CH 1

"The heavens didn't tell me to shut up. Yet you, a deceitful old woman, asked me to shut up?! You..."

Old Madam Xu of Anyuan Houfu (Anyuan County’s Marquis’s Manor) was adorned with shiny beads and jewels from head to toe. So when she jumped to her feet to scold someone, a jade hairpin fell from her head to the ground and broke in half. This paused Old Madam Xu's scolding for a moment. However, she then immediately began berating again, even more fiercely this time because of her heartache from having broken the hairpin.

Inside the embroidery room in the back garden of the manor, it was amidst her grandmother’s loud scolding that Jiang Mingyue opened her eyes. Coincidentally, the sun shining through the window lattice shone right onto her eyes, making Jiang Mingyue—who had not seen the light for a long time—tear up instantly.

"Mingyue, are you awake now?" A voice came from beyond the bedhead. It belonged to Elder Sister Jiang Yue’e [1], who stretched over her head to look at her younger sister.

"Pei! [2] You—child of a slave who should be killed with a thousand knives [3]!"

"Mingyue?"

Between the sound of her grandmother’s scolding, which was like an arrow piercing through the clouds with the ability to tear through the skies and split open the ground, and her elder sister’s anxious and deeply concerned call, Jiang Mingyue appeared to be in a trance. This wasn’t right. The sunlight was coming through the window at just the right time, and Grandma Xu’s yelling was filled with ample energy. Jiang Mingyue’s older sister also appeared to be alive. Moreover, this place… It didn’t seem like she was in the underworld.

“You’re even crying? Why?” Jiang Yue’e asked. She sat down at Jiang Mingyue’s bedside and used a handkerchief to wipe Jiang Mingyue’s tears while saying concernedly: “What’s the use of crying? Your marriage... Mingyue, tell your elder sister the truth. What do you think of it?”

Marriage?

Jiang Mingyue placed her hand on the bedboard and sat up suddenly. Her cheeks, which had been bright red due to the heat, seemed to be instantly stripped of color and became deathly pale.

“What’s the matter with you?” Jiang Yue’e said anxiously. “Zhou-momo [4] said that when you heard the Princess had found the Crown Prince of Tushan (Mt. Tu) to be your husband, you fainted because you were too happy. Grandma doesn’t believe it, so she’s currently arguing with Zhou-momo in the front courtyard with all of her might. Tell me, just what exactly is going on?”

“If anything happens to my Mingyue’er [5], this old woman will pull together her weary old body. Then you and your family’s master—don’t think that any one of you will be let off!”

“Say something!” Jiang Yue’e became even more anxious. Were they really going to let their grandmother kill people?

Jiang Mingyue turned and looked out the window, where a few peach blossoms were in full bloom. This was the three-month season when grass grew tall and nightingales were often in flight. Jiang family’s Second Miss gazed at the springtime garden outside the window and wondered, how was she to tell her elder sister? That in the 17th year of the Yin Dynasty under Emperor Dongsheng’s reign, she—the Imperial Concubine of Tushan’s Crown Prince—would seal her fate of having a violent death with the single stab she used to kill Tushan’s Crown Prince Zhao Lingxiao, in front of two armies?

“Elder Sister, I died once and came back alive again,” Jiang Mingyue said. Then, in a voice as gentle as if welcoming the three months of spring, she told Jiang Yue’e, “I’ve really missed you.”

Jiang Yue’e: !!!

“Are you possessed?” The Eldest Miss of the Jiang family, the second wife of Ningguo Gongfu (the manor of the government official posted at Ningguo), raised her hand and smacked her younger sister on the head: “You’re just a silly little girl. What’s this about dying and returning to life? Did you pick up an elixir on the way to the Yellow Springs [6] and came back as a human again?”

Jiang Mingyue was clutching her head that ached from the hit, but she still looked at Jiang Yue’e with a smile. This smile made Jiang Yue’e’s scalp tingle in alarm. Regardless of whether her sister was happy or confused from the hit, Jiang Yue’e thought her sister had gone crazy!

