chapter 3

My sister chose Su Qingye in the end.

After everyone dispersed, she quietly doubled back to find me.

She took my hand, guilt shadowing her brow.

“Ranran, I know I was gone for more than ten years, and the moment I came back Mother returned the marriage to me. I understand why you resent me. But I ask only one thing of you: do not push Wei Heng away in anger because of me.”

“Did you not ask him for a kite a few days ago? He made one for you with his own hands and even cut his finger on the bamboo. If you were not in his heart, why would he go to such trouble? Think carefully, Ranran. Do not act on a moment’s temper.”

My thoughts drifted to that day.

Wei Heng had first made a kite for me.

When he delivered it, he deliberately waved his cut finger in front of my eyes and complained with a half-teasing smile, “Who but you could make me go to all this trouble?”

Before I could answer, my sister laughed from nearby.

“How lovely. My adoptive brother has never made a kite for me.”

It sounded like a careless remark.

Yet the very next day, Wei Heng produced another kite, larger and far more exquisite than mine.

When we flew them, mine refused to rise and dragged stubbornly over the ground.

My sister’s caught a gust of wind and sailed steadily into the sky.

I stood below, gazing up with naked envy.

Afterward, I put my kite at the bottom of a chest and never took it out again.

Now that my sister raised the matter, I answered only, “Wei Heng and I were merely childhood playmates.”

Her lips moved before she gave a soft sigh.

“You grew up side by side and saw each other every day. Is that not better than marrying a stranger you have never met?”

…

Three days later, my elder brother returned from Yangzhou.

He had gone to tremendous lengths to secure a transfer back to the capital and had called in favors the whole family knew about.

The moment he entered the estate and saw my sister, his eyes reddened.

“The marquis household raised you well,” he said, his voice choking. “Very well.”

Then he began unloading gifts from his trunks, all fashionable curios from Yangzhou, until they covered half a table.

Only at the end did he seem to remember me.

He glanced back with a trace of caution in his voice.

“Ranran, your second sister was gone for so many years. I only want to make up for some of what she lost. You will not compete with her, will you?”

“I will not.”

There was nothing to compete for.

The year my sister disappeared, Mother sent me to Aunt Zhou’s courtyard.

She could not bear the sight of my face, which resembled my sister’s too closely.

Every glimpse of me made her cry until her eyes swelled, subsided, then swelled again.

Aunt Zhou always comforted me.

“There is no mother under Heaven who does not love her own child. Wait a little longer. Once your sister comes home, she will be well again.”

So I waited for years.

My sister finally returned, and Mother did indeed become well.

She smiled at my sister and wept over her, held her hands, and fussed over every comfort, pouring out more than a decade of pent-up guilt.

I stood to the side like an unrelated onlooker.

It had been the same in my last life.

From the day my sister returned, my brother stood at her side and placed her first in everything.

When I later sought a divorce, not one person in the household supported me.

My brother even came to my separate residence and ordered me to return.

My sister blamed herself for ruining my marriage, he said.

She wept every day and could neither eat nor sleep.

“Xiao Ran, if you insist on ruining your own life, why drag innocent people into it?”

…