Chapter 2

On the day I climbed into the bridal sedan, Mother asked, “Ah Tao, didn’t you always want a husband who would love only you, for your whole lives?”

I smiled serenely. “When I was little, I wanted to rule the whole world, too.”

It seemed every woman transported into the past wanted a love that belonged to her alone. I was no exception.

But when I first arrived, my ambitions had been considerably grander.

After reading too many novels about triumphant heroines, I assumed that if I ever traveled through time, I’d accomplish great things and change the world.

Or I could start a business young, effortlessly amass more money than the imperial treasury, and become the foremost businesswoman in the land.

The trouble was, this body was only eight when I had that idea.

I tried putting all the textbook knowledge I had studied so hard in the modern world—commodity economics, the definition of a commodity, the significance of modern commerce, international trade methodology—into terms people of this era could understand. Father rolled his eyes.

“You’re a little girl. Go embroider a few more handkerchiefs.”

I refused to be discouraged. If I couldn’t make money through trade, why not study and become an official?

With luck, I could pass the first examination in three years, take first place in the imperial examination in five, and become regent within ten. If the emperor wouldn’t listen, I’d raise a rebellion and become empress myself!

One sentence from Father closed off that road: “A woman’s virtue lies in having no learning.”

When I was ten, I showed off at a spring banquet by reciting “Quiet Night Thoughts.” I thought Father would change his opinion and begin nurturing my abilities.

Instead, he locked me in the ancestral hall for three days and struck my palms twenty times.

“So young, and already so unruly!”

“You barely know a handful of characters. How could you possibly compose a poem like that?”

Only later did I learn that he had told everyone I had stolen Second Brother’s manuscript.

I didn’t know it then, and answered back. “Father, I’m your daughter, too! I can be every bit as capable as my brothers!”

“I want to go to school!”

“I want to accomplish something!”

Seeing that I still wouldn’t submit, Father struck my palms a few more times, then went to vent his anger on this body’s birth mother.

After he berated her, she fell into such despair that she threw herself into the lotus pond.

By the time the servants pulled her out, her body was bloated and stank.

I mourned her for three days.

After that, I never spoke of great achievements again. I stayed obediently in the women’s quarters, a proper young lady, waiting until I was old enough to marry someone I liked and run a household of my own.

If I couldn’t be a mighty heroine who shook the world, a husband I loved, faithful to me for life, would do.

As I grew older, I realized these dreams were as childish as wondering whether I should choose Tsinghua or Peking University back in my own world.

I worked myself half to death for three years in high school and only got into an ordinary first-tier university outside the elite national schemes—and was assigned a major I didn’t even like!