An overnight gale blew the golden ginkgo leaves from the tree by the small courtyard's gate, blanketing the ground in a thick layer.
The place looked as if it had been uninhabited for a long time.
A handsome man pushed open the gate and stepped inside. He saw the courtyard full of fallen leaves, and as he walked further in, he noticed a layer of dust on the table. He couldn't help but frown.
'My wife has always prized cleanliness. Though the courtyard is small, there's usually not a speck of dust to be found…'
Lu Jingxing saw a letter on the table. He opened it to find its contents concise and clear, amounting to nothing more than the two words written on the envelope.
Amicable Divorce!
'My loving wife of two years wrote a divorce letter to leave me, all within the short half-month I was away on business?'
The voice of Widow Song from next door came from the entrance. "Mr. Lu, you're back. Your wife asked me to give you this silver when she left. There are two hundred silver taels here."
Two hundred silver taels was enough for a farming family like theirs to live on for a lifetime.
Lu Jingxing frowned. "When did she leave? Where did she get so much silver?"
Widow Song said, "Not long after you left, a very handsome young master came to the village. He stayed at your house for two nights and then took your wife away with him. The villagers are all saying that Wanyun has gone to be that young master's concubine to live a life of luxury.
"When their party left, they had quite a few guards. They had more than twenty horses alone! Even the curtains on the sedan chair were made of the finest silk."
"Young Master Lu, you can't blame Wanyun for divorcing you to become someone else's concubine. Our village is so poor, and you were gone for so many days. It's only natural for a young woman to want a better, more comfortable life, isn't it?"
Lu Jingxing clenched the letter in his hand. "Thank you for telling me, Sister Song."
After Widow Song left, Lu Jingxing's face darkened as he called out, "Ba Shan."
The window moved slightly, and a Hidden Guard in black knelt before Lu Jingxing. "Master..."
Lu Jingxing asked, "Is it really as Widow Song said?"
Two years ago, Lu Jingxing had married Mu Wan Yun simply out of spite toward his imperial father, taking a village girl as his wife.
Over their two years of marriage, they had been a loving and respectful couple.
'He truly never imagined that Mu Wan Yun would dare to cuckold him.'
Ba Shan lowered his head. "This subordinate does not know the specific details. The visitor was the Heir of the Duke of Wei. As soon as he arrived, he had his guards surround the small courtyard, allowing no one to approach.
"I feared exposing your whereabouts, Master, so I dared not get close. Three days later, the Heir of the Duke of Wei took your wife away...
"When she left, she even had someone buy paper and a brush to write you a divorce letter..."
Lu Jingxing clenched his fists. "Someone from the Duke Wei's Mansion?"
"Yes," Ba Shan said. "However, they likely did not guess your presence here, Master. When they left, the Heir of the Duke of Wei was quite cordial to your wife. The two of them departed in the same carriage..."
Hearing this, Lu Jingxing furiously ripped the divorce letter to shreds.
'Mu Wan Yun, that shameless woman!'
'After I return to Chang'an, if I ever see her again, I will have my revenge for the humiliation of being cuckolded today!'
...
In Chang'an City, the grand carriage procession from the Duke Wei's Mansion entered the city gates.
Mu Wan Yun lifted the carriage curtain and gazed at the scenery of Chang'an. She saw only desolation. The streets were filled with soldiers, entirely lacking the prosperity described in the storytellers' tales.
It wasn't even as lively as Yangzhou City, which she had visited with Xiao Fang from her village as a child.
Upon their grand return to the mansion, just as Mu Wan Yun stepped out of the carriage, a woman in a magnificent Huzi Skirt came running over.
The woman embraced Mu Wan Yun and said through her tears, "Wanruo, Wanruo, you're finally back."
Inside the Duke Mansion, the main gates were closed. Mu Qingyun, standing to the side, said to the woman, "Mother, this isn't Sister Wanruo. This is Du'er."
Mu Wan Yun frowned. "My name is not Du'er. I am Mu Wan Yun. My nanny specially found a Daoist to give me this name."
When she was little and living in the countryside, Mu Wan Yun had always been called Du'er.
