The Gossip Beauty - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Looking back at the countless battles between my mother and grandmother, this was the first time she had achieved victory without shedding a single drop of blood, repelling my grandmother with effortless ease.

It was all thanks to me, the unexpected reinforcement from the heavens.

Because of this, a small thought even budded in the depths of my mother’s heart: perhaps being a chatterbox wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

However, that tiny thought vanished like smoke the moment I reached school age.

My path to education was fraught with obstacles.

At most, I would last three days; at least, half a day. Inevitably, I would be sent home by the academy.

Whenever my mother pressed for a reason, the maid would always say the same thing:

“The teacher… for every sentence the teacher said at the front, the young miss would say three from her seat. By the end of the lesson, the young miss had spoken more words than the teacher.”

Finally, my mother slammed her hand on the table and made a decision.

“That’s it. You’re not going back. I refuse to believe that your father, a second-place imperial scholar, can’t teach a single child!”

My father: “…”

It just so happened that those years were a period of rapid promotion for my father. Not only did he have to attend court every morning, but his daily administrative workload had also increased.

After returning home, he didn’t just have to write memorials to the Emperor; he also had to tutor me.

He seemed to be aging at an accelerated rate.

Father was constantly left speechless by my antics.

Whenever that happened, he would look at me with tears in his eyes, sighing with a face full of regret.

“My daughter is brilliant and clever, which brings me great comfort. It’s just a pity… such a pity about that mouth of hers.”

My parents did their best to hide my talkative nature, but paper cannot wrap fire forever; the truth was bound to come out.

At a banquet, the daughter of the Left General intentionally stained a dress that another girl had waited three months to receive.

“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness! I heard that the Left General retired from the battlefield because of a hereditary hand tremor that prevented him from holding a blade. Surely you haven’t inherited your father’s affliction, sister?”

“To be so young and suffer so-it’s truly tragic, simply tragic.”

“Eh? Why are you still picking up food yourself? Where are the maids? Where are the maids? Don’t you know your lady is a sick patient? Hurry up and serve her! Can’t you see her hands are shaking even harder now?”

Then there was the Second Miss Huang, whose fiancé had hooked up with her concubine-born younger sister and even wanted to marry the girl as a co-equal wife.

“I have truly had my eyes opened today; that such a brazen, cold-hearted, and ungrateful person exists in this world.”

“How do that pair of scoundrels have the face to walk around in public? If I were them, I’d find a crooked tree and hang myself immediately.”

And then there was the scholar who had come to the capital for the imperial examinations. He claimed to have fallen in love with me at first sight and blocked my path in the middle of the street.

“Harassment! This is blatant harassment!”

“Have you finished memorizing your books? Are your exam materials ready? What? No? Then why are you putting on such a performance in front of me?”

“Sir, you have no family background, and you haven’t even made the honors list yet. What makes you think I would ever look at you? Is it that face of yours that makes me lose my appetite?”

Gradually, as I grew older, my reputation as a chatterbox spread alongside my fame for being beautiful.

Ordinary girls begin the matchmaking process at fourteen or fifteen and are married by sixteen or seventeen.

Yet, I was nearly nineteen, and not a single soul had come knocking on our door.

My parents even tried to take the initiative, but-

“Minister Ji, your daughter is beautiful, truly, but that mouth of hers is just too much.”

“Madam Ji, the ‘Number One Beauty’ is wonderful, but my son simply doesn’t have the fortune to endure her…”

I didn’t think it was a big deal, but my parents were so worried they were losing their hair.

My mother suggested, “Why don’t we ask His Majesty for an imperial decree of marriage? Once the decree is issued, they’ll have to take her whether they want to or not.”

My father also thought this was feasible. After all, with my mouth, I wouldn’t suffer any grievances no matter whose house I ended up in.

Thus, the next day, my father returned home accompanied by an imperial decree of marriage.