“Madam Yin, the meal is ready. Please have a little something.”
The cook, Mama Yuan, set the dishes from her tray one by one on the small table. Turning back, she saw Yin Xuesu holding half a comb, still combing her hair at a leisurely pace—a sight that seemed somewhat eerie.
Then she decided she was overthinking it.
“Madam Yin, when you encounter something like this, I know it’s hard to come to terms with it right away. I’ve eaten more salt in my life than you have rice, so I’ll be bold enough to offer you a few words of advice. A lifetime on this earth is full of bumps and ditches—fortune and misfortune go hand in hand. How do you know this ditch isn’t leading to fortune rather than disaster?”
As she spoke, Mama Yuan glanced toward the door, stepped quietly closer, and whispered a few quick words into Yin Xuesu’s ear.
Yin Xuesu’s combing finally stopped. She turned her head to look at Mama Yuan.
Mama Yuan was in her forties, yet she looked far older than her years. Her clothes were old and worn, with patches stacked in inconspicuous places, though they were washed clean and she kept herself neat and tidy.
“How does Mama know all this?”
It was exactly the same.
In her previous life, during her time at Tonghua Courtyard, Mama Yuan had always found every opportunity to approach her, earnestly urging her to keep her eyes open and cling to the high branch that was Zhao Shiyan.
It was Mama Yuan who had told her about Zhao Shiyan’s family background.
But back then, she had been dead inside from the sudden turn of events. If not for the need to save her mother, she would have hanged herself long ago—how could she have had any heart for climbing high branches?
Nor did she care whether the man sharing her room was round or flat, a young lord or a beggar.
So no matter how Mama Yuan tried to lure her in, she never responded.
Later, when Mama Yuan saw that she truly could not be persuaded, she concluded that Yin Xuesu was a piece of rotten wood that could not be carved, and gave up.
Around the time of Yin Xuesu’s childbirth, Mama Yuan left Tonghua Courtyard.
Before leaving, she had kindly warned Yin Xuesu that all the staff in the courtyard had been replaced with Tong Jinxian’s people, and told her to be extremely careful.
“For Mama to scheme so much on my behalf truly makes me uneasy. A meat pie that falls from the sky burns the hand just to pick it up—let alone to eat it.”
Mama Yuan gave a dry laugh. “To be honest with you, Madam, I do have my own motives.”
Knowing that she could not win Yin Xuesu’s trust without revealing her cards, Mama Yuan hesitated for a moment, then spoke of her connection to the Anguo Duke’s mansion.
It turned out that years ago, Mama Yuan had once had the opportunity to enter the Anguo Duke’s mansion.
The broker had carefully selected a batch of maidservants for the Duke’s mansion, and Mama Yuan was among them.
But on the very day she was to enter the mansion, her food had been tampered with, causing her such severe abdominal pain that another maidservant who was close to her took her place.
Mama Yuan was instead sold to another household. The master was unkind, the family’s conduct improper, and Mama Yuan suffered no small amount of torment there.
That household soon fell into decline, and Mama Yuan was resold again and again—she herself couldn’t remember how many families she’d been sold to.
During that time, she was even sold to another region, and only returned to the capital in the past two years.
Mama Yuan firmly believed that all her misfortune had begun with being replaced that day.
If she hadn’t been replaced, if it had been her who entered the Duke’s mansion… then all these years of wandering, the hardships she’d endured, the suffering she’d borne—none of it should have been hers.
Entering the Duke’s mansion became her obsession.
In the two years since returning to the capital, she had paid close attention, made inquiries everywhere, and could be said to know the affairs of the Duke’s mansion like the back of her hand.
But she was already too old, with no connections or background, and her chances of re-entering the Duke’s mansion were practically nil.
Just as she was dozing off, a pillow arrived—at that very moment, the small broker house she was attached to assigned her as cook at Tonghua Courtyard.
The very first day Zhao Shiyan came over, she recognized him as the young heir of the Anguo Duke’s mansion.
After seeing Yin Xuesu’s beauty and bearing, Mama Yuan was certain that the opportunity she had waited years for had finally arrived.
“They say even a servant at a prime minister’s door outranks a third-rank official. Though we’re all slaves, the ground beneath your feet makes all the difference in your worth. I won’t deny I want to borrow your favorable wind to fulfill my long-held wish—but I truly am planning for your benefit as well.”
“Madam, you’re a decent woman from an honest family, tricked into this place by brokers. Are you truly willing to accept your fate and be nothing but a childbearing tool for that couple?”