Meanwhile, Jiang Mingyue rushed toward the window and drew in a deep breath from the outside. Smelling the sweet fragrance of the peach blossoms, the Jiang family’s Second Miss hurriedly recalled her previous life.

The former name of Jiang Ruqiu, Anyuan’s marquis, was Jiang Erniu—in other words, Jiang Mingyue’s father. Jiang Erniu had been born as a peasant farmer. He had the fortune of getting acquainted with the current emperor, Emperor Dongsheng, when the latter was in dire straits. Later on, this peasant followed Emperor Dongsheng all the way from the bitter cold of the frontier fortress to breaking into the capital city. After performing the meritorious deed of helping Dongsheng become the emperor, Jiang Erniu became Jiang Ruqiu and even gained the affection of Emperor Dongsheng’s younger female cousin, Zhao Qingrong. Thereafter, Jiang Ruqiu’s original wife—Yun, who had suffered through the hardships of poverty with him and had given birth to and raised his two sons and two daughters—died. Then Princess Ronghua, Zhao Qingrong, became Jiang Ruqiu’s wife.

With Zhao Qingrong as the matchmaker, 16-year-old Jiang Mingyue married Zhao Lingxiao and became the Imperial Concubine of Tushan’s Crown Prince. 20-year-old Zhao Lingxiao was well-known among the noble youths as a master of both pen and sword, and countless young maidens had fallen for him. So when Jiang Mingyue got married, she received the envy and jealousy of all the young ladies in the capital and even became an enemy whom they bore grudges against. This was because she had snatched away the young man of their dreams.

Yet in the end...? Zhao Lingxiao had another love. When Jing Mingyue married and moved into the Prince’s Manor, it just meant she lived alone in one of the side courtyard residences of the manor. This continued until 11 years later when Emperor Dongsheng broke off his lineage—in other words, all of his sons died. King of Tushan and seven other feudal kings rebelled and fought for the emperor’s throne. Jiang Ruqiu led the troops to quell the rebellion, and Jiang Mingyue was tied up in front of the two armies by Zhao Lingxiao.

“Even if I can’t force your father to withdraw his troops, I still want him to taste the pain of having to mourn for his daughter!” This was what Zhao Lingxiao told Jiang Mingyue.

After that, Jiang Mingyue snapped the rope restraints and snatched Zhao Lingxiao’s saber. With a single downward swing, she cut Zhao Lingxiao’s heart out of his chest right in front of his face.

“We were husband and wife for eleven years, yet you don’t even know that I can use martial arts!” Jiang Mingyue remembered that she had spoken to Zhao Lingxiao this way.

Ultimately, Crown Prince Lingxiao died without closing his eyes [7], and Jiang Mingyue was then hacked to death by the blades of the Tushan army. As the commander-in-chief of the upper, middle, and lower army, Jiang Mingyue’s father was focused on obtaining victory, so his army didn’t even retrieve her corpse.

This was Jiang Mingyue’s previous life.

“The heavens didn't tell me to shut up!”

In the front courtyard, Old Madam Xu was still shouting angrily. Jiang Mingyue lowered her head and gazed at her fair and tender hands. She thought, ‘The heavens have allowed me to return and live out my life again!’

Notes:

[1] Yue’e : 月娥 two different chinese characters. Other translators might also translate it to Yue E, Yue-e etc.

[2] Pei: spitting sound

[3] Killed with a thousand knives: 骂人的话。指该受千刀万剐的人。

It's a scolding expression. means someone who should be turned into mincemeat/hacked into pieces

[4] -momo: a wet nurse, also means elderly lady in dialect. Additionally, in the raws, this character is ‘Xu-momo’, but we believe that this is a typo as she is referred to as ‘Zhou-momo’ in ch 2 and ch 3

[5] The [‘er] is a form of nickname

[6] Yellow Springs: in Chinese mythology/belief, it is the place that the dead go to

[7] died without closing his eyes: died with remaining grievances