Full Courtyard of Fragrance - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

For as long as I can remember, I knew I was different from my elder sister.

Though we were born of the same father and mother, we did not look alike at all.

She had perfectly inherited every advantage of our parents’ features-even Grandmother’s dimples had been passed down to her.

As for me, I seemed to have chosen only my parents’ flaws to grow into.

I had even inherited the birthmark Mother loathed.

I was still young then, ignorant and muddleheaded, and only felt that my parents were biased.

Whenever there was a banquet in the capital, they only took my sister with them.

I could only stay at home and make knotted cords with my nursemaid.

The maids gossiped, saying my sister had been nursed by Mother herself, so Mother favored her.

I had been fed by a nursemaid, so Mother had no affection for me.

Crying, I went to ask my nursemaid if it was true.

My nursemaid said Mother had injured her health giving birth to me and was not suited to nurse a child, so Grandmother had hired a nursemaid for me.

“Your mother loves you. Don’t listen to their nonsense.

“She doesn’t take you out because you’re too young. Once you grow up, everything will be fine.”

But I was clearly only one year younger than my sister.

Not long after that, a few maids with a death wish took advantage of my nursemaid’s good temper and deliberately spoke in front of both of us.

“Madam saw that black birthmark on Second Miss’s waist, the same as hers, and felt disgusted. That’s why she doesn’t want to see her.”

“That’s not all. Madam had a difficult labor giving birth to Second Miss, and she can never have children again.

“She was hoping for a legitimate son, but who knew Second Miss would be so useless and turn out not to be a boy? How could Madam not hate her?”

My nursemaid trembled with anger.

She was known throughout the estate as a kind and gentle person.

But that time, she refused to let the matter go. She dragged those young maids before Grandmother and asked her to uphold justice.

Grandmother came from a Marquis Manor and ruled the household with the strictest discipline. What she hated most was unrest within the family.

She punished those young maids severely, beating their mouths until they were torn and bloody.

Originally, the matter should have ended there.

But no one expected Grandmother to use the incident to strip Mother of her authority over the household.

Grandmother blamed Mother for being from a minor family, ignorant of household management, and unable to control the servants, thus causing a rift between sisters.

Mother’s family background was not high, but her beauty was lush and striking.

If Father’s branch of the family had not declined by his generation, Grandmother would never have agreed to let Mother marry in.

She had never looked highly upon my mother, thinking her a seductive little vixen. Unfortunately, Father adored Mother dearly.

Grandmother did not want mother and son to become estranged, so she had endured it.

Now that a weakness had been handed to her, she naturally refused to let it pass lightly.

My nursemaid had stood up for me to prevent the maids from bullying me in the future.

She never imagined she would become a sacrifice in the struggle between Grandmother and Mother.

After Mother lost control of the household, she blamed me even more and disliked me all the more.

She kept my sister by her side and raised her personally, doting on her beyond measure.

She threw me to my nursemaid and paid me no mind.

When my fever would not break, Father had accompanied Grandmother to Fragrant Hills to worship Buddha.

My nursemaid could only go beg Mother to summon a doctor for me.

Mother did not show the slightest panic. Smiling, she asked my nursemaid, “Why does Nanny know to come report to me at a time like this? Why didn’t you go tell my mother-in-law?”

My nursemaid’s eyes reddened. She knelt and slapped her own face, humbly admitting her fault.

My nursemaid had gone at noon. It was not until nightfall that she returned, dragging her trembling legs, her face swollen and red.

Behind her was a doctor from Huichun Hall.

There was a sheen of tears in my nursemaid’s eyes, but she smiled and comforted me.

“I’ve brought the doctor. You won’t die. Don’t be afraid.”

I was not afraid. I was only sad.

I opened my dry, cracked mouth.

“Nanny, I’ll be good to you in the future.”

Tears fell, and the swollen flesh in my throat pressed and scraped until it hurt like a sting.

I coughed violently and wailed.

After I recovered, my sister fell ill instead.

Unlike her calmness when facing my illness, Mother lost all composure.

She had never been willing to lower her head to Grandmother, but this time, she knelt before Grandmother and wept as she begged her to use the household token to summon an imperial physician.

