Even after looking many times, Xue Fangfei remained unaccustomed to it.

The embroidered bronze mirror had a crack running through it, and the reflected face also bore a crack. The face seemed entirely distorted. The girl in the mirror appeared fourteen or fifteen years old, yet like her maid Tong’er, was shockingly thin.

Xue Fangfei recalled when she herself was fourteen or fifteen—she certainly hadn’t looked so sallow and emaciated. Though called the Chief Grand Secretary’s daughter, looking at this appearance, she was probably worse off than even the servants. This face could not be compared whatsoever to her original face, which had been considered Yanjing’s foremost beauty.

However, that face ultimately met no good end either—still a beauty with a cruel fate, reduced to a handful of yellow earth.

Xue Fangfei’s thoughts involuntarily flew far away. She never imagined that she hadn’t died, or rather, that she had died yet lived again, becoming Jiang Li of Yanjing’s Jiang family, the current Chief Grand Secretary’s daughter.

As Chief Grand Scholar, the emperor’s mentor, Jiang Yuanbai commanded the respect of all civil officials who looked to him for leadership. Yet on the court, Jiang Yuanbai wasn’t arrogant at all. Rather, he appeared moderate, acting like a peacemaker in all matters. But precisely because of this, many openly befriended him at court, not to mention those who did so secretly.

Jiang Yuanbai’s connections pervaded the court. Emperor Hongxiao also greatly trusted him, yet Jiang Yuanbai never flaunted this. Xue Huaiyuan had said that this seemingly moderate approach was actually a way of officialdom. However, one point was beyond doubt—Jiang Yuanbai was a high official, and Jiang Li was therefore a daughter of a great household.

Yet this Chief Grand Secretary’s daughter lived quite miserably. Jiang Li’s birth mother came from the Yan Dynasty’s famous wealthy merchant family, the Ye family of Xiangyang. The Ye family possessed vast wealth—their jewelry shop Hongxiang Lou alone had opened fifty-six branches throughout the Yan Dynasty. Back when Jiang Yuanbai wasn’t yet a Grand Secretary, Old Master Ye took a liking to him and married his youngest daughter, Ye Zhenzhen, to Jiang Yuanbai.

Who knew that after Ye Zhenzhen married over, it took three years before she conceived Jiang Li. When Jiang Li was one year old, Ye Zhenzhen died of illness. Jiang Yuanbai then married Ji Shuran, the legitimate daughter of the Vice Censor-in-Chief’s family. The first year after Ji Shuran married in, she gave birth to Jiang Youyao. When Ji Shuran was pregnant with her second child, Jiang Li was seven years old. During a banquet, in front of all the madams, she pushed Ji Shuran down the stairs. Ji Shuran miscarried, losing a son, and injured her constitution so severely she could never conceive again.

Jiang Yuanbai was furious. Fortunately, Ji Shuran pleaded on Jiang Li’s behalf. Even so, Jiang Li was still sent to the family temple for spiritual reflection.

However, Jiang Li couldn’t escape the accusations of poisoning her stepmother and murdering her stepbrother. When Yanjing people mentioned Second Miss Jiang, they only remembered her vicious reputation.

Actually, after Ye Zhenzhen died, fearing the stepmother would mistreat Jiang Li, the Ye family had sent people to fetch her. If Jiang Li was willing, she could live with the Ye family in Xiangyang. But setting aside the Jiang family’s attitude, Jiang Li herself refused. Over time, the Ye family stopped coming.

Xue Fangfei also knew of these idle gossips circulating in the capital. She just never imagined that the so-called vicious and cruel Chief Grand Secretary’s daughter actually lived so wretchedly, while Jiang Yuanbai—with his excellent reputation at court—and Ji Shuran—with her bodhisattva-like heart—paid no attention to the dying Jiang Li.

Perhaps this was their arrangement all along.

Jiang Li had attempted suicide.

