Chapter 113 - Jiang Ying Yue (9) (1/2)

The next day came yet Jiang Ying Yue couldn't wake up due to being trapped in a never-ending nightmare.

The fire was devouring her world. She was dying. She could see herself struggling to breathe while her body was being engulfed by the fire. Why couldn't she leave? Why was she trapped in that room? No, it was not even a room, but a cage... Why was she being watched, pointed at and being cursed to die by hundreds of thousands of people?

Jiang Ying Yue felt very scared and confused, and her heart was aching so much. She was suffocating, feeling as if the world was intentionally depriving her of air.

She couldn't understand why nobody was helping her and freeing her from her sufferings. What did she do to deserve this?

The same questions kept playing in her mind.

The images flashing in her mind changed after she saw that haggard, old-looking 'her' breathing her last… and beheaded before a cheering crowd.

She could no longer hear the deafening joyful laughter, at last.

The pictures that replaced the fiery yet spine-chilling scene were those 'she' experienced from childhood. Apart from the banquet part that went a bit different, everything coincided with her own…

'My beloved daughter, no matter what happens in the future, always remember my teachings to you and you'll be fine.'

Her gentle and beautiful mother's equally gentle and beautiful voice rang beside her ears, sounding more pleasant than the wind chimes hung up in the ancestral hall's door.

'Do you remember?'

A young version of her appeared in her field of vision, snuggling close to the late first madam of the Jiangs. In her mother's arm, she appeared so small, age perhaps only seven years old. Cute. Bubbly. A confident kid loved by the world due to being the Jiang Clan's first legitimate miss.

That naive, lovable kid cheerfully answered the mature woman, 'Mother, I do. The three obediences are, obey your father before marriage, obey the husband when married, and obey the son once widowed. Four virtues are to be proper in speech, behavior, demeanor, and employment.'

The proud and confident voice of her child caused a small smile to form on the woman's lips. Her hand automatically went to rub her daughter's head, prompting the child to grin proudly and widely to her mother.

The golden rays of sun pouring into the elegant traditional-styled room through the open window made the scene looked so blinding yet warm. Jiang Ying Yue felt like crying and reaching a right hand out to it.

The kid back then thought that what she recited was only homework she had to do well so her mother would allow her to eat delicious snacks.

Most children were like that. In their childhood, they don't understand more than half of what they were asked to be memorized. They only knew if they recite those well, they would receive some rewards.

She used to be like that too, a child always looking forward to the candies and cakes her mother would give her if she did well in her studies. Sometimes, her motivation to finish her homework was so she could have time to play with her toys. Or perhaps fool around with her siblings and maids.

The world was so simple back then. Until she matured and realized that her mother, who passed away when she was eleven years old, only drilled all of those into her mind for her future, because she was betrothed to Rui Wang, and that her mother already foresaw her passing.

When her mom died, her life in the Jiang estate changed drastically. And no amount of crying managed to turn it back.

To be honest, in the last six years, it was very hard for her to adapt. From being a loved princess to a neglected daughter. The blow to her was quite harsh, especially since she discovered people were only cozying up to her due to her mother's influence and authority. Now everything of those was held by the beloved and highest-ranked concubine of the marshal.

Her father doesn't love her. Her maternal relatives couldn't interfere much. She was seen as weak and meek for adhering too strictly to the first madam's teaching.

These were what she got for doing her best to obey her father the Marshal even when all his good thoughts were only for the second madam and her children.

At first, she only became quiet due to grief. Until the entire reason became her lack of self-confidence from the repeated bullying and lack of response from her father and other relatives she cried justice to.