Lu Li - Chapter 1

Mother stared for a moment, then frowned.

Without a second thought, she scolded me. “Lu Li, this is no game. You fall short of your elder sister in everything, and you’re unruly and flighty besides. How could you settle down to study, pass the examinations, and keep this family standing?”

My lashes trembled. A bitter ache rose in my chest.

I had heard that answer in two lifetimes now.

My second elder brother and I were twins. Our father died in an accident when we were barely a month old. People said that the two of us had brought death upon him.

But Second Brother was the family’s only son. So Mother believed only half of what people said: she decided I was the one who had killed Father. She had never liked me.

I had learned to read faster than my sister or brother, but Mother never saw it. She saw only that I was worse at embroidery than my sister, and called me slow.

When someone bullied my sister or brother, I was the one who stood up for them. Mother decided I was too wild and had taught them to quarrel with others…

She paid me no mind. In her eyes I was inferior to both of them in every way.

So when Second Brother died and one of us had to take his identity to preserve what remained of the family’s wealth and keep the household afloat, my sister was the first person Mother thought of.

Even though Second Brother and I were twins of similar height and appearance.

She loved my sister. She wanted her to live as a man and have a wider world before her.

But would that life truly be good for my sister? Love also meant constant worry. That was why Mother still could not bring herself to decide.

I looked steadily at the woman before me, aged overnight by Second Brother’s death, and spoke the fear she could not voice.

“My sister is gentle and obedient. Does she truly want to dress as a man, live among men, struggle against them for a place, and then spend the rest of her life alone because she is a woman?”

Mother’s lashes trembled.

I pressed on. “Mother, even if she were willing, could you bear to let her?”

Mother had borne three children. She had loved Second Brother best, and my sister next. With him gone, my sister was the person dearest to her.

In my previous life, she had chosen my sister partly because she feared I was too dull to uphold the Lu family. But she had also been unable to bear the thought of my sister spending her whole life confined to a household courtyard as she had.

If I wanted her to choose me, I had to do more than point out my sister’s reluctance. I had to show her what I could do.

I picked up the *Mencius* that Second Brother had been studying and handed it to her. Under her astonished gaze, I began to recite it, word by word.

There was still sunset light on the horizon when I began. Then the moonless night swallowed the stars. My clear voice grew hoarse. By the time I finished the last line, the night was deep and the dew heavy.

Mother’s expression was hard to read.

“Mother,” I said through my raw throat, “I’m not stupid.”

In my previous life, whenever my sister wept in Mother’s arms and asked why she had been made to take our brother’s place, I had a complaint of my own: why hadn’t I been the one allowed to travel beyond these walls?

Before marriage, I was trapped in the Lu family’s enclosed courtyard. After marriage, I was trapped in the Pei family’s. The size of the courtyard changed; my imprisoned body and mind did not.

After every quarrel with Pei Zhou, I would leaf through those yellowed books again and again. They calmed me. They also let me dream of what might have been if I had taken Second Brother’s place that day.

My sister would not have suffered through half a lifetime of arduous study. She would not have had to watch Pei Zhou marry me with resentment in her eyes. And I would not have remained behind courtyard walls until I died.

Fortunately, I had been given another chance. Fortunately, the books I studied in that life had become my means of escaping this cage.

I met Mother’s eyes. “Choose me, Mother. I want to study.”

The room fell so silent one could have heard a pin drop. Mother looked from me to my sister and back, her face full of indecision.

Then my sister tugged at her sleeve. “Mother~”

Mother sighed. She gave me no answer. Instead she lowered her gaze to my sister and asked tenderly, “Yao’er, tell me honestly. What do you want?”

I could only smile bitterly to myself. Even after all this effort, I would get a choice only if my sister refused it first.

I looked at her. She swayed Mother’s hand gently and said in a coaxing voice, “Mother, I don’t like studying the Four Books and Five Classics…”

Disappointment flickered across Mother’s eyes. At length she turned to me.

“Fine. Don’t say I favor your sister again. This is your choice. I only hope you won’t regret it later.”

Joy surged through me. I took a deep breath and answered firmly.

“I never will.”