Chapter 3
My face hurt.
My adoptive parents had hit me before, when I did something wrong.
But afterward, Mother would hold me and say gently, “You must learn, child. You can’t do things like that. You’ll only hurt yourself.”
Father would regret it too. He would lie awake at night, sighing, then quietly ask Mother,
“Was I too hasty? I shouldn’t have hit her, should I?”
Hearing that, I had already forgiven him. I would think about what I had done instead.
Most of the slaps I received had not been undeserved.
This one was.
I closed my eyes.
When I opened them, I snatched up a candlestick and struck my brother with it.
It was silver. Blood immediately sprang from his forehead.
I slapped him, hard, again and again.
“You coward! Why don’t you dare hit Xun Yang?”
“If you really think of me as your sister, why won’t you hit the man who picks and chooses between your sisters and walks into your house as if it were his own back garden?”
“Go and hit Xun Yang if you’re so brave! Why can you only bully women?”
“I don’t respect my elders? Do you protect those younger than you? You coward, you spineless, gutless wretch…”
That day, I showed them the fierceness and ruthlessness of a country girl.
The maids and servants held me fast, afraid I would beat my brother to death.
Gu Zhiyao fell silent and shrank back in fear.
My parents looked as though they had never seen me before.
Mother nearly fainted. She kept ordering them to take me away and lock me up.
Father was furious. He blamed Mother for bringing me home and saddling them with a curse.
For the first time in my life, I learned that the Gu household had a woodshed where they confined servants who misbehaved. I was the first member of the family ever locked inside.
They did not stint my food. They simply kept me there.
On the second night, my maid Lüzhu crept in and woke me, frantic.
“Second Miss, wake up.”
“His Lordship and Her Ladyship mean to marry you off.”
“They’ve chosen someone already. He’s coming to meet you tomorrow.”
“He’s a classmate of the young master’s. His family is very poor, they say.”
“Miss, you must think of something.”
Once Lüzhu was sure I had heard, she hurried away.
I did not sleep that night. My heart seemed to tumble in a pan of boiling oil.
They had promised to let me choose my own marriage. In the end, they broke their word.
Why?
One moment I hated them for treating me this way.
The next I wanted to cry. I wanted to go home. I wanted my adoptive parents.
They were my real parents. They would never have locked me in a woodshed. They would never have stayed away. They could not have borne it.
Without a home, a person is like rootless duckweed, drifting, never knowing when a fish might swallow it, when the sun might scorch it, or when it might simply wither away.
Worse still, no other frond knows what troubles it. Duckweed stretches in every direction, yet not one will pause and truly listen.
They brush past each other, part, and never travel together.
I only wanted a home.
A home where someone would listen to me.
I cried quietly, more miserable than on the day I learned I should have been a nobleman’s daughter.
Was I really wrong?
Was I truly a despicable girl who had stolen her sister’s betrothed?
No one answered.
The night wind was lonely. Dry grass rustled. Only the steady drip of my tears sounded clear.