Aristocratic Family - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 : Past Events

Before her parents’ accident, Lian Yueyao lived a life of luxury. Her parents spoiled her, their only daughter, and treated her with utmost care. Lian Yueyao was intelligent and clever from a young age, and her father personally taught her when she was two years old.
Soon, he discovered her talent for painting and began teaching her. Seeing her exceptional talent, her father hired a famous painter, Wen Chengxiang, from Jiangnan to be her teacher when she was three years old.
She studied with Wen Chengxiang for four years, and he taught her with all his heart, saying that if she persisted, she would become a great artist. She studied diligently, but everything changed when she was seven years old.

When she was seven, her mother became pregnant. This should have been a joyful occasion, but it turned into a nightmare. Her mother died in childbirth, and her brother didn’t survive either.

Her mother’s passing had a significant impact on her father, causing him to fall seriously ill. Although he recovered, he was taken away by a severe cold.

With her parents gone, her world collapsed. She was taken back to the capital by her uncle and arranged to live in her father’s old courtyard, Lanxi Courtyard.

Less than a year after she returned to the Lian family, her grandmother passed away due to the immense grief caused by her father’s death. At that time, rumors spread in the mansion that she was a jinx, making her feel uneasy. However, her aunt, Madam Mo, punished those spreading the rumors and treated her like her own daughter, even better than her own daughter, Lian Yuebing.

Although her parents were gone, with her aunt’s care and love, and an engaged fiancé who was talented and handsome, her life wasn’t entirely bleak.
But a mysterious disaster destroyed everything.

The illegitimate daughter of the first branch, Lian Yuehuan, accused her of having an affair with someone, which she vehemently denied. However, she never expected her wet nurse, Gu Mama, to stand up and confirm the accusation, even producing evidence.
She was shocked beyond anger. She couldn’t understand why her wet nurse, Gu Mama, whom she trusted and treated so well, would falsely accuse her and ruin her reputation.

The matter of having an affair was something that couldn’t be spread outside. If it was spread, the Lian family’s reputation would be ruined. So, the lady of the house, Madam Mo, announced that she was seriously ill. And it was true, she did fall seriously ill and was sent to a remote manor by Madam Mo after her recovery.

Not long after, Concubine Su came to tell her that the Shen family had cancelled their engagement due to her tarnished reputation. Now, the Lian family’s reputation was also ruined because of her. She wanted to return to the capital to find out the truth, but she was being watched and couldn’t go back. After she recovered from her illness, Concubine Su came to tell her again that her uncle had chosen a candidate who was going to take the imperial exam in the capital to marry her.

A few days later, she was forced to get married in a sedan chair, and she became the wife of a man she didn’t know. At that time, she wasn’t without doubts, but she was just a puppet on strings, unable to control her own destiny.

On the wedding night, she saw her husband, a tall and strong man in his mid-twenties.
That’s when she knew his name was Zhou Shu, and he was from Haicheng.

She didn’t want to get married, didn’t want to marry someone without knowing why. She wanted to know the reason behind it all. But after the wedding, she resigned herself to her fate. She was married, and she was Zhou Shu’s wife now. What was the point of proclaiming her innocence? Nothing could be changed.

She adjusted her mindset, thinking that she would have children in the future and raise them well. She would live her life like this, and the past would be like a dream.But just as she had come to terms with her situation, she discovered a truth that she couldn’t believe. The man she married, Zhou Shu, wasn’t a candidate at all, but a merchant.

She had married a merchant, someone from the lowest rung of society. A family with a hundred years of scholarly heritage, the daughter of a top scholar, marrying a lowly merchant. It was laughable. She wanted to return to the capital, to get to the bottom of things. But she couldn’t escape. Zhou Shu took her away from the capital as quickly as possible, saying he wanted to take her back to his hometown.

On the journey, she thought about returning to the capital, about finding out the truth. But she was heavily guarded, and she couldn’t escape. She was in a daze for a long time, and she didn’t know how long it took to reach their destination. After they settled down, she found out that she was thousands of miles away from the capital, in Haicheng.

