Chapter 2

Chapter 2

According to the kitchen maid, Jiang Yuan had suddenly fallen gravely ill.

The Jiang Family feared her sickness would spread to the other young ladies of the household, so they moved her out of Jiang Manor and sent her to an estate in the countryside.

A few days later, no medicine or physician could save her, and she passed away there.

I was stunned. I immediately ordered the kitchen maid not to let a word of it reach Second Sister.

But in the end, Second Sister learned of Jiang Yuan’s death.

In the imperial capital, custom dictated that three days before a woman was married, she could hold a small banquet and invite the close friends of her maiden years.

Second Sister did not know Jiang Yuan was dead. Out of a longing to see her one last time, she sent an invitation to the Jiang Family after all.

By the time I sent a maid to intercept that invitation, it was already too late.

The places where women could exercise any power were, at most, confined beneath that square patch of sky in the rear courtyard.

Once something passed beyond the gates of Li Manor, there was nothing I could do. I could only glare helplessly at the empty air.

Someone from the Jiang Family did come.

Only it was not the already-dead Jiang Yuan, but the eldest young lady of Jiang Manor, Jiang Shu.

Before the banquet began, Jiang Shu deftly avoided the matrons and maids and led Second Sister and me into the rockery in the manor.

I tried to stop Jiang Shu from speaking, but Second Sister, abandoning her usual gentleness, forced me outside the rockery to keep watch.

“Ah Yuan is dead.”

Jiang Shu’s voice was cold.

I did not see Second Sister’s expression, but her disbelieving voice still drifted into my ears.

“How could this be?”

“The Li family was going to marry you into Changping Marquis Manor. Ah Yuan was frantic. She kept sending you invitations, but every one of them disappeared without a reply,” Jiang Shu said, her voice like spider silk after a frost, light and cold. “She thought you refused to see her, so she wrote you a letter. And that letter cost her her life. After your father got hold of it, he gave it to my father and accused Ah Yuan of being a shameless whore, of committing such an unnatural, immoral act. My father flew into a rage. He had Ah Yuan taken to the estate and forced her… forced her into the pond to drown. To the outside world, they only said that Jiang Wu died of a sudden illness, so that the family could preserve its dignity.”

A dull thud came from deep within the rockery.

I rushed in and saw Jiang Shu standing there with a cold expression while Second Sister sat collapsed on the ground, tears streaming down her face.

It felt as though heaven and earth had cracked apart around me.

Jiang Shu did not even glance at me. She only took an exquisitely crafted Gold Sparrow Hairpin from her sleeve and returned it to Second Sister.

I recognized the Gold Sparrow Hairpin.

It had originally been bestowed by His Majesty upon the women of Li Manor. There was a pair of them.

At a spring banquet once, Second Sister had personally pinned one into Jiang Yuan’s hair and said it was a gift for her.

“Li Shao, your affection is more than our Jiang Family can bear.” Seeing that Second Sister would not take it, Jiang Shu bent and placed the Gold Sparrow Hairpin on Second Sister’s skirt, then turned away without the slightest hesitation. “This hairpin is yours. Take it back.”

She and Jiang Yuan had always been inseparable.

Now that she had come to Li Manor, it was less to deliver the news than to vent her fury on Second Sister.

“Was it truly Second Sister’s affection that killed Ah Yuan, or was it this world that drove Ah Yuan to her death?”

Watching Jiang Shu’s retreating back, I did not know where I found the courage to ask.

Jiang Shu stopped.

“Is there a difference?”

“Li Shao, you too are a daughter of a great noble family. Do you not understand that noble households have rules of their own?”

“Since you knew that, how could you dare indulge your feelings until you destroyed Ah Yuan’s life?”

“She was only sixteen this year, yet I do not even know which lonely grave they buried her in…”

With her back to us, Jiang Shu raised her sleeve and wiped the tears from her face.

Then, without looking back, she hurried out of the rockery.

Second Sister sat dazed on the cold ground for a short while, then pushed away my hand, gritted her teeth, and braced herself against the stone wall to stand.

She smoothed her skirt, touched up her rouge, and finished hosting the banquet.

She behaved as if nothing had happened, and that was precisely what made it so abnormal. Uneasy, I wanted to stay with her after the guests had left.

Before I could speak, Second Sister waved her hand and forced out a gentle smile.

“Third Sister, I’m hungry. Make me a plate of snow-coated red bean fritters.”

Over these past days, Second Sister had rarely asked to eat anything of her own accord.

Though I was worried, I could only instruct the maids to keep a close eye on her, then go to the small kitchen myself to work.

I was in the middle of preparing the red bean paste filling when Second Sister’s personal maid burst into the small kitchen, gasping for breath as she cried,

“Second Miss-Second Miss, something’s happened to her!”

Second Sister had swallowed gold.

She had sent the maids away, then taken the Gold Sparrow Hairpin Jiang Yuan had worn in her hair day and night, along with her own matching hairpin, and cut both into tiny pieces with a pair of scissors.

Then, with tea, she swallowed those shards of gold piece by piece.

By the time the maid discovered her, the pure gold had already pierced through Second Sister’s stomach and intestines.

Even if the greatest immortal had descended from heaven, there would have been no way to save her.

I stood numbly before the bed in her embroidered tower, watching scarlet blood spill ceaselessly from Second Sister’s mouth, unable to say a single word.

“Third Sister, I… I have wronged you,” Second Sister apologized, clutching my hand tightly, her breath as faint as a thread. “The marriage contract between Changping Marquis Manor and the Li family can only fall to you now.”

“It was not that I wanted to shirk the marriage. It was only, only…”

Second Sister’s voice grew lower and lower. The hand holding mine slowly loosened.

“Only that when a person has reached this point, there is truly no way to go on living…”

Those hands that had once gently wiped my tears at Eldest Sister’s funeral would never grow warm again.

I remembered Second Sister’s instructions. I opened her inner garment and, before Father and my brothers could receive the news and rush over, dipped a needle in ink and hastily tattooed the two characters of Li Shao over her chest.

Then I calmly put Second Sister’s clothes back in order as if nothing had happened, collapsed beside the bed, and let myself sob until I fainted.

Second Sister.

Given Father and my brothers’ nature, your name most likely will not be left on your gravestone either.

But I will remember you.

Until the moment before I die, I will never forget.