The day my fiancé came to break off our engagement, my mother was so excited that tears streamed down her face.
As it turned out, I was not her biological daughter.
She had adopted me only so I could take the calamity meant for her real daughter.
She said, “Now that the ordeal has been fulfilled, you ought to return to your own family.”
I packed my bundle. There was little I could take with me, which made for easy travel.
My birth mother was waiting by the back gate.
She had a booming voice and had come driving an ox cart-every inch an uncouth peasant woman who knew nothing of proper manners.
Because of her, everyone in the Marquis Manor looked down on me even more.
And yet, the one who would bring me back to the capital in splendor was precisely her.
