Searching for the Cup of Jade in the Peach Blossoms - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

“Miss, please don’t be so downhearted.”

Caitang brought over a steaming cup of tea and kneaded my shoulders.

“After all, His Highness even praised your creativity this time and smiled at you. There must still be a chance.”

I lay sprawled over the table, red marks pressed into my cheek, and let out a heavy sigh.

“As if he had any choice but to praise me.”

My father, the general, had just returned from leading the army in a great victory, taking three enemy cities in one fell swoop. Right now, he was the Emperor’s favorite man.

No matter how much the Crown Prince despised me, he couldn’t show it at a time like this.

“Caitang, tell me. Why is the Crown Prince so hard to win over?”

“How about I ask Father to go to the Emperor and request a marriage decree?”

Caitang was so startled by the idea that she hurriedly waved her hands.

“You mustn’t, Miss.”

She hesitated for a while, then finally sighed.

“Actually, this servant thinks our life has already gotten much better. We no longer have to worry about money…”

“You are now the eldest young lady of the General’s Mansion. You have anything you could want. There is no need to sacrifice your whole life for the sake of silver.”

I fell silent.

She was right.

Everyone outside said I was madly in love with the Crown Prince, but what they didn’t know was that I was afraid.

Afraid of being poor.

My father, Ying Shuyuan, was a great general of the State of Qi. He originally had three sons and two daughters, and his family lived in harmony.

My mother, however, was nothing more than a peasant woman from the borderlands of the State of Qi. By a stroke of chance, my father was poisoned by the enemy, and my mother saved him.

Perhaps my father had acted on a whim. Perhaps my mother had been tempted by his looks. In any case, the two of them somehow muddled their way through one night together, and then there was me.

Ying Yu.

After my father’s wounds healed, he set off at once. When he left, he gave her nothing. He did not even look back at my mother, who was already pregnant.

After I was born, Mother and I depended on each other for survival. Our lives were bitterly poor.

When enemy soldiers invaded, Mother sold our land, slaughtered our chickens, and offered herself up. Only then did she preserve both our lives from the enemy’s hands.

Later, the enemy army retreated. We thought life would finally settle down, but then came a drought and a plague. We ate dirt and gnawed on tree bark. In the end, Mother fed me her own blood so I could cling to life.

She starved to death right in front of me.

When she died, she was nothing but a skeleton wrapped in dry skin, frighteningly thin.

From that moment on, I swore I would marry the richest man in the world.

As luck would have it, my father’s other children all died in that plague. He took me in, and I became the only child of the General’s Mansion.

The Emperor was old. If I married him, once he died, I would have to be buried with him.

So my sights fell on the Crown Prince, Qi Lie.

I pressed my lips together and shook my head.

“No. You don’t understand, Caitang.”

“Poverty is terrifying. Starving is terrifying too.”

“I…”

“General! General!”

A servant’s panicked voice carried all the way from the front courtyard, interrupting me. It sounded as though he had something to report to Ying Shuyuan.

“Pei… Pei… Imperial Tutor Pei is here!!”