Chapter 1

My stepmother was a great philanthropist, praised throughout the capital. She treated me even better than her own daughter.

After my hairpin ceremony, she arranged a splendid marriage for me.

Jealous, my younger sister quarreled with me at a banquet.

Stepmother scolded her in front of everyone, then ladled out a bowl of soup to comfort me herself.

As I drank, my eyes grew hot with tears. At last, I thought, all my years of filial devotion had been rewarded.

But when I woke from my stupor, the stepmother who supposedly loved me to the marrow lay disheveled in my betrothed’s bed.

The birthday banquet for the old dowager at the Duke of Ding’s residence ended in scandal.

A crowd of guests caught my betrothed, Lu Chengze, with my stepmother, Madam Liu, in a side room of an adjoining courtyard.

My sister, Jiang Lingrou, stood at the door, pointing at the two entwined figures on the bed.

“Why is my mother in there? The person who should have been here was—”

She looked up and saw me emerging from behind the crowd. The rest of the sentence stuck in her throat.

Ignoring her, I rushed into the room and slapped Lu Chengze.

“You’re betrothed to me, yet you dare violate my mother!”

Before anyone could establish what had happened, the Duchess of Ding flew into a rage.

She stepped in front of her son and accused me of slandering him.

“My son is young and handsome. Why would he look twice at a woman nearing forty?”

I said I had proof and tugged at the outer robe Madam Liu had just thrown over herself.

Suspicious red marks covered her neck and shoulders.

“Look how badly my mother is hurt! What else could have happened, if the young lord didn’t force her?”

The married ladies present knew perfectly well what such marks meant.

But I was an unmarried girl. They could hardly explain it to me outright, and could only watch as I laid all the blame on Lu Chengze.

Madam Liu hurried over to snatch back her robe.

“Lingyi, stop talking.”

I took her hand reassuringly.

“Don’t worry, Mother. I’ll get justice for you. I won’t let anyone damage your reputation.”

The duchess laughed in fury.

“She climbed into your father’s bed while your own mother was pregnant, then married him the moment the seven sevens of mourning were over. What reputation does she deserve?”

Every eye in the room turned toward Madam Liu.

Her face went from livid to white. Finally, she closed her eyes and crumpled to the floor.

My birth mother died just after giving birth to me.

Madam Liu was her younger half sister, born to a concubine. She said her brother-in-law had enough hardship caring for a swaddled infant on his own. Once the forty-nine days of mourning were over, she married into the Jiang household as his second wife.

Seven months later, she gave birth to Lingrou.

She really did treat me very well.

I was frail as a child, falling feverish every few days. She often sat up all night by my bed, feeding me medicine herself.

Whenever I woke from a high fever, the first thing I saw was her bloodshot, sleepless eyes.

Perhaps her loving care moved me. My hold on life grew firmer and firmer, and somehow I reached sixteen in one piece.

Afraid that studying would exhaust me, she let me read only the Classic of Filial Piety and Lessons for Women after I had learned my first characters.

A woman who knew how to obey, she said, would have a good life.

Worried that I was not beautiful enough, she specially hired teachers to instruct me in dancing, singing, and music, and in pleasing my future husband.

Even before my hairpin ceremony, she had set her sights on Father’s superior.

The man was over forty and had just lost his third wife.

Madam Liu said a man who had married before would know how to care for a wife. An older man would be all the more considerate.

I did not like him.

None of his three wives had lasted longer than three years. He did not look like a considerate husband to me.

But I had always been dutiful. I did not want to disappoint Stepmother.

Fortunately, at a banquet, a water-sleeve dance of mine caught the eye of Lu Chengze, the Duke of Ding’s heir.

Not long after my hairpin ceremony, the duke’s household came to propose.

Madam Liu smiled and said I was fortunate to marry so far above myself.

Lingrou’s days were much harder.

She was healthy and strong. Every morning before dawn, she had to begin her studies. She also had to learn bookkeeping and household management from the stewards.

Her reputation was good. Most families seeking a match with her were respectable scholarly households with upright traditions.

But none could rival the wealth and grandeur of a duke’s residence.

That was why, when someone praised my betrothal at the birthday banquet, she grew angry and picked a quarrel with me.

Madam Liu defended me before everyone and served me soup herself.

How could such a loving stepmother be the disgraceful woman the duchess described?

Naturally, I did not believe a word of it.

Everyone in our household knew I was stupid.

Until I was ten, I could not even memorize all of Lessons for Women. I would listen to a teacher for half a day and forget everything the moment I turned away.

Madam Liu always covered for me before Father.

“Lingyi lost her mother at birth, and she’s always been frail. If she can’t learn, don’t force her.”

So Father seldom asked about my studies.

But if Lingrou failed to write a single essay, Madam Liu made her stand in the study until late at night.

Once, feeling sorry for my sister, I secretly brought her some cakes.

She flung them at my feet and cried that Madam Liu gave me all the good things and left her all the hard work.

I did not understand then.

I got flowered dresses, nourishing soup, and teachers of song and dance. She got account books, classics, histories, and the skills to run a household. It seemed a perfectly fair division.

Only when I was thirteen did I find a piece of root among my medicine dregs that should not have been there.

In small amounts, it caused drowsiness and dulled the memory. Taken over time, it damaged the body.

My nurse had taught me about it when I was little.

She told me to pretend I knew nothing. I must not alert anyone.

