Lizhou Cheng, Yu Yuan.
The early spring morning wind of the second lunar month carried a chill as it swept through, making the half-blooming peach and plum buds on the branches tremble gently.
A carriage drawn by two horses raced through the streets and arrived in a flurry, coming to a steady halt before the main gates as the coachman drew out a long “Whoa—”
Two young maidservants accompanying the carriage moved in tandem—one lifted the curtain, while the other nimbly leaped down to set the mounting stool.
The Yu family’s eldest daughter, Yu Sheng, rose and stepped down from the carriage into the morning light.
The wind billowed her cloud-patterned sleeves, and her sky-blue skirt hem fluttered slightly. The moment her embroidered shoes touched the ground, she lifted her foot and strode quickly toward the residence.
“Eldest Miss! You’ve finally returned!” Old Steward Li, who had been waiting at the gates for quite some time, hurried forward to greet her. “The household is nearly in chaos…”
Yu Sheng had rushed back overnight upon receiving an urgent letter from home.
Three days prior, her younger half-sister Yu Xuan had gone to Qingfeng Guan to burn incense, where she caught the eye of the sixth son of Liyang Houfu. Taking advantage of his family’s power and influence, he insisted on forcing Yu Xuan to become his concubine.
Yu Sheng’s father refused to agree, but as a mere merchant, he could not afford to completely offend the marquis’s son. He had arranged a banquet at Qianzhen Lou, hoping to meet with him and discuss matters properly.
Who would have thought that instead of reaching an agreement, a conflict erupted? Yu Sheng’s father was pushed down from the third floor by Xu Liu and suffered severe injuries, falling into a coma. They had invited all the renowned physicians in the city to examine him, but each one shook their head and said, “I’m afraid there’s no hope. Best prepare for the funeral.”
With the Yu family suddenly losing its pillar, the madam was frail and sickly, unfit to manage affairs, while the masters of the second and fourth branches only thought of how to settle the matter and protect themselves.
The entire household was in a state of panic, servants and maids alike wearing expressions of gloom and despair.
Yu Sheng stepped across the threshold, passed through the screen wall, and entered the long corridor, walking swiftly the entire way, though her tone remained steady: “These past few days, has my father awakened at all?”
The old steward choked back tears. “He has not.”
Yu Sheng asked only this one question before falling silent, her steps growing even more rapid.
The old steward struggled to keep pace with the eldest miss, recounting the household’s situation over the past few days.
“The madam has been unable to eat or sleep, and fainted from weeping just a cup of tea’s time ago. The second and third young misses are attending to her.”
“The fifth young master is studying at the academy, quite far away. It will likely take another day or two before he can return.”
“The second and fourth masters have been keeping vigil at the master’s bedside these past few days…”
Just as he said this, Yu Sheng arrived before Songfeng Yuan, where her father resided.
The voices of Second Master Yu and Fourth Master Yu drifted out from within:
“You will agree whether you want to or not!”
“A household like Liyang Houfu—to say nothing of you being merely a concubine’s daughter, even if you were the legitimate daughter, it would still be our family reaching above our station.”
The former spoke with fierce threats, the latter with gentle persuasion.
Two women’s voices chimed in one after another: “Just look—your father is already at death’s door for your sake. If you still refuse to agree, I’m afraid our entire family will suffer.”
“Miss Xuan, Fourth Young Lady! Please do us this kindness and save us!”
The ones singing this duet were Second Aunt and Fourth Aunt.
Hearing these words, Yu Sheng felt a surge of fury shoot straight to her crown.
She entered directly, her face frosted with cold: “From what I hear of my uncles’ and aunts’ meaning, it seems you have no intention of seeking justice for my father?”
The blue-clad young lady, who had been kneeling silently before the bed shedding tears after hearing so many wretched words, looked up abruptly at the sound of her voice.
For a brief moment, the girl’s eyes lit up as though she had seen a savior, but only for that brief moment. Soon they dimmed again, and she only dared to call out cautiously and softly: “Elder Sister.”
Yu Sheng’s gaze swept across the people in the room. She saw that Yu Xuan was pure and delicate as a small white flower, already showing a graceful figure at just fourteen years of age. Even with tear-streaked face, she was not unpleasing to look at—rather, she appeared all the more pitiful.
Such a fragile, flower-like beauty most easily aroused men’s desire to seize and possess.
Yu Xuan was clearly this type.
“What are you kneeling for?” Yu Sheng walked past Yu Xuan, offering a cue for her to rise, then went to the bedside to look at her unconscious father.
This was the first person Yu Sheng had seen upon opening her eyes after being reborn into the Daye Chao.
