Chapter 3
At the word “brothel,”
my aunt screamed and fainted.
My mother covered her mouth and staggered back several steps.
“No… Song Wan! She can’t come back!”
Tears of terror spilled over the hand pressed to her mouth.
“Ah Yu and my son aren’t married yet! Ah Huai hasn’t taken a wife!
“If Song Wan returns, everything will be ruined.
“If word gets out that my son has married a prostitute’s sister, the reputation of both our houses, built over centuries, will be destroyed!”
Ah Yu was my aunt’s younger daughter.
Ah Huai was her eldest son.
Her face twisted with anguish, my mother propped up my unconscious aunt.
She pressed beneath her nose and tried to give her water.
The closed door flew open under a kick.
His head swathed in white bandages, my husband demanded, his face dark with anger,
“Song Heyue, what are you trying to do?”
Then he saw my mother struggling in the room and froze.
His fury vanished without a trace.
He hurried over to help attend to my aunt.
There was little warmth in my smile.
“Didn’t you say Song Wan hurt my head because I upset her?
“Well, you’ve upset me now, so I could only follow her example.
“I learned it from Song Wan.”
Wang Heng had no answer. With my mother there, he merely glared at me, warning me with his eyes to stop.
My mother dared not call a physician. She was afraid my aunt would wake and start screaming things she shouldn’t say.
All she could do was take a mouthful of water and spray it onto my aunt’s face.
My aunt slowly came to. The moment she saw Wang Heng, she cried as if her savior had arrived.
“Tell me it isn’t true! It isn’t true!
“How could Ah Wan have been in a brothel? How could she have done something so disgraceful?
“Tell me! Tell me!”
Wang Heng pulled free of her and turned his rage on me.
“How could you tell them?
“We were already looking for a way to cure Ah Wan! Why did you have to let it out like this? Why?”
He struck me hard across the face.
The room fell silent.
He froze, too.
“Ah Yue, I…”
I slapped him back just as hard.
My nose stung. Tears burned in my eyes.
“Because even you are making me suffer!
“Her! Both of them! And you!”
I pointed at my aunt and my mother, my voice bitter with hatred.
“From the moment Song Wan was abducted, these people have done nothing but wrong me!”
I looked at my mother. She avoided my eyes.
“Mother, you wanted your own sister to recover from losing her daughter, so you gave her me, because I looked a little like Song Wan.
“You knew perfectly well that the shock had driven her mad. Yet you made me eat and sleep in the same room as her when I was only five.
“Every day, I had to endure her screaming and her fits. I had to soothe her over and over. I had to keep calling her Mother!
“I was like a dog you’d abandoned, tossed to her to keep her calm!”
I scrubbed angrily at my tears.
“Mother, wasn’t it all because you stole her marriage match and married above her into a duke’s family? Because you felt you owed her?
“She hated you and refused to see you. Then she lost her daughter and mistook me for her.
“You were delighted to use me to make amends and ease your own conscience.
“Are you even human?”
My mother looked at me coldly, without a trace of guilt or shame.
She spoke down to me.
“You defy your parents. I have no daughter like you!”
Wang Heng stepped in front of my mother.
“Will you ever stop? This is ancient history. It was over and done with ages ago!
“Why do you insist on remembering it? Why must you hold such a grudge?”
I slapped him again.
Unable to bear any more, I broke down and screamed through my tears.
“Because it hurt! Because it has never stopped hurting!
“And among all you bastards who’ve hurt me, not one of you—not a single one—has ever cared enough to acknowledge it!”
I advanced on my aunt and seized her shoulders, shaking her.
Tears poured down my face.
“Are you the only one allowed to lose your mind? Are you the only one allowed to be mad?
“You keep saying you raised me for nine years. Were my parents dead? Did I need you to raise me? Isn’t a duke a rank above a marquis?
“If you hadn’t been ill and clung to me, calling me your daughter, would I ever have been adopted into your family?
“And then, when you saw what a fine family I was marrying into, you said those monstrous things.
“I soothed you for nine years. I played the daughter you remembered for nine years!
“The least thing displeased you, and you would fly into a rage, hit me, curse me, and scream that I wasn’t like her!
“What kindness did you ever show me?”
My mother pulled me away and slapped me in fury.
“Ungrateful wretch!
“You only remember the bad. Have you ever remembered anything good we did for you?
“Giving you life and raising you are debts greater than heaven. You could never repay them in a lifetime.”
Suddenly, I laughed.
An inexplicable relief spread through me.
I would never feel uneasy or guilty again.
Whatever I did next,
they had brought it on themselves.
“Mother.”
I touched my burning cheek and met her irritated eyes.
“You will regret this. But regret won’t help you.
“People should pay for what they do.
“I spared you for six years. Consider that repayment for bringing me into the world and raising me.
“From now on, I won’t.”
She spoke coldly.
“If I’d known I’d give birth to such an unfilial, disloyal daughter, one who defies her own parents, I should have dashed you to death as a baby!”
She looked away and turned to take my aunt’s hand.
“Sister, Song Wan isn’t your only daughter. Ah Yu and Ah Huai are your own children too, children you raised yourself.
“Will you sacrifice both their futures and the reputation of our two families for Song Wan alone?
“They cannot have a prostitute for a sister. You must choose.”
My aunt covered her face. Tears ran between her fingers.
A long while passed.
Then she lowered her hands.
And delivered her final verdict.
“The Song family cannot have a daughter who has been a prostitute.
“We cannot take her back.
“My daughter died when she was five. This woman is not my daughter. She’s an impostor.
“I’ll send her away and find her a husband a thousand li from here, so she can never return to the capital.
“That will be enough to honor the bond we once had as mother and daughter.”
The words had barely left her mouth
when the screen behind her crashed to the floor.
Behind it stood Song Wan, her lifeless face chilling to behold.
My aunt started violently.
She fell back onto the floor.
As she stared at Song Wan’s face, so exactly like her own,
the truth struck her like a thunderbolt. She could deceive herself no longer.
“Ah Wan… Ah Wan… My daughter…”
My mother whipped around and stared at me in disbelief.
“You called your aunt and me here for this?
“You! How could you be so vicious? You deliberately trapped us, just to take revenge!”
She rushed toward me and raised her hand to strike again.
I pulled out my hairpin and drove it into her palm.
She howled in pain. I spoke coldly.
“What’s wrong with taking revenge? Because I’m your daughter, am I supposed to submit to everything, swallow every hurt, and then thank you for it?
“It took me six years to understand that you aren’t fit to be a mother.
“And six years to make up my mind to make you suffer too.
“To hell with filial duty and the proper order of things. If parents show neither kindness nor love, what right have they to demand obedience from their children?”
My revenge had only just begun.