Chapter 2
Father was left speechless by my sister’s retort. Then he began to stammer.
“You… How dare you! I am your father!
“Your mother may be dead, but that doesn’t put you in charge of this household!”
“How dare you!” my sister snapped. “With Mother gone, I am her eldest legitimate daughter. Naturally, I will manage this household’s affairs.
“My mother was Princess Duanyang, His Majesty’s own first cousin. You dare deny her peace in death?
“Do you think I won’t submit a petition to His Majesty charging you with immoral conduct and contempt for the imperial family?”
She wasted no more breath on them. “Servants! Throw this woman of dubious origins out!
“If the count doesn’t wish to stay, throw him out too!”
Father had lived off his wife for over a decade. He had been sheltered far too well.
He fancied himself proud and above worldly concerns, oppressed by a wife who wielded her princess’s rank against him. All these years he had lived in luxury and spent money like water, but he wasn’t happy.
Now that his wife was dead, his own daughter refused to let him bring his first love and illegitimate child home.
An outrage! The height of unfilial behavior!
And so this infant of four hundred-odd months, not yet forty years old, sat down outside the gate and cried over his grievances.
“Shen Aoxue, you unfilial child!
“You defy every bond of family! How dare you treat your own father this way!
“Zhi’er’s mother and I grew up together. If your mother hadn’t forced me to marry her, Zhi’er would be my legitimate daughter, and her mother my lawful wife!
“I’ve felt guilty toward them all these years. At last your mother passed away, and I wanted to bring them home and make it up to them. Yet you refuse!
“You are my daughter! I am your father! What gives you the right to refuse?
“Do you know how much those two have suffered all these years?”
I couldn’t say how much Jiang Youwei and Shen Yunzhi had suffered, but Father certainly felt hard done by.
The illustrious Count Zhongyong sat crying outside his own gate, dignity forgotten, while passersby gathered to stare and point.
If this wasn’t “true love,” I didn’t know what was.
“Isn’t that Shen Zhizhang, Count Zhongyong? Why has he been thrown out?”
“Serves him right! What man rushes his mistress’s illegitimate daughter into the house while his lawful wife’s death is still being mourned?”
“The eldest young lady lost her temper and threw both the count and the girl out.”
“Ha! Quite a temper. What family will dare marry her now?”
“You needn’t worry about that. Miss Shen is about to be betrothed to the crown prince. She’s the future crown princess!”
Now there was a spectator who knew the gossip.
That scheming little innocent, Shen Yunzhi, sat crumpled beside Father, her cheek badly swollen and her eyes full of envy and resentment.
When she caught me looking, she immediately became a fragile, guileless little flower again and lowered her head in wounded misery.
I murmured in my sister’s ear, “Sister, if Father’s words reach the palace, won’t Her Majesty and the crown prince misunderstand?”
Crown Prince Nangong Ling was this novel’s male lead.
In the previous-life plot, he had loved Shen Aoxue deeply. But after she was tricked into losing her chastity to Prince An, he could only watch the woman he loved marry his younger brother. He was forced to marry Shen Yunzhi instead.
Yet in the year he was married to Shen Yunzhi, he never laid a finger on her.
Shen Yunzhi, on the other hand, kept carrying on with Nangong Xun behind his back.
In the end, she even joined Nangong Xun in using Shen Aoxue and her unborn child as leverage to bring about Nangong Ling’s death.
When I read the book, those star-crossed lovers were the couple I rooted for.
I knew they would end up together in this life, but I remembered that the crown prince’s mother, the empress, wasn’t very fond of my sister.
As a fan of their romance, I felt obliged to give her a little warning.
My sister glanced at me and chuckled. “Ever since you fell into the water and were ill for a while, you seem to have grown much cleverer.”
My gleeful, here-for-the-drama expression froze. I forced an awkward little smile.
“I only worry about you, Sister. If you don’t like it, I won’t speak out of turn again…”
To my surprise, she only smiled and stroked my head. “Being cleverer is a good thing.”
Oh! She was so sweet. I wanted to cuddle up to her!
Still… had she noticed there was someone new inside this body?