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Imagine that you are in an arranged marriage. The man you married was pressured into it by your clan, and you think he might resent you for it. There are rumors that he was in love with another woman, but she eloped with a subordinate from his sect and was never seen or heard from again. He might or might not still love her.
He's perfectly cordial but rarely speaks his mind around you. You don't know what he's thinking most of the time. He doesn't object to you going on night hunts or taking an active part in rearing the disciples, but neither does he join you. You're not sure if he's just like that or if it's because he disdains your company.
You were the third most powerful cultivator in your sect, and you're proud of that. In contrast, your husband doesn't seem to care overly much about his own cultivation, or about raising strong cultivators. He's more concerned with his sect's ideals than with politics or practical matters. You fear he doesn't take these things seriously enough, and that makes you anxious.
You feel he doesn't take you seriously enough, and that makes you angry.
Your training methods and cultivation style are very different from his, as is your personality: he's placid and passive, while you're everything but. People look at you and pity him, a kind and genial man, for having such a harsh and domineering wife. You live your lives separate, in separate wings of the estate.
People talk. You have to pretend it doesn't bother you.
Your new home is strange to you, but you've had to acclimate to it quickly. The place you grew up in is barred from you, now. Though you have some of your own people with you, it is difficult not to feel lonely and isolated, especially when your new husband ignores you. Most of the people around you are strangers. Some of them, you suspect, do not want to answer to you.
But you are the wife of the sect leader. They have no choice but to obey you.
You give birth to your first child, a daughter. At another time, in another sect, your sworn sister gives birth to a son. The two of you promised a long time ago that your children would be sworn to each other, either as siblings or as husband and wife.
Though it would guarantee your daughter's future, your husband does not like the idea. You have to convince him to let you uphold your oath. If he does not agree to it, there is nothing you can do.
He does not force you to break your word. You feel dissatisfied by the fact that he could have.
A few years later, you give birth to a son. To you, he is more than just your child: he is the sect heir. He is the fulfilment of your ultimate duty as both a wife and a leader. You have ensured the continuity of your sect and your husband's family line. Your husband should be grateful to you.
He is not. He is away, looking for a man who abandoned him and a woman who never loved him.
Your daughter grows up to be average: average in looks, average in temperament, average in cultivation. This worries you. There is talk of her being unworthy of her future husband, which worries you more. Your sworn sister would never call off the engagement, but her faithless husband might.
Though your sister is fierce, you know that there is little she can do in the face of her husband's bad decisions.
You are afraid.
One year, your husband returns from his search with a child in tow, a boy. He is the son of his errant subordinate and former love. He insists on accepting him into the sect, which you agree to. He insists on including him in your household, which you do not.
It makes no difference.
The boy is granted a bed in your son's bedroom, instead of the disciples' quarters. The boy is granted a place at your family table, instead of the meal hall. The boy is afraid of dogs, so your husband empties your sect's hunting kennels and sends your son's dogs away.
Your son is distraught.
You are furious.
Your husband does not care.
He does not care what the price is, as long as the boy is safe and comfortable. He does not care who pays that price, as long as it's not the boy. He does not care about the pain he causes you. He does not care about the pain he causes your son. He does not care about the pain he causes your sect.
All he cares about is the boy, and upholding his precious ideals.
Soon enough, the boy grows into a wilful and arrogant youth. Your husband is beside himself with joy.
Your daughter grows into a timid mouse, which suits your husband just fine.
Your son grows more and more like you, and more and more like his father: he has your fierce temper and his watchful eyes, your sharp tongue and his soft heart.
Your husband does not look at him.
You cannot look at your son without feeling aggrieved for him.
Your son is smart and talented. He is driven and works hard at everything he sets his mind to. He is obedient and respectful to his elders, and kind to his sister. He is skillful in both archery and swordsmanship, and peerless in hand-to-hand combat. There is no one less than five years his senior that could rival him in cultivation within the sect.
Except for the boy.
The boy is already powerful enough to draw his own talismans on the spot. He has mastered sword forms that should be eight years beyond him. In archery, he will shoot down the furthest target five times out of seven. Your son is the only one his own age he ever loses to anymore, and those loses have become fewer and fewer.
The boy aggravates you. He is reckless and undisciplined, and takes for granted all the things he has stolen from you and your son. He does not think before he acts and, worse, he never learns, because there is always someone there beside him to halve the price he pays for his foolish actions.
Too often, it is your son.
For all the punishments accrued on his behalf, for all the boy has taken from him, your son does not resent him.
You do not understand why your son does not resent him.
You are alone in your anger for the boy: your husband encourages his faults, your daughter is endeared by them, and your son compensates for them with his own behaviour. You, and you alone, are trying to correct them.
It is not enough.
The boy takes away your daughter's future. Your husband does not ask for your approval before he makes the decision. Your sworn sister is wroth with her own husband, but her anger is useless. If your husbands do not agree with you, there is nothing either of you can do.
You are angry.
You are afraid.
You are Yu Ziyuan, Third Lady Yu, the Violet Spider – and you are powerless.