Chapter One: Returning After a Year of Bearing the Blame

By the first hint of spring chill, Jiang Lingyao had limped her way home, only to find the Marquis’s residence ablaze with celebration.

She stood outside the gate and looked at Song Lian’er, the darling of all eyes, and then could not help glancing down at her own ragged clothes, worn like a beggar’s. She froze where she stood.

A knife-like pain shot through her knee. She licked her lips, and the taste of blood suddenly spread through her mouth.

Who still remembered that the Duke of Zhen’s household had once had a Sixth Miss, cherished by all, so treasured that even her childhood pet name had been Pearl?

But ever since the household had taken in Song Lian’er, the daughter of the benefactor who had saved their lives, everything had turned upside down.

Her parents, once full of praise for her thoughtfulness, began to complain that she was spoiled and willful.

Her brothers, once devoted to her, now had only one line on their lips, repeated again and again: Pearl, this is what you owe Lian’er.

So they indulged Song Lian’er in taking everything from her, and even a year ago made her take the blame for Song Lian’er’s smashing of the Empress Dowager’s Buddha statue.

During that year at Green Mountain Temple, she suffered endless torment, and the soft hands she had once known grew thick with calluses.

At last she understood: this return was only to bid farewell to her grandmother, the woman who had raised her in her lap, and then to flee far away, never to set foot in the capital again in this lifetime.

Her grandmother was frail and had left the capital the previous year to recuperate. Jiang Lingyao dared not imagine what blow it would be to her if news of her disappearance reached her.

Pulling herself back to the present, she heard the maids inside the gate excitedly discussing the liveliness of the day. Her lips curved faintly, and she felt oddly unreal.

Just as she stepped through the gate, several chatting maids caught sight of her and immediately wrinkled their noses in disgust.

“Go away, go away. Today is a great day for the household. What are you doing here, you filthy beggar? Don’t you know you’re bad luck?”

Jiang Lingyao lifted her eyes. The maids stared blankly, and only after a long moment did they match this ragged, beggar-thin girl with their Sixth Miss. They cried out in shock, all at once, “Sixth Miss!”

Jiang Xiuyuan, who was some distance away, heard the commotion and turned in displeasure. The moment he saw her, he gasped.

“Jiang Lingyao?”

He strode over, and his first words were not concern but a frown and a sharp rebuke. “Aren’t you supposed to be at Green Mountain Temple? How dare you sneak back! Today is Lian’er’s birthday. Must you come back and cause trouble again?”

Jiang Lingyao looked at him in silence, her nose burning. She opened her mouth, but before she could speak she retched reflexively, and a twisting pain tore through her belly.

She could not help thinking that her elder brother had perhaps forgotten that today was also her birthday.

He had once been the brother who loved her most, the one who had willingly delayed the metropolitan exam to stay by her side when she was ill. And yet he had also been the one to pour scalding medicinal soup over her hand for Song Lian’er, leaving a scar on her wrist that would never fade in this life.

She suppressed the ache in her chest and said, “It was a full year yesterday. I waited all day for you, but no one came. The monks drove me out.”

Jiang Xiuyuan froze. A flicker of discomfort passed over his face.

Yesterday he had been busy hosting Song Lian’er’s coming-of-age banquet and had indeed forgotten Jiang Lingyao entirely.

But then he recovered, and when his gaze fell upon her, his brows knotted sharply, his heart giving a sudden jolt.

After a year apart, Jiang Lingyao’s face was thin and pale, her eyes no longer lively, only a pool of stagnant dead water.

Seeing her shivering in the wind, Jiang Xiuyuan hurriedly took off his cloak and reached to drape it over her shoulders.

Jiang Lingyao, however, retreated in panic, nearly falling to the ground as her body trembled uncontrollably.

She had been reminded of the nightmare at the temple.

She had once been the most envied young lady in the capital. After falling from grace in a single day, of course there were those who delighted in kicking her when she was down. Whenever new clothes were sent to her, they would bribe the elderly woman at the temple to snatch them away.

Jiang Lingyao resisted, but they pinned her down and drove needle after needle into her body with long, finger-length pins.

