Chapter 2

I was not born to Madam Lu, the legitimate wife and mistress of the household.

My birth mother, Qinghe, was Madam Lu’s dowry maidservant,

and had been a hereditary servant of the Xu family for generations.

When Madam Lu was pregnant, she worried that her husband would be like her own father—

that while his wife carried a child, he might go looking for another woman.

Just then, her husband’s childhood sweetheart, a maternal cousin, arrived in the capital and stayed at the Lu residence.

The young lady was lovely, far more beautiful than the dignified but ordinary-looking Madam Lu.

Madam Lu took Qinghe’s hand and first coaxed her with talk of their old affection.

“Qinghe, we grew up together. In my heart, I’ve always thought of you as my own sister.”

“Test him for me once. If he really is unfaithful, then at least I’d rather it be you than some outsider.”

Qinghe had once suffered a grave illness as a child. Madam Lu had summoned a physician and saved her life.

But Qinghe was already betrothed.

Her intended was a cousin on her mother’s side. Wanting to be closer to her,

he had deliberately come to the capital to trade and saved enough to open a shop, waiting only for the day he could marry her.

Qinghe refused, but Madam Lu pushed her into the study

and then left the residence with her attendants, claiming she was going to pray for the child in her womb.

As it happened, Father had been drinking outside that day and was drugged.

For generations, the Lu family had been a distinguished line of civil officials. No master of the household had ever disgraced the family by taking a maidservant by force.

That was why Father despised Qinghe, believing she had sullied the family’s reputation.

But at the time, he hated his wife even more for plotting to test him.

He deliberately favored Qinghe, showering her with jewelry and fine cloth, all to spite Madam Lu.

Madam Lu soon realized that she could not tolerate a maidservant who had touched her husband.

“He was drugged. Did you not know to run?”

“If you couldn’t push him away, you should have bitten your tongue. Why are you still alive? And why did you tell him I was behind it?”

Qinghe had told the truth only because she feared her parents would be implicated back at the Xu family home.

But before word could even reach them,

that honest couple, who had lived upright lives, took their own lives.

To their dying day, they believed their daughter had betrayed her masters and committed an unforgivable offense.

Madam Lu suffered a hemorrhage during childbirth from her pent-up anguish, and could never conceive again.

Out of guilt, Father reconciled with her.

Qinghe, meanwhile, became the vile maid who had seduced her master and framed his wife in everyone’s eyes.

By custom, she should have been beaten to death.

The Lu family prided itself on being magnanimous and only prepared to sell her off.

Then they discovered she was pregnant.

Madam Lu took up a thick leather switch

and struck Qinghe across the face again and again, until her skin was torn and bloodied.

“I saved your life. Is this how you repay me?!”

If Grandmother had not intervened, Qinghe would never have lived long enough to give birth to me.

“If it’s a boy, record him as the legitimate wife’s child and raise him under her name.”

“If it’s a girl, she’ll be just one more servant in the household.”

So, from the moment I was old enough to understand, I was a little maid in the Lu household.

Lu Yunchu wore silk and ate delicate pastries. If I picked up even one of the pieces she left behind, I was beaten.

Chapter 3

She read and embroidered, her hands kept smooth and soft.

I did all the heavy work; my palms were covered in cracks and calluses.

At night, I still had to keep the lamp burning and stay up late for her,

embroidering Buddhist scriptures for Grandmother under her name.

She could wrap her arms around Father’s neck and act sweet.

When I saw my own father, all I could do was kneel at his feet and call him “Master.”

Later, I heard from the servants’ idle chatter that I, too, carried Father’s blood.

I cried and made a scene, forcing Qinghe to go find him.

For the first time, Mother struck me.

“What if you share the same father? You still don’t have a mother like she does!”

After the slap, she immediately pulled me into her arms and held me tight, trembling as she cried.

“I dragged you down with me.”

“Your mother can give you nothing!”

I wiped away her tears and promised her earnestly,

“Mother, don’t cry. One day I’ll take you away from here. I’ll give you a peaceful life.”

Qinghe dared not contend with the woman who had saved her life, but I kept insisting on competing with Lu Yunchu.

All these years, I had exhausted every bit of my wits fighting for food and clothes for the two of us—

fighting, too, for the right to live like a person.

I wanted to marry into the Duke’s household and take Mother away from the Lu family.

But on the very day I should have been triumphant,

I lost. I lost until there was nothing left.

3.

Qinghe seemed to have poisoned herself.

By the time the servants found her, she was already dead.

Granny Qian, who managed the inner residence, lifted her chin at me.

“Qinghe had been muttering since yesterday that her parents showed their loyalty by taking their own lives all those years ago.”

“Second Miss stole Eldest Miss’s marriage. She couldn’t stop such a vile thing from happening.”

“She probably felt she had no face left to go on living in the Lu household.”

Granny Qian had been Madam Lu’s wet nurse. She had served her for years and had always despised me.