Ancient China

When my elder brother returned to the capital after investigating a case, he brought back two Liuxian Skirts, one blue-green and one pink.

He first asked my eldest sister which one she liked.

When it was my turn, my brother smiled gently.

“Pink is delicate, and it suits your complexion too. Do you like it?”

If I didn’t, there would be nothing left for me.

I nodded and took it.

Later, when choosing tutors and selecting study companions, it was always the same.

It was no different on the day we were to choose our husbands.

The Crown Prince won my eldest sister’s hand, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.

The Third Prince was crushed. He pointed at me at random.

“Then the Second Miss it is.”

After we married, the Third Prince regretted it a little.

But he was a good man.

He was willing to hand over management of the household to me, and he took no concubines.

Even when my eldest sister and I fell from our horses on the same day, he was the one who risked his life to save me.

At the very end, he touched my brow bone and let out a long sigh.

“Even if all I can ask for is a resemblance, so be it. In this life, I sought the highest, and in the end got only what was second-best.”

And so, when I was given a second chance at life, at the banquet where husbands were chosen,

I covered my brows and eyes and answered the Third Prince in a muffled voice.

“Yinyin already has someone she loves.”

A year after I married Xie Yunye, he met with danger at the border and was saved by a passing female physician.

To repay her for saving his life, he brought her back to the manor and took her in as his sworn sister.

Gu Qinghan never married after that. She practiced medicine all her life, healing the sick and earning the people’s deep respect.

Later, when Xie Yunye was poisoned, she tested medicines day and night. In the end, the accumulated poison took her life.

And I became the Old Madam of the Marquis Manor for fifty years.

My son was afraid I would be hurt, so he never let me enter the ancestral hall.

Only when I was on my deathbed and wanted to offer Xie Yunye one last stick of incense did I discover that a memorial tablet had appeared in the hall. On it were the words: Wife of Xie Yunye, Gu Qinghan.

My son sighed helplessly. “Mother, Father said before he died that only after meeting Aunt Gu did he understand who his true love was. Sadly, Aunt Gu was too proud to become a concubine, so he promised her burial beside him as his lawful wife.”

“Mother, it is only a title. Once a person dies, everything is empty. Please let Aunt Gu have it.”

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day Xie Yunye brought Gu Qinghan home.

“Rong Yu, Qinghan has no father or mother. I want to take her in as my sworn sister. You…”

My expression was indifferent. “As you wish, my lord.”

When I was four, a fortune-teller said I was fated to bring misfortune upon my parents. So they sent me away to a rural estate. For ten years, they never came to see me, nor did they care whether I lived or died.

At fourteen, they brought me home-so they could marry me off.

My legitimate elder sister laughed. “A fool marrying a sickly wretch. A match made in heaven.”

My parents said, “If this engagement weren’t impossible to break, and if your sister weren’t about to marry into a noble family, you wouldn’t even be worthy of carrying his shoes.”

“A married daughter is water poured out. Once you’re gone, don’t come back for anything.”

Only he held my hand and taught me to write my own name.

And then he taught me to write: “A woman, too, must respect and cherish herself, strive without ceasing, and press ever forward.”

I have a secret: eight years ago, I was married.

Originally, I planned to take that secret with me to the grave.

Then I ran into my former husband, Hang Lanque, in Shangjing.

I asked Hang Lanque, “Husband, didn’t you say you were going to the borderlands to repair city walls and earn money to buy me a hairpin?”

Hang Lanque replied, “Wife, didn’t you say you were going to the capital to dance and earn money to buy me a fine horse?”

Excellent. I am now prepared to send him to the grave along with this secret.

Everyone in the capital said that a first-rank maid from the Prime Minister’s Residence was worth more than the daughter of a fifth-rank official.

As the personal maid to the prime minister’s daughter, I had followed the Fourth Young Lady since childhood, learning to read and write at her side.

I understood literature and ink, knew music, and was versed in arithmetic.

When I was nineteen, the merchant Wen Family of Qingzhou, eager to attach themselves to power, came specifically to ask for my hand-a mere maidservant’s-in marriage.

The Fourth Young Lady showed me grace, acknowledged me as her sworn younger sister, and married me off in splendor.

