“No, no, no!” She shook her head in horror, refusing to believe it no matter what, “Impossible! I’m not pregnant, I just have an upset stomach!”

Elder sister held her tightly, no longer possessing her former calm composure: “Don’t worry! Since I’ve kept you in the capital, I have a way to make the Cheng family take you back with full ceremony and honor!”

Hadn’t elder sister said to let her stay peacefully at the small farm?

Hadn’t she said she would find her another family to marry into?

How had everything suddenly changed?

Her heart filled with panic as she pushed elder sister away: “No, I won’t go back! I won’t marry Cheng Xu! I won’t be cursed as a harlot! I won’t endure the contemptuous looks from those servants! I won’t spend my whole life being gossiped about…” As she spoke, she looked down at her own abdomen—it was flat, showing nothing. The doctor’s words seemed like a lie, a joke, “I don’t want this child either…”

“But,” elder sister said with deep worry, her face full of concern, “this is still the Cheng family’s child, and moreover, it’s Cheng Xu’s first child, from the main branch…”

Cheng Xu, the child… her tightly wound nerves snapped.

She shrieked and jumped up, interrupting elder sister’s words: “Why do you all bully me? Why are you like those people, all speaking up for Cheng Xu? You’re not my elder sister! You’re not my elder sister!” She didn’t even have time to put on shoes, running outside barefoot, “I won’t go back! I’d rather die than go back! I won’t give birth to this child either…”

Elder sister chased after her, locking her in an embrace: “Shaojin, Shaojin, listen to me…”

“I don’t want to hear anything!” She struggled, kicking at elder sister like a madwoman, “You’ll just tell me to endure it, to accept my fate, to give up hope. Why should I have to endure? Why should I accept my fate? Why should I give up hope? Just because I’m a young woman? What did I do wrong? Why does Heaven punish me like this?”

“No, no! It’s elder sister’s fault, elder sister didn’t take good care of you. It’s elder sister who failed mother’s trust and let you suffer…” Elder sister’s tears seemed like scalding water droplets, falling one by one on her neck, burning into her heart as well.

But was this elder sister’s fault?

Why should elder sister have to tolerate her unreasonable behavior?

Just because elder sister loved her most?

And she—making her loved ones grieve while her enemies rejoiced—how was she any different from Cheng Xu who had hurt her?

All strength left her body as she collapsed to the ground.

“Shaojin, Shaojin.” Elder sister’s face turned deathly pale with fright as she threw herself over her, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine.” She murmured, her heart like dead ashes, “Elder sister, help me to the bed…”

Perhaps this was her fate!

She couldn’t refuse to accept it even if she wanted to!

“Second Miss, Second Miss!” Fan Liushi knelt beside them, crying like a person made of tears.

Yet she couldn’t shed a single tear.

Her fate had already gone awry the moment she agreed to stroll in the garden with Cheng Jia.

If she was to blame anyone, she could only blame herself for being foolish.

Doing whatever others told her to do.

If she was to blame anyone, she could only blame herself for being useless.

When Cheng Xu violated her, she only knew to beg for mercy and cry out.

She randomly grabbed something trying to stand up, but her legs were weak and powerless. She could only crawl toward the bed on all fours.

Elder sister grabbed hold of her, saying sorrowfully “Don’t do this, don’t do this.”

But she paid no attention, saying: “Elder sister, send me back to the residence I rented! The Cheng family will surely come looking soon… Even if they don’t want me anymore, they’ll find me before breaking the engagement… Don’t worry about me anymore. If the Liao family finds out what happened to me, they’ll surely mock you… It’s fine if it’s just me, but I can’t drag you all down with me… I only beg that elder sister will take in Nanny Fan. When they find me, they definitely won’t spare Nanny Fan… Poor thing, she nursed me and ends up with such a fate… She too has been implicated by me…”

“Second Miss, please don’t say such things! Please don’t say such things!” Fan Liushi also rushed over, “It was I who brought you away. Yes, it was my idea. I was the one who incited Second Miss to come find First Miss. It has nothing to do with Second Miss! It’s all this wicked servant’s doing…”

Elder sister looked at them, but her gaze slowly grew cold.

“Shaojin.” Elder sister grasped her shoulders, her peripheral vision sweeping across her belly, then fixing steadily on her eyes as she said solemnly, “Do you truly not want to return to the Cheng family? You must know, if you choose to stay in the capital at this time, then in the future, you can never return to the Cheng family again. Think carefully!”

She had already made up her mind.

Hearing this, she only shook her head indifferently, saying: “Elder sister, send me back to the place I rented. I don’t want to struggle anymore.”

Elder sister gazed at her for a long while before finally rising to help her onto the kang.

She grasped elder sister’s sleeve, saying: “Elder sister, you promised me you would help take care of Nanny Fan. You must keep your word.”

Elder sister nodded, tears glistening in the corners of her eyes, saying: “Elder sister will keep her word.”

For the first time she doubted elder sister, making her swear an oath: “You must swear in mother’s name…”

Pain flashed through elder sister’s eyes as she seriously made the oath.

Only then did she smile at elder sister, saying: “Elder sister, I’m completely weak. Have someone stew an old hen with ginseng for me!”

Elder sister gazed at her intently, as if afraid to miss any subtle expression on her face. After quite a while, she softly said “Alright.”

She closed her eyes.

When the chicken soup was brought up, she obediently drank it and continued sleeping.

Elder sister kept watch over her the entire time.

