I Became The Stepmother of My Ex-husband

Gu Hui Yan and Lin Wei Xi extended their living quarters to the study room and the furnishings needed to be purchased accordingly. The side room used to be small and the desk had been a narrow table made of plain weave. Now that the study room was expanded, the tables and chairs had been replaced with an intricately carved square rosewood table. Gu Hui Yan sat at the head of the table, with Lin Wei Xi sitting to his left in a chair with an elaborate cloud pattern. He returned from retrieving a book from the bookshelf and placed it near the edge of the table. As he turned to get his brush and ink, Lin Wei Xi unexpectedly hugged him.

“My Prince, it’s already dark outside. Let’s take a break and do something else, alright?”

She raised herself slightly to hug Gu Hui Yan’s waist. A man’s waist couldn’t be touched so carelessly, and he stiffened a bit and struggled to free himself on reflex. On the other hand, when Lin Wei Xi felt his movements, she hugged him tighter.

Gu Hui Yan looked down to see her arms circling him. Her gorgeous wide sleeves had been pushed up halfway, revealing smooth and slender forearms. She firmly refused to let go and gazed up at him pitifully.

They looked at each other for a few seconds. In the end, it was Gu Hui Yan who gave in, “Alright, let’s take a short break.”

Lin Wei Xi breathed a huge sigh of relief. The change in her demeanour was too obvious and Gu Hui Yan, who was looking at her, noticed everything. He looked up and said, “Let go. Sit properly.”

Lin Wei Xi made an “Oh” sound and sat back down primly and properly. The overlapping layers of her sleeve were too numerous and hung on the nook of her arm for a moment without falling back down over her arms. She didn’t notice at all and instead curiously flipped through the book that Gu Hui Yan had brought over earlier. After only skimming two pages, she frowned in distaste and lost all interest.

Lin Wei Xi had dark black hair and snowy white skin; even her forearms were paler than snow, slender, the contours of her skin graceful. Her translucent and smooth arms casually rested on the black rosewood table with a beauty that was hard to describe, that easily entranced people. Gu Hui Yan looked down at her and said steadily, “Tug your sleeves down and sit straight.”

Lin Wei Xi realised then how messy her sleeves were and sighed to herself. Prince Yan was truly so upright and serious that he couldn’t stand even a little bit of mess. A person like him who was so particular about orderliness would have to endure every moment he spent with her in the study. But Prince Yan had made a promise, so he had to put up with her.

Lin Wei Xi suddenly felt very disheartened. Seeing her grow gloomy, Gu Hui Yan couldn’t help questioning himself. Had he been too difficult to understand? Why did she look so worried?

The atmosphere in the study became a bit awkward. Gu Hui Yan stood next to the desk for a moment and criticised himself. Sure enough, even when he was at his peak physically and mentally speaking, he had no common topics to talk about with this lively young girl. In the end, he was an older man in a relationship with a much younger woman.

Sensing that the atmosphere was not quite right, Lin Wei Xi disregarded her feelings of envy and quickly grabbed Gu Hui Yan’s sleeve. With her chin propped on one hand, she looked at him and said, “my Prince, these books on the theory and art of war are too difficult for me. Why don’t you tell me about the Battle of Langshan?”

The battles of Langshan and Dingxiang occurred around the same time frame. They were the battles that propelled Gu Hui Yan to fame and also the start of his renown as a god of war. Since then, he’d been in charge of the army for close to twenty years and not once had he been defeated. The battles of Langshan and Dingxiang also became famous as a result, and became a model that every young general in the world studied  before they went to battle.

The battle of Langshan had been studied and researched repeatedly almost until it was dissected to pieces. Even a sheltered girl like Lin Wei Xi had heard of it. Anyone from the army could recall parts of it. As for Gu Hui Yan, this was no problem at all. He never expected Lin Wei Xi to be curious about a battle he participated in when he was sixteen. This was much simpler than teaching a book about military tactics. He sat down, grabbed a piece of paper, roughly sketched the topography of the Langshan, and told her about the battle.