In Haicheng, she was trapped in a beautiful cage. During that time, Zhou Shu pampered her, spoiled her rotten. He would do anything for her, except maybe reach for the stars.

Zhou Shu told her that he was bewitched by her, that she had captured his heart and he couldn’t forget her. He had married her under a false name because he couldn’t stop thinking about her. She was cold towards him. Being loved by someone who would stop at nothing to possess her, even using false pretenses, was her greatest tragedy.

Just when she had lost all hope, she became pregnant. Zhou Shu was overjoyed when he found out, and he treated her like a treasure.

Human hearts are made of flesh and blood, and after a long time, Zhou Shu’s kindness had a profound effect on her. She was still cold on the surface, but her heart had begun to thaw. No matter what, she was pregnant now, and Zhou Shu was the father of her child. For the sake of her child, she had to compromise. For the sake of her child, she couldn’t continue living in a daze.

But just as she was trying to convince herself to accept Zhou Shu and be a good mother, she discovered a truth that shattered her completely. She hadn’t married Zhou Shu, she had been sold to him. Zhou Shu already had a wife and children, and she was just a concubine he had bought. The woman who had resigned herself to her fate was now desperate, completely desperate.Zhou Shu claimed they were equal wives, but that explanation was laughable.
What equal wives? In official families, aside from the primary wife, everyone else was a concubine. And without even being allowed into the main courtyard to serve tea to the mistress, she wasn’t even considered a proper concubine. At most, she was just a mistress who served him with her beauty.

Zhou Shu’s favoritism made the women in his household jealous to the point of madness. When she became pregnant, it made them even more uneasy. These women, including the primary wife, took advantage of her desperation and distraction and plotted against her.
They got rid of her child.

She was grief-stricken, but amidst her sorrow, she felt a sense of relief. It was better that the child was gone. Being born into a merchant family was already considered lowly, and being the illegitimate child of a merchant would be even worse. She didn’t want her child to bear such a lowly status, to face disdain from others from birth, or to live a life with their head hung low. She didn’t want her child to be unable to call her “mother¹” proudly.

Those women not only got rid of her child but also solved the problem of her potentially having more children. She would never be able to bear children for Zhou Shu again. This was for the best.

Zhou Shu went mad and beat the women in his household to death over this incident. Even the primary wife came to beg her. But she envied them, she wanted to die, to be free from suffering. Unfortunately, she couldn’t even die.

She couldn’t understand what was so special about her. Why did Zhou Shu fall in love with her?
Why was he willing to risk his life and do whatever it took to get her? What was it about her that made him so obsessed? She looked at her reflection in the mirror, at her beautiful face. She thought maybe it was her face. She wanted to ruin her face, to destroy the face that brought her disaster. If she ruined her face, Zhou Shu would let her go.

She used a golden hairpin to slash her face, creating several deep gashes. Her once beautiful face was now scarred and terrifying. She became an ugly monster that everyone feared.She thought that no one would want to be with an ugly monster. But what she didn’t expect was that even after she became disfigured, Zhou Shu still wouldn’t let her go.

He even held her hand and said, “No matter what you look like, I will always love you.” And indeed, as he said, even after she became a scarred and terrifying monster, Zhou Shu still pampered her like before. Whenever he had free time, he would stay by her side, talking to her about all sorts of things.

After numerous failed attempts at death and realizing that disfigurement wouldn’t make Zhou Shu let her go, she gradually became numb. She couldn’t die, and she couldn’t live. She became like a puppet without a soul, just going through the motions. She thought, “I’ll just endure, and maybe one day I’ll die from it.”

The doctor said she had pent-up emotions that needed to be released, or she wouldn’t live long. Coincidentally, Zhou Shu had to go on a business trip and took her along, saying it would be good for her to clear her mind.

After many failed attempts at death, she hadn’t tried again for a long time. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to die, but she was waiting for the right opportunity. She didn’t want to be saved again. Maybe because of the passage of time, the people around her, including Zhou Shu, had become less vigilant.

