The Two Beauties of Bianjing

Two sisters transmigrate from Li Yu’s poem “To the Tune of Yu Meiren,” amid spring blossoms and autumn moons. Their lives are tragic from the start. As soon as the young mistress gives birth to the twins, the master and madam decide they must be illegitimate children conceived with some other man, bastards who will bring shame upon the family. The master immediately orders them thrown away. The young mistress protests that she has been wronged: she never even leaves the inner quarters, so how could she have slept with another man...? The kind-hearted midwife wants to keep the babies and take them home to raise. She lifts the two newborn girls from the bed and has just reached the room... when the young mistress struggles up from the bed, fumbles beneath her pillow for two jade pendants, then staggers over to the midwife...