Two days before the grand wedding, Shen Yiren was abducted.
The kidnapper was her fiancé.
"Lord Cen, why?" Shen Yiren gazed at the face she knew so well, her nose stinging with intense bitterness.
"Shen Yiren, just stay obediently in the mountains for a few days. Once I am wed to Qingrui and the deed is done, I will naturally let you return." The young man was a vision of refinement, his hair bound by a jade coronet, his features strikingly handsome. As the young lord of the Duke of Anguo Estate, he was the object of desire for every noble lady in Yujing City.
Yet, he had long been betrothed to the daughter of the General’s Estate. No one knew that Shen Qingrui, who had grown up in the General's Estate, was a fraud; the true daughter was living in the countryside, less than a hundred miles from Yujing.
The Duke of Anguo Estate was a family of high status, and when taking a wife, they naturally required the true-born daughter of the legitimate line.
Lord Cen, the groom-to-be, was unwilling to accept this. He and Qingrui were childhood sweethearts; how could he be expected to marry another?
What if Shen Yiren was the true daughter? She had been raised as a commoner and was timid and weak. The first time they met, she had blushed, no different from those vulgar girls in Yujing who fawned over him. Qingrui, however, was a unique woman who dared to say, "I would rather be the wife of a poor man than a concubine in a noble house."
"But I am your true fiancée, I am the real one!" Shen Yiren’s eyes were rimmed with red, her vision blurred by tears.
"I don't like you!" The disgust in Lord Cen’s eyes was clear. "How long do you intend to play the fool, Shen Yiren? No one in the Shen Family welcomes you. You shouldn't have come back to steal everything that belongs to Qingrui."
Shen Yiren’s tears splashed onto the ground. Seeing Lord Cen turn to leave, she tried to chase after him despite her bound hands. She could not let him leave her alone in the mountains! She wasn't trying to fight Shen Qingrui for anything; she only wanted to return to her birth parents to find a sense of family, then find a good marriage and a place to settle down.
"Don't touch me!" Lord Cen turned, shoved her aside with a wave of his sleeve, and the frail Shen Yiren fell backward.
The back of her head struck a large rock, and she lost consciousness instantly.
Lord Cen froze, immediately ordering his servant to check on her.
The servant knelt and prodded her, then whispered with a trembling voice, "My Lord, she... she has no breath."
A flicker of panic was evident in Lord Cen’s eyes. She was dead—what was to be done? He would have to destroy the evidence.
"Quickly, push her off the cliff."
*Thump!*
The young girl plummeted to the bottom of the ravine, her body broken. A spray of blood splattered onto a Ginseng Spirit nearby, which was currently shaking its leaves under the sunlight.
The Ginseng Spirit suddenly felt a wave of scorching heat, as if it had overeaten. Everything went black, and it lost consciousness.
When it opened its eyes again, a bone-shattering pain was spreading throughout its entire body.
The Ginseng Spirit was in total disbelief. It hadn't successfully transformed—it had consumed the blood of a human girl, and now the human and the spirit had merged!
"Xiao Ba!" The Ginseng Spirit, now inhabiting Shen Yiren's body, could not move, so it called out to its kin.
"Sister, you've finally transformed!" A six or seven-year-old ginseng child came wobbling over. When he saw her mangled, blood-soaked body, he burst into tears. "How did you get crushed like this?"
He reached out with chubby arms to help her.
Shen Yiren had no time to explain; she only told him to dig up some dirt and cover her with it. There had always been a saying that ginseng could sustain life; as ginseng spirits, even if they were severely injured, as long as they had a breath left, they could slowly recover. With the soil of Buxian Mountain, which sat upon a dragon vein, she would heal even faster.
Shen Yiren closed her eyes and resigned herself to healing, while the memories of the original owner poured into her mind.
The original owner was the legitimate daughter of the General’s Estate. Her mother’s water had broken while returning to the capital, forcing her to stay at a peasant woman’s home. The peasant woman was also pregnant, and they both gave birth to a daughter on the same day; the attendant had accidentally swapped them. Two years ago, General Shen returned from the frontier, discovered the truth, and spared no effort to find her. Regardless of who was true or false, General Shen treated them equally.
