A Willing Mistake, My Lady – Chapter 54
by Little PandaFirst Arrival at the Shen Manor
A Chaotic Beginning
Seeing that the newborn didn’t cry or make much noise, the delivery nanny gave her two firm slaps. The infant merely kicked her legs weakly as if in protest, which the nanny found quite novel.
“Madam, she’s a very clever young miss!” The delivery nanny cradled the baby, who’d only cried twice, and held her out for Madam to see.
“Sigh, no matter how clever she is, she’d have to be disguised as a boy first. Nanny, go quickly and check on Xianggui. She’s our only hope now!” Madam said weakly, her energy clearly flagging upon seeing that she’d given birth to another daughter.
Another shichen1 or so passed before Xianggui finally gave birth. It was indeed a boy. Madam was overjoyed; having no other choice, he’d have to do. To avoid drawing the attention of the Old Madam in the front courtyard, the two women endured the labor pains with great difficulty, biting down hard on cloth rags to stifle their screams.
Fortunately, after Xianggui gave birth, Nanny carried her back to her own room, taking the young miss born to Madam along as well.
Only after everything was cleaned up did they notify the Old Madam in the front courtyard. By the time the Old Madam rushed over in high spirits, her chubby grandson had already been delivered. The entire manor was instantly thrown into a frenzy of celebration.
Although the General couldn’t return, the two women still arranged a grand banquet for the washing of the third day2. Witnessed by friends and relatives, a plump, fair baby boy was stripped bare, held up by the nanny under everyone’s watchful eyes to be bathed, washing away impurities and warding off misfortune.
From then on, Madam guarded the child like the apple of her eye, refusing to let anyone see her until her postpartum confinement month had ended. By then, the little young master was fair and snow-white, so beautiful that anyone would want to steal her away home.
But no matter how beautiful she was, everyone merely said she took after her mother. No one ever suspected she wasn’t a boy, because they’d all seen the baby plain as day during the washing of the third day.
However, Xianggui, who’d given birth at the same time, wasn’t so fortunate. Word went around that she’d given birth to a daughter, but because of her overexertion during pregnancy, the baby girl died shortly after birth. Madam showed her sympathy by granting her leave, sending her home to recuperate.
In reality, Madam had used Xianggui’s baby boy to solidify the claim that she’d given birth to a son. Afterward, she secretly swapped her own daughter back, keeping her hidden for a full month so nobody could see her. She only brought the child out once her features had changed enough to prevent anyone from noticing the difference.
As for the baby boy Xianggui had birthed, the nanny who delivered him had already carried him out of the Shen Manor, and Xianggui quickly followed them.
That midwife was actually Madam’s childhood nanny. She’d been brought back specifically for this delivery. She wasn’t originally a servant of the Shen family, but she was someone Madam trusted implicitly.
After resting for about half a year, Xianggui returned to the Shen Manor. She resumed her role as the managing nanny, running the household on behalf of Madam Shen.
At the time, Madam Shen had been driven to distraction by that competitive concubine, which was why she’d come up with such a terrible scheme. Xianggui had tried to dissuade her with a few words, but in the end, she still obeyed her young miss.
The Shen family truly did need a male heir to carry on the family line. Children in the Shen family always arrived late. There was a thirty-year gap between the old master and the current master, and a thirty-year gap between the master and his eldest daughter. Madam was already twenty-five when she gave birth to the Eldest Miss.
By the time the little young master came along, she was twenty-seven, and there’d indeed be very few chances to birth a male heir in the future.
Once she came to her senses, it was too late for regrets. The little young master had already caught the Emperor’s attention. If she were to confess now that the child wasn’t a boy but a daughter, it’d be the crime of deceiving the Emperor3.
Madam Shen had no choice but to pay the price for her own recklessness, forced to raise her daughter as a son. She’d originally planned to suppress the concubine’s status so completely that she’d never be able to rise again even if she returned, but she never expected that she’d only slay eight hundred enemies at the cost of losing a thousand of her own4.
Her only consolation was that the concubine really had given birth to a boy; had she not held up her own end of the lie, she’d have been trampled underfoot by now.
But she had no idea how they’d navigate the road ahead… She’d truly dug a pit for her own child.
Meanwhile, this highly anticipated little young master grew up looking thoroughly lazy. She lacked energy for everything, glared at everything with general discontent, and was incredibly difficult to please.
Things only improved slightly when the little young master reached two years of age, as she finally gained some personal freedom.
After all, who could bear being wrapped up so tightly that they broke out in heat rash, subjected to merciless swaddling, and unable to control when they drank, ate, or wet themselves? How was an agile, active young adult supposed to accept such a thing?
After struggling for a long time, Shen Hetang finally accepted the reality of her transmigration5. Since there was no way to change her circumstances, she could only accept them.
