Shi Ting said nothing more, and led the group inside through the main gate.

Yan Qin, lingering at the back, watched Shi Ting’s tall retreating figure, then recalled the warmth and ease with which he had just spoken to Yan Qing. Her face was already growing twisted with jealousy. Had Madam Yan not turned back to call her name, she might well have made a scene right then and there.

The Shi Family’s courtyard had been elaborately decorated for the occasion, draped in red and festooned with banners — the grand venue for this birthday celebration.

Dozens of large round tables filled the courtyard, each covered in red tablecloths trimmed with gold borders, set with exquisite Western tableware. Scores of fine dishes and excellent wines were brought to the tables in succession.

The Shi Family’s elder matriarch loved listening to traditional opera, and the Marshal was a devoted and filial son, so a performance stage had been erected for the birthday, with a renowned opera troupe engaged to perform. The drums and gongs filled the air, making everything lively and celebratory.

Seated closest to the performance stage were the Shi Family’s immediate relatives. Among them, surrounded by attendants and dressed in a deep blue embroidered mandarin-collar jacket, with hair gone silver-white, sat the Shi Family matriarch.

Father Yan first paid his respects to the Marshal, presented the carefully prepared birthday gifts, and was then guided by a servant to greet the elder Madam Shi.

Beside Madam Shi sat the Marshal’s wife. Upon seeing the Yan Family arrive, she rose to welcome them.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Father Yan began introducing his family: “This is my daughter Yan Qing.”

Yan Qin was standing right beside Father Yan at that moment, yet he had passed over her entirely and introduced Yan Qing first. The surge of bitter jealousy made her instinctively press her lips together — but held back by the delicate nature of the occasion and her mother’s earlier warning, she swallowed it silently.

This was the Marshal’s wife’s first time meeting Sixth Miss Yan Qing of the Yan Family. Before her stood a young woman with a neatly turned-under lotus-leaf hairstyle, a clean fringe framing a pair of bright, lively eyes — and those eyes were remarkably clear, the color of a fair open sky, vast and crystalline.

At first glance, this Sixth Miss of the Yan Family was strikingly beautiful — a face that stood out even among the many young ladies of society. Yet beneath her light dusty-pink tweed coat, cream-colored trouser legs encased slender legs, with small black calfskin shoes resting on the footrests of a wheelchair.

The Marshal’s wife felt her heart sink with immediate disappointment. The first phrase that surfaced in her mind was “beautiful on the outside, worthless within.”

The Shi Family was a distinguished and powerful household, her son Shi Guang a man of great talent and promise for his young age. Simply because the Yan Family had once provided timely support, they were now to have this match thrust upon them. As the wife of a first-rank official, she was unwilling — she felt aggrieved.

But what could be done? The marriage had been arranged by the Marshal himself, and she had no standing to oppose it.

The Marshal’s wife was a woman of consummate social grace. No matter how much she resented the situation inwardly, she maintained a warm and generous manner outwardly — though her few words of praise for Yan Qing rang rather hollow.

At this point, Madam Yan took the opportunity to introduce her own daughter, Yan Qin, which immediately drew the Marshal’s wife’s attention away.

Though this Fifth Miss of the Yan Family was not particularly remarkable in appearance, and carried a slightly petty air about her, that did nothing to stop the Marshal’s wife from lavishing her with praise, her words brimming with delight and approval.

Yan Qin could not detect the polite shallowness in the Marshal’s wife’s words, assumed she had genuinely caught the woman’s favor, and couldn’t help letting a touch of pride show on her face.

After meeting the Yan Family, the Shi Family matriarch was also notably warm toward Yan Qin while offering only a few courteous words to Yan Qing — the wheelchair clearly a source of unspoken misgiving for both older women.

Father Yan was a perceptive man; he could hardly miss the Shi Family’s distant and differential attitude. But Yan Qing’s reaction told him that the person most affected didn’t seem to mind at all. No matter how many faces the people around her wore, she sat quietly, a gentle smile on her face, serene as still water.

Father Yan felt a moment of bewilderment. Was this really the daughter he thought he knew?

—