Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Once we had everything arranged, we prepared to make a run for it.

Outside the door, Marquis’s Lady arrived with her maids and blocked us inside the room.

She looked at me and smiled. “What is this? You heard me say a few words about making this girl my son’s fiancée, and you feel wronged?”

My parents stepped forward, shielding me behind them.

My mother smiled humbly. “My lady, what are you saying? It’s only that my girl was born simple-minded and knows nothing of the ways of the world. How would she dare reach so far above her station?”

My father nodded with his usual honest, simple look. “That’s right, that’s right.”

My younger brother, with my older sister on his back, also moved to block me from view.

Then Shen Yuan’an barged in from outside.

In a fluster, he cried, “Oh no! I only just found out that if you wander around with wet hair, you’ll catch a chill and run a fever! If I end up raising you to death, not only will that shrew Qi Ying laugh at me, I’ll become the laughingstock of the entire city!”

Shen Yuan’an held a piece of cotton cloth in his hand and, entirely of his own accord, began drying my hair.

He wiped and wiped, then seemed to finally notice the room full of people and jumped in fright.

Shen Yuan’an said, as dramatic as ever, “When did all of you start standing there? Not one of you said a word. You look like a bunch of dummies.”

I saw Marquis’s Lady press a hand to her forehead again, her expression pained.

Shen Yuan’an slung an arm around my shoulders and exclaimed, “I understand now! Mother! You’re trying to act like those storybooks and beat apart a pair of mandarin ducks! Tell me, how much silver did you give her family to force her to leave me? Let me tell you all, I’ve really made up my mind. I have to keep her and raise her, and she’ll marry me in the future.”

Then he lowered his head to look at me and whispered, “Short little melon, don’t worry. I have money. I can afford to keep you. And if worst comes to worst, I’ll take you to Grandmother’s house to sponge off her. Even if the two of us have to mooch our way through the capital, we won’t starve. Right now, everyone in the capital knows I raised myself a fiancée, so you can’t run off and let other people laugh at me.”

Marquis’s Lady watched Shen Yuan’an put on this whole performance. Weakly, she braced herself against the doorframe, looked at me, and gave an apologetic smile.

It was as if she were saying, “Miss, I am the one who raised an idiot born simple-minded and ignorant of the world.”

Marquis’s Lady waved her hand and said resignedly, “Miss, you and your family may go. There’s no need to indulge his nonsense.”

But Shen Yuan’an had made up his mind to keep me. He cried, threw a tantrum, and all but threatened to hang himself, refusing to let me leave.

Marquis’s Lady grabbed a feather duster and chased him all over the courtyard, beating him.

Marquis ran after them too-but he was running beside Marquis’s Lady, fanning her!

The sight stunned my entire family.

My mother muttered, “Good heavens above, this whole family looks like their heads don’t work right.”

In the end, Shen Yuan’an took several solid blows.

He looked at me, tears falling, and said, “Father, Mother, don’t you think she looks a lot like Zhaozhao?”

At those words, Marquis’s Lady’s hand trembled, and the feather duster fell to the ground.

Marquis looked at me as well.

In private, Marquis’s Lady appealed to me with the heart of a loving mother.

She would give me five taels of silver every month if I stayed at the marquis’s estate and let Shen Yuan’an “raise” me.

It turned out that Shen Yuan’an once had a younger sister, a child as delicately pretty as if carved from jade, unbearably adorable.

By the time she was ten, she was even more beloved by everyone who met her, and anyone could tell she would grow into a beauty.

Unfortunately, she had died young.

The whole family had entered the palace happily to attend a banquet. When they returned, they were steeped in grief.

Shen Yuan’an had held his little sister’s cold body and had blamed himself ever since for failing to take good care of her.

At this point, Marquis’s Lady lifted a hand and wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes.

She sighed and said apologetically, “Miss, just think of it as finding yourself a job in our household. Once that foolish son’s excitement passes, I’ll give you another fifty taels of silver. You can leave then. How does that sound?”

Of course it sounded wonderful!

I could not speak, and my health was poor.

My parents were always worried about me and favored me especially.

My older sister and younger brother, whenever they had anything good to eat or fun to play with, always gave it to me first.

If I had a way to earn money, their lives would be a little easier.

After the matter was settled, my family all looked at me in silence.

My mother was the first to speak.

She stroked my hair and said with heartache, “Zhuzhu, I don’t know what you went through in that life you dreamed of. But your father and I, as well as your older sister and younger brother, will always be your family, whether you are sick or healthy, rich or poor. You don’t need to carry everything on your own shoulders.”

The truth was, my mother understood in her heart that I was not the original Zhuzhu.

The original Zhuzhu had been simple-minded until the age of three, when someone tricked her and pushed her into a river.

When she woke again, she was me.

That night, my mother held me and wept bitterly.

Then she took the whole family to the riverside to burn paper offerings and incense for the departed Zhuzhu.

I secretly followed them.

I heard my mother say, “From now on, that child is also a member of our family.”

At the time, I thought scornfully to myself:

When they needed to spend money to treat my illness, they would be the first to abandon me.

When they discovered I could not speak, they would surely wish they could cast me away at once.

Of course, they might also find some wealthy household and sell me off as a maidservant.

After all, to them, I was useless.

But none of that happened.

Even though I fell ill every few days, even though I could not speak, my whole family treated me just as they always had.

Mother went to the temple to pray to the gods.

Father took on work to buy my medicine.

My older sister sewed cloth dolls to cheer me up.

My younger brother caught pheasants to nourish my body.

To protect all this love, I could do many things.

When my parents saw that I had made up my mind to stay, they no longer tried to persuade me.

Before they left, my mother whispered, “Zhuzhu, we’ll do as you said out there. While you’re with the Shen Family, take good care of yourself.”

I saw them off, watching their backs melt into the crowds of the capital.

I knew that some things could only succeed. Failure was not an option.

I had to kill one person.

And I had to save one person.