The eldest young miss of the Hua Family is not only breathtakingly beautiful — she burns like fire!

The eldest young miss of the Hua Family went to the Song Family to avenge Hua Jing — but then she cast Hua Jing out of the Hua Family all the same!

The eldest young miss of the Hua Family stood alone against three generations of the Song Family and did not once come out the worse for it!

The eldest young miss of the Hua Family…

Before Hua Zhi had even made it home, word about her had already spread in every direction. But what surprised her was this: what people talked about most was not how she looked — it was how she had conducted herself. That bearing of hers, that quality of even though the Hua Family no longer claims Hua Jing, we will not let her death go unanswered, had people going over the story and finding it thoroughly satisfying.

The capital was not short of beauties — but a beauty with this kind of ferocity and presence was a first. Those who had seen her today suddenly understood: a woman could be like that. Forthright. Unyielding.

That was it — unyielding.

As though she needed no man, as though she could hold up a whole corner of the world entirely on her own. And if one thought about it, she had done exactly that. For the Hua Family to have stabilized itself in such a short time — to have weathered even the death of the Old Madam without falling into chaos, to have found the presence of mind in the midst of all that to bring back a daughter-in-law who had been mistreated — all of it, it was now clear, was because the head of the household was this eldest young miss of the Hua Family.

A woman could do all that? Now that was genuinely something they had never seen before.

And the Song Family — who had in some sense given rise to Hua Zhi’s reputation — was left a laughingstock. As the eldest young miss of the Hua Family herself had said: a bedridden woman somehow walked from a locked rear courtyard to the front of the house, bypassed the gatekeepers, opened the main gate, and hanged herself outside — and not a single person in the Song Family noticed a thing. Who would believe there was nothing behind it? One could practically write a stage opera from the story alone.

No matter what the Song Family had originally intended to scheme, everything they had plotted was now dashed to nothing by Hua Zhi’s performance — and their reputation had been dragged through the mud along with it. They had gained nothing and lost everything.

Hua Zhi lay on the soft couch and listened to Baochun describe the circulating rumors with animated gestures and bright eyes. The corner of her mouth curved slightly. Setting aside all the noise and embellishment, her purpose had been accomplished. The Song Family had clearly wanted to keep their own hands clean while watching from the bank — they thought they could scheme without getting wet. That, she would not allow.

Spring — truly a season that stirred restless hearts.

“Nanny Su.”

Nanny Su set down what she was working on and came forward. “Young miss.”

“Tomorrow, let’s hold a quiet memorial for Grandmother here as well. Please make the arrangements.”

“Yes.”

As Nanny Su was leaving, she came face to face with Liu Xiang hurrying in. Liu Xiang curtsied quickly and stepped inside. “Young miss — Old Madam Zhu has arrived.”

“Has she come here, or has she gone to Mother’s courtyard?” As she spoke, Hua Zhi rose to her feet.

“She’s come this way.”

The maids swiftly tidied her up, and by the time she stepped out to receive her guest, she saw that the old woman had already entered the courtyard.

“Grandmother.”

The old woman came briskly forward and took her hands, then immediately launched in. “Why were you the one to go to the Song Family? If someone had to go, it should have been your mother — or if not her, any of the other daughters-in-law. Why did it have to be you making such a scene?”

“Only I could do it. Only I had the standing to strike Hua Jing from the family register.”

The two sat down at the table. The maids set out tea and then all withdrew.

Old Madam Zhu looked thoroughly worried. “Did it truly have to come to this? ‘Better to win ten friends than to make one enemy’ — and the Hua Family is in no position to be making enemies of the Song Family right now. If you couldn’t stomach the sight of it, then simply don’t look. Surely you didn’t go all that way just to avenge Hua Jing — and that doesn’t even make sense, given that you struck her from the family in the same breath. Zhi’er, tell your grandmother — I can’t make heads or tails of this.”

“Grandmother — if I hadn’t been somewhat prepared, Hua Jing would not have been found hanging at the Song Family’s main gate. She would have been found hanging at the Hua Family’s main gate.”

Old Madam Zhu sucked in a sharp breath, pressing her hand over her mouth to swallow back the cry of shock. Having been raised in a place like the capital, she had witnessed and heard of far too many kinds of treachery and scheming. She needed no further explanation — in an instant she understood the heart of it. Zhi’er was right. Without the Song Family’s help behind the scenes, how could Hua Jing have slipped out of the Song Family and walked all the way to the Hua Family gate without alerting a single soul?

No wonder Zhi’er had flared up so fiercely. If the scheme had succeeded, what would become of all the young women of the Hua Family?

But now…

She looked at her outstanding granddaughter, smoothed her hair, and her expression was full of worry. “Still — being the subject of everyone’s tongues is no small thing. And I heard you saw Shen Qi today? He had the nerve to face you?”

“I was the one who broke off the engagement. He did nothing wrong.”

Hua Zhi passed her grandmother the tea and said as she did, “He is my father’s student — no more than that. He told me today that he intends to go north to visit Father. If he truly follows through with it, he is not without feeling. Father will be very glad.”

Whatever had nearly been between them — and had never truly come to be — she could let go of it with a wave of her sleeve. It hadn’t reached the point of never wanting to see each other again. And at the very least, it would make her father happy.

Old Madam Zhu patted her hand and said no more. This child’s heart had its own perfectly balanced scales — always clear, always true.

“Your visit is well-timed.” Hua Zhi rose and retrieved from a cabinet a folded sheet of plain white paper covered in writing she had composed in the simplest and most accessible terms possible — a formula for the manufacture of soap. The shop on Zhuangyuan Street had originally been something she had intended to bring the Zhu Family into — there was no right in having people do all the work without giving them something in return. The closer the relationship, the more important it was to manage such things properly, lest it sour the bond between them.

But that shop had since been given over to the Lu Family, and she’d had to think of something else. Soap was what she had settled on, having given it careful consideration.

“Take this back for Second Uncle to look at.”

“What is it?” Old Madam Zhu folded the paper over once more without opening it and asked in passing.

“Second Uncle will understand when he sees it. Just bring it to him.”

“Fine, I’ll give it to him when I get home. If he doesn’t help you, I’ll have your grandfather give him a talking-to. Oh, speaking of which—” the memory of something else surfaced. “That teacher should be arriving in a few days. You’ll be able to relax a little.”

Hua Zhi paused for a moment before placing who the teacher was. She was actually quite satisfied with the current state of the family school as it was — it wasn’t that there was no need for another teacher, but she had been more worried that bringing in someone with a rigid temperament might disrupt the harmony she had carefully cultivated.

“Your grandfather asked me to tell you — this teacher is not the sort to follow rules and conventions himself; otherwise he wouldn’t have spent his life wandering the world. Just finding him at all was no easy matter. Your grandfather says not to worry.”

Something warm moved through Hua Zhi’s heart. She smiled and agreed.

“All right, I’m off to see that weepy mother of yours. You get on with your own affairs.”

“Mother hasn’t been weeping much lately. I’ve been having Fourth Aunt take her along on things — not necessarily anything in particular, just so she has someone to talk to and doesn’t have time to sit and brood.”

“That mother of yours.” Old Madam Zhu shook her head. Being looked after by her daughter like that — she had no shame at all.

But Hua Zhi saw nothing wrong with it. She wasn’t meddlesome. She didn’t use her position as Hua Zhi’s closest family to make demands of her. She had no ambitions for anything. However things were arranged, she simply lived accordingly. There was no one more effortlessly easy to be around — and once you had a point of comparison, you understood exactly how rare a mother like that truly was.