It wasn’t long before she discovered that her beautiful but utterly straw-brained6 mother had disguised her as a boy. That only made her even more depressed. If this had been some ordinary farming household, it’d have been fine. But please—this was a general’s manor! This was directly equivalent to deceiving the Emperor.
Her mother was practically playing with the lives of everyone in the household.
Right at birth, she’d been gifted two massive mountains to carry: one called Deceiving the Emperor, and the other called Carrying the Family Line.
The general’s manor wasn’t particularly complicated in terms of its residents. Aside from her grandmother, there was her mother—oh, and a little crystal steamed bun of a girl, the legitimate eldest daughter of the general’s manor, who was her jiejie.
These four women, big and small, made up the basic roster of the general’s manor. Of course, Shen Hetang was carrying the banner of the manor single-handedly—sacrificing herself to secure the happiness of the entire family.
There was also a very strange Great-Uncle living in the general’s manor, said to be the Old Madam’s cousin. He was around forty, much younger than the Old Madam, and was a reclusive little old man with an elegant, Daoist-like air. He barely ever left his courtyard, spending all his days fussing over his flowers and plants.
According to the Old Madam, he’d suffered some emotional heartbreak in his youth and shut himself away. Because the Great-Uncle’s father had once done the Old Madam a great favor, she’d kept him in the Shen Manor all these years, where he lived as if he were practically invisible.
But as Shen Hetang observed him later on, she found this elegant little old man to be quite intriguing. Her only grievance was that this Great-Uncle had led her sweet, soft jiejie astray. Give her back her little crystal steamed bun!
Then there was the family of three at the border. Ever since Concubine Ru’s plan to secure her position through her eldest son had fallen through, she’d remained there quietly. Of course, the Old Madam also felt she was thick-skinned and tough enough to serve her son at the harsh border.
In this manner, their worlds remained as separate as the Jing and Wei rivers, keeping to their respective sides.
When that swapped boy turned three, he returned to the Shen Manor under the guise of Xianggui’s stepson, reuniting with his biological mother.
From that day on, Shen Hetang had a little follower following her around. Having eavesdropped on plenty of secrets from a young age, she naturally knew this was the very boy who’d taken her place, stripped bare to show his face before all the gathered friends and relatives. He was a poor little thing who’d spent three years motherless, only to return and find his biological mother had become his adoptive mother.
In truth, Madam Shen’s series of maneuvers hadn’t been particularly clever. Her only stroke of luck was that she’d never aroused anyone’s suspicions, so no one had ever investigated her. Otherwise, the whole scheme would’ve fallen apart easily.
But it seemed heaven was truly on her side. After raising the child for three years, the delivery nanny had been sent by Madam Shen to a country estate to live out her retirement. A few years ago, she’d succumbed to a severe cold and passed away.
From then on, the only people left who knew the truth were Madam Shen and Xianggui. As for Xianggui’s husband, she’d never told him that the little young master was actually a girl. She merely told him that the boy was their biological son and that Madam had her own arrangements, warning him to keep his nose out of it.
Xianggui’s husband had mistakenly believed that Madam Shen had orchestrated this purely so their son could follow the little young master from a young age. Thinking they’d secured an ironclad backer, he’d secretly rejoiced. And indeed, she did turn out to be an excellent backer later on.
Before Shen Hetang reached the age of fifteen, General Shen had returned only three or four times, staying for less than a year in total. Fortunately, whenever he returned, he didn’t bring that concubine back to make life miserable for her mother. Since Shen Hetang wasn’t a real child, she felt quite indifferent about her father’s constant absence.
She simply pitied her mother, who, still so young, had nothing to do but watch over her children day in and day out. Consequently, Shen Hetang occasionally tried her best to grow into the kind of child her mother would like.
Once she grew a bit older, she began exercising in secret to make herself grow taller. As it turned out, all her hidden sweat was poured out in vain; Shen Yunshu had done absolutely nothing and still ended up with a tall, slender figure.
It had to be said that the Great General’s genetics were excellent. The two sisters had inherited only the finest traits, making them far better-looking than their younger brother, who’d grown up eating the bitter northern winds. That genuine male heir took after his mother’s dark complexion, and his features were barely a cut above ordinary.
This made Ms. Lin incredibly smug. She bragged about her two treasures to everyone she met, while constantly belittling the actual male heir of the Shen family—seemingly forgetting that she’d actually given birth to two daughters.
Because of Shen Hetang’s existence, Ms. Lin had once taken Shen Yunshu to the border. It was during their trip to the border that Shen Hetang was summoned to the imperial palace to serve as a study companion7.
Later, her mother still couldn’t rest easy knowing she was held in the palace. She stayed at the border for only two months before rushing back. At the same time, because of her mediocre academic performance, Shen Hetang was quite disdained by the various noble young masters and ladies. She didn’t care in the slightest; she’d never planned to secure an official post when she grew up anyway. She wished nothing more than for those people to forget she even existed.
