In the narrow alley, a nicely dressed little girl was deprived of her necklace, bracelet, pearl sachet and all the other valuable ornaments by a maid. Instead, she was made to put on poor clothes.
Song Yixiao, neither crying nor screaming, with her almond eyes wide open, was curious and yet tame, just letting the woman with heavy makeup put her into a carriage.
Her unusual cooperation made the woman frown. After putting her into the carriage, the woman turned around to talk with the maid who was tearing the pearls off the sachet, “Is there anything wrong with your lady? She is eight years old anyway. Why doesn’t she make any noise after hearing that we are selling her? In this case, the price…”
“You don’t know about her. This lady doesn’t like talking, who is not liked by the elder lady and master. Otherwise, how dare I sell her before the new mistress stays in the family for one year?” Upon hearing her talk of the price, the maid hastened to hold the sachet into her chests, explaining hastily, “There is absolutely nothing wrong with her! The previous mistress, aka, her birth mother, is a well-known beauty, or she would not be married to a prince!”
“A prince?!” The woman with heavy makeup shouted in a low voice and interrupted her, “You just said that her birth mother is the wife of a prince?!” She couldn’t help stamping her feet, “Are you insane? I thought this girl was neglected with no mother attending to her. Now you are telling me that her mother is not only alive but also a wife of the eldest son of an official clan? How dare you sell her to a brothel? Even if you dare to sell, I don’t dare to buy her. Give the money back to me! Take the girl wherever you want. Don’t get me into trouble!”
The maid said hastily, “Don’t! It’s not me but the new mistress who wants to sell her. Hence, how can she not take care of the aftermath? Moreover, the girl is only eight years old. After you buy her, shouldn’t you present her in public in a few years? As a saying goes, a girl changes fast in appearance before reaching womanhood. By then, even if her face contour can still be recognized, who dares to relate her to the Song Family, a respectable family here?”
She continued to threaten the woman, “Besides, she has seen your face! She can recognize people at her age. If you don’t take her away, you will be in big trouble once the issue is disclosed. And the new mistress will just be fine, for she is pregnant now.”
“What bad luck for me!” The woman flew into a rage and wanted to grab the money bag, “Give the money back to me! Your new mistress wants to get rid of the first daughter of the family. My buying the girl is a great favor for your new mistress, so she should pay me instead. How dare you ask me for money?!”
The maid would never agree on that. They grappled with each other for a while. In the end, they were afraid to arouse others’ attention, so they decided to meet each other halfway. The maid returned half of the money to the woman, “You’ve taken great advantage! Listen. If this girl doesn’t get famous all over the nation after growing up, it must be because all the men have died!”
“Ask your new mistress to deal with the aftermath well! Otherwise, we will be doomed before she grows up!” The woman fetched the money and got into the carriage while lifting her skirt hem. The moment she went in the carriage, she was shocked!
The tea and pastries in the drawer were taken out and placed on the small table.
The pretty girl sat there, holding her chin and eating the pastries selectively. Upon seeing the woman get into the carriage, she spat the kernels casually and said sneeringly, “You do know how to live a life. Even I can have these pastries only when my mother was still in the Song Family!”
The woman was startled for a while and then pulled a long face. She raised her hand to pat on the girl’s hand when the girl was trying to fetch another pastry, saying with a sinister smile, “Hmm! Now you put on a lady-like look! It’s too late! Your stepmother has sold you to me. No matter how respectable you were, from now on, you are fated to belong to the brothel… Put the things away for me! Now! Hurry up!”
“Or I will tear you apart!”
Her intimidation that always worked on girls was now useless to Song Yixiao. The girl just leaned backwards and said smilingly, “The maid who just sold me to you is my foster nurse, Ms. Zhao.”
“Today the one who brought me out knowingly is my stepmother’s trusted subordinate, Ms. Wu.”
“Why?”
“Because Ms. Wu was hit in the back by someone not long ago. Now she must be rather happy to have taken the beating. I bet that she will find a place and hide away until she has no other choice but to go back and cry about me being abducted so as to postpone finding me!”
Song Yixiao looked sideways at the woman who was getting more and more shocked. She smiled with her dimple well showing, “It was Ms. Zhao’s husband who beat Ms. Wu! And they did this because of my order!”