She had been born with memories of her previous life, her modern world, and the incompatible values of this ancient era.
It was this merchant father who had doted on her and indulged her, bearing the pressure of the world’s expectations to give her the greatest possible freedom, allowing her to travel abroad to see mountains and waters, living sixteen years of carefree life.
Yu Sheng still clearly remembered that three months ago, when her father saw her off, he had said with a cheerful smile that he would earn more of a family fortune to recruit the most handsome young man as a live-in son-in-law for her.
Who could have thought that the next family letter she received would bring news of disaster at home, of her father severely injured and in a coma?
All the way home, Yu Sheng had considered the worst outcome, yet she could not help but cling to a sliver of hope, thinking that severe injury and coma could still be treated, that perhaps by the time she arrived home, her father would have already awakened.
And now, looking at her father lying on the couch with no trace of blood in his face, quiet and still.
One glance and her nose grew sour, tears welling in her eyes.
But this was not the time to cry. With her father fallen, her mother frail and sickly, and none of these uncles or aunts reliable, she as the legitimate eldest daughter had to hold up this family.
Yu Sheng closed her eyes, holding back her tears, her expression growing colder.
Yu Xuan, seeing her elder sister’s displeased expression, assumed that her sister also felt their father was at death’s door, that the Yu family’s calamity was all caused by herself, and grew increasingly guilty and self-blaming.
Yu Xuan sobbed softly, not daring to speak for a moment.
Instead, it was Fourth Madam Yu who spoke first: “Ah, the Eldest Miss has returned!”
Second Master Yu and Fourth Master Yu’s expressions changed the moment they heard her words ‘no intention of seeking justice for my father.’
But Yu Sheng was not like Yu Xuan, a concubine’s daughter without a mother. Yu Sheng was the legitimate eldest daughter of the Yu family, the apple of their eldest brother’s eye, with a status in this household that was anything but ordinary.
The two uncles could not very well directly tell her that they had no such intention at all.
Second Master Yu gave Second Madam Yu a meaningful look.
The latter understood and hurried to Yu Sheng’s side to persuade her: “At a time like this, what talk is there of justice or no justice? Preserving our Yu family is what matters most.”
“Indeed.” Fourth Madam Yu also approached, speaking in low tones: “Sheng’er, quickly talk some sense into this foolish girl Yu Xuan. A household like Liyang Houfu, for the sixth young master to take a fancy to her and properly make her his concubine is her good fortune…”
The two aunts surrounded Yu Sheng on left and right, speaking every which way, practically making sending Yu Xuan to the marquis’s household as a concubine sound like the greatest of blessings.
They even brought up Yu Sheng’s own marriage prospects: “If our family could establish this connection with Liyang Houfu, which of Lizhou’s talented young men wouldn’t be yours for the choosing?”
“That would truly be a lifetime of glory and wealth without end!”
The more Yu Sheng heard, the more her fury burned, and she interrupted coldly: “A glory and wealth bought with my sister—I’ll have none of it!”
Second Madam Yu and Fourth Madam Yu both fell silent.
Yu Xuan stared blankly at Yu Sheng, murmuring: “Elder Sister…”
Yu Sheng was so infuriated by the two aunts’ endless prattling that she hadn’t attended to this half-sister, and when she glanced sideways to see the girl still kneeling, “Why haven’t you gotten up yet?”
When the uncles and aunts in the room tried to interject, she spoke again: “Yu Xuan, you’ve done nothing wrong. Why are you kneeling?”
Yu Xuan raised her head slightly, gazing at her elder sister through tear-blurred eyes for a long moment, her voice trembling: “I, I…”
Fourth Master Yu, seeing this, said angrily: “You what you? If you had stayed peacefully at home and not gone out, would a noble marquis’s son have come to our house to do anything to you?”
“If you hadn’t actively flirted and enticed Xu Liu, would he have taken a fancy to you for no reason?” Fourth Master Yu’s cursing grew louder and louder: “And now you still put on airs and refuse to be a concubine. You’ve already harmed your own father like this, and you still want to drag us all down—”
Yu Sheng frowned and interrupted: “Fourth Uncle, if you don’t speak, no one will take you for a mute.”
Fourth Master Yu had been cursing with great vigor when he was suddenly choked off by his eldest niece’s words, his face turning purple then green several times over from anger.
But Yu Sheng paid him no further mind, only looking at this half-sister who couldn’t get a full sentence out after half a day, watching her pearl-like tears roll down at a single scolding, both pitying her misfortune and angering at her lack of fight.
“Yu Xuan.” Yu Sheng reached out to help her up, her voice gentle yet resolute, “Stand up.”