Chapter 3: The Noble Daughter
Even after seeing it many times, Xue Fangfei still found it difficult to adjust.
The bronze mirror with embroidered edges had a crack, and the reflection showed a face similarly fractured. The image appeared distorted—the girl in the mirror looked about fourteen or fifteen years old, yet she was as shockingly thin as her maid, Tong'er.
Xue Fangfei recalled that at fourteen or fifteen, she had never been so sallow and emaciated. Though called the daughter of a Grand Secretary, this girl seemed worse off than a servant. This face was utterly incomparable to her original one, which had been renowned as the finest beauty in Yanjing.
Yet that face had brought no happy ending—still, a beauty met a tragic fate, buried under a handful of yellow earth.
Xue Fangfei's thoughts drifted far away. She never imagined she would survive—or rather, she had died but come back to life, becoming Jiang Li, the daughter of the current Grand Secretary from the Yanjing Jiang family.
Jiang Yuanbai, as the Chief Grand Secretary and the emperor's tutor, held sway over all civil officials. In court, he never acted arrogantly but maintained a moderate stance, often playing the peacemaker. Precisely because of this, many openly befriended him, and who knew how many more did so in secret.
Jiang Yuanbai's connections permeated the court, and the Hongxiao Emperor trusted him deeply, yet he never flaunted his influence. Xue Huaiyuan had once said that such apparent moderation was, in fact, a strategy of officialdom. One thing was undeniable: Jiang Yuanbai was a high-ranking official, and Jiang Li was thus a noble daughter.
However, this noble daughter lived a wretched life. Jiang Li's birth mother came from the Ye family, a renowned wealthy merchant clan in Xiangyang. The Ye family possessed vast fortunes, with their jewelry store, Hongxiang Tower, alone operating fifty-six branches across the dynasty. Back then, Jiang Yuanbai was not yet a Grand Secretary; the Ye patriarch took a liking to him and married his youngest daughter, Ye Zhenzhen, to him.
Unexpectedly, Ye Zhenzhen took three years to conceive Jiang Li and died of illness when Jiang Li was just one year old. Jiang Yuanbai then remarried Ji Shuran, the legitimate daughter of the Vice Metropolitan Inspector-General. Ji Shuran gave birth to Jiang Youyao within the first year of marriage. When she was pregnant with their second child, Jiang Li—then seven years old—pushed Ji Shuran down the stairs in front of several noblewomen during a banquet. Ji Shuran miscarried, losing a son, and her health was permanently damaged, leaving her unable to bear children again.
Furious, Jiang Yuanbai would have punished Jiang Li severely if not for Ji Shuran pleading on her behalf. Even so, Jiang Li was sent to the family temple for purification.
Yet Jiang Li could not escape the charges of poisoning her stepmother and murdering her half-brother. Whenever people in Yanjing mentioned Second Miss Jiang, they only recalled her vicious reputation.
After Ye Zhenzhen's death, fearing that the stepmother would mistreat Jiang Li, the Ye family had sent people to fetch her. If Jiang Li wished, she could live with the Ye family in Xiangyang. Regardless of the Jiang family's stance, Jiang Li herself refused. Over time, the Ye family stopped coming.
Xue Fangfei had heard these idle rumors from the capital but never imagined that the so-called ruthless noble daughter lived in such misery. Meanwhile, Jiang Yuanbai, with his sterling reputation at court, and Ji Shuran, praised for her compassionate heart, turned a blind eye to Jiang Li's near-death state.
Perhaps this was all their arrangement.
Jiang Li had taken her own life.The origin was that when Ye Zhenzhen was still alive, the Jiang family had a good relationship with the Marquis of Ningyuan. The heir of the Marquis of Ningyuan was born first, exactly one year older than Jiang Li. Ye Zhenzhen and the Marquess thought it would be fitting to arrange a childhood betrothal—the two families were well-matched in social status, familiar with each other, and could support one another in the future.
It was initially a verbal agreement, but when the Marquis of Ningyuan learned of it, he soon had the Marquess formally draft a marriage contract with the Jiang family. Although Ye Zhenzhen hesitated slightly, she was also delighted at the prospect of becoming in-laws with the Marquess. The Marquess was kind-hearted, and having such a mother-in-law would surely ensure a stable life.
Later, even after Ye Zhenzhen passed away, the betrothal between the heir of the Marquis of Ningyuan and Jiang Li remained valid. Although it wasn’t publicly announced in Yanjing City, both families had the marriage contract as proof.
However, a few days ago, the servant delivering provisions to the nunnery mentioned that the heir of the Marquis of Ningyuan was engaged—to the Jiang family’s Third Miss, Jiang Youyao.
Jiang Li was stunned.
The one engaged to the heir of the Marquis of Ningyuan was clearly Jiang Li—how could it have become Jiang Youyao? Fiery by nature, Jiang Li wanted to return to Yanjing to demand an explanation but was met with cold mockery from the matron who came.
Nowadays, people in Yanjing only knew of the Third Miss Jiang—who had ever heard of the Second Miss Jiang? Even if they had, she was merely the vicious woman who poisoned her stepmother and younger brother. How could someone like her be a match for the heir of the Marquis of Ningyuan? It seemed the Ningyuan Marquis’s household didn’t take Jiang Li seriously either; otherwise, they wouldn’t have agreed to switch the betrothal.
The matron even sneered that if the Second Miss Jiang made a fuss and returned, she would only become a laughingstock. Even if the Ningyuan Marquis’s household were forced to marry Jiang Li in the end, they wouldn’t treat her with sincerity but would instead despise her.
The Second Miss Jiang turned and threw herself into the lake.
After being rescued, she fell gravely ill and grew increasingly emaciated. Already thin, she now looked as if a gust of wind could blow her over. Yet, even in such a state, no one from Yanjing came to see her.
Perhaps only when she died would someone come to collect her body.
Maybe they intended to let Jiang Li waste away in the nunnery, letting her “die of illness” naturally, so everything would be as they said.
Just as Princess Yongning and Shen Yurong had once intended to let Xue Fangfei waste away.
Tong’er chopped firewood angrily nearby. The mountain wasn’t hot, but it was cold and damp. The mistress and servant had to handle all their daily needs themselves, under the guise of “tempering the mind and cultivating virtue.” In reality, they were silently tormented by the nuns in the nunnery who had taken bribes.
“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 young lady living now?”
Xiangyang…
Xue Fangfei’s expression shifted slightly.
Jiang Li’s maternal grandfather’s family, the Ye family, was in Xiangyang. She wanted to return to Xiangyang, to Tong Township.
She wanted to pay respects at her father’s grave, to kneel before him and confess her unfilialness—for marrying a heartless, ungrateful man, bringing unforeseen disaster upon herself, causing her elderly father to die of anger and her young brother to lose his life.
To return to Xiangyang, she first had to go back to Yanjing, but now she couldn’t even leave this nunnery.
They say the divine watches from three feet above, but on rainy days, when she looked up, there was only the fearful darkness—no sign of the divine.
No matter. Step by step, she would eventually reach where she wanted to go.
Princess Yongning had advised her on her deathbed to be reborn into a wealthy family. Now she was in a wealthy family, albeit a fallen one, but she would never again allow herself to be trampled upon. She wondered if they were prepared this time.
Xue Fangfei was already dead. From now on, she was not Xue Fangfei.
“I am Jiang Li,” she said to herself.
The one reborn was the Jiang family’s Second Miss, Jiang Li.(End of Chapter)
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