The woman was astounded in awe, “What… What did you just say?!”
“Don’t tell me that you don’t know the Wei Family in the south of the city!” Song Yixiao touched the back of her hand, which had been slapped, and stared at the woman smilingly, “That’s my grandmother’s home… Now you shall escort me there, claiming that Ms. Wu has sold me to you and that you don’t want to see such a highborn girl like me fall to the brothel; yet, you are afraid that I won’t be safe if you return me to the Song Family. Therefore, you ask me about the address of my mother’s own family and then send me there with courage… In this case, you will not only get a sum of money as reward but also the Wei Family and my birth mother, who is the second wife of Prince of Hengshan, will owe you one!”
She hedged with her smile getting cold, “Today, if I am not sent there before dusk, you and my stepmother will be convicted of conspiring together to kidnap me!”
After saying that, she didn’t care about the woman’s countenance but closed her eyes for a rest, “That’s all I can say. Think about it yourself.”
She didn’t try to fake something. Instead, she felt really exhausted. Anyone would feel the same if undergoing the same thing. In her previous life, with her mother remarried to another man, she was not loved by her father or grandmother. What’s worse, her stepmother kept making trouble for her. Finally, when she turned 16 years old and could get married to escape from the miserable family, she was sexually harassed by the nephew of her stepmother and even got wrongfully accused of seducing her cousin. As a consequence, she was put into a pig cage and drowned in the river… When she woke up, she returned to the year when she was only eight years old. Sorting out her memories over the past eight years only was an overwhelming burden for an eight-year-old girl’s body!
“Gee!” Song Yixiao just occupied the mastery seat for a rest, thinking with great pleasure, “This life, it is your turn to try the feeling of being unable to argue back!”
Who would believe a highborn lady should sell herself to a bawd!
The young lady, who was only eight years old, really expected to see the faces of the Song Family after the Wei Family came to them for criticism!
As was expected by Song Yixiao, after struggling for a while, the woman still decided to do as told. After all, the woman had only two choices: one was to lose all reputation for abducting the eldest young lady of an official of the Hanlin Academy; the other was to receive moral praise after doing the girl a favor. It was an easy decision!However, she still felt a bit worried, “The Wei Family is merely your mother’s maiden line. Your mother has been remarried to a prince. What if they don’t want to stand for you? Then…”“Think with your brain!” Song Yixiao opened her eyes and gawked at her teasingly, “Prince of Hengshan is much superior to my father! My mother divorced my father and becomes a prince’s second wife. Although it is true that she is loathed by my grandmother, others all accuse her of fawning upon the rich and despising the poor. Even the Wei Family are criticized for negligence of educating the daughter. I have three cousins who are still unma
The Song Family were immersed in happy laughter and joyful voices. Madam Liu, who was married to Song Yuan as his second wife last year, was diagnosed of pregnancy two months ago. Today they called on a doctor who was good at identifying the baby gender. According to the doctor, he was 90% confident that the baby was a boy!Madam Pang, eager for a grandson so badly, was pleased beyond words!Her smile didn’t fade away even after the doctor left. She was talking about fetal stabilization with Madam Liu when a servant came hastily to report that the former relative Madam Cao brought people to smash open their front door and beat all the way towards the back hall. She couldn’t even believe her ears, “Is this old cat crazy? Just as she managed to let her daughter to hook up with Prince of Hengshan, she can show no respect for the Song Family now?”Madam Liu heard that and also frowned, asking, “Are they coming here for the matter of Yixiao?”
