Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The matchmaker froze.

I rose and walked away.

Mother glared at me, signaling for me to sit back down. When she saw that I did not slow my steps in the slightest, she could only awkwardly try to smooth things over.

“My eldest daughter is a little headstrong, but my younger daughter is very obedient. She is sweet and considerate. What sort of men are the two young masters of the Cen family?”

The matchmaker launched into exaggerated praise of Cen Dalang (Eldest Master Cen) and Erlang (Second Master).

“Dalang is extremely capable. Though still young, he already manages the family business. Several storefronts, so many shopkeepers, all taking orders from him. Truly impressive.”

“Erlang (Second Master) is famously as handsome as Pan An. Countless young ladies admire him, but he insists on finding someone who catches his eye, someone beautiful…”

She was probably trying to make me regret my decision, because she spoke very loudly.

Even after I had walked far away, her voice still reached my ears.

I let out a soft laugh, my thoughts unusually clear.

Everything she said was right, but also not right.

Cen Dalang (Eldest Master Cen), Cen Wenqing, did indeed manage the family assets, and he was shrewd and capable.

But he never enjoyed a single blessing in his life. All his life, he worried over his younger brother and sister-in-law.

Erlang (Second Master) had been pampered since childhood and raised into someone arrogant and willful.

After he married my younger sister, the two of them were truly birds of a feather.

When things were good, they went boating on the lake and rode horses through the green hills, carefree and blissful.

When things were bad, Erlang (Second Master) kicked a folding screen to pieces, and my sister cut up her clothes.

One spent the night in a brothel and did not return until morning; the other dared to squander a thousand taels in a single day.

Later, the shops’ ledgers showed more expenses than income.

Erlang (Second Master) ran off to hide from the mess, while my sister returned to our parents’ home in tears, wailing that she had married the wrong man.

Dalang and I did not dare cry. We did not dare make a scene.

If we cried, no one would pity us. If we made a scene, our parents would only scold us.

An eldest brother is like a father, an eldest sister-in-law like a mother, and our useless kindness bound us tightly in place.

At the hardest time…

Cen Wenqing said with reddened eyes, “If there is another life, don’t marry me again. It was too bitter. I never let you enjoy even one day of happiness.”

I remembered why I had married Cen Wenqing.

Back then, Dalang and Erlang (Second Master) had clearly come together for the marriage meeting.

But out of every ten things the Cen family parents said, nine and a half were about Erlang (Second Master).

“Erlang (Second Master) was clever from childhood…”

“Erlang (Second Master) was filial even as a child…”

“Our Erlang (Second Master) was born so handsome. When he was little, all the neighbors wanted him to sit on their wedding beds for luck. Everyone wanted a handsome boy just like him.”

Erlang (Second Master), Erlang (Second Master).

It was all Erlang (Second Master).

Dalang was right there too.

Would it have killed them to mention his merits?

I looked up and saw Cen Wenqing’s face. His eyes were faintly red, yet he was holding his breath with all his might, as if afraid that if he breathed too hard, his tears would fall and earn him another scolding.

At that moment, my heart ached for him.

I felt that we were very much alike.

Both honest, ordinary children.

Average in looks.

Average in temperament.

Somewhat capable.

But not enough to be favored.

Unloved by our parents, overlooked by friends and relatives.

We could sit alone in a corner for an entire day.

Later, when my parents said in a dismissive tone, “You and Dalang are quite well matched,” I felt their contempt and disdain.

I badly wanted to snap back, “You mean I’m plain and don’t deserve to marry someone handsome?”

Then Cen Wenqing’s face flashed through my mind, and I swallowed those words.

I could not say such a thing.

If Dalang heard it, he would think he was merely someone I had settled for.

He was not.

He was the person I had chosen from the very beginning.

Because I had a younger sister as beautiful as a fairy, I had long since become indifferent to pretty faces.

I had seen the hateful expression she wore when she slandered me.

I had seen the unreasonable, overbearing way she snatched things from me.

And more than anything, I hated how she always won, always so smug and triumphant.

Beauty was good, but character was better.

I wanted to find someone with a very, very good character, so good that any beauty would pale in comparison before him.

With that thought in mind, I married Cen Wenqing.

He truly was good: intelligent, reserved, and righteous.

I was very happy.

What made me even happier was that wealth in this world was not distributed according to looks.

Cen Wenqing and I ran the shops our parents-in-law had given us until they flourished.

We once imagined our future.

We would have two children, a son and a daughter.

Our son would marry a wife. Our daughter would take a husband into the family.

The family property would be split into two shares, and each of them would manage their own.

They could help each other, but we would never make the elder support the younger, or the daughter support the son.

We would never let them suffer what we had suffered.

But Erlang (Second Master) and my sister were like two sticks, churning a beautiful dream into pieces.

Later, Erlang (Second Master) offended some bandits and was kidnapped.

Cen Wenqing took money to ransom him.

The money was gone, and so was he.

Before he died, what he cared about most was still asking me to take good care of his younger brother and my younger sister.

After I agreed, perhaps he truly had no more worries. He stared at my face, tears of regret spilling from his eyes.

“My life was truly not worth it.”

Yes.

It was not worth it at all.

He had never lived for himself.

I pitied him.

Just as I pitied myself.

He closed his eyes. Tears slid from the corners of his eyes to his ears, and all the resentment in his heart poured out.

“Why were Father and Mother so biased?”

“Was I not worthy of marrying a beautiful woman as my wife?”