"That year, I didn't meet the Imperial Master Wang, nor was it rehabilitated. I stayed in Zhuangzi for eight years, and I learned the news that my elder brother died on the battlefield in the middle of the journey. I thought life was hopeless. The Shangshu Mansion in the capital seemed to have left me behind. I wrote many letters from my family, but I never received a reply. I thought that my life was just living such a hard life in Zhuangzi until I died. Unexpectedly, in the eighth year, someone came to the Beijing area and wanted to take me back to the Shangshu Mansion. I was very happy, thinking that my father finally remembered me."

She was so stupid that she said that if she was an ordinary person, she wouldn't understand what she was saying. However, Xiao Shao just stared at her quietly, with complex emotions in her eyes intertwined, and her hand wearing wrist guards clenched into a fist, trying to suppress the shock in her heart and try to look at her calmly.

"I was taken back to the Shangshu Mansion, right in front of the Shangshu Mansion. At the attention of all the people watching, I was covered in a mess and had no rules and etiquette. I accepted Xia Yan and Jiang Susu's intimate greetings like a beggar. The more pure and kind she was like a fairy, the more dirty I seemed. At that moment, I felt deeply ashamed." She said these words in a plain tone, but her nails were getting deeper and deeper: "It wasn't long before she returned to Beijing, it was the annual Lantern Festival. On the Linglong Boat, you didn't come, and the nobles in the Beijing were all there. Jiang Susu asked me to dance a dance so that I would not lose the face of the Shangshu Mansion. She told me that it would be fine if I danced the ordinary farmhouse and danced to the banquet. That day I fell from the Linglong Boat, and was caught up all over, becoming a laughing stock in the entire capital."

She pinched her nails deeper and deeper without any sense of the blood marks. She didn't even realize that there were many injuries in the world that would not fade away with the passage of time, and would not hurt if she didn't think about it. Whenever she thought about it, every memory was painful and unwilling. At this moment, a slender and slightly cool hand reached out and gently pinched her fingers deeply into the palm of her palm. She was afraid that she would hurt herself again, so she wrapped her little hand in her slender palm.

Jiang Ruan looked at his movements in a daze until she felt the warmth of her palms coming to understand. She took a deep breath and her expression gradually calmed down: "Later, I and Jiang Susu attended various gatherings together in the name of the daughter of the Shangshu Mansion. Xia Yan invited me a teacher, but never taught me how to read, write or take charge of the skills of giving. She only said that women don't have to learn those things, and they just let me learn singing, dancing and piano. I can't do anything. When I go out with Jiang Susu every day, outsiders will only praise her for her beauty, but I am a vulgar and beautiful girl."

"Later, the name of a fool's beauty disappeared. There were rumors in the capital. I knew when Chen Zhao bullied me in the village. He only said that I was young and didn't know how to love myself and knew how to seduce men. It was a loss of virtue. At that time, I was about to be in a hurry, and my reputation was already broken."

Xiao Shao slowly wrapped his shoulders, straightened half of her body and leaned against his arms. After he took her into the wrong direction, he realized that Jiang Ruan's body was stiff like a piece of wood, and her whole body was tense, as if she was extremely nervous. Xiao Shao patted her back, and the gentleness of comforting the child made her relax a little. Jiang Ruan continued: "When his reputation was so bad, there was only one person who always treated me harmoniously, and that was Xuan Li."

Xiao Shao was stunned, and a trace of sadness flashed in Jiang Ruan's tone: "On the day when I was in Linglongfang that day, he comforted me regardless of the eyes of everyone. I thought that he was kind and gentle in his bones. Later, he often came to the Shangshu Mansion to talk to Jiang Quan, and would bring me some small gifts. He never called me a fool like others, nor would he look at me with a strange look. When Jiang Susu and I appeared at the same time, he would not only ignore me in his eyes. I was really happy at that time."

"That year I and the emperor would call a new group of beautiful girls into the palace, and all the concubines of officials could enter the palace. But at that time, Jiang Xia's family had been rising steadily, which made the emperor feel fearful, called the talent show. It would be better to say that the hostages were thrown in the palace to warn the Shangshu Mansion. It was not important that Jiang Li and Jiang Dan were just concubines, and the emperor would not be satisfied. Jiang Quan stopped Jiang Susu's portrait and reported my portrait."

Xiao Shao stroked her hair, and even now, there was a deep self-mockery in her tone when she talked about this. Perhaps one thing that Jiang Ruan had never understood in her past and present life was why Jiang Quan treated her like this. As a biological father and daughter, no matter how cold she was, she would not be like this. It seemed that she was better than her when she was an outsider. Even if she didn't eat her son, Jiang Quan and her might be a feud that had formed in her previous life. It would be fine to use the name of father and daughter in this life.

"I don't want to enter the palace, I don't want to live with a man I've never met, and I don't want to intrigue with a group of women in the deep palace. But Jiang Quan said that if I don't go, the entire Shangshu Mansion would be buried with my willfulness. Xuan Li also advised me at that time, saying that he can always protect me in the palace, and one day he will make me his legitimate wife."

Xiao Shao raised his eyebrows calmly, probably because he felt that Xuan Li was too arrogant. Now Xuan Li’s wife is not Jiang Ruan, and the competition between men is never based on big talk, but on real skills.

"I don't know the warmth and coldness of human feelings, so I believe it. I voluntarily entered the palace as a concubine instead of Jiang Susu." Jiang Ruan paused, and the clothes made by those in the Shangshu Mansion before entering the palace seemed to ring in his ears, with loving or grateful faces made by those in the Shangshu Mansion before entering the palace, and every sentence was disgusting. If she knew that she was going to die for such a group of jackals who ate people and did not vomit bones, even if she died, she would have to bring the entire Shangshu Mansion to apologize for deceiving the king and wicked the emperor.

"The days in the palace were the darkest days in my life. I was ridiculed by the imperial concubine and bullied by the palace maid. Everyone knew that I was not favored. Sometimes I was even regarded as a dancer who was His Majesty's favorite concubine. Even if I had a rank, I was not seen at all. I have no family to rely on. In order to show their loyalty, the Shangshu Mansion would never give me any support. They even hoped that I would die, which might win the emperor's guilt." She didn't know what she thought of and smiled slightly: "Later, the emperor gave me Pei'er and raised him in my name. Pei'er was also an unpopular prince in the palace. We are ignored people. I am very grateful. Maybe he was the gift from God to me in his previous life. He knew that I would definitely not be able to hold on, so he gave me such a child."
Chapter completed!