Where Sun and Moon Never Rest - Chapter 2

My name is Li Yilan.

My mother was a powerful demon, bound by a restriction spell and used as a vessel for someone else’s cultivation.

She had fought desperately to escape. Then Father chanced upon her, coveted her beauty, and carried her off to the Li estate.

She died giving birth to me.

I became the Li family’s third young lady.

The other sons and daughters of the household were born precious. Their spiritual gifts were awakened in childhood, and they began learning magic.

I was dirt beneath their feet.

I had no spiritual root, and my conflicting bloodlines left me weak and sickly.

Forgotten in a corner of the Li estate.

Which was why nobody knew I was half-demon.

The two bloodlines tore at each other inside me. My bones often felt about to split, and my fever would not break.

Simply staying alive was more than I could hope for.

A maid named Xuexin raised me.

Whenever I was wronged, she would hold me gently.

“You’re not lowly, miss. They just don’t know how good you are.”

But I knew I was no young lady.

I ate meager meals and thin gruel, and often helped Xuexin with odd jobs.

On New Year’s Eve, the other children crowded around Father to ask for red envelopes of lucky money.

Father beckoned to me in the corner.

“Yilan, why aren’t you coming over?”

“Don’t you want a red envelope?”

I wanted to nod.

Then Xuexin could do less embroidery. We could buy thick clothes for winter.

She had put all of this year’s cotton padding into my jacket.

She was still wearing the same old clothes from years ago.

Working through the winter left her hands red and swollen with cold.

But I knew that if I dared to ask, the mistress would let the other children punch and kick me. Father would simply look away.

They would gather around to bully me, and the servants would join in.

If I cried out, no one would hear.

They would humiliate me, then leave me forgotten where I stood.

Father, his wife, his concubines—all of them quietly allowed it.

If Xuexin protested on my behalf, she would bleed too.

So I lowered my head and obediently shook it.

“Yilan doesn’t want one.”

Father nodded, pleased that I knew to be content.

I was the motherless child of this household, hiding the secret of my demon blood.

In times like these, it was already a blessing that they had not thrown me out to be eaten by a great demon.

How could I dare ask for anything more?

Xuexin said she would protect me.

“Don’t be afraid, miss. I’ll stay with you all my life.”

“When you’re grown, they’ll all see how good you are. Things will get better for us. Next year, you’ll have a red envelope for sure!”

But another winter came.

And Xuexin died.

The moon gave no light. The snow was a blank, lifeless white.

The servants hauled me to the main courtyard like a cat or a dog.

Only then did I learn that Xuexin had gone to the mistress for her year-end reward, hoping to make a red envelope for me. My elder brother Li Cheng, the wife’s son, had returned home drunk and run into her.

He wanted her for her beauty, so he forced himself on her.

Xuexin knelt at the mistress’s feet, begging for mercy. A glaring red stain spread through the skirt beneath her.

Ordinarily, that would have been nothing.

If a master took a fancy to a maid, he could simply make her a concubine or a bedmaid.

But Father had recently bought a beautiful performer from a theater and quarreled often with his wife over it.

The mistress took her anger out on Xuexin.

She said Xuexin had lost her chastity and disgraced the family.

She would have her thrown out to feed the demons.

My head swam.

I watched them drag Xuexin away.

I thought…

When my head hurt so badly it felt about to split, no one would ever hold me and sing nursery rhymes to lull me to sleep again. No one would be with me anymore…

My eyes stung.

I wiped them. My hand came away wet.

I didn’t want Xuexin to die.