Chapter 36

It left Xu Zhou utterly stunned. “How explosive is it?”

“Absolutely explosive!” Zhou An declared.

Meng Bai didn’t bite. She just urged, “Stop beating around the bush and spit it out.”

Zhou An glanced around, confirming none of their classmates were eavesdropping, before she finally spoke up.

“Alright, here goes… Of course, this is all from my grandma, so take it with a grain of salt—I don’t know how true it is.”

Meng Bai cut in. “Get to the point.”

“My grandma said it was about the owner of the Old Courtyard.”

“Waste of breath. Of course he was surnamed Miao.”

Zhou An nodded. “Fair enough. Old Master Miao had a daughter. We’ll call her Miss Miao for now…”

Miss Miao again.

Lately, Miss Miao had been cropping up in these tales far too often.

The Miss Miao from last night had been pure fiction, but this one? Who knew if it held any truth.

“According to Grandma, Miss Miao took after her mother—stunningly beautiful, with suitors lining up. The family was thriving, Old Master Miao doted on her endlessly, and she wanted for nothing. In a town like ours, she was the center of attention.”

“Hold on—” Meng Bai snapped back to reality. “Are you talking about Miao Bai?”

Zhou An nodded furiously. “Finally! I was thinking—the Lunatic’s a Miao too, and so’s this story’s lead. What if it’s the same person?”

Goosebumps prickled across Meng Bai’s skin. “Then what? What happened next?”

“Grandma said Miss Miao’s disinterest in men had a reason.” Zhou An checked both sides, arching her brows. “Take a guess?”

Xu Zhou shook her head. “No clue.”

Zhou An grinned. “You wouldn’t. She liked women!”

Those few words sent ripples crashing through Meng Bai’s heart. Suddenly, she found herself questioning the story Miao Bai had shared that night.

“The unbelievable part? Highborn Miss Miao got tangled up with an opera singer! Thing is, the singer was married—to some big-shot merchant from Beijing, they say. And then…”

Meng Bai jumped in. “The merchant shows up in town, catches Miss Miao and the singer, and it explodes. The whole town calls Miss Miao wicked, says she’s a homewrecker—”

Zhou An blinked in surprise. “How do you know that?”

Don’t ask. She just knew.

“Shocked” didn’t even begin to cover Meng Bai’s feelings right then.

She’d never dreamed those offhand love stories could be drawn from Miao Bai’s own life.

“Spill—how do you know? Did she tell you?”

Meng Bai tamped down her unease. “No, just a guess. Go on.”

“It’s all salacious gossip, really. Grandma said the merchant busted in and caught Miss Miao and the actress getting cozy in bed. Word spread like wildfire through town.”

But that wasn’t the version Meng Bai had heard.

In her telling, it was the merchant and the dan actress caught together. Miss Miao hadn’t been part of it.

More precisely—if Miao Bai was the protagonist—then hadn’t she been the one betrayed?

“By the story’s logic, Miss Miao was the other woman?” Meng Bai’s tone dripped sarcasm. She didn’t buy it for a second; it was classic victim-blaming.

“You know our town—super conservative. Everyone sides with the merchant, naturally. But wait, it gets even crazier!”

Crazier than Miao Bai being Miss Miao? Hard to imagine.

“The craziest bit, per Grandma? Old Master Miao forced Miss Miao to marry that Beijing merchant!”

“What?!” Even Xu Zhou’s brows furrowed. “You’re joking!”

“Old Master Miao wanted to save face, so that’s what he did. The merchant? Ecstatic. Two wives already, and now this beauty? Jackpot.”

Xu Zhou mimed gagging. “God, that’s vile!”

“His thinking was: marry her off to the merchant, and suddenly Miss Miao and the singer are just wife and concubine. No more affair talk—probably just catty women fighting over a man.” Zhou An scratched her head. “Polygamy was still legal back then, so it kinda tracked.”

Zhou An paused, noticing Meng Bai had gone quiet. She poked her shoulder. “Earth to Meng Bai? Thoughts?”

Meng Bai’s mind was a whirlwind, layering Miao Bai’s tale over her grandma’s.

An answer crystallized fast.

She rejected it at first—but couldn’t deny it.

Miao Bai was Miss Miao.

Miao Bai didn’t like men. Neither did Miss Miao. Same courtyard, same old master, same brother. No way it was anyone else.

Impossible.

“Say something!”

“I… don’t know what to say.”

Her chest tightened. Meng Bai had never imagined Miao Bai enduring such humiliation—and she’d lapped up the story like entertainment, even foolishly spinning her own version.

“Did she go through with the marriage?” Xu Zhou asked.

Meng Bai answered instead.

“No. She died.”

Died—Miao Bai had said it herself. Drowned.

Zhou An nodded eagerly. “Spot on! You know it all! Grandma said—”

On a late summer evening tipping into autumn, Old Master Miao locked Miss Miao in the house, dead set on the marriage.

