chapter 3

When I first came home seven years ago, Xu Lang was very good to me.

Though I was confined to my courtyard, he would always stop by before going out and ask what I wanted. When he returned, he brought it to me.

He was my dearest brother. I was closer to him than to Father and Mother.

Three years later, Xu Chaojin suggested that our parents let me leave my courtyard.

They did not agree at once. They summoned masters from far and wide and had them calculate our fates until they were certain Xu Chaojin’s spirit was stable.

Only when they believed I could no longer harm her was I granted the freedom to step outside.

At first, everyone watched Xu Chaojin anxiously whenever I left my courtyard.

So did I.

I was terrified that I would hurt her again and become a sinner.

Fortunately, nothing happened to her.

She and Shen Tingwei took me everywhere. Every gift Xu Lang brought home was divided fairly between us.

For the first time in my life, I knew happiness.

Then Princess Consort Qin held a banquet, and Xu Chaojin fell in love with Qin Yi at first sight.

I, meanwhile, caught his mother’s favor.

She was a devout Buddhist and said my nature was serene, my eyes compassionate.

With that single remark, I became famous among the capital’s noble young ladies. Families eager to befriend me appeared one after another.

My family rejoiced and began looking for the finest possible marriage for me.

That was when Xu Chaojin announced that she would not marry Shen Tingwei. She loved Qin Yi.

She declared she would marry no one else in this life. Otherwise, she would rather die.

At first, our parents did not take her seriously.

Then she tried to hang herself in her room.

Everyone was terrified.

Shen Tingwei came to stand beside me. With shame and sincerity, he told our parents, “Uncle, Aunt, things have reached this point, so I will hide it no longer. Chaojin is only a childhood playmate to me. Qiyu is the one I truly love.”

He looked at me with unwavering devotion.

Warmth stirred in my heart.

Xu Chaojin exclaimed with delighted realization, “So you had designs on Qiyu all along! You should have said so. I could simply give the engagement to you two.”

Shen Tingwei buried his bitterness so deeply that no one saw.

The engagement moved naturally from her to me.

Xu Chaojin was free to pursue Qin Yi.

Shen Tingwei tended to me with meticulous care.

No one had ever cherished me like that. The first spark of warmth in my heart gradually became affection, then deepened day by day.

I thought of him when he was gone and rejoiced whenever I saw him.

Xu Chaojin often teased me until I blushed. Shen Tingwei would defend me and tell her to stop.

My heart swelled. My family and Shen Tingwei filled it completely. The numb monotony of my first thirteen years became a vanished dream.

Xu Chaojin’s love for Qin Yi became famous throughout the capital.

For him, she learned riding, archery, and dance, all to win a single glance. She made herself ridiculous more than once, and each time the family and Shen Tingwei smoothed things over.

Princess Consort Qin liked me and sometimes invited me to the princely residence.

Xu Chaojin would dress with great care and accompany me. Soon after meeting the princess consort, she would find some excuse to leave me alone with her.

Once, Princess Consort Qin sighed as she looked at me. “What a pity you’re already engaged.”

My heart tightened. I found a way to change the subject.

But her words spread.

From that day on, something changed in Xu Chaojin’s eyes.

I could not say precisely what. She treated me as before, except that she began mentioning my marriage to Shen Tingwei over and over.

At first, he ignored it. Then one day he suddenly exploded.

“How many times are you going to say it?” he snapped. “What is there to keep talking about?”

Xu Chaojin never tolerated another’s temper. “It’s the truth. Why shouldn’t I say it?”

“You know perfectly well that I—”

He stopped himself.

Xu Chaojin stubbornly refused to yield. Still furious, Shen Tingwei stormed away.

I comforted one, then soothed the other. I did not want them to fight or the affection among the three of us to sour.

There was satisfaction in Xu Chaojin’s eyes.

At the time, I thought she was pleased to have won the argument.

Only later did I understand. She was pleased because Shen Tingwei loved her so deeply while I, ignorant fool that I was, worried over their friendship.

The quarrel ended when Shen Tingwei apologized.

He gave her an exquisite riding crop. Only then did she agree to speak to him again.

Afterward, the balance among us shifted.

Shen Tingwei still brought gifts for us both, but Xu Chaojin’s was always carefully chosen and expensive. Mine was weightless by comparison, selected without thought.

“Your sister has a temper,” he explained. “This keeps her from becoming unhappy and quarreling with me again. Once we’re married, everything I own will be yours. You don’t mind, do you, Qiyu?”

Xu Chaojin would hand her gift straight to me. “Who needs special treatment from you? I’m not so petty. You’re my sister’s fiancé. Of course she should have the better thing.”

Then she would smile. “Qiyu, trade with me.”

And the valuable gift would finally reach my hands.

Shen Tingwei would tease her. “How generous our Eldest Miss is.”

Xu Chaojin would lift her brows proudly. “Of course. My sister deserves the best.”

