Chapter 035: Revenge

Jiang Xuehui quietly looked at her, as if there was a hint of sigh in her dark eyes. After a long time, she finally said, “You’ve been waiting for me to ask, haven’t you?”

Jiang Xuening acted as if she hadn’t heard, and instead directly ordered the maid in her room, “Mei’er, why don’t you quickly bring me a cup of tea? This is a long story, and it needs to be told slowly.”

Mei’er was so angry that she couldn’t speak.

However, Jiang Xuehui said, “Go get it.”

Mei’er was stunned and directly called out, “Eldest Miss!”

Jiang Xuehui ignored her.

Mei’er held back her anger, glared fiercely at Jiang Xuehui, and then turned to get the tea.

Jiang Xuening smiled and said, “Sister, you really have a good temper.”

Jiang Xuehui only said, “After all, losing my temper won’t let you leave here. So, there’s no difference between a good temper and a bad temper.”

This was indeed something Jiang Xuehui could say.

In her previous life, she was like this.

Even when bullied, she could still maintain her composure, as if nothing could make her angry. But if a person lives in this world without any temper, they don’t seem like a real person.

Listening to her words, Jiang Xuening walked around her room, looking at the exquisite beechwood bed, the lacquered dressing table with lotus carvings, and the freshly scented clothes…

She had these things too.

But Jiang Xuehui’s were given by the Meng Shi, while hers were fought for by herself.

“You really don’t seem like Wanniang’s daughter at all.” Jiang Xuening gently picked up a bracelet made of red agate from the dressing table. “Since I can remember, Wanniang has always been a very temperamental person. When we lived in the countryside, because we were driven out by the family, many people bullied us and said nasty things. I was very scared. But she would come out of the house, stand under the eaves, and curse back with a smile.”

Jiang Xuehui closed her eyes slightly.

But Jiang Xuening’s voice kept ringing in her ears, “You wouldn’t believe it, right? Even in such a poor and harsh environment, she always dressed herself up beautifully, even with the worst quality makeup. She could do accounts, read books, write poems, and curse people. She didn’t talk to those village women because she never considered herself one of them. Even when other people’s children came to play with me, she wouldn’t allow it. She told me that I wasn’t the child of a peasant, that I was different from others. At that time, Wanniang was the most unique, beautiful, and powerful woman I had ever seen…”

Jiang Xuehui had always lived in this prosperous capital.

She had never seen life in the countryside and couldn’t imagine what the rough peasants looked like, let alone a woman standing under the eaves cursing with a smile…

Fine clothes and good food, music, chess, calligraphy, and painting.

This was what she was familiar with.

But everything Jiang Xuening described was unfamiliar to her.

“When I was a child, I played in the courtyard, catching dragonflies and picking peach blossoms. Sometimes Wanniang would sit on the steps under the eaves watching me, and sometimes she would stand behind a small window watching me. At that time, I only thought Wanniang’s posture and appearance were really beautiful; it wasn’t until I grew a bit older that I realized her gaze was actually very different, always lost in thought, always in a daze, as if she was thinking of something else.”

At this point, Jiang Xuening’s voice suddenly became a bit mocking, and a slight smile appeared on her lips, as if this could suppress a certain faint bitterness in her heart.

“Everyone says that Wanniang is a concubine of a wealthy family, and I am the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy family. In short, we come from a wealthy family. So, I thought, maybe Wanniang wanted to return to the capital. One day, when Wanniang looked at me with that gaze again, I ran in, grabbed her hand, and said that it didn’t matter if the family didn’t let her return to the capital. One day, I would take her back, buy her the best rouge and clothes, and never let anyone bully us again.”

Although she was reborn, this memory was from a long, long time ago for her, and she thought she had almost forgotten it.

But when she spoke of it, it was vivid.

Jiang Xuening even remembered that Wanniang had her hair styled in three buns that day, with an old red coral earring hanging from her soft earlobe…

“When she looked back at me, she seemed moved. I was very happy. But then, her expression changed, and she suddenly pushed me away. Do you know what Wanniang said to me?” Jiang Xuening put on the red coral bracelet that belonged to Jiang Xuehui, admiring it with her eyes lowered, “She told me to get lost and said I was the child of a lowly woman, and if I wanted to return to the capital, I should go back alone.”

Her skin was very fair, and the high-quality red coral made it look like a piece of snow.

Jiang Xuehui felt a shock from this extreme contrast.

The bracelet was beautiful.

But unfortunately…

Like Wanniang, it didn’t belong to her.

Jiang Xuening suddenly felt a coldness that had nowhere to go and laughed, “Wanniang used to be very good to me. I didn’t know why she scolded me. I hugged myself, crying under the eaves, thinking maybe Wanniang hated the capital and was afraid I would abandon her if I went there; or maybe she hated my father for being unfaithful, so she called me the child of a lowly woman. How ridiculous, how pitiful?”

