On a stifling afternoon, Xie Fuling, covered in mud, was clutching a wild duck as she slipped through the gate, only to be caught red-handed by the steward.
“Fourth Miss, the master and madam have been waiting in the study for a long while. Please go there at once.”
The ingratiating smile froze on Xie Fuling’s face. Normally the steward would scold her a good deal, but today he was respectful and deferential instead, that meant something had happened.
The moment she stepped into the study, Xie Fuling felt a low, oppressive air in the room. “Fuling greets Father and Mother.”
“Xie Fuling, look at the state you’re in, filthy as a mud monkey. How does that look for a Marquis’ daughter?” Xie Fuling’s father, Xie Huaigu, looked his dirty daughter up and down, his temples throbbing. “Can’t you just stay properly at home, practice calligraphy, paint?”
“Yesterday Mother said her appetite was poor, so I…”
“I called you here because there’s a serious matter to discuss.” Xie Huaigu did not listen to his daughter’s explanation. “Yesterday I went to the government office.”
Xie Fuling’s heart lurched. Could it be that the fight with Squire Li’s son had been reported to the authorities?
“Seventeen years ago, while Madam was praying at the temple, she suddenly went into labor. At the same time, a farm woman who had taken shelter from the rain also went into labor. The two of them were placed in the same side room. Because it happened so suddenly, there weren’t enough hands, and in the chaos, the two babies were mixed up.”
Xie Huaigu’s words exploded in Xie Fuling’s ears like a clap of thunder.
Blood rushed backward through her whole body, and all the memories buried in her mind surfaced at once.
The servants’ private gossip, that she hadn’t inherited her parents’ fine looks, that no matter how hard she tried she could never learn the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting…
Xie Fuling slowly raised her head to look at her father’s face, full of anger, and her mother, silent. A truth was slowly piecing itself together in her mind.
“We treated you as a pearl in our palm, yet Leyi suffered endlessly in that family, and was even sold as a maidservant by her sister-in-law for ten taels of silver. It’s precisely because of that we were fortunate enough to find her again.”
Xie Huaigu was sunk in regret over the mix-up all those years ago. “Someone your age, and she’s already half a head shorter than you, so thin a gust of wind could blow her over, and she’s sick besides, coughing until her face turns red, unable to get a few words out without running out of breath.”
Xie Fuling stood there in a daze. She was no longer as she once was, before, for every sentence her father said, she’d have talked back with ten.
“You’re innocent in this matter too, but I simply can’t swallow this anger!” Xie Huaigu slammed his fist on the table with a bang, then in the next moment his tone softened again. “But in the end, you’re the daughter we raised. Once Leyi comes back and is entered into the family register, I’ll announce publicly that you are the adopted daughter of the Xie household.”
“That Leyi is your… real daughter?” Coming back to her senses, Xie Fuling realized she was merely the lucky one who had occupied the position of the Marquis’ daughter, not her parents’ true child.
No wonder her father had been going out so often this past half month, and her mother had been so restless too.
“We raised you for seventeen years, we still have feelings for you. Once Leyi is back and has recovered her health, the two of you can be a pair of good sisters supporting each other.” As far as Xie Huaigu was concerned, one more daughter meant one more path forward in the future. “But once Leyi is back, you’ll stay by her side, take care of her, protect her. You must put her first in everything, and never let her suffer even the slightest harm!”
Every word from her father struck Xie Fuling’s heart hard, each one harder than the last. It took her a long while to find her voice again. “Father, this… you want me to be her servant girl?”
Xie Huaigu’s brow furrowed, his displeased gaze falling on Xie Fuling. “We raised you for seventeen years, shouldn’t you repay us?”
“Re—repay?”
Xie Fuling was stunned for a moment, her heart chilled to the bone. Seventeen years of family affection, and it had become a debt to be repaid?
She looked at her father’s face, already gone cold, and despite her grief she found herself laughing out loud.
“I should indeed repay you for raising me!” Xie Fuling spoke word by word, slow and clear. “The position of the Marquis’ daughter, the seventeen years of fine clothes and good food, I return it all to its rightful owner. Please also let me return to my true place. From now on, we’re even.”
“Xie Fuling, how dare you!” Xie Huaigu slapped the table and stood, furious beyond restraint. “You dare to bargain with me?!”
“Because I’m unwilling to live under someone else’s roof, and even less willing to occupy a place that isn’t mine!” Xie Fuling met her father’s gaze without yielding an inch.
The atmosphere in the room dropped to freezing in an instant.
Until Madam Xie asked softly, “Fuling, are you certain you want to live a life of cold and hunger, at the mercy of others?”
“Yes.”
Xie Fuling was stunned for a moment before nodding, stubborn in her reply.
“Very well.” Madam Xie sighed softly and looked at her husband. “My lord, let her go. If she stays, it will only leave Leyi and me unable to eat or sleep in peace.”
Xie Fuling’s body swayed. Her mother’s soft words pierced her like ten thousand arrows through the heart.
But she was unwilling to waste any more words. She knelt and kowtowed. “Thank you for raising me for seventeen years. The wild duck I caught is for Madam’s appetite, the dried herbs can ease the Marquis’ knee pain. Take care of yourselves, both of you. Fuling is leaving.”
With that, she rose quickly and walked out of the study without looking back.
As she left the gate of the Marquis’ estate, Xie Fuling carried only a small bundle. Since she wasn’t the Marquis’ true-born daughter, naturally she couldn’t take a single thing with her.
“Fuling?”
Xie Fuling, still not having recovered herself, looked up to see an honest, simple farming couple standing before her.
Were they her real birth parents?
Xie Fuling, who had always been quick with words, now found herself choked up, at a loss for what to say.
“It’s about to rain. Let’s go home first.” Xie Fuling’s birth mother, Zhang Qiaofeng, was the first to break the silence, reaching out to take the bundle from her daughter’s hands.
Xie Fuling turned slightly aside. “I—I’ll carry it myself.”
A flash of disappointment passed through Zhang Qiaofeng’s eyes, but she quickly put on a smile again. “Your father specially pushed the cart out from home. It’s not as good as a carriage, of course, but I laid down a quilt, so it’s quite comfortable to sit on.”
Xie Fuling lowered her eyes, and as she walked, she couldn’t help turning back to look at the Marquis’ estate, its gate already firmly shut.
She shouldn’t hold onto hope. She should let go.
“All right. Let’s go home.”
The rain made the country path muddy and hard to walk, and every step forward with the cart was difficult.
Sitting on the cart, Xie Fuling looked at her birth father’s stooped back, his thin frame, and beside him her birth mother steadying the cart, wading one deep, one shallow step through the mud.
“Fuling, are you thirsty, or hungry? I brought you water and flatbread, they’re in the bundle on the cart.” Zhang Qiaofeng, seeing her daughter looking over, reached to rummage through the bundle, then the next moment cried out and fell to the ground.
“Mother!”
Xie Fuling leapt down from the cart at once, but her foot landed on something, and unsteady, she sat down hard on her backside.
“Fuling!”
Zhang Qiaofeng, ignoring her bruised knee, stumbled up to pull her daughter. “Are you all right? Where did you fall? Does it hurt?”
Xie Fuling shook her head, staring blankly into her birth mother’s concerned eyes. She braced herself with her hand to stand up, but something jabbed into her palm, and she instinctively grasped it.