I had thought the inner courtyard of a merchant household would be simple. I never imagined its waters would run as deep as those of the Prime Minister’s Residence.

The Second Branch eyed the account books with envy, while the concubines banded together to put me in my place.

On the day I served tea to my elders, Concubine Zhou “accidentally” knocked over the teacup, and scalding water splashed across the hem of my newly tailored Su embroidery skirt.

I lightly brushed my fingers over the ruined twining lotus pattern on the fabric, then suddenly smiled.

Since some people insisted on throwing themselves onto the edge of a blade-

Then I would show them exactly what the methods of the Prime Minister’s Residence looked like.

Lin Wanrou was twenty-four this year, an old maiden who still had not married.

Madam Lin’s standards for a son-in-law had fallen from imperial kin to any promising young talent with ambition.

She refused to believe that, with the Grand General’s influence, she could not raise up one dragon among men as her son-in-law.

Lin Wanrou did not want to marry. She would rather stay at home for the rest of her life.

The night I married Pei Guanli, I cried so hard I soaked half my bridal veil.

Not because I didn’t want to marry him, but because everyone in the capital knew that Pei Guanli was more upright and proper than the ancestral tablets in a shrine.

He oversaw ceremonial protocols at the Ministry of Rites and revised the dynasty’s statutes and rites.

If a family used the wrong ritual vessels at a wedding, he could remember it for three years.

If someone wailed one time too many at a funeral, he could submit a memorial impeaching them straight to the emperor.

As the daughter of a merchant family from Jiangnan, this was exactly the sort of man I feared most.

Before my mother sent me into the bridal sedan, she clutched my hands and cried even harder than I did.

“Ah Ning, once you reach the Pei Family, speak less, smile less, and eat less.”

I asked, “Why eat less?”

Choking back sobs, my mother said, “Noble young ladies in the capital eat as delicately as if they’re painting flowers. You eat three bowls in one sitting. You’ll give yourself away too easily.”

I paused, suddenly feeling that before this marriage had even reached the bridal chamber, I had already lost on appetite alone.

The enemy army pressed against the border. To humiliate our dynasty, the Xiqing Tribe specifically demanded that the Empress be sent for a political marriage.

In the court, the Emperor resolutely defied the majority opinion and was determined to protect me.

I pondered all night. This was the land my beloved had sworn to defend to the death. This was my home, my roots. I could not run away.

Outside the Capital gate, I questioned him:

“Three years ago, when the enemy army was outside Yuezhou City, didn’t Pei Yu send you six urgent requests for reinforcements?”

“Xiao Jince, why didn’t you send troops?”

While escorting a shipment through the mountains, I found a woman out in the wilds.

I immediately had someone take her back to Cloud City, and even wrote a letter to my husband.

But half a month later, when I returned,

I found An Chao tangled up with that woman in bed.

An Chao kissed her and murmured, “Ning Qiniang is coarse and rough. She can’t compare to your sweet gentleness.”

I kicked the door open.

Even in his panic, An Chao did not forget to shield the woman behind him.

“Qiniang, Rou Rou is a helpless orphan girl. Since you sent her back here, didn’t you mean for me to take her as a concubine?”

I was so furious I laughed.

An Chao had been blinded by the woman’s beauty. He clearly hadn’t read my letter carefully.

She was no orphan girl.

She was a fox woman!

When I went to the Capital to seek refuge with my elder sister, I saved two young noblemen who were being robbed by river bandits.

I had heard that nobles in the Capital loved nothing more than repaying a life-saving debt with their hand in marriage.

So I took both of their personal jade pendants.

My plan was to make careful inquiries about their character once I arrived in the Capital, then decide whether or not I wanted to claim that debt of gratitude.

Who would have thought that the moment I saw my sister, I would hear the strangest thing?

On her way to the Capital, the Marquis’s Mansion’s cousin young lady had saved the Fourth Young Master and the Fifth Young Master. Now, she was being honored as a distinguished guest.

As for me, a wild girl from Nanzhou, I was instantly made to look like a little beggar beside that refined and well-mannered cousin young lady.

Even my sister was worried. “Now the Old Madam will definitely be in a hurry to arrange a marriage for the cousin young lady first. What are you going to do?”