Chapter 5
Only after they were gone did Mother turn to me. She tapped my forehead gently, more tender than reproachful.
“What you said just now—you must have overheard your father and me talking.”
I lowered my eyes and didn’t deny it.
She sighed, drew me down beside her, and began to explain.
“You and Jiang Xiuyuan have known one another since childhood, but… his parents died young. There are no elders in his household to help you.”
“He’s only just earned a few honors on the battlefield and been made a young general, yet he’s already hurried to ask for your hand.”
“If you marry him, you’ll have to manage everything, inside and outside the household, alone. Your father and I discussed it at length. We were about to decline the match.”
Mother stroked the back of my hand, her voice softening. “You’ve always been afraid of hardship. How could I bear to send you into a life like that?”
“Your sister has secured a good marriage into a marquis’s family. I want a happy match for you too. You and your sister have always mattered equally to your father and me.”
My nose stung, and a thin film of tears gathered in my eyes.
Father was rigid and rarely smiled. He was strict with us and seldom spoke a tender word.
Mother was different. Gentle by nature, she would secretly bring us handkerchiefs and hot soup whenever we were punished.
In my previous life, I had barely passed thirty when I began to look ten years older, all the spirit drained from my face.
My parents visited Lu Jin and urged him to talk through any misunderstandings, to stop letting resentment come between husband and wife.
For a while, things did grow easier between us.
He was willing to listen, and I tried to be less suspicious.
But letter after letter passed between my sister and Ah Yao, until we were back where we had begun.
When I offered him the divorce agreement, Lu Jin refused to accept it.
My parents came a second time, intending to take me home.
Ah Yao knelt before me and clung to my legs, sobbing that I mustn’t leave.
Lu Jin wouldn’t allow it either. If I left, he said, people would claim my sister had driven me to divorce him, and her name would be ruined.
Mother shook with anger. She went to my sister’s marital home herself and forbade her to have any further dealings with Lu Jin.
My sister merely replied, “He gave me his word.”
“I even gave up my fiancé for Ah Yu. What more does she want?”
“If her life is a shambles, shouldn’t she examine her own faults?”
My sister’s husband had always treated her coldly. He took concubine after concubine and had no place in his heart for her.
Naturally, he did not concern himself with her affairs.
Besides, Lu Jin’s discreet patronage had secured him three promotions. He was even less likely to offend Lu Jin over her.
After that, neither Mother nor Father ever visited my sister again.
The bond between mother and daughter was severed, just like that.
Whenever I thought of it, a stone seemed to drop into my chest, pressing down until I could scarcely breathe.