With the passing of a year, spring arrived in Wu County.
The light spring rain fell like fine threads, pattering down. The bluestone paved road of a deep, narrow alley was filled with pools of water covered in moss, slippery to the touch.
Hurried footsteps sounded from the alley entrance, then a crash as a girl in green robes fell to the ground. Paying no mind to her pain, she scrambled up and rushed to the small side door in the corner, pounding urgently on it.
“Coming, coming!” An old servant opened the door and saw the muddy girl. “Lu Xiu, what happened to you? Slow down, slow down.”
Lu Xiu ran past the old servant into the rear courtyard.
“Young miss!”
Hearing Lu Xiu’ voice, Ling Qingyu put down her medicine bowl and smoothed the quilt covering her mother, who was coughing violently in the bed. She got up from the bedside, opened the door, and gently shushed the hurriedly approaching girl, leading her into the side room.
This mother looked exactly like her mother from her past life. But before she could feel moved or get used to this new identity, disaster after disaster struck. In a single day after awakening in this new body, she was informed her father and brothers had died, her fiancé had called off their engagement, and finally she had been expelled from the clan because she was considered inauspicious, causing her mother to vomit blood and faint. If it wasn’t for her uncle rushing over to take them away, she and her mother would have been forced to their deaths in that manor. When they left the Lin manor, the only servants who came with them were Granny Zheng and the young maid Lu Xiu. After arriving at this small house in the city with her uncle and her mother’s health improved a bit, her mother pleaded for her uncle to file a lawsuit. Today was the court date.
“Lu Xiu is back,” Granny Zheng said as she pushed open the door and rubbed her hands together. “How did it go? Did the county magistrate punish those vicious wolves?”
“Uncle should have won the judgment,” Ling Qingyu mused. “What’s left for my mother and me?”
“Young miss!” Lu Xiu finally couldn’t hold back her tears. “They said the money that the old master and young master earned was from the clan’s business investments, so it should belong to the clan elder Master Lin. The manors, shops, estates should all be transferred to Master Lin’s name.”
Ling Qingyu closed her eyes briefly. “What about my mother’s dowry?”
“The patriarch said to have Third Young Master adopted as Second Madam’s heir, so Second Madam’s dowry should go to Third Young Master.”
“Those heartless beasts!” Granny Zheng cried. “They’re trying to force the Madam and young miss onto the road to death!”
“They wanted us dead from the start,” Ling Qingyu said as she pushed the door open. She looked at the lush trees and blooming flowers in the courtyard, nourished by the spring rain. Without anyone tending them, they were still vibrantly alive in spring’s arrival.
Her father and brother had earned a massive fortune from their overseas trade, but that wealth had attracted deadly envy, prompting her uncle to take such ruthless action and wipe them out, all to seize her father’s assets. The Lin clan! Ling Qingyu’s hands clenched into fists, her nails digging deeply into her palms.
“Hui Niang, Hui Niang…” Her mother’s weak calls came from the main room.
“Granny Zheng, please ask my uncle to come over,” Ling Qingyu said as she walked toward the main room.
“Young miss, your uncle didn’t say a word in court today,” Lu Xiu blurted out as she wiped her tears. “He just let the magistrate make the judgment.”
Ling Qingyu paused and gave a bitter smile. Over this period, she had slowly regained the original host’s memories. Those memories showed her aunt was no virtuous woman, always resentful of her younger sister-in-law and neglectful after her in-laws passed away. Her uncle taking them in under his wife’s objections was already more than expected.
“Granny Zheng, tell my uncle and Master Lin this – legally, if my mother does not agree to adopt an heir, then her dowry must be returned to my maternal family after her death. He can’t have her estate. But if he really wants that estate, I have a proposal for him.”
