“Hurry and bring the young miss her medicine!”
The maid Qingdai’s voice was frantic, choked with tears. She looked at the young miss lying unconscious on the bed, her heart twisted into knots.
Qingdai carefully spooned the medicine between the young miss’s lips, her voice thick with sobs. “Young Miss, this servant begs you, please wake up…”
Suddenly, Su Ruoxi’s fingertips twitched. A familiar sob woke her.
Her throat seized, and she coughed up half a mouthful of bitter medicine.
Her voice was hoarse. “Qingdai…?”
Su Ruoxi looked at the face before her, familiar yet strange. It was Qingdai.
In her memory, Qingdai had long since been beaten to death with rods by Grandmother for theft. How could she be here now?
“Young Miss is awake!”
Qingdai rushed forward and pressed a hand to her forehead. “The fever’s broken… it’s really broken!”
Su Ruoxi’s mind was still hazy, but hatred coiled around her heart like an ice pick driven into her marrow. She remembered it clearly. Her own dear cousin and her betrothed had left her to die in a barren, snow-covered wasteland, her limbs slowly freezing until she felt nothing at all.
Yet now she lay in her familiar canopy bed, soft brocade beneath her, warmth slowly seeping through her limbs and settling deep in her chest.
She looked around. The pale pink canopy embroidered with twining lotuses, the sandalwood dressing table, the glass mirror her brother had given her for her birthday last year. The familiar furnishings met her eyes.
She froze for a moment, then her fingernails dug into her palm. The sharp pain told her she was alive.
Su Ruoxi’s voice was hoarse. “I’m… not dead?”
Qingdai nodded, choking back sobs, and lifted the spoon of medicine to her lips. “Young Miss went out for a spring outing and was bitten by a poisonous insect. The fever wouldn’t break. You were unconscious for three whole days. This servant was terrified…”
Poisonous insect? Spring outing?
Wasn’t that a year ago? She had actually been reborn, returned to a year ago!
A year ago, her cousin Su Ruolan from the second branch had spoken of how beautiful the spring scenery was outside the city. She had obtained Grandmother’s permission and led the young masters and misses of Duke An’s household on a spring outing. On the way back, Su Ruoxi had been bitten by a poisonous insect, wracked by a fever that nearly killed her.
Everyone called it an accident. Only she knew it was no coincidence.
In her previous life, after the insect bite, Lu Jinghan had sent a miraculous family remedy that saved her life. She had fallen for him completely and signed the marriage contract.
What she hadn’t known was that he was the one who had secretly released the insect.
Now, given a second life, she finally saw the cruelty hidden behind that gentle smile.
She just hadn’t expected her cousin and Lu Jinghan to have been colluding this early.
This time, she would not be fooled by appearances again.
“Ruoxi, let me see you. Are you feeling better?”
An elderly, kindly voice came from the doorway. Grandmother, supported by a maid, shuffled slowly into the room.
“Grandmother…”
Su Ruoxi started to rise, but Grandmother pressed her back by the shoulder. “Don’t move. You’re still weak.”
Grandmother walked slowly to the bedside and sat down, her expression grave. “You frightened me to death. Ruolan started crying the moment you collapsed and rode back at a gallop to fetch the physician…”
“We consulted every physician in half the city, but nothing helped. It was only thanks to the Marquis’s heir Lu and his family’s miraculous remedy that you were pulled back from death’s door.”
Su Ruoxi lowered her eyes, hiding the chill in them.
Just as she thought. Exactly the same as her previous life.
Lu Jinghan had rehearsed this hero-saving-the-beauty act to perfection.
His “family miracle cure” had arrived at just the right moment and worked just a little too perfectly.
“Family miracle cure”? Last month, when the Lu family’s Old Madam collapsed, they hadn’t even been willing to use it. And now they were giving it to her?
No, they had clearly conspired long ago, Su Ruolan with her poison and Lu Jinghan with his cure, putting on a two-man show to win her hand in marriage.
In her previous life, it was this one debt of gratitude that made her willingly sign the marriage contract, handing over every estate, field, and shop under her mother’s name to the Lu family as her dowry.
Now, reborn and returned to this moment of betrothal, would she really fall for such a clumsy trick again?
Su Ruoxi lowered her gaze and coughed twice, hiding the cold smile on her lips. “Don’t worry, Grandmother. Your granddaughter is fine now.”
She took the medicine bowl from Qingdai and drained the rest in one gulp. The bitterness slid down her throat.
Grandmother took the empty bowl and handed it to a maid beside her.
“The Marquis’s heir Lu truly saved your life. Duke An’s household must repay such a debt.” Grandmother held her hand, her tone full of gratitude toward Lu Jinghan.
Su Ruoxi’s heart went cold, but she nodded obediently. “Grandmother is right.”
She sneered inwardly. In her previous life, she had been slowly bewitched by that medicine, giving everything she had.
“Sister has always been fond of the Marquis’s heir Lu. Why doesn’t Grandmother take this chance and arrange the marriage between Sister and him?”
Su Ruolan’s soft, clear voice rang out at just the right moment, carrying a note of kindness and concern. Her eyes shone with what looked like goodwill, but a hidden edge lurked beneath.
She lowered her head and spoke softly, as if considering Su Ruoxi’s interests. “Sister and the Marquis’s heir Lu are already well matched. Now with the added debt of a life saved, if they were to marry, it would be a beautiful tale.”
Su Ruoxi raised her eyes to the cousin standing obediently beside Grandmother, fury flaring in her gaze. That familiar yet strange face. In her previous life, beneath that gentle, harmless exterior had lurked the deepest scheming and cruelty.
She always wore that frail, pitiable look. In her previous life, Su Ruoxi had been deceived by that mask, only seeing her true face and Lu Jinghan’s before she died.
Now, looking at those shy, affectionate eyes, she saw only a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Su Ruoxi was struggling to contain her rage, but Su Ruolan kept “advising” her. “Sister has already given him sachets and handkerchiefs. Settling the marriage now would be only natural…”
As she spoke, she slowly unrolled a marriage contract she had prepared earlier and held it out to Su Ruoxi, waiting for her signature.
Su Ruoxi shot to her feet, snatched the contract, and tore it to shreds. Then she stepped forward and slapped Su Ruolan hard across the face.
Crack!
The sharp slap rang out. Five crimson finger marks bloomed on Su Ruolan’s fair cheek.
Su Ruolan staggered back, her hair askew, a trickle of blood at the corner of her lips. She stared at Su Ruoxi in disbelief, her eyes reddening, her voice choked. “Sister… why did you hit me?”
Su Ruoxi’s fingertips trembled, but she straightened her back, each word a blade drawn from its sheath. “I hit you because I felt like it. Do I need to check the calendar first?”
She sneered, her gaze icy as it fixed on Su Ruolan’s shocked face. “As a young miss of Duke An’s household, you should know to watch your words and conduct. Instead, you prattle on about your legitimate sister’s marriage. Have you no shame?”
“I’m teaching you manners on Grandmother’s behalf!”
Grandmother Wang’s expression darkened. The sandalwood prayer beads in her hand went still. “Ruoxi, have you lost your mind?! Striking your cousin in front of your elders?!”