Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Noticing something off in my expression, Lu Yuan stepped forward and put himself between me and them, shielding me behind his back.

“Who are you?”

Jiang Wanru paused.

“Sister Song Qing, you don’t remember me?”

How could I not? My hatred was carved into my bones. I never dared forget it, not for a moment.

When Jiang Wanru saw I wasn’t speaking, she took another step forward.

“Last time at the Qixi Lantern Festival, it was all thanks to your elder brother’s help. Sister Qing-did you come to see your brother off for the exams?”

I jerked my head up and locked my gaze on Jiang Wanru.

My brother had entered the exams to become a Tongsheng at fourteen. In both the Provincial Examination and the Prefectural Examination, he took first place-everyone called him Top Scholar Song.

A dazzling young talent, and handsome as Pan An.

Everyone said my brother’s future was boundless.

That once he became the Zhuangyuan, young ladies from princely and noble houses would fight each other to the death to claim him.

He should have been the bright, spotless moon-a favored son of heaven.

But Jiang Wanru clipped his wings, tore out his feathers, and threw him into the mud, so he’d never see the light again in this life.

“What a coincidence,” I said. “Does the Jiang Family have an elder brother sitting for the imperial exams too?”

The Jiang Family was filthy rich, but their sons amounted to nothing.

Jiang Wanru had a younger brother, all fat and grease, depraved to the core.

Studying was beyond him.

Someone my brother’s age, and he still couldn’t even make sense of the Analects.

At my words, Jiang Wanru’s expression stiffened with embarrassment.

The maid at her side handed me a calling card.

“What happened last time-thank you, Sister Song Qing. In a few days, our estate is holding a Chrysanthemum Viewing Banquet. Sister Song must come.”

I nodded and accepted it. The moment Jiang Wanru turned away, I tore the card to pieces.

“So that was the famous Jiang Wuyan?” Lu Yuan asked.

His eyes flickered. “You’ve got a grudge against her?”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I grabbed his sleeve and looked at him, pleading.

“Lu Yuan, can you teach me how to fight?”

Jiang Wanru could only measure up to my brother by grinding our family into the dirt.

The more outstanding my brother was, the slimmer her hope became.

So once this round of exams ended and my brother became a Xiucai, Jiang Wanru would only grow more frantic.

We couldn’t lean on Lu Yuan for everything. We had to find a way to protect ourselves.

Lu Yuan eyed my thin arms with open disdain.

“With arms that skinny, you couldn’t even beat a child, and you want to learn fighting?”

He talked tough, but his heart was soft. After I clung to him and wore him down for a good while, he finally agreed.

When I got home, I shoveled down two big bowls of rice, startling my mother.

Looking graceful, like a willow swaying in the wind, might be pretty-but it was useless.

Just like in my last life, when Jiang Wanru strangled me to death with humiliating ease.

In that previous life, when I went with Jiang Wanru to visit her cousin’s home, they kept pouring me wine until I was drunk.

When I woke up, I had no idea how, but I’d ended up in her cousin’s room.

With Jiang Wanru presiding over everything, I was married off to her cousin, Yang Chenyao.

Yang Chenyao’s family had money, but he was plain-looking and short.

After we married, he watched me like a hawk-he might as well have locked me inside the garden.

His mother said my looks were foxlike, and every day she confined me to the Buddhist hall to copy scriptures.

Later, his mother found him several beautiful concubines.

Yang Chenyao found me boring and cold, and he came to me less and less.

My brother was trapped in his hell.

And me-hadn’t I also been locked in a cage for more than ten years?