Chapter 1

I had spent three years in Jiangnan recovering from illness.

On my first day back in the capital, my fourth sister arranged a welcome banquet for me.

The guests were all young noblemen and noblewomen from the capital.

Three years had passed since we last met.

The young ladies who had once been close to me were strangely stiff today, each as quiet as a mouse.

Even my younger brother the Crown Prince, who used to greet me sweetly as his elder sister, was distant and polite.

At my own welcome banquet, they poured their own drinks and drank among themselves.

Not one of them paid me any attention.

Then a commotion broke out at the entrance.

Pei Yanli walked in with a woman, and the silent banquet instantly came alive.

My brother the Crown Prince was the first to rise and greet them.

“Brother Pei, Sister Meng, you’re finally here!”

The young ladies, so quiet and awkward a moment before, were all smiles as they called out, “Wantang, over here!”

“We saved you a seat.”

The woman surrounded by the crowd had flushed cheeks and a gentle smile.

Beside her, Pei Yanli’s lips curved slightly, amusement warming his eyes.

There was a tenderness in his face that I had never seen before.

My fourth sister never minded making a spectacle more entertaining.

She leaned over and whispered, “See that, Sis? The stand-in has taken over, and the first love has become the villainess.”

“A few months later, and their child might have been running errands already!”

Ever since we were little, my fourth sister had been coming out with unfamiliar expressions I could never understand.

Thanks to her three letters a month,

I had heard about Meng Wantang, the prime minister’s concubine-born daughter who supposedly bore some resemblance to me, before I even returned to the capital.

Apparently, the young lady had always been kept on a country estate.

Only after I left the capital to recuperate three years ago

was she brought back.

At first, because her looks and manner of dress resembled mine,

the capital’s young noblewomen had secretly laughed at her for being a copycat.

The sons of the great families had sneered at her too.

But gradually, people discovered that, unlike my overbearing, arrogant self,

she was gentle and considerate.

She had all sorts of novel ideas no one would have expected.

One day she made floral soap.

The next she cooked delicacies.

And so the young ladies who had once gathered around me began gathering around her.

My brother the Crown Prince, who loved his food, grew close to her too.

Even my betrothed, Pei Yanli, heir to the Marquis of Huai’an,

went from mocking her as a clumsy imitation and warning her, “Don’t copy the Princess Royal,”

to saying, “You are yourself. You aren’t anyone’s stand-in.”

“Don’t worry. With me here, no one will bully you.”

Thanks to my fourth sister,

her vivid accounts of these scenes had made me feel as though I had witnessed them myself, as though I had never left the capital.

But…

“She looks like me?”

I raised an eyebrow.

At the sound of my voice, the woman looked flustered and tugged on Pei Yanli’s sleeve.

I really couldn’t help clicking my tongue. “Where, exactly? Is something wrong with your eyes?”