Having received love from her birth father, the original owner had hoped everyone in the house would be kind to her, ending the bitter life of chopping wood and weeding. But the grandmother had warned her: "Qingrui remains the legitimate daughter; you are the secondary one, lest the world laugh at our General's Estate for having an uncouth daughter."
Her mother had scolded her: "It was just a mistake, and Qingrui yields to you in everything—what is there for you to fight over?"
Her younger brother had complained: "If you hadn't come back, Eldest Sister could have married Lord Cen, and she wouldn't be weeping every night!"
Everyone was biased toward the fake.
Absurd!
Shen Yiren was so angry she wanted to crawl out of the dirt. No, stay buried. She would head down the mountain as soon as her body healed.
"Shen Yiren, you helped me break through to transformation, I will help you take your revenge."
...
In a Yujing alleyway, Lord Cen held Shen Qingrui’s hand, his expression tense. "Shen Yiren is dead. She is dead, and now no one will ever block us from marrying!"
"How can that be? My Lord, did you kill her?"
"I only gave her a slight push, and she lost her breath when she hit the stone. It’s just her bad luck!" She had been swapped at birth, rejected upon her return, and lost her life after a simple fall.
While shocked, Shen Qingrui also felt a lingering fear. "My Lord, are you sure she is really dead?"
Lord Cen’s gaze darkened. "A ten-thousand-foot cliff. There is absolutely no chance of survival."
Shen Qingrui let out a sigh of relief. It was better that she was truly dead; she feared that if she weren't, she might come back and cause them trouble.
"Qingrui, when you return, pack up Shen Yiren’s belongings and hide them. We will frame it to look like she eloped to avoid the marriage. Then, you can marry me in her stead. No one will dare say anything against you; they will only praise your righteousness."
"Very well." Shen Qingrui immediately rushed back to the estate, heading to the cramped courtyard where Shen Yiren had lived. There were few items of value there, and the two maids were busy in the front hall preparing for the wedding banquet. After burying the items in the soil behind the rockery and changing into clean clothes, Shen Qingrui headed to the ancestral hall to inform her grandmother and mother.
"My sister is missing."
"Missing?" Both Old Madame and Madam Shen frowned.
Shen Qingrui added, "Her personal belongings and valuables are gone, too. Could she have fled the wedding? I remember my sister had a sweetheart back in the countryside."
This was no mere flight from a wedding—this was clearly an elopement!
Madam Shen was instantly incensed. "She stole your good marriage, and yet she has the gall to run off and elope with someone else! Is she trying to force our General's Estate into a state of disgrace?"
Old Madame slammed her cane against the floor. "After two years back, she still hasn't shed the bad habits of the countryside. If word gets out, where will our General's Estate hide its face? Send people to find her at once!"
They searched in secret all night, but found no leads. As soon as dawn broke, the wedding procession from the Duke of Anguo Estate would arrive, and Madam Shen was panicked.
"What is the point of searching?" Shen Zhi'ang, who had just woken up and heard the news, walked over. He smiled at Shen Qingrui, calling her "Eldest Sister," then set his face into a serious expression. "It’s better that she’s gone. Now Eldest Sister can marry Lord Cen after all."
Shen Qingrui thought to herself that this younger brother was worth the affection she showed him. She immediately stood out with a righteous air. "Mother, let me take my sister's place!"
Madam Shen paused, not immediately retorting. She was clearly hesitating.
Shen Qingrui pressed her advantage. "My sister is nowhere to be found. If we cannot produce a bride, won't it damage the peace between the two houses?"
Madam Shen instinctively looked at Old Madame. With the head of the house away, Old Madame was in charge.
"Qingrui is right." Old Madame, who had stayed up all night, looked exhausted as she gently fingered her prayer beads. "Daybreak is nearly upon us. Qingrui, go put on the wedding dress."
"Yes, Grandmother." Shen Qingrui bowed, turned, and went to change. What if the dress didn't fit? As long as she could wear it, it was hers. Half of the dowry from the General's Estate was already hers, and the position of the young lady of the Duke's estate would remain hers as well.