Lin Wei Xi immediately became very interested. Compared to the obscure and difficult theory on warfare, she was obviously more interested in Prince Yan. She brought up books on war that day so that she’d have something to talk about with him but what she really wanted to know was his past and experiences.

Discussing these battles brought vivid imagery to mind. It wasn’t as difficult to understand as Qimen Dunjia, and Gu Hui Yan was a very good teacher. His voice and logic were clear. Furthermore, as someone who witnessed the battle, he was the most appropriate person to dissect the battle of Langshan. He gave much more detail than those who merely theorised about it. Lin Wei Xi was so enthralled that without her realising, it was almost as if she’d gone back in time, like she was really standing in the never ending expanse of yellow sand of the Gobi desert and seeing the major battle for herself.

Gu Hui Yan was very considerate of her and she grew confident enough to ask questions from time to time. The fundamentals were required to understand military tactics and it was all about monopolising resources. There were an uncountable number of people who’d be overjoyed to obtain a military book, but they struggled to learn the fundamentals. If they found out that Lin Wei Xi had been taught by the commander of the famous battle himself and was even able to ask him questions face to face, at least half of them would jump into the river out of jealousy.

After she asked all her questions, she simply propped her head up and pestered Gu Hui Yan about his experience in the military. He felt that this wasn’t much to talk about, but she looked at him with such glittering eyes that he had no choice but to pick a few impressionable events and describe them to her. After he was finished with his story, Gu Hui Yan was afraid it had disappointed her and asked with uncertainty, “There’s really nothing interesting about my experiences. Did it bore you?”

“Of course not, how could it bore me?” Lin Wei Xi held her face in her hands and said with a smile, “I like learning about what you went through in your youth, my Prince.”

Gu Hui Yan’s gaze softened. Over the years, he’d heard countless excessive praise from those in the imperial court, from colleagues, from subordinates. After a long time, he’d been desensitised to it. But in that moment, when a word like “like” came out of Lin Wei Xi’s mouth, his heart melted.

She looked beautiful under the light, not to mention the fact that she was a beautiful woman whose beauty far exceeded the imagination. Gu Hui Yan looked at his radiant beautiful wife, the only one in the whole world, in front of him, and his heart suddenly pounded.

Lin Wei Xi would be seventeen after the new year. Although she felt young to him, in a normal household, she was old enough to be a mother.

Gu Hui Yan thought about it and filed away that thought, without a change in his expression, so that he could focus on the main topic at hand, “After talking about so many useless things, you most likely have rested enough. We still have half of the Taibai map to go. We can be done for the day once we finish this section.”

Lin Wei Xi’s brain hurt when she saw that Gu Hui Yan actually wanted to continue. She always felt that Prince Yan was a very noble and dignified person, to the point where he couldn’t bear the sight of her messy sleeves. He definitely wouldn’t like her making a fuss. But Lin Wei Xi really got a headache when she saw all these kanmen, zhenmen, shengmen and simen^◇. She bit her lip and whispered, “How can the battle that brought my Prince to fame be called useless? Why don’t we talk about your past, my Prince?”

◇

“No, we can’t.”

His Highness Prince Yan was truly a principled person. Lin Wei Xi gave up, hung her head, and returned to studying the formation diagram. She forced herself to understand for ten minutes but after a day of work, her brain was too tired to continue. She steeled herself. Even if Prince Yan disliked it, she had to save herself first. She stepped over the chair, wrapped her arms around Gu Hui Yan’s neck. And looked at him expectantly, “my Prince, I really can’t continue listening. Let’s talk about this tomorrow instead.”

“Absolutely not. This is the schedule.”

Lin Wei Xi tightened her embrace around Gu Hui Yan’s neck. Her entire person leaned across the seat, almost hanging on his body, “my Prince… “

“You really don’t want to continue?”

“En.”

“Sit down properly first.”

“Don’t want to.”

