Heiresses and Heiresses

Set in the Republican era. They are each other's first love, and they are not legally married.

Synopsis:

The eldest daughter of the Lu family returns home after a long journey abroad. She never gets to see her father one last time, but she does meet the woman he married a year ago.

"How did she get here?" Lu Kaili asks the servant, standing outside the moon gate.

"Miss, the young madam arrived a year ago. They say she brought a generous dowry, and people outside call her 'Miss Zhou.' She's a good person, five years older than you, but she can't read a single character..."

"Miss? She thinks she deserves to be called that?" Lu Kaili takes off her new wool gloves, storms over to her stepmother, and yanks the hairpin from her hair.

Zhou Wanqing's long, ink-black hair falls to her waist. Her pale lips move, and all she says is, "You look so much like your father."

"You have no right to mention my father, and no right to wear my late mother's hairpin!" Lu Kaili ignores the traces of tears on her face, but cannot ignore her own hair, now in disarray.

After her father's funeral, the fierce and fiery Lu Kaili falls ill and cannot get out of bed. Doctors of both Chinese and Western medicine come and go from the Lu residence, but none can figure out what's wrong.

Then the long hair she had pulled loose herself appears in her bedroom. An ancient woman enters the Western-style room. Lu Kaili understands neither her hairstyle nor the embroidery on her shoes.

"What's wrong?" Zhou Wanqing brings her some rice porridge and bends down to feel her forehead. "I know a little medicine. Would you like me to take your pulse?"

"What do you know about medicine? Have you ever seen disinfectant for surgery? Have you ever seen a Western doctor's scalpel?" Lu Kaili talks back, but still holds out her left wrist, unwilling to believe that an old relic who can't read a single character knows anything.

Zhou Wanqing places her fingers on Lu Kaili's pulse. A moment later, Lu Kaili sees the tear stains on her face again.

"Why are you crying?" Lu Kaili asks.

"I'm crying because you miss your father so much, and because you ache for your mother." Zhou Wanqing's head is bare, without a single ornament.

After a few doses of Chinese medicine, Lu Kaili gets better. But then she feels as if she has fallen ill again.

One day, she goes to her stepmother's room and happens to run into her.

Zhou Wanqing, her face bare of makeup, touches Lu Kaili's forehead. "Where does it hurt this time?"

Lu Kaili feels inside the pocket of her coat, then places something against Zhou Wanqing's wrist to take her pulse.

"I had someone make a hairpin..."

Note:

Lu Kaili's father and Zhou Wanqing had no romantic relationship. There is more to their marriage than meets the eye, and Lu Kaili's father was a good man.

Theme: There are many kinds of longing, and love is one of them.