Golden Pear Blossom - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

To this day, I still cannot understand it.

What mistake under heaven would Xie Jin not dare to commit?

Ever since my brother took power, countless people had tried to curry favor with him.

When they realized they could not sway him, they tried to sway me instead.

The year I came of age, matchmakers nearly wore down the threshold of the Xie Mansion.

Xie Jin scoffed at them, but he respected my wishes.

Every time, he would bring the proposals to me with a cold expression and let me look them over.

The booklets were filled with noble sons from royal and aristocratic families.

Their looks, family backgrounds, lives, and preferences were all recorded in meticulous detail.

I grew tired of reading them and simply pushed them over to Xie Jin.

“I truly don’t like any of them. Brother, why don’t you take a look for me?”

“Whichever one you say is good, I’ll choose him.”

Only then did Xie Jin’s brows soften slightly.

“Only the two of us know how hard the road we took to get here has been.”

“Ah Yin, you must never let beauty shake our grand plan.”

I nodded like a chick pecking at grain. “Brother, I’ll listen to everything you say.”

Who would have thought that the very next day, Xie Jin would order someone to hang a sign outside the estate: “Matchmakers and dogs are not permitted inside.”

That sign stayed up for years.

And I was dragged, just like that, into becoming an old maid.

I was irritated and did not want to return to the estate and see Xie Jin right away.

So I lingered outside for most of the day.

I had only just returned to the estate when the guard Xiao Ba came running over.

“Miss, this is bad. Master has gone to the temple and started killing people.”

The floating comments appeared before my eyes once more.

“Here it comes. This is the day. The villain goes to Xuanji Temple again and meets his real sister.”

“I’ve followed this for so long, and at last I’ve waited until the biological siblings recognize each other.”

“I want to see the kind little sister redeem her villain brother.”

“I want to know what happens to this fake sister even more. She’s actually known all along that she isn’t Xie Jin’s sister, but she still insisted on pretending.”

I closed my eyes.

In truth, those words were not wrong.

I had indeed known from the very beginning that I was not Xie Jin’s biological sister.

I was eight the year I met Xie Jin.

The ruined temple outside the city was my home.

That day, the rain fell in a fine mist.

A very thin, frail-looking boy came into the temple, a hemp rope in his hand.

It was Xie Jin in his youth.

His clothes were ragged, but his eyes were remarkably beautiful.

I had been robbed too many times by the other beggar children I traveled with.

So I desperately stuffed the steamed bun in my hand into my mouth.

He glanced at me. “Hey, lend me a hand. Move that altar table over here with me. I can’t get up.”

I swallowed more than half of it with difficulty, hid the remaining bun behind my back, and stood up with extreme reluctance.

“Are you going to swing up there?”

There was a crossbeam above us.

Xie Jin had thrown the hemp rope over it and tied a knot.

The moment the altar table was kicked over,

I suddenly realized he was trying to kill himself.

Fortunately, the hemp rope was not sturdy either.

I dragged Xie Jin down when he was half-dead.

We tumbled together,

covered in the dust and bits of mud on the ground.

We were in an awful state.

The clothes I wore had already been thin and worn, and as he struggled, he tore a long gash down the fabric across my back.

The boy was furious and snapped at me, “If you’re going to send Buddha on his way, send him all the way to the west. Don’t you understand?”

He was far too good at cursing people. Without using a single filthy word, he scolded me for the better part of an hour.

My ears ached from listening, so I simply turned my back to him.

But the voice behind me suddenly stopped.

Then someone hugged me, trembling.

“Little sister, you’re still alive?”

At first, I thought Xie Jin was trying to trick me.

But he said there was a peach blossom birthmark on the back of my neck. There could be no mistake.

I was the little sister who had been abducted when he was young.

The boy’s tears soaked most of my shoulder.

I picked up the remaining half of the steamed bun from the ground.

“How about… I share half with you?”

Xie Jin looked disgusted. “Is this what you usually eat?”

In truth, the so-called “birthmark” on the back of my neck had been burned there with a branding iron when I was little.

But Xie Jin was so happy that he forgot he wanted to die.

And that embrace was so warm that it stirred greed in me.

It had been a very, very long time since I had known what it felt like to have family.

Xie Jin held me and cried for a long time. He swore over and over, “Your brother will steal, will rob, whatever it takes, but I will make sure you live clean and proper.”

In the middle of the night, Xie Jin came back dragging a lame leg.

His face and hands were covered in injuries.

But he had brought back a roast chicken and a set of clean clothes.

I heard that Xie Jin had been chased for three streets by someone wielding a huge broom, looking utterly wretched the entire way.

Yet when he returned, he only smiled at me. “From now on, as long as Brother has one roast chicken, our Ah Yin will have a mouthful of rice to eat.”

That was what he said, but he also said he was not hungry, that he had already eaten.

I had that roast chicken all to myself.

When I woke in the middle of the night, I saw Xie Jin squatting on the ground, secretly sucking on the leftover chicken bones.

My brother truly had it too hard.

Today there might be one chicken.

Tomorrow, there might not even be one full meal.

At the time, it was a period of chaos and war. Xie Jin felt that stealing and robbing were no long-term solution.

“The realm has already fallen into disorder. If we go south, there will always be a place for us.”

That year, warlords rose on all sides, and everyone fought to the death for the imperial throne.

Xie Jin took me to Chenzhou.

From an unknown foot soldier, he fought his way upward.

In two years, he became the bravest and youngest general under King Kang.

The path to the throne was only one step away.

But King Kang was bedridden with a lingering illness and no longer had the strength to fight.

Though he was old, he had a young son.

Everyone believed that a man like Xie Jin, who held military power and would stop at nothing, would seize authority and usurp the throne.

Instead, he supported that young heir all the way until he ascended the throne.