Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The imperial edict granting the marriage came down.

I heard that after the palace banquet, the General of Agile Cavalry returned home and drank himself into a stupor for three full days. Even when the palace eunuch went to announce the edict, he still had not woken.

The day I left the inner palace was the very day Zhong Lingjia entered it. The maids behind her carried all manner of books, brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones in their hands, an impressive display.

She had already placed second in that examination, and she was the younger sister of a meritorious official. Naturally, there were people willing to do her this easy favor.

She took my place and became Princess Jiuhua’s new study companion.

The moment we passed each other at the palace gate, she lifted her eyes and smiled faintly. “If a place was never yours, you were never going to keep it.”

I looked at the triumphant gleam in her eyes and thought back to the day I entered the palace. Back then, I must have been just as proud and elated. I thought fate had finally bestowed me a gift, that I could at last escape my days in the Shen Family, that my mother could be proud of me, and that my grandmother would no longer be able to make things difficult for her.

After all those twists and turns, it had all come to nothing.

As Zhong Lingjia departed, she gave a scornful laugh. “My future sister-in-law, don’t think you can throw your weight around as the general’s wife from now on. There is a woman in Chenyue Lane who is the true love of my brother’s heart. For her sake, he defied our parents and would rather never marry in his life. He asked for you only because he wanted you as a bed-warming maid. Who would have thought His Majesty would actually listen to the princess and personally grant the marriage, letting you stumble into a bargain?”

With that, she left at an unhurried pace, laughter shining in the corners of her eyes and brows.

Only then did I suddenly understand what the princess had meant that night when she said she had done everything she could for me.

She had fought for me to have a proper title.

She knew what that title meant to a woman.

Her own birth mother had been the original wife, the woman who accompanied the sovereign through battles to conquer the realm. Yet in the end, because of her family background, she had been forced to step back into the rank of consort.

Princess Jiuhua was clearly the eldest legitimate daughter, and yet even she suffered from the difference a title made.

I returned to the Shen Family.

My mother was weighed down with worry. She asked me what sort of person the General of Agile Cavalry was, what his temperament was like, and how he treated me.

That string of questions had already betrayed the turmoil in her heart.

Perhaps what she truly wanted to ask was whether I was willing. But willing or not, this matter could no longer be changed. Asking would only add to our sorrow.

My father, however, was very calm. Indifferently, he said, “For a woman, studying was never the proper path to begin with. Going to the palace as a study companion only wasted two years for nothing. Now that the General of Agile Cavalry has taken a liking to you, that is your good fortune. To receive a marriage granted by His Majesty is an even greater honor for you and for the Shen Family. From now on, put away all those books of yours and focus on embroidering your wedding clothes and preparing for the marriage.”

Only in that moment did I realize that placing first and becoming the princess’s study companion had never brought him as much honor as this marriage did.

A single marriage was enough to connect him to one of the most sought-after meritorious officials of the day. He was satisfied.

I began my studies at five, learned poetry at seven, and by twelve, I had already gained some reputation for talent in the capital. I was skilled in music, calligraphy, and chess.

When I was fifteen, on Chaoyang Terrace, I played several games of go against the envoys of Northern Yue and held my own.

But when I returned home, he did not praise me. Instead, he blamed me for drawing too much attention, for showing too sharp an edge, for lacking a woman’s virtue of gentleness and obedience. For that, he punished me by making me copy Lessons for Women ten times.

Then he turned around and looked upon my mediocre younger half-brother with patient instruction and boundless expectation. Yet no matter how many times he explained, my younger half-brother could neither remember nor recite it.

Essays I could recite backward by the time I was eight, he still could not fully recognize at twelve.

Anyone with eyes could tell he was not cut out for scholarship, but Father still poured all his effort into him.

The Shen Family had once been an illustrious clan of officials, its household grand and eminent. But after the chaos of wars in the previous dynasty, noble families migrated, their numbers dwindled, and now the family had already begun to show signs of decline.

So he refused to believe it. He refused to believe that the only son under his knees was a mediocrity.

When he looked at my mother and me, his gaze was always filled with resentment.

All because when Mother was pregnant with me, a passing eminent monk had read the unborn child’s fate and said the child was extraordinary, destined to raise the family to glory.

My grandfather and father placed great hopes on that prophecy, expecting a pillar of talent who could restore the clan.

Unfortunately, I disappointed them.

I was born a daughter.

My father was so furious that he abandoned my mother and ran out to drink with others for days on end, saying the monk from that day was nothing but a swindling fraud.

From then on, he took several concubines into the household.