Chapter 3
Ignoring the hatred in Xie Chengyi’s eyes, I sent the finest pastries and softest quilted clothes to Xie Zhiyuan’s courtyard.
Chengyi was still young. Angry as my favoritism and deliberate harshness made him, he dared not protest. All he could do was grit his teeth and wait to complain about me when he paid his respects to his grandmother the next morning.
I gave him no such chance.
Before dawn the next day, I hauled him out of bed to write out a memorized text.
He had not slept until midnight after kneeling as punishment. Drowsiness turned his bellyful of resentment into a spectacular tantrum. He screamed at me.
“You wicked woman! You’re bullying me on purpose!”
“When I grow up and inherit the marquis’s estate, I’ll make you die a horrible death!”
Whether I would die horribly remained to be seen. He, however, immediately had his palms struck and was confined to his room without food.
“He will be released when he admits his fault.”
His howls soon drew my tenderhearted mother-in-law.
I stood calmly to one side while the old maid assigned to Xie Chengyi gave her a full account of what had happened.
“Mother, do you understand what it would do to the Xie family’s reputation—and to Chengyi and Zhiyuan’s futures—if word spread beyond the estate that he constantly threatens to have his legitimate mother killed?”
“One might excuse a very young child for not knowing better, but he is already seven. He should understand right from wrong.”
In Great Yue, filial duty came before all else. A legitimate son who disrespected the mistress of his household could be expelled from his clan, let alone one who shouted threats of murder.
“He must be punished!”
“The boy has been spoiled. I… I will leave him to you.”
At last, fear made my mother-in-law harden her heart, and I was free to do as I pleased with him.
Being a devoted legitimate mother was difficult. Being a vicious stepmother was remarkably easy.
I had used up all my patience, sincerity, and care in my previous life.
In this one, I had only ruthlessness left.
Careless calligraphy? Punishment.
Disrespect toward me? A beating.
Unfinished lessons? No sleep.
Worse, I constantly dragged him out to be compared with his outstanding elder brother. Under the blows of my praise for one and censure for the other, he grew ever more rebellious and disgusted with his studies.
I gave him everything but love and patience. I truly became as cold and mercilessly strict as I appeared.
“Do not blame me for being severe. Blame yourself for playing away the years when you should have learned the basics. Now cramming is your only road forward.”
Compared with his birth mother’s gentle affection, my treatment drove his hatred of me to unprecedented heights.
“Mother, he has been crying at the academy and telling everyone that you abuse him.”
Xie Zhiyuan hesitated for a long time before revealing why the noblewomen of the capital had suddenly begun avoiding me.
Xie Chengyi had reached his limit. So had those behind him, greedily eyeing everything in the marquis’s estate. At last, they had shown their hand.
I seized the old nurse beside Xie Chengyi and took her to my mother-in-law’s courtyard.
“Forgive me, Mother, but I truly cannot teach this child any longer.”
“The Lu family has been a house of scholars for generations. Though we are not what we once were, we still value our honor. We cannot bear the accusation that one of our daughters lacks virtue.”
My mother-in-law dropped her teacup. Only then did the old woman stammer out a defense.
“The young master… the young master was frightened by Madam’s punishments. He didn’t mean it. He is still little and does not understand how serious this is. Please calm yourself, Old Madam.”
My mother-in-law was bitterly disappointed in the boy, yet she dared not show the slightest anger toward those outside the household. She clutched her chest and gasped. I struck another blow.
“Your daughter-in-law proved incompetent. I did not receive an invitation to the birthday banquet at the General of Zhenyuan’s residence.”
Even respectable noble houses now disdained any association with a woman like me, one said to disgrace her family.
But I no longer represented myself alone. I was a daughter of the Lu family and the mistress of the Xie household.
Before my mother-in-law could recover, a message arrived from my maiden family. My maid repeated it word by careful word.
“Daughters of the Lu family are educated and proper. Even in the imperial harem, they would number among the most respectable ladies. How can the Xie family smear our daughter and use an adopted son to torment her so?”
“Rumor already calls that adopted son Marquis Xie’s illegitimate child. But even setting that aside, where do these slanders against a Lu daughter leave our family’s honor and clean name?”
“If her name cannot be cleared, we will open the ancestral hall and end this marriage with dignity, lest in-laws become enemies.”
Of course, I had deliberately released the rumor. I had also knowingly indulged Xie Chengyi’s slander and quietly fanned it into flame.
The muddier the water and the graver the crisis became, the less room he—and all of them—would have to retreat.
Struck from three directions at once, my mother-in-law rolled her eyes back and fainted.
I sat beside her bed, my face cool.
Had she not indulged Xie Nanfeng’s every reckless whim and feared I might covet the Xie fortune after her death, why would she have resorted to such sleight of hand, planting her own grandson beside me only to kick me aside after he had drained me of everything?
She knew perfectly well that the woman had never wanted Xie Nanfeng alone. She wanted everything in my hands. Yet my mother-in-law let them carve me up piece by piece and wring me dry.
Everyone had to pay for what they had done. She would. So would they.