Seven-Step Poem - Chapter 1

My sudden refusal took Mother aback.

“You were perfectly willing before. Why have you changed your mind?”

“Jiang Yuan has an excellent reputation where he lives. Many young ladies from distinguished families wish to marry him. He has personally written to accept the match. Why don’t you want him?”

Though raised away from the capital, Jiang Yuan had made a name for himself young. His reputation as a gentle, refined gentleman had reached us here.

Mother had approached a close friend about the marriage without much expectation.

To her surprise, Jiang Yuan wrote the very next day, saying he would abide by the arrangements of his parents and the matchmaker.

After that, we began exchanging letters.

That upright, decorous young gentleman seemed possessed.

He wrote every day.

Every line brimmed with longing. His frank declarations made me blush and set my heart racing.

He was also terribly jealous.

If I exchanged a few extra words with some nobleman’s son, he had to know every detail.

His envelopes came stuffed with portraits of himself.

Exquisite features, a sharply defined Adam’s apple, a body traced in pale pink, a dark mole half visible lower down…

“Wanwan, you must take responsibility for me.”

“The Jiang family follows an ancestral rule: one heart, one person. Now that you have seen my body, you must not look at anyone else’s.”

Those days had been wonderfully sweet.

But now I knew why he had acted that way.

He thought I was as beautiful as my sister.

I looked at my reflection in the bronze mirror.

Thick lips. A broad nose. A face as flat and round as a pancake.

Truly unattractive.

Gathering my thoughts, I shook my head.

“Mother, Young Master Jiang has eyes bright as stars. I am ugly. We are hardly a match. Let us forget it.”

Mother had never liked my self-pity.

She slapped the mirror facedown on the table.

“What are you saying? You look this way because of the peculiar condition you have had since birth.”

“Unless you never consummate the marriage, you will surely become as beautiful as Ruoruo. More than beautiful enough for Jiang Yuan.”

A bitter smile touched my lips.

What Mother did not know was that, in my previous life, Jiang Yuan never consummated our marriage.

I lived out my days with an ugly face, Mrs. Jiang in name alone.

The Qin family was cursed.

A single child born at a time was no trouble. But twin daughters would inevitably bring misfortune upon each other, and neither could come to a good end.

As soon as they were born, one had to be put to death.

Thunder roared and lightning flashed on the day of our birth.

Mother looked at our wrinkled little faces and refused to let either of us be killed.

“They are both my children. How could I harden my heart and abandon either one?”

She would rather die than give us up.

At first we seemed normal enough.

As the years passed, my sister grew graceful and lovely, more beautiful by the day.

I went to the opposite extreme.

Hideous.

Whenever we went out together, people flocked around her. No one spared me a glance.

On learning that we were sisters, they would shake their heads in surprise.

“You don’t look alike at all.”

Over time, my shame deepened. I always wore a veil in company and refused to have my portrait painted.

Our differences extended beyond our faces to marriage.

If my sister lost her virginity to a man, she would age rapidly and grow uglier and uglier.

Only intercourse with a man could transform my appearance.

Mother knew how miserable I was and hurried to find me a husband.

Jiang Yuan’s arrival—and his praise—had been rain after a drought.

I clung to him with my whole being, craving that precious attention.

Until our wedding night.

He lifted my bridal veil gently, his voice full of joy.

“Wanwan, the day has finally come.”

“Do you know how many times I have carefully copied your name from our marriage papers…”

Then he saw my face.

His voice changed with shock.

“You… You are Qin Wan? This is what you look like?”

My heart sank.

That night, he claimed the elaborate ceremonies had exhausted him and went to sleep fully dressed.

He would not even turn his face toward me.

Only later did I learn that, unable to find a portrait of me, someone had sent him one of my sister instead.

“This is her elder sister. Born of the same mother—they must look much alike.”

It had all been a terrible misunderstanding.