Chapter 1

Cold rain dripped through the leaking roof onto my face.

After a whole day of washing filthy clothes, my hands could barely push me upright.

My sister was wailing in the next room.

“You promised! Father promised too! You said I’d have a jeweled necklace for my fourteenth birthday. My sister had one. Why can’t I? You always favor her!”

Father had died three months earlier.

Although our clansmen had helped us preserve some dignity, life was hard for a widow and her children.

Every few days, Mother would produce another possession and send me to pawn it.

Last month, my own necklace had gone, traded for two measures of rice.

Mother murmured something indistinct. My sister kept crying, sobbing so hard she nearly vomited.

In my last life, for that very fourteenth birthday,

I had braved the cold and waded into the pond to feel for mussels, one by one. I gathered the imperfect pearls inside and made her a birthday gift.

She had been delighted, wearing it out to show everyone.

That afternoon, she came home and ripped off the pearls at her throat and the little strings of beads.

“Even the biggest one is smaller than the scholar’s little daughter’s pearls. Everyone laughed at me for wearing rubbish. These pearls are tiny, Sister. How embarrassing!”

Back then, I had thought she was simply too young to know better, still unhappy over Father’s death.

I had even kept comforting her.

But now…

All I could think of was the end of my last life. As the poison tore through me, she had pressed a quilt over my mouth to stop me crying out.

She had been so strong.

She had looked straight into my eyes.

“You’ve helped me so many times, Sister. Just this once more. Help me, and I can marry into his family.”

I couldn’t help laughing.

Mother came in just then. My bitter laugh startled her, but she soon took my hand and began wiping away tears.

“Ying has been crying half the night. It’s all my fault. If I weren’t so useless, she wouldn’t have to go without a necklace on her birthday. Ah Miao, what are we going to do?”

Then she stole a glance at me.

My mother supposedly had no head for decisions. Whenever anything happened, she sighed and asked my advice.

Yet through it all, she had enjoyed every comfort without suffering a single hardship herself.

While Father was alive, she relied on him. With him gone, she waited for me to take his place.

I smiled. “I don’t know either. What do you think we should do, Mother?”

She hadn’t expected that. She froze, then turned to the old servant beside her.

The old woman sighed too.

“The second young miss isn’t like the eldest. Being born later, she had fewer years of comfort. Of course it’s hard for her to adjust to these difficult times.”

I looked at her.

“Oh? And what are we to do about that? My father’s dead. We have no money. Do you have a solution? You’ve worked for us a long time, but as things stand, we can’t pay your wages anymore. Perhaps you should stop coming tomorrow.”