was badly wounded a few days ago, and Thanh Thanh had to stay by my side day and night, keeping a close eye on my condition.”
I still said nothing. I simply walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed.
The renowned physicians who had come with me from the capital all looked at me in confusion. I waved for them to leave, and a few of them took the hint and went out.
I reached beneath the pillow and took out a wooden hairpin.
I gazed silently at Chiến Lăng Tiêu.
He said nothing, and neither did I.
The chilly autumn air seeped into my bones, leaving me numb from head to toe.
He let out a heavy sigh. “They made my condition sound far more serious than it was. Luckily, Thanh Thanh was there to care for me. She must have accidentally left this behind.”
I didn’t answer. I only looked at him in silence.
He went on trying to justify himself. “Has Vân Thư been studying hard lately? I’m not at home—has she been listening to you?
You have no idea how much I miss you and our daughter here. At night, I really do miss you and Vân Thư.”
I couldn’t listen any longer, so I cut him off:
“Have you thought this through? Those things she left in your room—have you thought about how you’re going to explain them to me?”
I clutched the wooden hairpin, my hand trembling slightly, my fingers squeezing so hard they turned white.
As I looked at him and asked that question, it felt as though I were suspended in midair, unable to find the ground beneath my feet.
The two of us were so different now.
I tried to hold back my anger, while he said indifferently, “Vũ Đường, why are you as suspicious as those women in the capital? Haven’t I already told you? I was just too badly wounded…”
I still didn’t speak. I just looked at him quietly.
I struggled to control my emotions, wanting to preserve the last shred of dignity between us—and to see when he would finally confess everything.
He explained for a long time, while I silently listened to his flimsy lies.
Only when he could no longer keep talking did he finally tell me that he had fallen in love with her.
Sitting across from him now, I was no different from an old confidante—not his wife.
He told me how he had fallen for her.
He said she was a lively woman, unlike anyone he had ever met.
He said she was different from everyone else—a woman who seemed weak on the outside but was incredibly strong inside.
He told me how attentively she cared for her patients, and how the two of them had recognized their feelings for each other long ago, but neither had dared to speak first.
As he spoke of the feelings that had quietly grown between them, a smile unconsciously spread across his face.
…
I said nothing.
Inside, I had gone numb the moment he admitted he loved her.
Every detail he recounted, every word, was like a rag wiping away every last trace of affection between us.
He sighed and said regretfully:
“Vũ Đường, I’m sorry. But I haven’t done anything to wrong you. She and I have only expressed our feelings for each other; nothing more. I haven’t forgotten my promise to you. She’ll become a fine physician. I’ll put my feelings for her away. I’m not so foolish as to let her earn a bad name.”
In that moment, I felt utterly ridiculous.
We had been childhood sweethearts, married for ten years, and had an eight-year-old daughter.
And yet now, he didn’t care how I would feel knowing the truth. All he worried about was the woman he loved suffering a bad name.
It was as though someone had slapped me hard, then kicked me to the ground.
I sprang to my feet and slapped him across the face, leaving five bright red finger marks on his cheek.
He froze for a moment, but there wasn’t the slightest trace of remorse on his face.
“Vũ Đường, I know you can’t accept this, but I can’t control how I feel…”
I truly couldn’t take it anymore.
Smack—
Another slap landed, this time on the opposite cheek, leaving two matching handprints.
02.
From the moment I got out of the carriage until I climbed back in to return to the capital, only two hours had passed.
Only when the carriage began to roll did I gradually come to my senses.
My hands kept trembling, and my vision gradually blurred as large tears fell one by one onto my hands.
It was laughable, and heartbreaking, too.
The husband I had worried about day and night back in the capital told me, when we met, that he had fallen in love with another woman.
He even told me about their love that could never be, as though I were the one standing in the way of their relationship.
Chiến Lăng Tiêu was so confident I couldn’t understand it. He seemed to think I would accept his change of heart, that after he confessed everything, I would still take him back and treat him as I always had.
What gave him the right to think that?
By the time I returned to the capital, five days had passed.
As soon as I reached the gate of the General’s residence, Vân Thư came running over, calling, “Mama!” as she threw herself into my arms.
I held her tightly in my arms.
Five days had been more than enough time for me to sort through my feelings.
I had no intention of hiding the fact that Chiến Lăng Tiêu had fallen in love with someone else. So when Vân Thư looked up and asked me whether her father was feeling better, I met her eyes and said:
“Your father has someone looking after him—the woman he loves.”
Vân Thư was eight years old and already understood a lot. So when I said that, she immediately guessed part of the truth.
She obediently leaned against my leg, speaking like a little grown-up:
“Mother, it’s all right. Vân Thư will always be by your side.”
03.
Tonight, Vân Thư stayed by my side until I fell asleep.
As I watched her drift off to sleep, my thoughts turned involuntarily to what had happened between Chiến Lăng Tiêu and me.
I remembered the gentle expression on his face as he told me about that girl.
I wondered what I had done wrong for Chiến Lăng Tiêu to be so nonchalant when he told me he had fallen in love with someone else.
Remembering the study he had forbidden anyone to enter three years ago, I felt as though I had finally put the pieces together. I wanted to see what he was hiding in there!
I got up and went to the door of Chiến Lăng Tiêu’s study.
The lock on the study had been specially made by the finest locksmith in the capital to protect his secrets.
I took an ax and smashed the study door open.
I stepped inside.
Everything was still exactly as it had been. On the desk lay a book with no title.
I went over and picked it up. It was Chiến Lăng Tiêu’s journal, recording every little thing between him and that woman.
She was a girl named Phương Thanh whom an old military medic had found by the roadside. She was ten years younger than Chiến Lăng Tiêu.
The first time Chiến Lăng Tiêu met her, she was only eleven, but she looked so frail and undernourished she could have been seven or eight.
She apprenticed herself to the military medic, carefully writing down every word her master said. After reading through her notes a few times, she could put them into practice—and Chiến Lăng Tiêu was her first patient.
She treated him very well. Looking up at him with hopeful eyes, she asked if he would praise her. Chiến Lăng Tiêu patted her head and told her she had done a wonderful job.
After that, they didn’t meet again. The next time they did, she was fourteen and looked completely different from the frail little girl he remembered.
Chiến Lăng Tiêu said he recognized her at a glance as the girl he had met three years earlier.
Her skills had improved tremendously. From what her master told him, he learned that she seemed born to be a physician: she could remember anything after seeing it just once.