But after the third night watch was struck, the exhausted elder sister could no longer hold on and began nodding off. Two quarters of an hour later, elder sister fell asleep leaning against the bed.

She opened her eyes.

Having committed such a shameful act, for the sake of her reputation, given elder sister’s cautious nature, she would not only bring no one here but would also dismiss the servants attending her at the farm. Otherwise elder sister wouldn’t be watching over her alone.

She pondered this in her heart, listened to the sounds around her, quietly rose, and tiptoed out of the inner chamber.

Outside, it was indeed utterly silent with not a soul in sight.

She walked soundlessly through the small farm’s winding covered corridors.

That day must have been the fifteenth—there was no wind and no snow. The moon hung quietly in midair like a round jade disc. The withered, gnarled tree branches in the courtyard grew randomly and chaotically, leaving mottled shadows on the ground.

She kept moving forward, shivering constantly from the cold.

The woods, the shed storing farm tools, the well… she lingered at each place for a long time.

When she tried to open the side door of the rear courtyard kitchen, elder sister burst out.

“What are you trying to do?” Elder sister gripped her wrist tightly, squeezing until it hurt piercingly. She had never known elder sister had such strength, “Do you know or not that you are the only flesh and blood mother left in this world? How can you do this? What will father think? What will mother beneath the yellow springs think? When I join her after a hundred years, what will I say to her? What face will I have to worship mother every year at Qingming and Duanwu? You, you have disappointed me so greatly…”

As elder sister spoke, her eyes gradually reddened.

“Elder sister, am I very useless?” Her gaze was vacant as she murmured, “I want to die, but I can’t even find a place to die—if I hanged myself in the woods, when people discovered I died at your estate, they’d think you killed me. I wanted to find a place where people wouldn’t easily discover me, but it’s still your estate, and you still couldn’t clear yourself. Why doesn’t your estate have a lake? If there were a lake, I could tie a rock to myself and jump in to feed the fish—no one would know. Or even a small river would do. If the current were strong enough, my corpse could wash away to another place, and I could become a wandering ghost…”

Elder sister slapped her across the face with a sharp crack.

It took her quite a while to feel the slight pain, and only then did her tears begin falling uncontrollably.

“Elder sister!” She threw herself into elder sister’s arms.

But elder sister pushed her away forcefully, saying: “Will you truly not return to the Cheng family?”

At that moment, elder sister’s gaze was as cold and clear as moonlight, as sinister as the mottled, scattered tree shadows.

She stood there stunned.

Elder sister strode forward, staring into her eyes and asking again: “Are you prepared to never return to the Cheng family ever again?”

She nodded foolishly.

Elder sister gently stroked her cheek—she didn’t know that finger marks had already appeared there.

“Very well!” Elder sister said lightly, “A life for a life. Consider it repaying them a debt. From now on, everyone goes their separate ways!”

She didn’t understand, but elder sister said: “Let’s go back! Elder sister will make the decision for you in this matter.”

She still didn’t understand.

Elder sister said: “Don’t worry, I won’t hand you over to the Cheng family. You’ll stay with me in the capital.”

But elder sister would be in a very difficult position!

She shook her head.

Elder sister smiled, asking her: “Do you still trust elder sister?”

She nodded repeatedly.

Elder sister put an arm around her shoulders as they walked back: “Then trust elder sister one more time. I won’t let the Cheng family take you away!”

Of course she trusted elder sister. If she didn’t trust elder sister, who could she trust?

She obediently followed elder sister back to the side room. Elder sister fed her a calming medicinal pill, saying: “Sleep well. When you wake up, everything will be fine.”

She closed her eyes.

But she couldn’t fall asleep no matter what.

She only felt bizarre lights and shadows everywhere that made no sense. She even heard Fan Liushi’s crying and elder sister’s voice speaking: “You’ve been in the capital for over a month now. If the Cheng family wanted to find you, they would have come long ago. Clearly they feel they have a grip on Shaojin’s lifeline and aren’t worried she won’t obediently return on her own. Now that it’s the Cheng family’s fault, that Yuan Shi can still be so arrogant. If Shaojin returns, I’m afraid within two years she’ll be tormented to death by her! Moreover, the timing of this child is wrong. If others think carefully, they’ll understand the reason. Then Shaojin will truly be as she herself said—she’ll never be able to hold her head up for the rest of her life… Even worse, anyone can think to humiliate her whenever they please… Rather than dying that way, it’s better to take a gamble… If there’s any karmic retribution, let it fall on me and have nothing to do with Shaojin…”

Her troubles must not implicate elder sister!

She wanted to tell elder sister loudly, but those lights and shadows rushed toward her again. Her mind was in chaos, and she soon cast this matter aside, falling into a deep sleep.

Later, Fan Liushi brewed a bowl of medicine for her. She drank it for three consecutive days. On the fourth day, the child was gone and she hemorrhaged severely. Elder sister brought in an old woman with medicinal plaster at her temples and a harsh-looking face to take her pulse. By dawn, the bleeding had stopped, but she no longer had the strength even to breathe.

In her dazed state, she heard elder sister speaking with Fan Liushi: “…Take that mass of flesh and blood to Xinglin Alley for me. Give it to Cheng Xu, deliver it to his hands personally. Let him know how he lost his wife and child. Let him know what his mother has done… The sins they committed—there’s no reason only we should suffer…”

That voice carried hatred through gritted teeth.

But she was only thinking that Cheng Xu was in the capital—now he would never pester her again, would he?

As if a great stone had been lifted from her heart, she let out a long breath and fell asleep peacefully.