Chapter 2

I raised both boys in my courtyard and, just as in my previous life, used my standing as the Grand Preceptor’s own granddaughter to secure them places at White Egret Academy.

Master Qi had been my grandfather’s student and owed him a great deal. He quietly sent someone to ask whether, though both were young masters of the household, there were any sensitivities he should observe.

In other words, he wanted to know which boy he should cultivate more carefully.

I remembered my last life: burning the midnight oil beside Xie Chengyi over his studies; guiding his hand stroke by stroke until he mastered calligraphy; even spending my dowry to help him befriend promising companions. All that devotion had earned me nothing but his bitter accusation: “You only wanted me to win you an imperial title. I wasn’t your real son, so you never treated me as a person.”

I smiled.

“There are no sensitivities. Treat them equally.”

A hopeless fool would fall behind all on his own.

And someone who had tasted every hardship in life would seize an opportunity when it came.

Of late, my mother-in-law often went to Guardian Temple to worship. Every time she returned, she found fault with me.

“Yi’er is still so young. His hands are chafed from writing so much every day. Could you not reduce his work somewhat?”

“He gets too little sleep and has grown thin. Achievements are important, but not at the cost of his health.”

I knew worship was merely her excuse. Her true purpose was to reunite with her son’s family in the countryside.

Xie Chengyi would cling to his birth mother and sob about how harsh and cold I was. In return, Xie Nanfeng hated me more, and his mother came home full of resentment.

I pretended to know nothing and agreed readily.

“Whatever you say, Mother.”

“I have never taught such a young child. I am bound to misjudge what he can bear. Please forgive me.”

Her expression softened, and she even acknowledged how hard I had worked.

But after she turned and left, the boy once known as Meng Yuan—now Xie Zhiyuan—stepped out from behind the screen.

“Mother, why do you add to my lessons while indulging him so?”

I lowered my eyes with a smile.

“Do you blame me for being too strict with you?”

Zhiyuan cupped one fist over the other and bowed.

“You expect great things of me, Mother. I should work twice as hard so I do not disappoint you.”

I was very pleased.

Xie Zhiyuan was not as quick as Xie Chengyi, but he was steady, diligent, and determined to improve.

While Xie Chengyi feigned illness and his grandmother made trip after trip to reunite with her family at Guardian Temple, the diligent early bird gradually overtook the dazzling prodigy.

“The burden is heavy and the road ahead is long. All the more reason to press on.”

“You work hard, and I will work hard. Those who owe us will not escape.”

It was three years before my mother-in-law truly began to notice Xie Zhiyuan.

He had placed first in the highest grade on his master’s examination.

Xie Chengyi, meanwhile, had been spoiled lawless by his doting grandmother and managed only a middling mark in the second grade.

She panicked and summoned me for an accounting.

“Nanfeng may not have loved you, but you should not take your grievances against him out on a child.”

“Chengyi’s resemblance to Nanfeng should be a blessing, not a reason for you to favor one boy over the other.”

“If you hated him so much, why did you keep him here only to make him suffer?”

I picked up the master’s comments she had flung across the floor and read them one by one.

They said only that Xie Chengyi was careless with his calligraphy, lazy in memorizing his texts, and inattentive in class.

I looked at the boy hiding against his grandmother while hatred began to show in his eyes, and my face cooled.

“You were the one who could not bear to see Chengyi work or suffer, Mother.”

“And Chengyi was the one who used your indulgence as an excuse to go worship every few days instead of attending the academy.”

“Yet somehow, in the end, all of it has become my fault.”

“Since you cannot see the care behind my discipline, perhaps it would be better for you to raise him yourself.”

Raising another woman’s child was exhausting enough without being smeared with blame for it. Whoever wanted that thankless duty could take it.

“Both boys are my sons. Zhiyuan earned the highest grade. Chengyi chases comfort, shirks effort, and cannot even reach the upper ranks of the second grade.”

“Am I truly playing favorites, or is he simply unwilling to improve?”

My mother-in-law was left speechless. Only when she looked at Xie Zhiyuan, growing finer by the day under my care, did she realize that her indulgence had nearly ruined her own grandson.

She awkwardly promised she would no longer take Xie Chengyi to Guardian Temple to play, nor would she interfere with his lessons.

“See that you keep your word, Mother. If he drops from the second grade to the third, the academy will expel him.”

“By then, finding a good tutor will be harder still once he has acquired a reputation for being impossible to teach.”

I withdrew as she swore solemnly that she would do as she said. On the other side of the door, I heard Xie Chengyi crying.

“Grandmother, my real mother said that woman will never treat me sincerely. You can’t leave me in her hands.”

“Nonsense. In her eyes, you and that wild child are the same.”

“She is educated and sensible. You cannot go wrong learning from her.”

But Xie Chengyi was right. I would never give him my true affection.

If every injury were repaid with kindness, how would kindness itself be repaid?

So that very night, when he glared at me with open resentment, I coldly ordered him to kneel as punishment.