Both of them would look at me.

I was moved and grateful to my sister. Yet almost at once, unease swept through my heart.

Something was wrong.

It should not be like this.

Why?

What was wrong? What should have been different? What was I even questioning?

I could not explain the discomfort.

From then on, every gift I received from Shen Tingwei had to pass through Xu Chaojin’s hands.

She became the beloved elder sister praised by all.

I became the weak younger sister protected by her grace.

Troubled, I asked the brother I trusted most for guidance.

He patted my head. “Silly girl, you’re only jealous. Your sister has eyes for no one but the heir. If she and Tingwei loved each other, their engagement never would have come to you. They simply grew up together. Don’t overthink it.”

I believed him.

I told myself to stop being blindly jealous and damaging the friendship among the three of us.

When Xu Chaojin and I came of age, Shen Tingwei did not give us unequal gifts.

He gave each of us an identical kingfisher-feather hairpin.

This time, my gift was mine from the beginning. Xu Chaojin did not need to pass it on to me.

Still, something felt wrong.

Wasn’t I his fiancée?

Why could he never give me something better?

Why did Sister always have to yield the finer gift before I could have it?

Shouldn’t that gift have belonged to me in the first place?

I wanted his preference—the devotion a fiancé ought to give.

I prepared myself to speak with him.

Instead, I found him carefully placing an exquisite gold hair ornament in Xu Chaojin’s hair.

“It suited you, so I bought it,” he said softly. “There was only one in the shop, so I couldn’t buy another for Qiyu. Keep it hidden. Don’t tell her it came from me, or she’ll start imagining things again.”

Xu Chaojin reached up as if to remove it. “I can’t accept something Qiyu doesn’t have. You two are the engaged couple.”

Shen Tingwei stopped her, his tone almost pleading. “Chaojin, keep it. Consider it the last remnant of my hopes.”

Her eyes reddened. “Shen Tingwei, let me go. If I had known you loved me, I never would have agreed to pass the engagement to her. We can’t betray Qiyu.”

He laughed softly. “Can you let go of the heir?”

Her guilt seemed to freeze.

“You can’t,” he continued. “Otherwise, the moment you realized my feelings, you would have told Qiyu the truth. Chaojin, you aren’t as selfless as you imagine. You have your own selfish desires.”

Her face flushed in anger. “Then why do you still love me? Why can’t you love Qiyu?”

Shen Tingwei exhaled. “Yes… I love you. The good parts, the bad parts—I love all of it. I can’t help myself.”

The naked force of his feeling left her defenseless.

She stared at him, at a loss.

His voice softened. “Don’t worry. This is the last time. I would do anything for you. From now on, I’ll try to fall in love with Qiyu and treat her well for the rest of my life.”

My mind went blank.

I left in a numb daze and returned to my room.

I stared hollowly at the Buddha.

Its eyes were compassionate, but they could not dispel the fury, hatred, and grief surging through me.

After my coming-of-age ceremony, I fell gravely ill.

The smell of medicine clung to my courtyard.

Xu Chaojin even stopped chasing Qin Yi. She stayed by my bed day and night and refused every suggestion that someone else take her place.

What a wonderful sister, devoted wholly to her younger sibling.

Poor little sister, cursed by fate and sickly besides.

At last Xu Lang forcibly sent Xu Chaojin back to her own courtyard.

Under other people’s care, my frail body slowly recovered.

As my health returned, a tangle of feelings filled the hollow in my chest.

Thick armor enclosed my heart. Around that armor lay another layer, dark and viscous.

My mind emerged from the illness utterly clear.

My person. My marriage. My future.

Everything that belonged to me had to make way for Xu Chaojin.

I tested our parents and Xu Lang with the idea of ending my engagement.

The marriage between the Shen and Xu families had been arranged by our grandfathers. At my first tentative mention, they demanded to know why I had suddenly become petty.

Hadn’t Sister and Shen Tingwei always been close?

There was no romantic feeling between them.

They warned Xu Chaojin to observe propriety now that we were grown, for I was Shen Tingwei’s fiancée.

When she obediently distanced herself from him, he came to accuse me of jealousy and narrow-mindedness.

Xu Chaojin would not let him scold me, so they quarreled again.

Then Shen Tingwei asked, “Look at her. When has your sister ever failed to consider you? How can you do this to her?”

Once again, it was my fault.

Beside the open, honorable Xu Chaojin, I became a filthy insect in a ditch.

She truly had done no wrong.

Was all the fault mine?

No.

She knew Shen Tingwei loved her. To preserve her chance with Qin Yi, she allowed him to deceive me.

Every kindness she showed me rested upon that lie. Like a benevolent patron, she bestowed on me the man and things she did not want.

And I was expected to kneel in gratitude.

Together, she and Shen Tingwei kept me in the dark and made a fool of my heart.

She was just like him.

They were both vile.