His Tormented Thoughts Were Hard to Untangle

First update. I was planning to prepare the third watch at midnight today.

The atmosphere in the sitting room was rather awkward.

At first, You Erjie had wanted to make small talk with Aunt Xue, but seeing how indifferent the other woman was, she assumed Aunt Xue looked down on her.

She immediately lost interest in speaking and pretended to focus on her tea, cradling a bowl of Biluochun in her palms and taking small sips.

But she had wronged Aunt Xue.

Aunt Xue's silence was not because she held herself above others, but because her heart was in turmoil and she could not find her footing.

Though she was not especially sharp-witted, after sitting in the room for a while, Aunt Xue vaguely sensed that Li Wan had brought her here with some ulterior motive.

Then she recalled their conversation by the window that morning, and Li Wan's purpose became perfectly clear.

Was she angry?

When Aunt Xue guessed that Li Wan wanted to drag her into this, allowing their illicit affair to continue, she was naturally angered.

Yet that anger had unexpectedly faded.

Instead, Li Wan's outrageous words from last night, along with her absurd fantasy that morning, kept surfacing and sinking in her mind.

Even in the midst of snowy weather, Aunt Xue felt a restless heat welling up throughout her body.

In later generations, people were free to choose whom they married, and there were no chastity arches to be won. Those who voluntarily remained widowed for years might truly be called pure of heart and free of desire.

But widows of this era were mostly forced into it by circumstance. Lacking the many means of diversion available in later generations, they could only rely on self-control to forcibly suppress their physical and emotional needs.

Without