Rebirth—such an inconceivable thing. Yu Tang thought she would suffer from insomnia, but who would have known that the moment her head touched the pillow and her breath was enveloped by the familiar scent of Buddha’s hand citron, she actually had no dreams at all and slept until daybreak.

But she didn’t wake up naturally.

Instead, she was awakened by Shuang Tao: “Eldest Miss, First Madam is here!”

Every time Yu Tang woke up, she was somewhat muddled and confused.

She sat leaning against the headboard, her large, bright eyes with distinct black and white, misty with moisture. It took her a long time to come to her senses, and she yawned: “First Aunt? When did First Aunt arrive?”

As she spoke, Yu Tang jolted fully awake.

In her previous life, on the second day after the fire on Changxing Street, before dawn had even broken, her first aunt had come over. She claimed it was too hot to sleep and the days were hard to bear, bringing needlework over to do. In reality, though, she had found an excuse to confine her mother and herself at home for the entire day. It wasn’t until evening, when her uncle and eldest cousin had finished dealing with matters at the shop and sent word to her father far away in Suzhou City, that First Aunt finally left to return home.

Even then, when First Aunt left, she specifically instructed the household servants not to reveal even half a word about the shop’s situation to her and her mother, leaving behind Wang Pozi, who personally attended to First Aunt, to stay at their home and teach her how to make snowflake pastries.

Her mother had been very gratified that she could have an interest in learning some culinary skills, so she moved a stool into the kitchen to keep her company. These snowflake pastries kept both mother and daughter occupied until her father returned.

When her father came back, he also downplayed the shop matters. If it hadn’t been for that painting “Fishing in Seclusion by Pine Lake,” when people came asking for money, her mother wouldn’t have known the family had no money left. And she only learned that the family had only fifty mu of farmland remaining after both her parents had died.

The fire on Changxing Street—she didn’t realize it was a major turning point in her life until she married into the Li family and was coveted by Li Duan.

Yu Tang hurriedly got up: “Who is keeping First Aunt company? Does my mother know First Aunt has come?”

While helping her wash and groom, Shuang Tao said: “She came before dawn broke, saying the weather was too hot to sleep. She didn’t let us wake you or Madam, and Chen Pozi is keeping her company in the courtyard to enjoy the cool air.”

Yu Tang nodded.

It was still the same as in her previous life.

However, in this life, she wouldn’t leave all these matters to the family elders anymore.

Yu Tang hurried to the courtyard.

First Aunt was wearing a bright blue summer ramie skirt and was sitting on a bamboo chair under the camphor tree. Chen Pozi and Wang Pozi flanked her on the left and right—one keeping her company with conversation, the other helping to fan her. First Aunt’s expression was listless, with very obvious dark circles under her eyes. At a glance, it was clear she hadn’t slept well.

How broad must her heart have been in her previous life to not have noticed anything unusual about First Aunt at all?

“First Aunt!” Yu Tang stepped forward to pay her respects to First Aunt Wang Shi, but tears couldn’t help welling up in her eyes.

In her previous life, both her uncle and eldest cousin had died tragically because of her entanglement. First Aunt, having lost her support, returned to her maiden family to live as a widow, making her living under the hands of her maiden family’s nephews and nephews’ wives. Not only did First Aunt not blame her, but during her most difficult times, she had even entrusted her cousin who had become a abbess at a nunnery to take her in.

“What are you crying about, child?” Wang Shi looked at Yu Tang and sighed, personally stepping forward to help her up. She signaled Wang Pozi to bring over a chair for Yu Tang, then said gently, “I’ve already heard about it. You went to Changxing Street yesterday. It’s rare for you to be so sensible. I won’t say much more. No matter what, we must keep the shop matter from your mother. Your mother’s health isn’t good—if she hears this news, she’ll surely become anxious. Your father isn’t home either. If your mother becomes anxious and something terrible happens to her, what would your father do?”

Yu Tang nodded repeatedly, helping Wang Shi sit back down. She offered Wang Shi a cup of chrysanthemum tea and sat down beside her, saying: “First Aunt, please rest assured. I understand the seriousness of the matter.”

Wang Shi nodded, feeling that today’s Yu Tang was very different from usual. She couldn’t help but examine Yu Tang more closely.

A fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl looks beautiful no matter how she’s dressed, not to mention that Yu Tang was famously pretty in Green Bamboo Alley. However, she was usually pampered and appeared completely childish. Today, though, she stood with her posture perfectly straight, her features revealed a hint of resilience, her clear gaze was bright and spirited, and her whole person seemed to unfold like bamboo that had shot up a section—she looked refreshing and capable, making people like her even more.

Wang Shi silently approved and said: “I heard you bumped your head yesterday afternoon. Are you feeling better?”

Yu Tang replied repeatedly: “I’m fine! It happened suddenly and I was startled at the time, but I quickly recovered.”

Wang Shi didn’t believe her, saying: “Just now Chen Pozi said you were unconscious for two hours. After waking up, you said some nonsensical things, and before Shuang Tao could go inform your mother, you dragged Shuang Tao to Changxing Street to watch the excitement—no one could stop you. If Chen Pozi hadn’t been steady and helped you cover things up with all sorts of excuses, your mother would probably have run out to the street to find you.”

Yu Tang felt guilty and admitted her fault: “I was wrong. I’ll never do that again.”

Seeing her fair little face all wrinkled up, Wang Shi found her rather pitiful and couldn’t bear it. She smiled and said: “Alright, I don’t mean to blame you. It’s just that your mother and father only have you. They’re afraid you’ll melt if they hold you in their mouths, afraid you’ll fall if they hold you in their hands, so they inevitably worry and fret too much. You should be more understanding of your mother and father. What others can do, you may not necessarily be able to do.”

