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I should have died that day. Before that day, I was the cherished daughter of the most renowned merchant fami…

I should have died that day. Before that day, I was the cherished daughter of the most renowned merchant family in Jiangnan, the favored young mistress of the Shangguan household. My father cradled me in the palm of his hand, granting my every wish. Even if I had asked for the moon, he would have tried to fetch it for me. I truly believed I would live out my life in such bliss. One day, my father returned home from a journey, and everything changed. He brought back a girl my age, and from that moment on, he was no longer the man I knew. He told me that this girl, named Bai Yu, was his true daughter, and that I was merely the child of a lowly servant. That servant, seeking a better life for her own child, had swapped me into the family. The happy years I had stolen... were never truly mine. I refused to believe it. I tried everything to prove my place, only to make a fool of myself again and again. Father did not cast me out immediately after all these years we lived together. But the warmth that was once in his eyes had turned to cold glances. On my birthday, though perhaps it no longer belonged to me. The house was adorned with lanterns and banners, all to celebrate the true young mistress of the Shangguan family. Meanwhile, I was left abandoned and forgotten. Bai Yu found me, she stood before me in splendid robes and delicate makeup, draped in everything that once belonged to me. Yet she was not arrogant. She was gentle, yet tinged with sorrow. She said she could not bear to see me so pitiful, urged me to behave well at the banquet. If I did, she would plead on my behalf, and perhaps Father, remembering the past, might show me kindness once more. I believed her. But the banquet became a nightmare. The pastries I had thoughtfully prepared nearly killed Bai Yu. As Father stared at his dying daughter, all the tolerance he had left for me is gone. He expelled me from the Shangguan household. I became nothing more than a rat in the streets, shunned and despised. With nowhere to go, I wandered to the edge of a dry well, thinking perhaps that was where my story should end. But it was then that a man named A'Sheng got hold of me.