Chapter 2

When I returned to my courtyard, Yuanbao was searching everywhere for me. She spun around, saw me walking in with the baby and a hollow look on my face, and rushed to meet me.

She helped me into bed, tucked a thick quilt around me, and pressed a cup of hot tea into my hands before turning to tend to my daughter.

At the sight of the steaming tea, I remembered the conversation I had overheard and felt sick.

I set it aside. “Throw away every drop of water, tea, and porridge brought from the small kitchen today.”

Yuanbao looked puzzled, but she asked no questions. She nodded and removed it all.

Still uneasy, I ordered the older servants in my courtyard to take every pot, bowl, and utensil out and scrub them clean that very night.

Once I had sent everyone away, I sat on the bed for a long time before my tears finally began to fall.

When I married into the Song family, they had been so poor they could not afford a bite of meat. The whole household was trying to support Song Qian as a scholar, yet they could scarcely manage even that.

Delicate scholar though he was, Song Qian once took work carrying cargo at the docks. Two sacks crushed one of his ribs, and the employer paid him ten taels in compensation. The Song family lived off that broken rib for months.

When the rib healed, he found another job copying books. This time, a candlestick toppled over and scorched half his face and one eyebrow.

The injuries healed, but the bookshop still paid two taels. His family lived off that eyebrow for another few months.

After his eyebrow grew back, he went looking for work again, found none, and fainted from hunger in the street.

I was the one who saved him.

Song Qian was refined and articulate. It did not take long for me to fall for him.

He promptly came to my house to ask for my hand.

My father despised his circumstances—the Songs were too poor to qualify even as a humble scholar’s family—but I refused to be dissuaded.

With my family’s support, Song Qian passed the imperial examination and secured a respectable official post. At last, the Songs began to prosper.

He had only just taken office, however, and the household was still poor. Nearly all its expenses came from my family.

The moment life became a little easier, Liu Ning’er arrived at our gate with a swollen belly. She fell to her knees and begged Song Qian to take her in.

The two had once been betrothed, but when the Song family fell on hard times, Liu Ning’er married someone else. That man, she claimed, turned out to be a brute in fine clothing who beat and abused her every day. She had divorced him and now had nowhere to go but her cousin.

Out of kindness, I gave her shelter.

I never imagined she and Song Qian would plot against me together.

Her child had never belonged to a former husband. The adulterous pair must have rekindled their affair long ago, and the baby was unquestionably Song Qian’s.

But I had switched the children back. Now I wanted to see what tricks they could possibly play.

Yuanbao sent a nourishing soup to their courtyard. When she returned, she told me that Liu Ning’er and Song Qian had drunk every last drop.

Late that night, the maids and matrons gradually came back. One after another, they knelt to beg my forgiveness. I ignored them all and held my daughter close.

Their eyes brimmed with pity, yet not one opened her mouth to tell me the truth.

I laughed inwardly. Liu Ning’er had not been here long, but somehow everyone under my authority had already defected to her side.

That night, an infant’s cries rose from Liu Ning’er’s courtyard, then abruptly stopped.

Yuanbao slipped over to investigate. When she came back, disbelief was written across her face.

“Miss Liu said she was afraid the child might be lost, so she… burned a mark onto the baby. It looked like a written character.”

“Which character?”

“I cannot read, Madam. They said it was a bad one. I think it had the shell radical and many strokes.”

My heart lurched. I picked up the poetry collection beside my bed, opened it, and pointed to a line: Jade-white snow falls, cheap as mud; the flower lover still remembers when blossoms were prized.

“Was it this character?”

Her gaze landed on the character for cheap and degraded—jian. She clapped her hands. “Yes, that one.”

The book slipped from my fingers. I hugged my daughter, cold from head to toe.

If I had not loved stories enough to give Yuanbao that ridiculous warning, my own child would have suffered this treatment.

Liu Ning’er was more vicious than I had imagined.

The next day, Song Qian finally came to my courtyard. Beaming, he took my hand.

“Youqing, you have worked so hard. I spent the whole night choosing names for our daughter. Pick whichever one you like.”

He eagerly presented a sheet covered in girls’ names. Every one was lovely. He had clearly put great care into the list.

But I had no intention of using a name he chose.

“I have already thought of one. Graceful brows, a smiling face—Song Wanyan. What do you think?”

His face filled with admiration. “A daughter truly does need to be raised by you. What a wonderful name. Wonderful.”

I feigned confusion. “What do you mean, she needs to be raised by me?”

“Mother wanted to raise our daughter herself, but I stopped her. You come from a great family and are first-rate in both etiquette and letters. Of course you should raise her. Song Wanyan it is. What a beautiful name.”

I could not resist asking, “Has your cousin named her child?”

“Oh, yes. Xin’er—the xin from hardship.” The smile vanished from his face, replaced by utter indifference.

“What is her surname?”

“She has none. A wild child without a father should be grateful to have any name at all!” Song Qian snapped.

I lowered my head and gently rocked Wanyan in my arms, sorrow filling my heart.

So he truly despised me.

What a pity that the child he was degrading was not mine, but the daughter born to the cousin he adored.