Chapter 2

Life in the capital did not come cheap.

After we swept out the old house and bought some furniture, we discovered, rather awkwardly, that we were so poor we had only one set of bedding left.

Though the examinations were approaching and he ought to have been studying, my brother took work copying books. At night he gave the only bedding to Mother and me, and slept in his clothes.

I suffered from a persistent chill. When we went to bed, Mother always tucked my feet against her chest to warm them.

Our life together was poor, but happy.

The weather was lovely that day. I carefully lifted the coarse cloth covering a wooden bucket. At the sight of the tender yellow-green shoots, I let out a long breath.

At last, the soybeans my brother had spent three days copying books to buy had not gone to waste. All five buckets had sprouted. Once I sold them, he would no longer have to copy books and could prepare for his examinations in peace.

I was so absorbed in my work that I did not notice him come up beside me. By the time I looked up, a hairpin rested in my hair.

I felt its texture. It was not worth a tenth of what I had once given the lowest maids as a tip. Yet the handsome young man standing in the sunlight smiled so openly.

“Youniang, your brother isn’t much use yet. I can’t buy you fine jewelry. But I won’t be useless forever.”

I stared after him as he turned away, the very different circumstances of my past life and this one mingling in my mind.

I had been an orphan in the twenty-first century. To wake suddenly as a princess with both parents and an older brother had naturally filled me with joy. I knew I had taken the place of a villainous supporting character, but I firmly believed that as long as I made no trouble, I could live peacefully to old age.

The original novel had misled me. All I knew was that this princess had been spoiled by the imperial family and therefore must have been deeply loved. It never occurred to me that royalty could be heartless, that advantage came before everything.

In my previous life, the crown prince and I had shared a mother, the empress. But the empress dowager disliked her, and took me away to raise herself. Without the dowager’s permission, the empress was not allowed to see me. Still a baby, I had become a casualty in the struggle between the most powerful mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in the realm.

On the surface, the empress granted me everything I asked. Yet she always held me at a distance, afraid that my allegiance lay with the empress dowager.

The emperor cared only for his sons. He married several of my older sisters far beyond the frontier to secure alliances. Had I not been the empress’s daughter, I doubt I would have escaped that fate.

My crown-prince brother resented me for deepening the rift between the empress and the empress dowager. He never had a kind look for me.

As for Shen Sui’an—never mind. I would not think about him.

I gently touched my hair. Beneath the window, Mother was stitching soles for a pair of shoes. They were my size.

The love of a family I had longed for through two lives was finally mine in this one.