It took her mother eighteen years to keep Ji Zhiyi a secret. The youngest son of the Liu family died in infancy. In order to protect the house from being swallowed up by relatives, the Ji family announced that the baby boy was alive and raised their daughter as a son from then on. She taught her how to read and write, blocking out all occasions where her gender would be revealed, and calling her by her nickname when no one was around: "Zhiyi, remember, you are not lying. You are just living."
Ji Zhiyi grew up with this heavy will, passed the government examination, and became a famous young scholar from all over the country. But her mother failed to wait until she went further. After losing her mother, she carries this secret alone. Until the eldest lady of the Shen family came to the door.
Shen Qingci, the only daughter of an imperial businessman, was as rich as anyone in the country, good at calculating, but unwilling to marry. The clan members coveted the family property, and she needed an obedient husband to silence the crowd. And the person she sent to find out the details of Ji Zhiyi brought back something meaningful: Back then, the village doctor said that the babies in the Liu family seemed to be twins.
"Does Young Master Liu have any reason to tell me before we get married?" Shen Qingci asked.
Ji Zhiyi was silent for a long time: "There is one thing. I need your life to guarantee it before I dare to say it."
One doesn't want to marry, the other doesn't want to marry. An agreement bound two women who could not help themselves.
Many years later, someone asked Dayan's youngest chief minister how he embarked on this path. She thought for a while and said, "It starts with two people not wanting to accept their fate."
