Chapter 1
Chapter 1
I was born in Kong Mansion, dressed in brocade and silk, with fine jade for my pillow.
My father held a first-rank office, and my mother came from an illustrious family.
Among the four legitimate daughters, I was closest to my eldest sister.
She was two years older than me, brilliant from childhood.
When our tutor taught from the Book of Songs, she could recite the passage after hearing it only once. When she practiced the zither, a single pluck beneath her fingers flowed like drifting clouds and running water.
I was always slower. I had to puzzle over everything again and again before I could barely keep up.
The tutors my father invited were all renowned scholars of the age, and they received their orders the moment they entered the mansion.
“Strict teachers produce outstanding pupils. The ruler will show no mercy to the idle.”
But my eldest sister was never beaten.
Her assignments were always as neat as carved filigree. When the tutor’s vermilion brush touched her papers, it left only words of praise.
With me, the tutor’s brows were often furrowed, and my palms were often struck red by the ruler.
Whenever Father happened to test our lessons, I was so frightened I did not dare lift my head. Half my body hid behind my eldest sister, my fingers clutching tightly at her sleeve.
Father’s gaze fell on me like ice pressing down from above, as if an avalanche would come crashing down in the next instant.
My eldest sister shifted slightly, blocking me behind her.
“Second Sister is still young, and her lessons are demanding. I beg Father to grant her a little more time.”
Father pondered for a moment, then actually smiled.
“Harmony between sisters is the bearing of a great household.”
But when he turned to look at me, his eyes were still a deep, dark pool.
“The clumsy bird must fly early to reach the forest first. A daughter of the Prime Minister’s Mansion cannot afford the slightest mistake.”
After Father left, I lowered my head and looked at the Kong Clan crest carved into the mutton-fat jade pendant at my waist. In the next instant, my tears splashed onto the brocade.
“Tomorrow the tutor will test us on the Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng again. Those parallel sentences are like shards of jade. No matter what I do, I can’t string them together…”
My eldest sister reached out and wiped away my tears. Her voice was so gentle it seemed ready to drip with tenderness.
“What is there to be afraid of? Even if the sky falls, your eldest sister will hold it up for you.”
Girls of the Kong Clan were granted their names and placed in the family order at the age of seven. Father named me Xianghui.
On the day my name was entered into the genealogy, Father dipped a willow branch into the dew held in a jade basin and lightly touched it to the space between my brows.
“May my child grow ever wiser.”
I lowered my head and bowed, but beneath my sleeves, my hands dug hard into my palms.
So my stupidity already needed to be carved into my name as Father’s reminder.
My eldest sister began calling me Huihui.
After I had exhausted myself memorizing a text, she would lightly scrape the tip of my nose with her finger.
“Huihui recited that so well.”
I looked at the flamboyant golden phoenix hairpin in her hair, and my heart went cold as ice.
Father had rewarded her with it last month. The Eastern Pearl held in the phoenix’s beak happened to fall right in my line of sight, dazzling enough to make my heart ache.
The child in Mother’s womb grew day by day amid heaps of brocade and splendor. There would only be more and more daughters in the Prime Minister’s Mansion.
By then, I would be the most unpresentable one of all.
I did not know when my dependence on my eldest sister gradually turned into resentment.
When she applied medicine to my palms, I stared instead at the new bracelet on her wrist.
Mother had just rewarded her with it. Beautiful patterns were carved across its surface.
But I had none.