Shen Yujin died once.
He died in the pigeon soup in Prince Jing's Mansion, bleeding from all his orifices. He fell to the ground and looked out the window at the old locust flowers. The flowers were blooming just right, clusters of white, and the fragrance was so greasy. Her husband Zhao Mingde - who had just been crowned the crown prince for less than three years - carried his new concubine in on the third day before her body had cooled down.
She thought she had won in this life. She married a rich man and enjoyed the glory, but even her own sister was completely defeated.
It was only after she died that she saw the truth.
My sister Shen Yurong didn't win, but she didn't lose either. She married Lin Wenyuan, the poor scholar who was left behind by Shen Yujin, and lived in a leaky tile house, suffering from poverty and illness all her life. Lin Wenyuan broke his leg when he went up the mountain to collect herbs before autumn. He missed the scientific examination and had to make a living selling calligraphy and painting on the street for the rest of his life. The last mouthful of phlegm got stuck in my throat. I couldn't cough it out or swallow it. I was suffocated to death. My sister wrapped him in a straw mat and dragged the cart out of the city alone. Her shoes got stuck in the mud and couldn't be pulled out. She knelt on the roadside and tried desperately to pull them out, causing muddy water to splash on his face.
Shen Yujin floated on the beam and could see clearly.
What she was thinking about at that moment was that the lame scholar should have achieved the third grade and become an extremely popular minister. It was she who took her sister's life and ruined her own destiny.
Then she woke up.
The boudoir of the sixteen-year-old, with pink and green gauze tents, lotus embroidery, and soothing incense mixed with mugwort and perilla. Her mother, Mrs. Zhou, ordered her maid to smoke it every summer. She said it was to repel mosquitoes, but in fact, she could sleep peacefully after smelling it.
Nothing has begun.
But everything has to be repeated.
