Flowers and Trees Lean on Each Other - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

If my parents carried an air of nobility in their features, and Cheng Shujun radiated pure foolishness, then this girl was mostly pride. She had a sharp, exposed edge to her, a reckless drive that dared to race the sun and moon.

Everyone in the Cheng family was good-looking. Hers was a fierce, unrestrained, almost savage kind of beauty, the kind that came from stubbornly growing through hardship.

Cheng Yahe got straight to the point. “I know you hate me, just like I hate you. The more they say you’re innocent too, the more I hate you! If I have to see you every hour of every day, then I’ll never be able to forget all the unfair things that happened to me. Cheng Wanjun, I don’t make a habit of making myself miserable. So no matter how much you hate me, I won’t let you come back.”

She had suffered plenty during all those years lost outside the family, but there was not the slightest sign that she had been beaten down by it. If anything, she had only grown braver the more she fought. She truly deserved to be a daughter of the General’s Mansion.

I simply did not understand why she had come all this way just to tell me that, so I asked, “Why would I hate you?”

She hesitated. My question seemed to drain away all her momentum. “Wh… what?”

I laid it out plainly for her, one thing at a time. “You’re their biological daughter. I’m not. So when you come back, I leave. Isn’t that only right? You have every right to hate me, but I have no position from which to hate you.”

Cheng Yahe seemed even angrier. She pointed at me and shouted, “Playing dumb won’t help you. No matter what, I won’t let you go back.”

At that time, she probably never imagined that it would not just be me-she herself would never return to the General’s Mansion either.

All the Cheng family’s property was confiscated. The only thing left was the estate I lived in, which the Empress Dowager had granted me when I was bestowed the title of County Princess. It was not included in the seizure.

Father, Mother, and my older brother were all thrown into prison, likely to await execution after autumn. So I brought Cheng Yahe, who had nowhere else to go, back with me.

As she wolfed down my food, she looked down on me and said, “Don’t think eating your food means anything. If not for you, I would have been the one made County Princess, and this estate would be mine too.”

I did respond to her provocation, but not much. “The General’s Mansion did raise me for all those years, after all. So for me to give you a meal, this…”

Before I could finish, Cheng Yahe had already decided she understood me perfectly. She rolled her eyes and mimicked me in a strange, drawn-out voice. “This… isn’t… that… only… right?”

But clearly, she still did not understand me well enough. I hurriedly denied it. “It certainly isn’t only right. The house is still here, but all the gold and silver we had before was confiscated. You’d better start thinking of a way to earn money. If we just sit here eating through our savings, I can’t afford to support you.”

Cheng Yahe’s eyes widened. She had not even had time to swallow the food in her mouth. She probably wanted to curse me for being ungrateful, but then remembered there really was no kindness between the two of us for me to be grateful for.

After choking on her words for a long while, she could only bring up the people who did have a claim of kindness over me. “Father and Mother… my father and mother! They raised you, at least. The charges against the General’s Mansion are suspicious. Haven’t you ever thought of investigating, of clearing their names? There isn’t much time left before the execution.”