Lu Li - Chapter 2

The next day, Mother announced that “Lu Li” had died.

From then on, Lu Li no longer existed. There was only Lu Yu.

I pretended to be ill in bed for as long as “Lu Li’s” funeral lasted. Once all the relatives who had come to offer condolences had gone, Mother brought me a letter of recommendation for admission to Bailu Academy.

In my previous life, my sister had entered Bailu Academy under the name “Lu Yu.” There she had met Pei Zhou, heir to Prince Huaiyang. They had fallen for each other at first sight. In time, they gave in to their feelings and spent a night together, exposing her identity as a woman. That was what brought him to our door to ask for her hand.

By then my sister had already passed the examinations and earned the rank of *xiucai*. Mother expected her to bring honor to the family. Beyond that, for a woman to take the imperial examinations was a crime against the emperor. There was no way she could marry Pei Zhou.

I still remembered the night he came to our house. The sky was dark, the rain cold. From a distance, I watched him and my sister standing together in the rain. They seemed to be arguing.

I knew nothing then of their love and grievances. I only felt the wind and rain rushing around me, and a dread that something bad was about to happen.

Sure enough, Mother summoned me to her courtyard that night. Outside the room, I heard her speaking to my sister.

“I poured everything I had into your education, helped you earn a degree so you could leave this courtyard. And after ten years of study, after tasting freedom, you want to marry? How did I raise such a disappointing daughter?”

“Do you think marriage is a good thing for a woman?”

“Do you want to spend your life trapped in a courtyard like me, trapped by the world’s harsh rules for women?”

“If you still consider me your mother, don’t mention taking back your identity as a woman again.”

“As for Pei Zhou, I’ll marry your younger sister to him to keep him quiet. You must never see him again…”

Her words chilled me all over. In a daze, I let the lantern fall from my hand.

Mother opened the door. I looked up at her cold face and at my sister, whose cheeks were streaming with tears.

Mother pulled me inside and fixed her gaze on me. “You heard all that?”

I stood there, too stunned to answer. She sighed.

“Your sister has sacrificed so much for this family. Now it’s your turn. If her identity is exposed, none of us three will survive.”

“You’ll have to marry someday anyway. Young Lord Pei is of noble birth. Marrying him is a good prospect for you.”

With those words, Mother sealed the fate of the rest of my life.

I was married off to Pei Zhou and shut inside a courtyard even larger than the Lu family’s.

I hated the marriage. Everyone else thought I had gained a wonderful advantage from it.

My sister avoided me because of Pei Zhou. Mother kept her distance out of consideration for my sister’s feelings. And Pei Zhou, now my husband, disliked me…

I had done nothing wrong, yet I was the one who had to swallow the bitter fruit.

Those dozen years in the Pei household exhausted me. Even after I killed Pei Zhou, I died consumed by despair.

This life would be different.

I tightened my grip on Bailu Academy’s recommendation letter. A smile rose to my lips before I could stop it.

I did not go to Bailu Academy. On the road, I sold its recommendation letter to a young nobleman, then took the old servant who had raised me and sat the entrance examination for Yingtian Academy instead.

Avoiding Pei Zhou was only part of the reason. More than that, I needed money.

I was ten years old again. To keep anyone from discovering that I had taken Second Brother’s identity, Mother had instructed me not to come home until I had studied away for five years. She had given my sister the same instruction in my previous life. Of course I agreed.

What I had not expected was that the money she gave me this time was barely half what she had given my sister. When she handed it to me, I saw the discomfort on her face and burst out laughing.

In that moment, I finally accepted how little there was between us as mother and daughter.

Eight years passed at Yingtian Academy. I never returned to the Lu residence. Nor did Mother visit me every ten days, as she had visited my sister in the previous life. One cool note every three months was the greatest affection she could muster for me.

My sister’s letters, by contrast, arrived without fail: three a month. Today a fourth one came.

She wrote that Mother had moved the whole household to the capital with her. Perhaps out of guilt over how Mother treated me, she had tucked a banknote worth a hundred taels of silver inside the thin pages, more than she had secretly sent me on any previous occasion.

I pulled out the banknote without expression and held the letter over the oil lamp.

Suddenly, a hand with long, distinct knuckles snatched the paper from behind me. Wen Chao skimmed it and asked the question he had asked countless times before.

“Brother Lu, are you certain you weren’t adopted?”

I shook my head calmly.

“Then why would your mother move the whole family to the capital without even discussing it with you?”

I adjusted the lamp wick, turned, and picked up a book to study. “Mother must have her reasons,” I said dismissively.

Wen Chao let out a cold laugh and said no more.

He was my roommate at the academy, and the young nobleman who had bought that Bailu Academy recommendation letter from me eight years ago. I had seen him in class after entering Yingtian Academy.

Why he had bought a recommendation to Bailu one moment and come to Yingtian the next was no concern of mine. I covered the banknote sewn into the lining of my clothes and eyed him warily.

“No refunds after a sale.”

Wen Chao, still a boy then, reached out to tap my forehead. “I’m not asking for one,” he said with an amused snort.

“Really?”

“Really.”

That was how we met. We had shared classes and a room for eight years. Wen Chao knew most of what went on in my family, if not every detail.

As for what I knew about him…

My eyes drifted from my book to him.

I had once seen him at a palace banquet in my previous life. He sat high above us on the jade steps, below only the emperor’s throne. I knelt with everyone else and called him Your Highness, the Crown Prince.

After marrying Pei Zhou, I had heard a little about the imperial family. One thing I heard was that the Crown Prince had traveled to study when he was young. Whether Wen Chao had been at Yingtian Academy in my previous life, I did not know. I did not dwell on it.

As we grew older and I became certain that Wen Chao was the Crown Prince I had known in that life, I realized my prospects had changed. If I passed the highest imperial examination, our years as schoolmates would surely make me a close aide to the Crown Prince, with a boundless career ahead.

That was why I never hid Mother’s coldness from him. Showing someone your weakness and drawing out their sympathy was another way to bring them closer, wasn’t it?