Chapter 1
Chapter 1
On the day my brother got married, Mother sat in the seat of honor with a face like a thundercloud.
My brother had spent five years studying in the city and drained the family coffers dry, yet he still hadn’t even passed the exam to become a scholar.
As if that weren’t bad enough, Father was injured. Badly, terribly injured. Treating him would take a great deal of money.
At the time, we had only three choices.
The first was to watch my father die.
The second was to sell twelve-year-old me to a brothel. Yes, a brothel. If I were sold as an ordinary servant girl, the money wouldn’t be enough for his treatment.
And the last was to have my brother marry into another family as a live-in son-in-law.
The brothel madam and my sister-in-law came to our door on the very same day.
The madam looked my face over and over, smiling so widely her mouth could barely close. “Don’t you worry, big sister. Once your daughter comes to my place, I guarantee she’ll eat well, dress well, and never have to fret about wealth for the rest of her life.”
My sister-in-law, however, came in with a fierce expression and threw down a contract. “Take a look at this marriage agreement. Sign it, and from now on, Tian Sheng will be one of my family. As long as I have meat to eat, you’ll have soup to drink.”
Both of them had heard my family needed money and shown up uninvited.
In the end, the smiling one was beaten out of the house, while the fierce-looking one stayed for a meal.
For that meal, Mother slaughtered the last chicken we had. The drumsticks went to the guest, and the wings went to my brother.
It was only much later that I learned wings meant flying away. In other families, they were given to daughters about to be married off.
Her son was becoming someone else’s daughter. Even on such a joyous day, Mother couldn’t bring herself to be happy.
I quietly asked my brother, “Brother, would it have been a little better if you’d sold me instead?”
He rapped me hard on the head. “If we sold you, we might as well all hang ourselves from the rafters together.”
In truth, he was terribly discouraged. He could have passed, but on the day of the exam, his stomach had hurt so badly that he barely wrote a few characters on his paper. If he had passed, plenty of people would have been willing to lend our family money.
But he still smiled on the surface, like a groom who was truly happy from the bottom of his heart. He poked my cheek and said, “Be good, Xiaoman. You should smile too. Your sister-in-law didn’t drag me off by force, and she spent so much real silver to help us. We have to remember her kindness.”
He dared poke my face, but he didn’t dare poke Mother’s. Mother’s face was stretched so long that the guests below were secretly laughing at her.
“I was wondering how Money-Grubbing Feng managed to find such a handsome husband to marry into her family. Turns out she finally decided to bleed herself dry and pay a fortune in bride price for him.”
“Look at his mother’s face. Tsk, tsk. What a sin.”
“Isn’t that the truth? If I had to marry a wife who spent all day coming and going among men, I wouldn’t be able to smile either.”
My sister-in-law was a famous wealthy merchant in Rongcheng. Starting with the little tofu stall her parents had left behind, she had built it into the large trading house it was today. Naturally, she had to deal with people. In this world, most people in business were men. Even Mother, who disliked this marriage so much, said there was no helping that.
The ones muttering were all my sister-in-law’s relatives. When her parents died, they bullied her every way they could. Later, when my sister-in-law made her fortune, they came looking for benefits. When they couldn’t get any, they gave her the nasty nickname Money-Grubbing Feng, saying she cared only about money and had no human feeling at all.
Mother beckoned me over and lowered her voice. “See those people stuffing their mouths until they’re dripping with grease while still gossiping about your sister-in-law? Go to the kitchen, crush that horribly bitter gourd into juice, and mix it all into their food. Let’s see them bully one of our own.”
After giving her instructions, I heard her mutter softly, “Ah, we’re all pitiful people. We’ve taken the money already, so what airs am I putting on?”
Then, when she turned her face, she finally showed her first smile of the day.
My brother was marrying into her family, so my sister-in-law didn’t have to wait in the bridal chamber. The two of them came out together to toast the guests. The moment Mother smiled, I clearly saw my sister-in-law smile too.
It wasn’t the fake smile she wore when toasting others. It was like the smile I gave Mother when I was wheedling her.
When she smiled, she was truly beautiful.