Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The first Transmigrator I ever encountered appeared when my mother was pregnant with my third younger sister.

She was a songstress who marched under the banner of “the unloved one is the real third party,” trying to force my mother into a divorce so she could take her place.

She was beautiful and socially adept, a graceful performer who captivated that muddleheaded father of mine.

Ignoring years of marriage, my father actually used the excuse that my mother had borne him no son to give her a letter of repudiation and send her back to her maiden home.

My mother was both shocked and furious.

Yet she merely lifted her eyes and asked calmly,

“Who else knows of this?”

My father was startled.

“No one knows yet, but it can’t be hidden forever. I must give her a proper status and take responsibility for her. You…”

He never finished.

Because my mother had already drawn a curved blade and slit his throat cleanly.

As he clutched his neck, blood gushing like a fountain, and slid to the floor, his face was filled with shock and disbelief.

At the sight, the Transmigrator’s legs gave out. The servants immediately covered her mouth and pinned her to the ground.

My mother sneered, grabbed her by the hair, and swiftly forced a bowl of scalding muting medicine down her throat.

Only after all that did she set fire to the divorce papers and calmly wash the blood from her body.

Then she pushed open the courtyard gate and cried out in grief,

“Something terrible has happened! Master… Master has been murdered!”

She staggered into Grandmother’s arms, still shaken, her whole body trembling.

“She refused to be a concubine beneath me. My husband merely scolded her a few times, and she…”

Grandmother looked at the songstress kneeling on the ground, held down by the servants, her hands covered in blood and her face still twisted in a vicious expression. Hatred and rage tore her reason to pieces.

“Drag her out and beat her to death!”

Only then did my pale-faced mother go limp and faint in Grandmother’s arms.

Afterward, Mother taught me,

“Who says a new world must be virtuous, while old dynasties are nothing but rot? Women raised beneath the old rites may still have grand designs in their hearts and blades hidden up their sleeves.”

“You see? Even with a plan that killed two birds with one stone, that Transmigrator was still nothing more than my defeated opponent.”

It was then that I first witnessed the sophistry of a Transmigrator who could self-righteously steal another woman’s husband.

Progressive rhetoric is only a pretty shell. True worth is revealed by one’s character and cultivation.

Whether ancient or modern, a woman’s quality lies in her heart, not in her era.

When Nanny Li returned, her face was tense. She made a throat-slitting gesture at me.

I gave a soft laugh and shook my head.

Dealing with a powerless woman was easy.

But should the man who blindly shielded her, indulged her, even tacitly allowed her to trample over convention and my dignity, be allowed to walk away unscathed?

No. I would break his spine, cut off his escape routes, and leave him no way out.