chapter 1

My sister froze, then caught me by the wrist.

“Ranran, did you not reject every match Mother showed you just a few days ago? You said none of those young gentlemen suited you. You even said a melon twisted from its vine would never be sweet.”

I lowered my eyes and gently freed my hand.

“I have already come of age, Sister. Mother means well by arranging matches for me. It was wrong of me to refuse her again and again.”

Instead of relaxing, she grew anxious and pulled me into a secluded corner beneath the veranda.

“Ranran… Wei Heng and I may have been betrothed as children, but I was only four when I went missing. Whatever affection we had is long forgotten. He is much closer to you. You grew up together, and Mother told me that if I had not returned midway, you would have been the one to marry him.”

“Now he has found your hairpin too. After all these twists and turns, it is still him. Surely this marriage was written by Heaven long ago.”

I shook my head.

“Does knowing someone a long time mean I must marry him?”

Her expression dimmed, guilt gathering between her brows.

“If my return costs you a good marriage, I would rather never have been found.”

I did not answer.

I simply turned, walked back to Wei Heng, and held out my hand once more.

“Young Master Wei, please give me my hairpin.”

His thumb moved slowly over the shaft of the pin.

For several breaths he studied me with dark, unreadable eyes before finally handing it over.

“Ranran, what your sister said makes some sense.”

I lowered my gaze and accepted the hairpin.

In my last life, I too had thought this arrangement was for the best.

I was two years younger than my sister and barely remembered what she had looked like before she vanished.

After she disappeared, Mother blamed herself day and night.

Father blamed her for failing to watch their child, and peace did not return to our household for years.

Three years ago, word arrived from Yangzhou that someone might have seen my sister there.

Ignoring the entire family’s objections, my elder brother requested a transfer to Yangzhou and spent three years searching every street and alley, yet found no trace of her.

In the end, she was recognized at an imperial banquet.

From a distance, Mother saw a young woman whose eyes and brows resembled mine.

Shaken, she approached the Marchioness of Yong’an and learned that the marchioness had encountered and adopted my sister when she was five.

My sister had been raised in Jiangnan and had only come to the capital this year when the marquis household relocated.

Once she was restored to our family, Mother wanted to repay every ounce of the love she believed she had owed her all those years.

My sister was gentle, well read, and considerate to everyone.

The entire household praised her.

Not long after she returned in my last life, Mother told her about an old agreement.

As a child, she had been betrothed to Wei Heng, the younger son of the general’s household.

Our families were old friends and neighbors, and the match had been intended to bring us even closer.

But my sister hesitated.

The Yong’an Marquis household had also promised her to someone: her adoptive elder brother, Su Qingye.

The marchioness could not bear to see her adopted daughter marry far away and wanted her to marry her own son instead.

Both matches were exceptional.

Unable to choose, my sister devised a solution.

She would marry whichever man first found the jade hairpin she hid.

Yet on the day she hid it, she slipped my hairpin into the hiding place as well.