But her jiejie was fierce and competitive. Upon returning and hearing that Shen Hetang had been bullied, she went around settling scores one by one. It was said that she’d even made a bet, stipulating that anyone who lost to a girl wouldn’t be allowed to leave their home for three months. Among children barely ten years old, how many could actually stay cooped up inside for three months? Consequently, they all ended up branded as sore losers, stripped of their gentlemanly dignity at a tender age—a regret they’d carry forever.
The adults mostly turned a blind eye to the bickering of children. After all, no matter how brilliant a daughter might be, she was merely the icing on the cake, posing no threat to anyone.
Because her younger brother was so useless, the capital’s high society was surprisingly tolerant of Shen Yunshu’s ruthlessness. They assumed that if she had a brother who was actually capable, she wouldn’t have to be so sharp and defensive.
Of course, these were all glorious exploits from Shen Yunshu’s rebellious phase. In her early childhood, she’d been a delicate, ethereal little fairy who seemed completely detached from the mortal world. But then she discovered that some people were secretly bullying her “younger brother” because their father was away from home.
And her younger brother seemed too lazy to even care, completely indifferent to everything, which drove Shen Yunshu absolutely mad with frustration.
But her younger brother’d been only two or three years old at the time. It’d merely been a minor disagreement with a visiting relative’s child, resulting in her being pushed over. Shen Hetang had simply been careless; upon reflection, she decided against rolling around on the ground to scrap with a mere toddler.
In Shen Yunshu’s eyes, Shen Hetang’d already become synonymous with “coward.” To shield the fragile sprout of their family from the wind and rain, Shen Yunshu turned her gaze to the only adult male in the Shen Manor—that strange, eccentric little old man.
By the time Shen Hetang noticed that Shen Yunshu was deliberately imitating their Great-Uncle, it was already too late. This girl, who was a remarkably fast learner, had copied the old fogey’s mannerisms to perfection.
A perfectly fine young lady of noble birth had somehow managed to cultivate the formidable authority of Abbess Miejue8. She looked cold, aloof, and completely unapproachable; if someone didn’t reel her back in soon, she’d probably ascend to heaven and become an immortal.
Of course, her transformation wasn’t just because she felt they were being bullied. It was because she’d stumbled upon a monumental secret: her younger brother was not a younger brother at all, but a meimei.
The feeling was completely different. She’d felt that a younger brother might be able to shoulder the responsibilities of the Shen family. But a meimei? Letting her bear so much on her own would place far too much pressure on her shoulders, not to mention she carried a crime punishable by beheading on her head.
Although her “younger brother”—no, her meimei—was a bit stranger than other children, she was still her meimei, after all. So, Shen Yunshu gradually began studying practical skills with great diligence. She feared that if their family were exiled in the future, or if her meimei could no longer bear the weight, she’d at least be able to help rather than just standing idly by.
Later on, Shen Yunshu learned to hide her emotions, pulling in all her sharp thorns. Her temperament grew gentle and placid, taking on that elegant, Daoist-like quality of their Great-Uncle.
The reasons were twofold. First, she felt that she and her meimei truly needed to keep a low profile. Second, she realized her meimei probably didn’t need her protection anymore.
Around the age of eighteen, she was probably at her most relaxed. Although she’d become an old maid due to her difficult marriage prospects, she didn’t care in the slightest. Using the excuse of searching for their traveling Great-Uncle, she slipped away from the Shen Manor to travel and amuse herself.
For she’d discovered that a girl didn’t necessarily have to be trapped in the inner chambers, just like her meimei.
Footnotes
- An ancient Chinese traditional unit of time equivalent to two hours, written as shíchén (时辰) and based on observations of the sun.
- A traditional Chinese bathing ceremony held on the third day of a newborn's life, written as xǐsān (洗三), meant to wash away impurities and ward off misfortune.
- The serious offense of deceiving the monarch or emperor, written as qījūn zhī zuì (欺君之罪) in pinyin, which traditionally carried the death penalty for the offender's entire family.
- An idiom meaning to win a pyrrhic victory that costs one more than it costs the enemy, written as shā dí bàbǎi, zì sǔn yīqiān (杀敌八百，自损一千).
- A popular genre trope in Chinese web novels referring to transmigration or soul-travel across worlds or time, written as chuānyuè (穿越).
- A common Chinese colloquial insult literally meaning 'straw bag', written as cǎobāo (草包), which is used to disparage someone's intelligence, capability, or competence.
- A student chosen to study alongside royal or noble children in ancient China, written as bàndú (伴读) in pinyin.
- A legendary martial arts character from Jin Yong's 'The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber', written as Miejue Shitai (灭绝师太), famous for her cold, harsh, and uncompromising nature.
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