Gu Hui Yan tried his best to bring out the demeanour he’d used to intimidate the Sixth Army and said, “Sit down. This is an order.”

“Are you ordering me? I don’t want to!”

… there was nothing else Gu Hui Yan could do. He put down the book he’d been holding, reached across the seat to place his hand around Lin Wei Xi’s waist and knees, and lifted her straight from her chair in a bridal carry.

Lin Wei Xi faintly felt that her goal had been achieved. She couldn’t help the joy on her face and immediately wanted to escape to freedom. But as soon as her legs moved, Gu Hui Yan’s hands firmly held them in place, “Behave yourself and don’t squirm.”

She tried again and discovered that he was serious about not wanting her to move this time. She obediently clung to his shoulders. After a while, she realised something wasn’t right, “my Prince, there are a lot of servants outside. You can’t let me go out like this, right?”

Wan Yue and the servants who were on standby outside the study room, from the corner of their eye, saw what seemed to be Prince Yan carrying the Princess Consort out. They quickly bowed their heads and Wan Yue immediately pulled everyone to withdraw. After they retreated outside the building, Wan Xing even thoughtfully helped her masters close the door tightly.

… that was the last straw for Lin Wei Xi and she glared fiercely at the two girls. She was sure that they definitely saw it. Gu Hui Yan chuckled and bent over to put her down in front of the dressing table, “You really know how to bully your servants.”

Lin Wei Xi looked at Gu Hui Yan through the bronze mirror on the dressing table and smiled, unwilling to admit defeat, “I’ll bully my servants if I want to. They can blame their luck for getting me as their master.”

Gu Hui Yan finally laughed. He reached out to gently pinched the tip of Lin Wei Xi’s nose and said, “Now you’re just twisting the facts.”

Lin Wei Xi merely humphed in response. She raised her head and looked back to scowl at Gu Hui Yan, “now that you’ve sent the maids away, how am I supposed to remove my makeup?”

She usually didn’t wear heavy makeup at home and only used light lipstick and brow shadow. She could handle her makeup herself, but she couldn’t remove the head ornaments herself. Gu Hui Yan looked at Lin Wei Xi’s pretty hair coiled in an elaborate bun, her black hair decorated with numerous jewelled tassels. He suddenly had an urge to do something and said, “I can help you remove your hair ornaments.”

Lin Wei Xi stared blankly. Gu Hui Yan thought she didn’t want to do it. Just as he was about to say that he was only joking, he heard her say as she smiled at him brightly through the reflection in the mirror, “Alright.”

Gu Hui Yan was relieved and slowly pulled out the dazzling spread of jewelled pearl and jade ornaments from her black hair. He moved carefully and managed to not pull Lin Wei Xi’s hair. He was almost as meticulous as the maid who did her hair. The dressing table was quickly piled with all kinds of hairpins. He saw as her gorgeous bun turned into a soft waterfall of hair in his own hands and his heart filled with affection.

For a man to draw his wife’s eyebrows was a fantasy. In this current dynasty where Confusion propriety was strictly followed, women were very restricted, and even fewer men were willing to pamper their wives in private. Lin Wei Xi also didn’t expect that the Prince Yan who rushed to battlefields on horseback and commanded an army would do something like this for her.

His hand lingered on Lin Wei Xi’s long hair and in the end, followed the line of soft hair to her cheek and caressed it. He stroked his slightly rough fingertips on her cheeks; his voice had become raspy at some point, “why don’t you take a bath first.”

How could Lin Wei Xi not know what Gu Hui Yan was up to when he’d helped her undo hair and driven everyone out. She blushed, but before she could say anything, he finished his own sentence, “forget it, I’ll go with you.”

T/n: dear god I think I’m truly well and done with the number of times the author describes FL’s beauty. It’s not that bad in Chinese, because the author uses quite a huge variety of words to describe FL’s beauty, with a poetic feel to it. But they all translate to “beautiful” so I understand that it becomes boring and repetitive to read in English after a while. But even so, I honestly think this is a little too excessive.