As they stabbed her, they forced her to say, “I am a sinner. I am not worthy of such fine clothes.”

After that, she no longer dared wear new clothes.

“Pearl!” Jiang Xiuyuan saw that something was wrong and called out in a deep voice, pulling her thoughts back. He frowned at her reddened eyes. “What are you hiding from? Do you resent me now?”

“But Lian’er has done you a kindness!”

Yes, Song Lian’er had done her a kindness.

Jiang Lingyao could not help but feel dazed. If she did not leave the household, then for the rest of her life she would likely have to hear that sentence every day.

As he spoke, Jiang Xiuyuan looked her up and down again, his expression darkening.

He had sent her so many gold and silver gifts and so many clothes, and yet today she dressed herself in such a miserable state, insisting on standing at the mansion gate on the day of Lian’er’s great joy to draw everyone’s eyes. She had truly been spoiled by him into becoming so deeply scheming!

Thinking this, he immediately said coldly, “Someone, take Jiang Lingyao away and change her clothes. Today is Lian’er’s day. You will change and come congratulate her!”

On hearing this, Jiang Lingyao stepped back again, distancing herself from him, and said calmly, “I’ll go back on my own.”

The cold wind blew over her, and at once her knees felt as though countless needles were being driven into them. For the past year, she had to kneel before the Buddha every day upon waking, and the swelling in her knees had never subsided; she could only walk with a limp.

Seeing her calm expression, Jiang Xiuyuan felt an inexplicable surge of anger and could not help snapping, “What are you pretending to be pitiful for? During the year you were at Green Mountain Temple, how many clothes did I have the maids send you? And today you insist on dressing like this. You’re deliberately trying to oppose us!”

Clothes had been sent, but had she ever received them?

To her, those clothes were nothing but knives that would be driven into her body at regular intervals. No matter how she hid, she would still be bullied mercilessly whenever the clothes arrived.

Jiang Lingyao had no mind to argue. She turned to leave, only to be grabbed from both sides by two maids.

“Sixth Miss, the Young Master has ordered us to take you to change clothes.”

She could not break free. The chill in her body had turned her stiff, and she could only yield and follow them away.

Jiang Xiuyuan watched her reed-thin back and felt a sudden tremor in his heart. Clenching his fist, he drew a deep breath, as though that alone could suppress the irritation within him.

When the old clothes were removed, Jiang Lingyao was covered in scars. Her lower abdomen was mottled with bruises, her chest so thin that bone showed through, and black pinpricks marked the soft flesh of her arms.

Even the maids who had always kept cold faces were startled, crying out in shock. Their gazes toward her softened with a trace of pity.

At any rate, she was still a legitimate young miss of the household. How could she be worse off than servants like them, as though she had just escaped from some dark prison?

Jiang Lingyao faced their complicated looks with a numb expression. Hot water scraped over her scar-ridden body, making her eyes redden with pain. By the time she was utterly spent, she was nearly dragged back to the banquet.

She had no strength left to resist. After walking for a day and a night without food or water, with her old injuries upon her, even her vision was going black.

Since Jiang Lingyao had first appeared, Jiang Xiuyuan had kept his brows tightly knit.

When the maids brought her back, he let out a cold laugh and looked at her with frosty eyes. “That’s more like it. Jiang Lingyao, you are a young lady of the household, not a beggar from the street.”

Jiang Lingyao merely lowered her head and said nothing, her dead silence stirring faintly within her heart.

“Jiang Lingyao!”

Enraged by her indifferent demeanor, Jiang Xiuyuan’s voice turned sharp. “What are you still sulking about?”

“Brother, who are you speaking to?”

Song Lian’er walked over quickly, her tone light and bright.

Hearing that familiar voice, Jiang Lingyao, who was following behind the maids, instinctively turned her head. Yet her gaze was fixed by the hairpin in Song Lian’er’s hair.

The jeweled blue-lotus gilt hairpin trembling among Song Lian’er’s locks was the coming-of-age gift her grandmother, dragging along her sick body, had personally prepared for her!

Jiang Lingyao heard a sharp note ring in her mind, and the string that had been held taut within her suddenly snapped.