From that day on, I took only a few sips of each bowl of soup, then poured the rest into the flowerpot beneath my window whenever no one was looking.

Six months later, the evergreen orchid in that pot withered and died. My own spirits improved by the day.

I still could not memorize my lessons. I still spoke slowly in company.

Madam Liu had spent so many years teaching me obedience. Of course I had to let her see the daughter who pleased her most.

Father, Vice Minister Jiang, heard about the scandal from the front courtyard. With a dark expression, he took us home.

It was the twelfth month. He had a basin of cold water brought and thrown over the unconscious Madam Liu.

She knelt on the freezing tiles, shivering all over.

“My lord, I was framed. You must believe me.”

Lingrou knelt to plead for her too, but turned the accusation on me.

“Father, Mother is innocent. This disaster is all Elder Sister’s fault!”

I admitted my wrongdoing at once.

“She’s right. If I hadn’t become betrothed to the young lord, Mother would never have been violated.

“I’ve thought it over. I want to break off the engagement.”

Lingrou’s head shot up.

“No!

“You must have earned a lifetime of blessings over several lives to marry him. What right do you have to refuse?”

I looked at her in puzzlement.

“He violated our mother. That makes him our family’s enemy. Why are you defending him?”

She lost control and shoved me.

“Stop pretending! I was the one who helped you into that room at the banquet. Why was Mother lying there afterward?”

I looked as though understanding had only just dawned.

At the banquet, she had mocked me because the guests praised my match. Madam Liu made her apologize, then served me a bowl of soup to comfort me.

I grew dizzy after drinking it. Lingrou, unusually solicitous, personally helped me to a side courtyard to rest.

When I woke, she was nowhere to be seen.

I covered my mouth and began to cry.

“So you meant to hurt me from the start.

“When you failed, you dragged Mother into it instead. Lingrou, how could you be so cruel?”

She tried to argue, but Father sternly cut her off.

From our exchange, he pieced together a version of the truth that he could believe: his younger daughter had drugged her elder sister to ruin her chastity, only to harm her own mother through an unlucky turn of events.

He ordered Lingrou locked in her courtyard. She was not to leave without permission.

Then he flung a divorce letter before Madam Liu.

“You failed to teach your daughter and betrayed your marriage. Get out of the Jiang household today.”

She wept with tears and mucus streaming down her face. Her birth family had long since cut her off, she said. If he divorced her, she would have nowhere to go.

I knelt before Father and pleaded sincerely on her behalf.

“Mother is right. If you’re truly angry, why not demote her from wife to household servant? At least she can stay.”

Madam Liu shook her head in horror.

“I won’t!”

Father looked at her coldly.

“Then take the divorce letter and leave.”

She fell silent at once.

After he swept away, I went to help her up myself.

She recoiled and flung my hand aside as though she had touched something filthy.

I dabbed my eyes, regretting that a rift had finally opened between mother and daughter.

Really, it was all Lingrou’s fault.

She had taken me, apparently unconscious, into a side room where she had already arranged for a strange man to wait.

My sister so seldom thought of me. How could I disappoint her?

Unfortunately, the man was short-lived. When he lunged at me, he happened to run into the hairpin I had drawn. He died soon afterward.

Blood at a birthday banquet was unlucky. It took a great deal of effort to drag him to an abandoned well.

In the corridor, I found Madam Liu unconscious with stomach pain.

Her digestion had been troubling her for a long time. That morning, I had put a newly acquired folk remedy in her tea. Apparently, I had been a little heavy-handed.

Lingrou had arranged a man for me. As her elder sister, naturally I should show Madam Liu the same consideration.

The duke was busy entertaining guests and could not spare the time. I had to ask his future son-in-law, Lu Chengze, for help instead.

It ought to have been a lovely display of maternal kindness and filial devotion. Then Lingrou screamed and let everyone know.

But that was all right.

As long as I remained dutiful, sooner or later I could win Madam Liu back.

In fact, the birthday banquet had been livelier than I had let on.

The moment the soup touched my tongue, I recognized the familiar bitterness.

I obligingly slumped over the table and said I felt dizzy.

Lingrou had been waiting for this. She immediately summoned a maid to help me to the side courtyard.

Once we were inside, the maid withdrew. A man reeking of wine rushed at me from behind a screen.

Perhaps he thought a drugged young lady would have no strength to resist. He had not even shut the door properly.

I smashed the wine jug on the table against him, drew my gold hairpin, and held it to his throat.

He kept coming. The point sank straight in.

I did not move the body immediately.

First, I wiped away the blood by the door. Then I wrapped him in a bed curtain and dragged him out of the rear window to the abandoned well.

The banquet was crowded, with kitchen staff constantly carrying supplies in and out. No one in the rear courtyard paid attention to an old rolled-up bed curtain.

On my way back, I found Madam Liu unconscious beside the privy.

That morning, I had added a laxative to her tea, intending only to make her miss the excitement at the banquet.

Who knew she would insist on attending? After the stomach pain began, she had drunk half the bowl of soup I had left behind and lost consciousness.

I helped her into an empty side room, then intercepted the drunken Lu Chengze in the corridor.

“Young Lord Lu, my mother is unwell in that room. She always praises your manners as a future son-in-law. Could you look after her for me a little while?”

His lecherous nature had not changed. On hearing that an unconscious woman was alone in the room, he went straight in without even asking who she was.

I shut the door firmly and hung the scented sachet Lingrou had deliberately tucked into my sleeve on the door ring.