After staring at the bracelet for a while, she took it off.

Then she walked back to Jiang Xuehui, took her hand, and put it on her, with a gentle expression, “It wasn’t until four years ago, when I learned about my true identity and recalled everything, that I understood why she scolded me and why she looked at me that way…”

Jiang Xuehui slowly clenched her hand, feeling that the red coral bracelet on her wrist was like a branding iron on her skin, making her voice tremble with a hidden, hard-to-detect quiver, “Enough, don’t say anymore.”

Jiang Xuening, as if she hadn’t heard, continued, “You see, how unfair the heavens are. Clearly, we were switched, and we should have had everything the other should have. At least, I should have had a share of some things. But Wanniang knew I wasn’t her daughter, her real daughter was in the capital; and my biological mother didn’t know you weren’t her daughter, treating you as her own and pouring over ten years of affection into you. So, I not only didn’t have my biological mother’s love, but I also didn’t have Wanniang’s love. You enjoyed the love of both of them, having everything, but I…”

“I have nothing.”

She seemed to hear the wind in the trees on the mountain blowing through her heart, taking everything away and leaving nothing behind: “So whatever you have, I must have too; whatever good you have, I must take. But some things, I can never take in this life. Wanniang was thinking of her real daughter before she died, and I was driven mad with jealousy, but you didn’t care…”

“Snap!”

Jiang Xuehui’s face finally turned cold. She suddenly stood up, tore off the bracelet that Jiang Xuening had put on her wrist, and threw it on the table, asking, “Why should I care? Why should I ask? You are jealous because you can’t get it; but what you are jealous of may not be what I want.”

Jiang Xuening looked back at her.

Jiang Xuehui’s voice had a rare sharpness: “Wanniang is indeed my biological mother, but I have never seen her, not even once. Moreover, it was her ill intentions that caused all the subsequent events by deliberately switching us. All pity arises from hatred. Ning, you are emotional and willful, but I cannot be. I was raised by my mother, learning to be wise and protect myself. If I don’t ask about Wanniang, I am ungrateful for her giving birth to me; if I do ask, I am ungrateful for my mother’s upbringing. Since I can’t have it both ways, why should I put myself in a disadvantageous position? For nearly twenty years, my mother has raised me with care. Even if she wronged you, she did not wrong me. How can you expect me to harden my heart to hurt her?”

At this point, she showed a bit of sadness. She sat back down dejectedly and said, “I know there is now a chasm between you and mother, but when you first returned to the mansion four years ago, mother wanted to make it up to you. But you kept bringing up Wanniang, disobeying, and constantly poking at her sore spots, wearing away any guilt she had, and making her think of Wanniang all the time. I advised you, but you hated me and wouldn’t listen.”

There was no doubt that Jiang Xuehui was a smart person.

But this kind of intelligence always made Jiang Xuening feel cold: “Not everyone in this world can be like you, weighing the pros and cons of everything, being so cold and almost heartless.”

Jiang Xuehui said, “So it’s right for you to hate me, and I never retaliate against you.”

Jiang Xuening couldn’t help but laugh, as if she truly understood her for the first time today.

For a moment, she remembered both her past and present lives.

She looked at her and murmured in a daze, “How did I not realize before that you are the one fit to be an empress…”

The voice was so low, it was almost like a whisper.

Jiang Xuehui didn’t hear it clearly.

But that didn’t stop her from issuing an order to leave: “We’ve talked so much today, and I imagine mother will be upset and suspicious of me for a while. You’ve had your satisfaction, so it’s time for you to go, right?”

Jiang Xuening replied, “Yes, it’s time to go.”

But after taking two steps out, she stopped, turned back, and looked at her deeply: “I always dream of Wanniang at night. But you haven’t seen her, so you probably can’t dream of her, right?”

After saying this, she smiled and turned to leave.

Jiang Xuehui sat in the room, only looking at the scattered red coral bracelet, lowering her eyes without speaking.

*

The next morning, when Meng Shi got up, she learned from the maidservant that Jiang Xuening had spent a long time talking in Jiang Xuehui’s room the previous night. She was so angry that she trembled all over and smashed the teacup in the room.

She even cursed several times.

She sent someone to call Jiang Xuening to “talk,” but Jiang Xuening couldn’t be bothered.

After returning from the palace, she was indeed very tired and had a dreamless sleep that night.

When Meng Shi’s people came, she was putting a warm towel on her face.

Hearing that Meng Shi called for her, she just laughed, her voice rising with the steam, vague and light: “Today I have guests, and later I have an appointment with the Young Master Yan. I’m afraid I don’t have time to pay respects to mother. Just tell her to be more polite to me in the future and not to order me around so casually. Otherwise, I have the means to let the whole capital know the true background of her beloved ‘daughter’…”