“I understand!” Yu Tang obediently accepted the teaching.

Perhaps because she was still concerned about her husband and son in her heart, Wang Shi spoke to her in a low voice about yesterday’s fire: “Your uncle and your eldest cousin were busy half the night and brought back word that not only our family’s shop, but even the Pei family’s shops were burned down to nothing but broken walls and ruins. To make matters worse, something major happened to the Pei family, and there isn’t even someone to take charge of the overall situation. Magistrate Tang is now completely overwhelmed and doesn’t even know how to write a memorial to the court.”

The Pei family was a prominent household in Lin’an City.

A truly prominent household.

No matter who became the magistrate of Lin’an City, before officially taking office, they had to first pay a visit to the Pei family.

Until her death, the Pei family remained the most illustrious family in Lin’an City.

On Changxing Street, the most prosperous street in Lin’an City, aside from seven or eight shops like the Yu family’s that had been operating for several generations, all the rest belonged to the Pei family. More than half of the mountain forests, farmland, tea estates, and mulberry gardens outside the city also belonged to the Pei family. Many people relied on the Pei family for their livelihood.

In her previous life, their Yu family’s one hundred mu of farmland had also been sold to the Pei family.

The Pei family had been wealthy for several generations.

From the previous dynasty until now, they had continuously produced more than twenty jinshi who passed both the provincial and metropolitan examinations, and seven or eight first-rank officials.

In this generation, all three masters of the Pei family were jinshi. In a few more years, two more young masters of the Pei family would pass the imperial examination.

The old master of the Pei family seemed to have passed away around this time.

Yu Tang couldn’t help saying: “What truly bad timing. How could their old master just go like that!”

To her surprise, Wang Shi was startled and asked in return: “The Pei family’s old master? Who told you the Pei family’s old master passed away? It’s the Pei family’s first master, the one who served as Vice Minister of Works in the capital. They say he died suddenly of illness in the capital some days ago. The news just reached Lin’an. Old Master Pei immediately fell ill. Several young masters of the Pei family rushed to Qiantang overnight last night to receive the coffin. The stewards are all busy arranging the funeral for the first master, and no one has time to manage the Changxing Street matter.”

Yu Tang was astonished but didn’t think much of it.

Whether in her previous life or this one, the Pei family was too far removed from her. What she knew about the Pei family’s affairs was merely hearsay and couldn’t be taken as fact.

Wang Shi sighed: “The fire on Changxing Street flared up all at once. Your uncle said this fire burned in a strange way—when anyone’s place catches fire, it starts from one location and then spreads to other places. Your uncle suspects arson and wanted to go to the authorities to report it. Unfortunately, something happened to the Pei family, and Magistrate Tang definitely won’t have the mind to deal with this matter…”

Hearing this, Yu Tang’s heart pounded violently.

In her previous life, the Li family had come to propose marriage after her family encountered trouble. At the time, she was rather unwilling, feeling that she was still in mourning and discussing such matters was inappropriate. But her uncle and aunt felt that after the mourning period ended, she would be eighteen, and by then she definitely wouldn’t be able to marry into a good family. So they discussed with her about first getting engaged to the Li family, and waiting until the mourning period was over to discuss the wedding date.

She couldn’t help but hesitate. The Li family then sent someone to speak with her privately, saying that if she agreed to the engagement first, the Li family would be willing to lend her uncle five thousand taels of silver, interest-free, to allow his family to make a comeback.

When Changxing Street caught fire, their family’s shop was burned, and her uncle’s shop was also burned. When the Li family came to propose this matter, the Pei family was in the midst of rebuilding Changxing Street. The foundations were ready-made, but the money to rebuild the shops had to come from each family. If someone didn’t have the money to rebuild their shop, they could sell it to the Pei family at a valuation.

Most people sold their foundations to the Pei family.

Her uncle didn’t want to sell the foundation.

It was the old ancestral property left by the Yu family.

Not only did he not want to sell it, he even wanted to rebuild the two storefronts her father had left behind.

When her grandfather died, her uncle, considering that her father couldn’t manage business affairs, split the four shops evenly. Of the two hundred mu of land, one hundred mu of prime farmland was divided to her father, while the other fifty mu of medium-quality land and fifty mu of mountain forest were divided to him.

Building the four shops would cost four thousand taels of silver. Even if all of her uncle’s fields were sold, it would be just a drop in the bucket—not even enough to buy all the pillars for building the shops.

Having heard the Li family’s words, she felt that this marriage of hers could at least allow her uncle’s family to escape their predicament. Without informing her uncle, she agreed to the betrothal with the Li family’s second young master, Li Jun.

Afterward, her uncle felt he had wronged her. He learned that selling grain to the Nine Border Regions in exchange for salt certificates could make a lot of money, so he took the Li family’s five thousand taels of silver and went to Huguang.

Although that time her uncle and eldest cousin narrowly escaped death and made a lot of money, it also planted future troubles—in order to earn her dowry, her uncle and eldest cousin made several trips to the Nine Border Regions. First, they rebuilt the two shops her father had left her, and later spent great effort buying back the farmland her family had sold… But because of this, her uncle put his main energy into the grain and salt certificate business. Not only did he have disputes with her eldest cousin about what to do for a living, but on one trip to the Nine Border Regions, he encountered bandits and his body was never recovered.

In her previous life, raised in the inner chambers and ignorant of worldly affairs, even if she had known about the fire on Changxing Street and known the fire burned strangely, she wouldn’t have had any thoughts about it. But the current Yu Tang, having once fallen into the quagmire of the Li family and witnessed countless despicable tactics, just from hearing this much, knew that the Pei family’s method of encroaching on shops was identical to the Li family’s method of land-grabbing back then.

As long as there was an opportunity, they would bully the weak and small.

The same ruthlessness, the same vile malice!