“Setting everything else aside—when the child you carry for ten months is taken away to be raised by others, never to see you again in this life, will that not break your heart? You may think this way now, but once the child is born, you may not feel the same. A child is a mother’s heart and soul. The pain of having it torn away—you don’t yet understand it now…”
Yin Xuesu’s heart gave a sharp twist. The hand hanging at her side moved to rest on her lower abdomen.
That feeling—she understood it all too well.
Separation of mother and child—it was like having her tendons pulled and bones wrenched apart, a pain that pierced to the very core.
“If the child is raised by others and not treated well, by the time you regret it, it will be too late to mend. So then—for the child’s sake, and for your own—why not go with the current and take a gamble?”
“If you succeed, you and your child win a life of wealth and honor. If you don’t—with your beauty and character, and with my help from the side, there’s no way you won’t succeed.”
Yin Xuesu studied her for a long moment, then withdrew her gaze and continued dressing her hair before the mirror.
“Is Mama so confident? From what I know, that couple is deeply in love—water can’t seep through them, a needle can’t pierce them. There’s no room for anyone in between.”
Mama Yuan was delighted, knowing she had been persuaded.
“The Second Young Master Yan and the Second Madam are indeed incomparably devoted. But no matter how sturdy a dike is in this world, once a crack appears, its collapse is only a matter of time. And now—that crack has already appeared.”
She cast a meaningful glance at Yin Xuesu, hinting that she was precisely that crack.
“Besides, where in this world is there a cat that doesn’t steal fish? I’ve lived to this age and have yet to see a man who isn’t fond of beauty. Second Master Yan has no concubines or bedchamber maids thus far—first, because Second Mistress Yan is quite attractive, comes from a distinguished family, and has formidable skills; second, because Second Master Yan simply hasn’t met anyone better. If he were to see the lady’s true face, he’d surely never let go again.”
Whether out of confidence in Yin Xuesu or in herself, Mama Yuan spoke with absolute certainty.
Yin Xuesu, however, did not share such optimism.
But since she had resolved to take revenge, she would press forward against all odds, no matter how difficult.
She would bear the child, and she would enter the Duke’s mansion.
A helper with such deep knowledge of the Duke’s household was like a divine army descending from heaven—in her current state of lacking everything, there was no reason not to use one.
Whether Mama Yuan’s words were true or she harbored other intentions, at least across two lifetimes, she was not a lure arranged by Tong Jinxian to test her. She merely saw Yin Xuesu as a bridge to cross a river, a ladder to scale a wall.
And did Yin Xuesu not view her the same way in return?
The two hit it off instantly, each taking what they needed, setting aside all concerns for the time being.
Yin Xuesu set down the broken comb, rose to her feet, and bowed gracefully to this ally: “Then I entrust everything to Mama. If I achieve my heart’s desire, I will surely not let you down.”
Mama Yuan smiled and stepped forward to help her up: “This servant will do her utmost.”
The days for visiting the Paulownia Flower Courtyard were all calculated by his wife.
Zhao Shiyan didn’t understand what basis she used. He flipped through the almanac—they weren’t any particularly auspicious days.
He couldn’t be bothered to ponder it; he would simply follow her arrangements.
In early June, he first set foot in the Paulownia Flower Courtyard, going for four or five consecutive days.
That month, perhaps because his mother’s urgings had grown frequent and his wife felt anxious, the number of days increased.
But the more he went, the more pronounced that strange feeling in his heart became.
He still remembered the day after being scratched—before he entered the west chamber, the cook had brought him medicinal wine as usual.
At the time, his wife was sitting upright in the adjacent room as always.
The cook whispered to him: “Lady Yin scratched the master yesterday. I wonder if it’s serious? Looking back on it afterward, she was so guilt-ridden she wept, and she worried over it all night without getting much sleep.”
Zhao Shiyan was taken aback and said it was nothing. After drinking the medicinal wine, he pushed open the door and went in.
The room was still pitch dark, which had never bothered him before.
But because of the cook’s words—though spoken through the cook, they were equivalent to the surrogate mother speaking them herself—
It was as if some communication had passed between them.
And so, performing that act in the dead silence carried an indescribable feeling.
Especially when her hand touched his arm.
Zhao Shiyan thought of his wife in the next room and instinctively scolded her for her audacity.
Then he realized—what she was stroking was precisely the place she had scratched him yesterday.
The woman’s hand was soft, slightly cool, like a thin veil brushing over the wound, pausing briefly—an unspoken apology and tenderness.
For some reason, the rebuke that had risen to Zhao Shiyan’s lips was swallowed back down.