Rural Life
My Wicked Stepmother Took Us to the Top
My father drowned while building a bridge for the village.
Our stepmother beat and berated us, and everyone thought she treated us terribly.
Years later, my brother rose to high office, and the emperor granted her the title of Lady of Imperial Mandate. Only when she stood at the height of honor did everyone finally understand: beneath her cutting tongue was the softest heart.
A Glimmer of Light
I was my birth parents’ third child.
While my birth mother was pregnant with me, the village fortune-teller swore I would be a boy.
They could hardly wait.
They hid from place to place throughout the pregnancy and finally brought me into the world in the bitter cold of the twelfth lunar month—
a girl.
