Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I thought I wouldn’t be able to get used to her return, but as it turned out, it wasn’t so bad. It was simply that I was no longer the only child in the house.

She had a lovely temperament-gentle, quiet, and eager to learn. Father originally wanted to hire a tutor for her, but she declined, saying she could just ask me for guidance instead.

She seemed to treat me very well-so well, in fact, that it baffled me.

Sometimes, when the others overlooked me, she would go out of her way to bring me up. I thought about it: if our roles were reversed, I would probably harbor some resentment.

After all, her life these past years had been far too bitter.

“How could I?” she told me. “Even though my parents weren’t wealthy, they gave me the best they had. Sister, our parents are the same; they both gave us everything they had to give.”

Our first real heart-to-heart happened one night about half a month later.

By then, we were on good terms. Perhaps it was the atmosphere, but she took the initiative to tell me about her childhood.

It was the first time I could truly visualize my biological parents in my mind. I believed they must have been very, very good people.

She said she was supposed to have a younger brother, but unfortunately, her mother’s health was poor and the baby was lost. From then on, the entire burden of the household fell onto her father’s shoulders.

She said that in the countryside, having only a daughter was considered a source of shame, yet her parents were exceptionally good to her. When her father was free, he would even teach her how to read. Unfortunately, she thought she had all the time in the world to learn slowly back then; she never imagined that life and death would be separated in the blink of an eye.

She said that if it hadn’t been for the flood in Xuzhou and the subsequent epidemic, she could have brought her parents along to meet me.

The flood in Xuzhou happened six years ago. At the time, I had followed the trend and donated a hundred taels of silver. To me back then, disaster felt like something far away; my only impression of it was the long strings of figures mentioned by Father and my uncles.

I never realized that I was one of the victims, too.

It was a pity I couldn’t help more. If I could turn back time, I would definitely donate more money and tell Father he had to go to Xuzhou to bring their whole family back.

That way, I would have had my parents, too.

Mother said that in a few days, Mu He would be officially entered into the family genealogy. Once Mu He had mastered the rules of etiquette, Mother would take her out into social circles. As for me, I would be considered the Zhao Family’s foster daughter.

“Ah Rou, don’t worry. In your father’s heart and mine, you will always be our daughter.”

“I know, Mother.”

I should be content. Being a foster daughter was actually fine-it was better than being an orphan. Besides, everything I had learned over the years would always belong to me.

However, none of us expected that things would eventually go wrong.