The shabbiest courtyard of the Prime Minister’s residence had once been a place anyone could wander into or out of freely. Now, it was a place everyone avoided like the plague.
At that moment, Ziqing sat before her mirror stand, wearing not a stitch of clothing, carefully examining every inch of her skin in the bronze mirror.
She was now completely certain her soul had transmigrated into this body. The tattoos that had once marked her own body were nowhere to be found, while her back and arms bore a number of new and old whip scars she’d never had before—if not inflicted by Han Xi’er, then who else could it have been?
The face in the mirror bore a striking resemblance to her own from before—back then, her beauty had been a cold, striking kind of beauty, but now, dressed in ancient-style clothing, it carried an indescribable flavor all its own.
Prime Minister Han kept two wives. The first wife was Han Xi’er’s birth mother, Xia Wanyu, now the first-rank Madam Han. The second wife was Ziqing’s birth mother, Mu Ci.
Back then, though Mu Ci had only been a concubine, her beauty—one that could topple cities and ruin kingdoms—had made her famous throughout the capital, earning her more favor than the principal wife. Tragically, she fell ill and died young. After Mu Ci’s passing, the Prime Minister had utterly neglected his daughter.
Han Ziqing had undoubtedly inherited her mother’s beauty—looking this closely at her own reflection, even Ziqing herself found this face almost unreal in its loveliness. Drawing on faint, distant memories from childhood, she gently ran her fingers over her skin, and sure enough, she felt a thin layer of something behind her ear.
So this face really did hold a secret!
A memory suddenly surfaced in her mind—her mother, on the day she was about to pass, in this very room, holding her hand and saying, “Qing’er, all men under heaven love beauty, and all are fickle. You were born this way, and Mother, in her helplessness, could do nothing but bring you into this world as a concubine’s daughter—your status and standing both beneath others from birth. This is all Mother can give you. Remember, never tear away that veil.”
Was this a veil? It felt more like a layer of hardened makeup.
This memory belonged to her early childhood, no more than three or four years old, so distant that Ziqing could barely recall it clearly. She hesitated only briefly before carefully, cautiously lifting the thin, membrane-like layer covering her face. Even she, normally so composed, couldn’t help feeling a flicker of nervousness—after all, this concerned her own appearance, and everyone, without exception, cares about their looks!
But she had only peeled the membrane halfway off when, glimpsing half of her true face beneath, she immediately panicked, instinctively pressing the membrane back down in haste, her small hand pressed to her chest, her heart pounding so hard it took a long while to settle.
How could this be?
If she had the choice, she would never want to lift that membrane again—this was a secret! An absolutely enormous secret! Her mother must have gone to such great lengths for this!
Ziqing sat stunned for a long while before she came back to herself, her fingertip tracing cautiously over her face as she stared at her reflection in the mirror, her fine brows knitting together tightly.
Her appearance was simply what she’d been born with—what was there to resent?
As for her mother’s words about a concubine-born daughter being beneath others—she didn’t agree with that at all. If one were to rank people by legitimate versus concubine birth, then what of orphans? A concubine’s daughter still had a family, still had a father and mother; an orphan had absolutely nothing at all. She herself had been an orphan since childhood, relying entirely on her own effort to become one of the finest mercenaries in her trade, sought after by everyone wanting to hire her. In her world, status had always been determined by strength, never by birth!
This secret about her face, she would keep safe for the sake of Han Ziqing and her mother. But the concubine-daughter’s habit of swallowing her pride and feeling inherently inferior—all of that, she would cast aside completely!
Ziqing lightly touched the still-unfaded love bites and teeth marks along her collarbone, her sharp eyes darkening. She changed into night-travel clothes and rose to leave. It was time to pay Young Master Chen a visit. She wanted to see for herself whether he would prove just as forceful and domineering tonight as he supposedly had been that night!
She leapt over the wall and was about to set off when she heard a burst of alarmed cries coming from Han Xi’er’s courtyard nearby.
“Oh no! The Eldest Miss’s face has split open!”
“Someone, quick! Fetch a physician, the Eldest Miss’s face has split open!”
…
Ziqing gave a soft, cold snort and turned to leave. Once she delivered a slap, did anyone really think she did it for show?