The cause was that when Ye Zhenzhen was still alive, the Jiang family and Marquis Ningyuan’s household had good relations. The Marquis Ningyuan’s heir was born first, coincidentally one year older than Jiang Li. Ye Zhenzhen and the Marquis’s wife thought they might arrange a childhood betrothal. The two families were well-matched, familiar with each other, and could look after one another in the future.

It was originally a verbal agreement, but after Marquis Ningyuan learned of it, he soon had the Marquis’s wife formally write a marriage contract with the Jiang family. Though Ye Zhenzhen hesitated somewhat, she was also happy to become in-laws with the Marquis’s wife. The Marquis’s wife was kind-hearted at her core—with such a mother-in-law, life would surely be stable.

Though Ye Zhenzhen later died, the marriage arrangement between the Marquis Ningyuan’s heir and Jiang Li still held. Though it wasn’t proclaimed throughout Yanjing, both families had marriage contracts as proof.

However, a few days ago, the servants delivering rice and grain to the nunnery mentioned that the Marquis Ningyuan’s heir had gotten engaged—to the Jiang family’s Third Miss, Jiang Youyao.

Jiang Li was stunned at the time.

The one engaged to the Marquis Ningyuan’s heir was clearly Jiang Li. How could it change to Jiang Youyao? Jiang Li’s temperament was fiery. She wanted to return to Yanjing to demand an explanation but was coldly mocked and ridiculed by the old woman who came.

Now Yanjing people only knew of Third Miss Jiang. Who knew who Second Miss Jiang was? Even if they knew, she was merely a vicious woman who poisoned her stepmother and young stepbrother. How could such a person match the Marquis Ningyuan’s heir? Presumably, the Marquis Ningyuan’s household didn’t take Jiang Li seriously either, otherwise they wouldn’t have agreed to switch the marriage arrangement.

The old woman even mocked that if Second Miss Jiang made a fuss about returning, she would only become a laughingstock. Even if in the end the Marquis Ningyuan’s household was forced to marry Jiang Li, they wouldn’t treat her seriously but would instead detest her.

Second Miss Jiang turned around and threw herself into the lake.

After being rescued, she fell gravely ill, growing thinner by the day. Already very thin to begin with, now she would fall over with a gust of wind. Yet even sick to this state, no one from Yanjing came to see her.

Perhaps only when she died would someone come to collect her corpse.

Maybe they intended to let Jiang Li waste away to death in the nunnery, let her naturally “die of illness,” and then everything would be as they dictated.

Just like how Princess Yongning and Shen Yurong had wanted to let Xue Fangfei waste away to death.

Tong’er angrily chopped firewood on the side. Though the mountain wasn’t hot, it was cold and damp. The master and servant pair had to handle their own food, clothing, shelter, and daily needs themselves, euphemistically called “tempering one’s character and cultivating oneself.” They were imperceptibly tormented by these Taoist nuns in the nunnery who had taken silver.

“If we’d known it would be like this, we should have returned to the Ye family in Xiangyang back then,” Tong’er said. “What kind of life is our miss living now?”

Xiangyang…

Xue Fangfei was slightly moved.

Jiang Li’s maternal family, the Ye family, was in Xiangyang. She wanted to return to Xiangyang, to Tongxiang.

She wanted to return to pay respects to her father, wanted to return to kowtow before her father. She was unfilial, marrying a wolf-hearted, dog-lunged person, inviting calamity without cause, causing her elderly father to die of anger and her young brother to lose his life.

To return to Xiangyang, she must first return to Yanjing, but she couldn’t even leave this nunnery now.

Though the gods watch from three feet above, on rainy days, looking up there was only vast black night—no gods could be seen.

No matter. She would walk step by step and eventually reach where she wanted to go.

Princess Yongning had given her advice at the moment of her death—to be reborn in her next life into a wealthy family. Now she was already in a wealthy family. Though a fallen daughter of wealth, she would never again let anyone slaughter her at will. This time, she wondered, were they prepared?

Xue Fangfei was already dead. From now on, she was not Xue Fangfei.

“I am Jiang Li,” she told herself.

Jiang Li, Second Miss of the Jiang family, living anew.