Later, Sister Xiao Fang's family had another baby girl. Her father had wanted a son, so upon seeing another daughter, he named the baby "Duoduo," which meant she was one too many.
Only then did Mu Wan Yun realize that the meaning of "Duo" wasn't very good, so she cried and wailed, refusing the name any longer.
Her nanny then took her to a Daoist at the Yangzhou Daoist Temple, who changed her name to Wanyun, not Du'er.
Duchess Wei examined the young woman before her closely. Realizing it wasn't Mu Wanruo, she shoved Mu Wan Yun away and demanded of Mu Qingyun, "Why did you bring her back?"
Mu Qingyun said, "Mother, His Majesty is gravely ill. He has deposed our aunt the Empress, placed our cousin Prince Rong under house arrest, and restored the title of the deposed Crown Prince.
"The Crown Prince's whereabouts are still unknown. Once he returns to Chang'an and ascends the throne, our Mu Family will be finished."
"Right now, the Mu Family's only hope is our sister's marriage to Prince Jian, the son of the Eldest Princess.
"His Majesty and the Eldest Princess share a deep sibling bond. If our sister marries into the Princess Mansion, the Eldest Princess might, for the sake of their new marital ties, persuade His Majesty to name our cousin Prince Rong as the Crown Prince and save our Mu Family from this crisis.
"But Sister Wanruo has been foolish. With the wedding only two months away, she eloped with someone and her whereabouts are unknown.
"If the Princess and Prince Jian find out, not only will they refuse to help our Mu Residence, but knowing that our sister ran away from the marriage, they might grow to resent our Duke Wei's Mansion even more.
"The only solution now is to have Sister Wanyun pretend to be Sister Wanruo and marry into the Princess Mansion in her place. When Sister Wanruo returns in the future, we can swap them back."
Listening to Mu Qingyun from the side, Mu Wan Yun frowned. "Brother, when you brought me from Yangzhou, you never said I was to be a substitute for Elder Sister!"
When Mu Wan Yun was four, the entire Mu Family had moved back to Chang'an, leaving only her behind in the Yangzhou countryside. Mu Wan Yun had always hoped her family would come for her.
But she waited year after year, and the Mu Family never sent anyone to bring her back to Chang'an.
In her childhood, a few servants had been left at the country estate. Those wicked servants told her that as a daughter of a concubine, she would never be able to return to the Mu Residence in her lifetime.
Mu Wan Yun never believed them. It wasn't until her nanny passed away that she realized the Duke Mansion had truly forgotten about her, their second young miss.
After her nanny's death, she was only fifteen, and with no silver left, she nearly starved.
She had thought of coming to Chang'an to find the Mu Family, but the journey was long, and without any silver taels, she couldn't take a single step.
In desperation, she could only marry herself off. With no parents to arrange it, she didn't even have the Six Rites of marriage.
But she had no choice. If she didn't find someone to marry, a weak woman like her had no way of surviving in the village.
After getting married, her husband ran a small business in town, and their life was decent enough.
Half a month ago, her husband left on a business trip. Not long after he departed...
The family she had waited thirteen years for had come to find her.
She had waited a full thirteen years, and finally, the Duke Mansion had come to take her home.
Her eldest legitimate brother, Mu Qingyun, told her that their father and mother at home missed her terribly and had longed for her return every year.
It was just that a fortune-telling Daoist had said years ago that she had to wait until after her seventeenth birthday to return home for her health to be sound.
And so, as soon as Mu Wan Yun turned seventeen, they came for her.
Mu Wan Yun had believed him completely, thinking she and her husband could return to Chang'an together. Her husband was capable; he could do business in Chang'an too.
But when Mu Qingyun learned she was married, he forced her to write a divorce letter, telling her she couldn't come home otherwise.
To go home... Mu Wan Yun had longed for it for thirteen years. She missed her father, her mother, and her own birth mother...
Although her husband was good to her, he was usually cold and distant. So, Mu Wan Yun wrote the divorce letter and left a large sum of silver for him.
But today, the very day she returned to the mansion, Mu Qingyun wanted her to take her elder sister's place and marry Prince Jian?
'This is the crime of deceiving the monarch!'