Grandmother naturally refused.

For a minor fever, how could she be asked to summon an imperial physician? It was not as though someone were dying.

Mother left in fury, invited a whole group of doctors, and kept watch by my sister’s bedside.

I was still nursing my resentment that Mother hadn’t come to see me, so I refused to go see her.

My wet nurse urged me, saying, “She is your sister. You ought to go see her.”

So I went.

Because it had been so long since I’d seen Mother.

The truth was, I really did miss her.

But I had never imagined that she did not miss me.

She actually blamed me for passing my illness to my sister.

The way she looked at me was hateful and cold.

She told me to get out.

She also said that if anything happened to my sister, she would never let me off.

My chest ached so badly that it swelled with bitterness. I hadn’t meant to cry.

But the moment I opened my mouth, before any words could come out, tears came crashing down first.

“Mother, I am your daughter too.”

She choked, and the look in her eyes gradually grew complicated.

Then she stopped paying me any attention. The servants in the courtyard went about their duties, moving back and forth in orderly fashion.

Just like that, I was forgotten, as if I were one of the pillars standing in the room, with no presence at all.

After that incident, gossip in the manor never ceased.

Only belatedly did my wet nurse realize that Mother had been using me to challenge Grandmother.

Her heart ached for me. Weeping, she told me she was sorry, that she had been too stupid and had let things turn out this way.

Though I felt ashamed and miserable, I still wrapped my arms around her.

In truth, I was happy.

That was the first time anyone had ever stood up for me.

Mother was always saying I had been born plain. If I did not cultivate a docile, generous, forbearing disposition on top of that, then in the future, even if I barely managed to marry, I would only end up an abandoned wife.

She always looked me over with that mocking gaze.

She said she could no longer count on me for the rest of her life.

Only my sister could fulfill her dream of becoming a Lady of Imperial Appointment.

She made me swear that I would never cling to my sister in the future.

I swore it, each word ringing firm and clear.

I was a person too. I had dignity too.

I wished I could leave the Jiang Family that very instant and never touch another grain of their rice or sip another drop of their water.

I had never hated her like that before.

After my wet nurse learned that Mother had made me swear such an oath, she could not sleep night after night, and much more of her hair turned white.

A few nights later, she took my hand, as if what she wanted to say was terribly difficult to utter.

“Wuxiao, you have to grow up.

“Your mother is tired of you, but you must live on. You have to be obedient and do your best to please your grandmother, understand?”

As she spoke, she began to sob.

I did not know what she was crying for.

I silently wiped away her tears.

I said all right.

My wet nurse said Grandmother despised Mother’s beauty, and because of that, she disliked my sister as well.

Great households chose wives for virtue. Only when taking concubines did people look at a woman’s beauty.

She told me to study properly and learn needlework. Only then would Grandmother think more highly of me.

Every seven days, my sister and I had to go pay our respects to Grandmother.

Grandmother would examine our lessons.

This time, my wet nurse had me go dressed simply.

Compared to my sister, I hardly looked like the daughter of an official family. Even my sleeves were half a section too short.

After this happened several times, coupled with all the gossip in the manor, Grandmother gradually noticed how differently Mother treated me and my sister.

Furious, she scolded Father and made Mother kneel in the ancestral hall to reflect on herself.

Her dragon-headed cane smashed the square blue bricks on the floor.

Grandmother’s scolding pierced through the five courtyards of the manor, every word clearly audible.

“Back then, when I chose a wife for you, I told you that a man should marry for virtue. But you were bewitched by beauty and set your heart on marrying her.

“I told you before-how can a woman from such a minor household know how to manage a family?

“Wuxiao and her sister are children of the same father and mother, but look at her!

“When she treats two children so differently, how could there possibly be any affection left between them? When they grow up, how could they support each other then?

“Don’t think I don’t know what she is thinking. Isn’t it just that she believes Wuxiao isn’t as pretty as Mingyue?!

“You tell her that we are an official’s household. The girls of our family do not rely on beauty to serve others! Only rotten, lowly households outside seek such things!”

Mother fainted from anger. After she woke, she blamed and detested me even more.

She even stopped seeing me altogether.

And at some point, I stopped feeling sad because of her.