When they were on the boat, she looked at the turbulent river water and smiled. She had finally found an opportunity. No one could stop her, no one could save her. She was finally free. As she jumped into the water, she thought, “This time, I’m really free.”

Unfortunately, heaven didn’t want her to be free. Even jumping into the turbulent river couldn’t kill her. In the end, she was still saved by someone and sent to a Buddhist nunnery. Although she was alive, she lost all her memories.Forgetting the past also meant forgetting the pain. Her days in the temple allowed her to let go of everything. She wanted to become a nun, but the abbess said her karmic ties were not yet severed, and she couldn’t be tonsured. Despite this, her life in the temple was not bad. Although she lost her memories, her basic skills remained.

She used her excellent calligraphy to copy scriptures and her exceptional painting skills to draw images of Bodhisattvas. Both the scriptures and the paintings were popular among the laywomen. For the temple, it was a considerable source of income. With these two skills, everyone in the temple treated her well. She was content with her life.

If she could live her life like this, it would be her good fortune. But heaven didn’t grant her wish. She saw Gu Mama coming to burn incense.

When she saw Gu Mama, dressed luxuriously and surrounded by maids, being called “old lady,” all the memories she had deliberately sealed away, all the unbearable past events, flooded her mind.

Once the gates of memory were opened, she couldn’t keep her calm. She had to find out the truth, no matter what. Why did the rumors of her affair spread? Why did Gu Mama betray her? Why did they say she was marrying a scholar, but instead, she was sold to a merchant?

She found a way to force Gu Mama to tell the truth. And the truth was cruel. Madam Mo’s kindness, treating her like a biological mother, was all just a means to an end. Madam Mo’s true purpose was to get the family wealth of the second branch.

Madam Mo believed that her father had accumulated a large fortune, but after her parents’ death, the silver she got was far less than she expected. Madam Mo suspected that her parents had hidden the wealth. So she befriended her, lavishing her with kindness to gain her trust, making her see money as dirt. In the end, all the silver of the second branch fell into Madam Mo’s hands.

Fortunately, she was still engaged to the Shen family, a family with a scholarly heritage. Her father had saved Shen Qian’s life, and Shen Qian’s career was going smoothly. Considering the beneficial marriage, Madam Mo still maintained a facade of kindness towards her.

The change occurred because her fiancé, Shen Conghao, was too perfect. Not only was he handsome and elegant, but he also wrote excellent articles, earning him the reputation of the “Number One Gentleman” in the capital.
Many women in the capital had secretly fallen in love with him, and the granddaughter of the Prime Minister, Su shi, was obsessed with him. She even disregarded her reputation, declaring that if she couldn’t marry Shen Conghao, she would become a nun and spend her life with Buddha.

The Su family also valued Shen Conghao highly, and the Shen family had intentions of forming a connection with the Su family. Therefore, she became a stumbling block. The Shen family and Madam Mo secretly reached an agreement, canceling the engagement, and the Shen family provided compensation. The compensation was to help her uncle, Lian Dong, get promoted, and to facilitate her older cousin’s marriage to become the wife of the Marquis of Luyang.

She was falsely accused of having an affair, which was also Madam Mo’s idea. She didn’t know why Madam Mo would take such a risk, damaging the Lian family’s reputation. She only knew that after this incident, Madam Mo announced to the outside world that she was seriously ill, and soon, she was considered dead by the world.

The Shen family made Shen Conghao mourn for her for a year.
A year later, Shen Conghao became the top scholar, and then he became engaged to the Su family. With the Su family’s support, Shen Conghao’s career was extremely smooth. At just thirty years old, he was already a third-rank official. Everyone in the court said he was the most likely to enter the cabinet in the future.

Whether it was the Lian family or the Shen family, everyone lived a prosperous life, while she was pushed into hell by these people. She didn’t accept this, she was extremely unwilling. She lived a life worse than death, and she didn’t want these people to have a good life either.

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