“Madam Pang was so angry at that time! How fabulous!” Song Yixiao leaned against her cousin, Wei Ge’s arms obediently and pretended to be sleeping, hearing in secret the servant of the Wei Family talking about how Madam Cao settled with the Song Family, “Then she summoned Ms. Wu to confront. Just guess what she said.”“What else could she say? Of course she refused to acknowledge!” Wei Ge shouted with excitement, “That old cat even claimed that we plotted to sell Yixiao. What else can’t they do? Fortunately, the facts are all there. She can never make a false countercharge!”“Voice down! Yixiao is still sleeping!” Her elder sister Wei Ning lowered her voice to remind her and meanwhile turned around to have a guess in spirits, “Did she just say that she had searched for a long time and yet failed? Then they could execute the stalling tactics?”The servant was quite articulate, “If it were not for the elderly lady, the Song Family would do as you
Wei Mengying held her daughter to Madam Cao’s bed, took off her shoes, tucked her in and put down half of the curtain.She turned around to see that her mother also came into the room and closed the door. Then she said with a smile, “Madam Liu is so heartless! She must never have expected that Yixiao is so lucky to encounter a timid buyer who returned her to the Wei Family. Now they can never scold us for fawning on the rich!”“You didn’t do that?” Madam Cao answered in surprise, “I thought it was you who made the arrangement and set the trap for Madam Liu’s trusted subordinate!”“How is that possible?” Wei Mengying said in surprise, “Last time I came back, I have told you that the prince is nice to me but my mother-in-law doesn’t like me…” She heaved a sigh, “Somehow I feel that I just can’t win favor from the mother-in-law. The former one and the current one both dislike me. Over the past days, I have been busy dealing with the trouble that t
As a saying went, “Man proposes, God disposes.” Before Song Yixiao finished her show of burying the hatchet, because Madam Cao took some move or Madam Pang just hated her first granddaughter, Song Yixiao’s belongings and maids were sent to her with an excuse of Madam Pang—“I am so old now that I even have made two mistakes in choosing a daughter-in-law. How can I raise a granddaughter well?”“Now that Song Yuan has been impeached for not being able to managing the family well and lost his job, he will bring me to an adjacent city to stay away from trouble… Since Yixiao is your precious treasure and her birth mother is in the ascendant, she will be at your hands then!”If that was all, Song Yixiao could still continue pretending to be filial, “Since my father is bringing grandmother to an adjacent city, how can I not follow and take care of my grandmother and father?”However, Madam Pang went even further, “There are precedents for the dowry of
As she was new to the prince’s residence, Song Yixiao didn’t dare to ask about whether anyone had died in the Hanxia Villa before.However, after being led to her room by Ms. Bo, the maid of Wei Mengying, she looked around and felt quite good, “This place seems quite nice?”The Hanxia Villa was in among malus halliana. Now the florescence almost ended so only a few flowers were on the branch. It was not hard to imagine how beautiful the blooming scene was. To her satisfaction, the Hanxia Villa was delicately decorated and spacious, in which the furnishings were not new but all in readiness.Ms. Bo sighed and said, “Her Highness wanted to let you reside in the Xiluo Villa, which is next to the fourth princess of the third rank so that you two can accompany each other! However, the dowager consort interferes and makes you live in such a lonely place!”Song Yixiao put on an obedient face, “As long as I can be with my mother, I am even
Although Song Yixiao guarded against Madam Jin, nothing happened in the following several days.Of course it didn’t mean that Madam Jin wouldn’t vent her anger. When Song Yixiao went to greet Wei Mengying, she learnt, “Marquis Yuan hopes that his sister can live here for some time. These two days, Her Highness has taken the order of the dowager consort so she is busy discussing with the two young mistresses about how to help Miss Yuan settle down. I’m afraid that she has no time to meet you!”Song Yixiao also learnt from Madam Kong that Marquis Yuan and his sister came to pay a visit the day when she entered the prince’s residence. Yet, it was now that she learned about the background of these two big shots. They were the grandson and granddaughter of the dowager consort. Young as they were, their parents were dead now.Yuan Xuepei had inherited the rank of Marquis two years ago. He just finished mourning for his parents and there were seniors
“Get lost!” A young man shouted angrily from the dark cave, “I’ve told you that I wouldn’t eat. Who grants you the permission to disturb me again and again?!”Song Yixiao heard him and knew that the man must have misunderstood. She supported herself up with her hands against the ground, intending to explain after getting up. However, when she tried to move, she felt a sharp pain in her ankle. Instantly, her face turned pale!“My lady, what’s wrong?” Fortunately, Zhiqin was fine. She got up neatly and found out that something was wrong with Song Yixiao at once. She hurried to support her, “Is your foot hurt?”Before Song Yixiao replied to her, the young man in the cave sensed that something went wrong and then walked out. That was a young man around 11 or 12 years old, dressed in a red round-collar suit decorated with bamboo pattens. With a jade belt tied around his waist, he also wore a green craped coat. He looked rather handsome with red lips