Chapter 2

I had been frail from birth. An imperial physician had declared that I would not live to fifteen.

Desperate, my parents tried anything. A wandering mystic told them that good fortune could drive away calamity, so they bought a girl who shared my birthday and brought her into our home.

She wore my old clothes and moved into the courtyard where I had grown up.

She was meant to bear the misfortunes written into my fate.

And I did live to fifteen.

My fifteenth year was Xue Rao’s fifteenth year too.

I could seldom go outside.

She was healthy. Her paper kite would rise above the high courtyard wall.

Her laughter rang out, clear as the chime of her pendants.

The noise wore on my nerves.

I had no friends, and I did not want to see her.

At first, no one in the household had cared for her either.

But at some point, Nanny Li saw Xue Rao clinging to Eldest Brother’s sleeve and coaxing him.

There was now a place for Xue Rao at the evening banquets I could not attend.

Nanny Li spoke of her to me more than once.

“The moment she arrived, I knew she wouldn’t know her place. So young, and already so good at winning people over.

“Don’t cry, Miss. Your father and mother love you. You’re their own flesh and blood.

“That little brat with no parents will show her true colors sooner or later.”

Nanny Li had raised me. Naturally she favored me, and in private she had plenty to say against Xue Rao.

Who would have thought her words would come true today?

Everyone in the household was talking about a scandal between Xue Rao and my eldest brother, Xie Yunqiao.

He doted on her almost more than on me, his own sister.

Second Brother, at least, had shared my indignation.

Xie Yunzheng had always loved me dearly, and he looked up to our learned eldest brother with a child’s devotion.

When the rumors first reached him, he was so angry that he punished more than a dozen servants for gossiping.

To us, Eldest Brother was as pure as jade. The emperor himself had placed him third in the imperial examinations.

How could a man so otherworldly harm his own adopted sister?

“She must have manipulated him. Eldest Brother has always been loyal and kind. That’s how she got a hold over him.”

That was how Xie Yunzheng had explained it to me then, his face full of resentment.

He went to Xue Rao’s pavilion.

A few days later, he went again.

The servants said the second young master had stayed all night.

The rumors grew more outrageous.

I dared not mention them to Mother, yet I could no longer face either brother with ease.

“You are precious beyond measure, Miss. How could that creature compare with you?”

Nanny Li combed my hair gently. “Living on someone else’s favor never lasts.”

Never lasts?

I kept my feelings bottled up for almost half a year before finding a chance to slip into the pavilion.

I wanted a look at this Xue Rao, this schemer who had bewitched them all.

Instead, Second Brother had hit her because of me.

“What were you all doing? How could the young miss vanish right under your noses?”

Xie Yunzheng was raging in my courtyard.

Servants knelt all around him, scarcely daring to breathe.

He had always had a fierce temper and no tolerance for mistakes.

“Second Brother, stop scolding them. My head hurts terribly.”

Pale-faced, I tugged at him.

Only then did he lead me indoors, lecturing as he went. “Don’t go to places like that again. You’ll see things you shouldn’t.”

He was so strange.

He spent every night at the pavilion.

Yet he told me it was unfit for my eyes.

“But you both like going there.”

I twisted my sleeve between my fingers. “Why can’t I?”

“It’s a place where men go to amuse themselves. Of course a sheltered young lady can’t go.”

Xie Yunzheng sounded unconcerned. He even chuckled.

“All right, Mingzhu. You’re cross because I’ve been neglecting you, aren’t you?”

He tapped my nose. “You’ve been a jealous little thing since you were small. It doesn’t matter who it is.”