Flowers and Trees Lean on Each Other - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

My relationship with Cheng Yahe was delicate. We weren’t exactly sworn enemies, but we certainly couldn’t be called close. In fact, this was only the third time we had met in this lifetime.

The first time was when she came to our door as the true daughter. Skipping over all the usual drawn-out fuss, I, the confirmed fake daughter, was sent off to an estate that very same day.

Looked at that way, the stage for the whole true-and-fake-daughter drama hadn’t even been set before the true daughter had already won a complete victory.

Whether Cheng Yahe felt smug about it, I had no idea. As for me, I couldn’t bring myself to feel sad in the slightest.

Because on the day I was sent to the estate, twelve full chests of wealth were sent along with me. It was compensation from the general and his wife, who felt guilty and believed they had wronged me.

I was born cold-hearted and detached. In the past, I never understood why they loved me. Now, I didn’t understand why they felt guilty either.

I was just some country girl from who knew where, switched at birth and allowed to live as a young lady for more than ten years. Now that everyone had returned to their rightful places, I was driven out. Wasn’t that only proper?

But clearly, the people of the General’s Mansion, who were far too overflowing with emotion, did not think so.

On my third day at the estate, the bargain elder brother I had called family for more than ten years came to see me.

He wept like the world was ending, his donkey-like wails making my ears ache. “Wanjun, your brother has wronged you. I originally wanted to persuade Xiaohe to accept you, but when I saw the scars all over her body, the calluses on her hands, and then met her eyes, I couldn’t say a single word. My Wanjun, my Xiaohe, why are both your lives so bitter?!”

I looked around at the lavish furnishings in my room, the comfortable bedding, the attentive servants, and the property nearly overflowing from the storehouse, then stated the facts without much expression. “I don’t think it’s bitter. You should go back. The four of you living well is better than anything.”

If I had said that with a smile, perhaps it could have counted as comfort. But with my indifferent expression, it was hard for anyone not to misunderstand it as anger.

Cheng Shujun immediately sucked in a sharp breath, then cried out loud and miserably, his voice filled with heartbreak. “Little sister! You can’t abandon us! Look how sad my sister is-she doesn’t even smile anymore. Our Wanjun is the prettiest when she smiles, tied for first place with Xiaohe!”

I suspected he had cried himself into delirium, because I had never once smiled at him.

I heard that when I was just born, I still knew how to cry. But once I grew a little older and became more sensible, I even stopped crying.

For a time, the general and his wife had thought I suffered from some strange illness. They agonized over it and blamed themselves, believing their own hands were stained with too much blood and that I had been implicated because of it.

Now that they had found a daughter with normal emotions and had to make up for all the years they owed her, it was only natural that an impostor like me would have to step aside.

After all, over the past decade or so, I was afraid I had not exactly fulfilled my duties as a daughter either.

It wasn’t that I had no heart at all. But no matter how well they treated me, the emotions I could return amounted to only one or two-tenths of what they gave.

The fact that they were still willing to remember our bond and continue supporting me was already rare enough. Why would they not take this chance to cast off a freak like me? Why would they still want me back?

Before Cheng Shujun left, he said pointedly, “Wanjun, for the next while, you may have to take care of yourself.”

Probably because Cheng Shujun ran to my side too often, making Cheng Yahe, his new sister, feel terribly neglected, she eventually lost patience and came to see me.

That was our second meeting, and our first conversation.