Chapter 2

I had always been different from other people.

I could see the Mandate.

When my father brought the woman physician Su Qinrou back to the Zhao estate, words flashed before my eyes.

【This is where the villainess starts down the path to darkness. Her father brings a woman physician home, claiming that she saved his life and that he must take her as a concubine.】

【Once Su Qinrou enters the household, she secretly poisons the villainess’s mother. After the wife dies, Su Qinrou is raised from concubine to lawful wife.】

【From then on, Su Qinrou abuses Zhao Qiangyuan in secret—feeding her spoiled rice, whipping her, and locking her in a water dungeon. Later, Su Qinrou bears a daughter who inherits everything belonging to the ducal house.】

【In public, Su Qinrou plays the loving mother. She calls Zhao Qiangyuan spoiled and accuses her of murdering the nursemaid who cared for her, even though that nursemaid had jabbed her with needles every day and only died after Zhao Qiangyuan shoved her away in self-defense and she struck the corner of a table.】

【Su Qinrou also drugs her with an aphrodisiac and marries her off to the wastrel son of a vice minister in the Ministry of Rites. Then she claims Zhao Qiangyuan refuses all contact with her maternal family, turning everyone against her.】

【Zhao Qiangyuan’s maternal grandmother falls ill from grief. When her elder brother tries to intervene, Su Qinrou lures him to an abandoned place, blinds him, and cripples both his legs.】

【Her maternal grandfather also falls gravely ill, giving her father the chance to frame him.】

【In the end, her maternal grandfather’s entire family is exiled for treason. Her father is praised for placing righteousness above family and is made Marquis of Loyalty and Righteousness. During the journey into exile, Su Qinrou hires men to slaughter the whole family and seizes their fortune.】

【Having married before the exile, Zhao Qiangyuan escapes that fate. To avenge her maternal family, she curries favor with her wastrel husband and tries to use his family’s influence against Su Qinrou.】

【She also persecutes her younger half sister, Zhao Chuhe, for years. At last, she has Zhao Chuhe abducted and tries to deliver her to the wastrel’s bed. Su Qinrou and Zhao Qiangyuan’s father arrive in time to save her. Nursing a grudge, Su Qinrou has Zhao Qiangyuan flayed and dismembered. Her skin is made into a lantern, and her skull becomes Su Qinrou’s chamber pot.】

At ten years old, I understood only fragments of what I saw.

But I grasped the important part: if Su Qinrou married my father, the rest of my life would be misery.

That night, I found poison in her bag and swallowed a little. Then I claimed she had put it in the jujube cakes she made for me.

When my mother searched Su Qinrou’s bag and found the poison, she flew into a rage.

Because Su Qinrou had saved my father, Mother had originally thought it no great matter to let her enter as a concubine and support her for life.

But the woman had tried to poison her daughter before even crossing the threshold.

That, Mother would never tolerate.

Su Qinrou broke down sobbing, swore she was innocent, and demanded to see my father.

Mother responded by mixing a dose dozens of times stronger than the little I had swallowed. She gripped Su Qinrou by the jaw and poured it down her throat.

As the woman slowly died before me, Mother covered my eyes.

“Yuan’yuan, don’t be afraid.”

I pushed her hand away. “I’m not afraid. I want to give Father a present.”

Mother had taught me to wield weapons from the time I could walk. Even at that age, I knew my way around a dagger. I picked up the blade by my feet and held it to Su Qinrou’s face.

“Mother, I want to make her into a human-skin lantern and give her to Father. Then he will never think about bringing home another lesser wife.”

When I said it, I was afraid Mother would stop loving me—that she would think I was a bad child.

Instead, she stroked my head.

“A tiger daughter worthy of a family of generals. Your mother was killing enemies on the battlefield at twelve; my Yuan’yuan will be no less formidable. This way, no one will dare bully you. But do not dirty your hands with such filth. I’ll have the servants make it. You can deliver it.”

That night, I carried the lantern made from Su Qinrou’s skin into Father’s room and shook him awake.

He looked irritated at first, though he quickly forced the expression away.

“What are you doing awake at this hour?”

I hung the human-skin lantern beside his bed and smiled with innocent delight.

“Father, isn’t it pretty? Concubine Su is a lantern now. She can stay with you forever, and you don’t have to marry her anymore.”

He glanced at the leather lantern. It took him a long moment to understand what I meant.

The candle flame flickered. At last, he recognized the skin as belonging to the beauty he had wanted to marry.

He tumbled straight out of bed, urine spreading beneath him.

Father truly was useless. A grown man, and he still wet his trousers. Even I had stopped doing that.

When he recovered, he wailed as if his own mother had died. “Qinrou, I did this to you! I’ll avenge you!”

His face twisted as he reached for my throat. “So vicious at such a young age. I cannot let you live.”

Mother kicked him away and pulled me into her arms.

“She poisoned Yuan’yuan. A jealous creature who attacks the daughter before she has even entered the household deserves to die.”

Father lay on the floor. The malice vanished from his face, replaced by a tender smile.

“My wife is right. That woman deserved to die. She died well.”