She refused. The entire Miao household—from top to bottom—pressured her.

“You will marry! This is for the Miao Family Ancestral Hall’s honor. No more defiance. You caused this mess—you fix it!”

Miao Bai wouldn’t bend. “Never.”

Old Master Miao fumed, beard quivering. “Refuse, then! No studying abroad for you!”

The Miao family’s eldest young master—Miao Bai’s brother—stepped in to mediate. “No choice, little sister. Father’s looking out for you. Marry the merchant, kill the rumors, head to France. Live your life in peace, yeah?”

Everyone begged her: one marriage, all problems solved.

That was when Miao Bai realized she truly stood alone.

That night—

According to Zhou An’s grandmother, it must have been because summer flew into a rage and unleashed a massive downpour.

On that stormy night, Miss Miao burst out of the Old Courtyard.

Old Master Miao gave chase, and Young Master Miao followed right behind.

Amid the pounding rain, the two so-called pillars of the Miao Family pleaded with her earnestly.

“It’s not that Father wants to force you into this,” Old Master Miao said. “Some things just can’t be helped. You’ve grown up now—you can’t follow every whim anymore. You’re a Miao, and everything you do has to consider the family’s future.”

“That’s right, sister,” Young Master Miao added. “If this scandal keeps spreading, how are Father and I supposed to show our faces around here?”

“So you want me to marry him?” The downpour had soaked Miao Bai to the skin. She halted in her tracks and turned to face her father and brother, her face streaked with rain—or perhaps tears. “Are you really set on making me marry him?”

Thunder boomed overhead as rain lashed her face. Sorrow etched her pale cheeks, but her gaze burned with unyielding resolve.

There was no way she could marry that man. Not even in death.

The rain that night was ferocious, drenching Miao Bai through and through—and snapping her wide awake.

Brushing off her father and brother’s attempts to stop her, she pressed straight ahead through the storm, enduring their desperate pleas.

It all came down to the same few words: marry the Beijing merchant.

That was where the story paused.

Zhou An drew a shaky breath and glanced awkwardly at Meng Bai. “In the end, she—”

For a moment, she didn’t know how to go on.

Even Zhou An herself felt a pang of sorrow.

“They chased her all the way to the end of the river in town,” she continued. “That night, seven or eight people blocked her path, and she was supposed to wed the next day. Grandma said everyone assumed Miss Miao would go through with it—no one dreamed she’d jump.”

Meng Bai sucked in a sharp breath. She couldn’t tell if it was the bus’s relentless jolting or something else.

Her stomach roiled, waves of nausea crashing over her. Her temples throbbed, and she felt like she was baking over an open flame.

“They say she knew how to swim,” Zhou An went on, “but she had no will to live. You know how turbulent the Old River is, especially after rain—and that night it was a full-blown deluge.”

Meng Bai stayed silent, yet she felt plunged into the scene herself, her chest tight and suffocating. When she pictured Miao Bai’s face as her own, the ache in her heart sharpened unbearably.

“Grandma said she just leaped right in—totally out of the blue. Young Master Miao lunged to jump after her and save her, but the others held him back. Old Master Miao was consumed by regret; he truly doted on that daughter. After Miss Miao died, he fell gravely ill from grief and rage.”

Xu Zhou felt the weight of it too. She glanced at Meng Bai on impulse and saw her pale as a ghost, silent the whole time.

She nudged Zhou An, gesturing for her to drop it. Zhou An seemed to catch on and clamped her mouth shut.

“Little Meng, you…”

Zhou An spotted the red rims around Meng Bai’s eyes but didn’t dare probe.

As far as she knew, Meng Bai almost never cried—tears were something she always swallowed back. Zhou An had barely witnessed it a handful of times.

“How much longer?” Meng Bai asked the driver up front, her face ashen, one hand gripping the seat. “I need to get off.”

“Master!” Zhou An bellowed at the uncle in front. “My friend’s carsick—can you pull over?”

The driver hit the brakes right away and twisted around to eye the trio in back. “Gonna hurl? Here, grab a plastic bag for her.”

Meng Bai rose unsteadily, her legs like jelly.

She realized she’d reacted too strongly. Why did it hurt this much?

She took a couple steps forward, but her knees buckled. With a heavy thud, she crumpled to the floor.

“Meng Bai!!!”

“Little Meng!!!”

A cluster of anxious faces pressed in around her, her classmates’ worry plain as day.

Meng Bai lay there on the ground, staring up past them to the ceiling fan whirring overhead.

The world spun dizzily; muffled voices buzzed in her ears.

“Should we take you to the county hospital?”

Meng Bai shook her head. “No need…”

“What’s wrong with you?”

She turned her head, her expression twisted in pain. “I think I skipped breakfast. Feeling dizzy… and queasy.”

It was a physical sickness.

An uncontrollable one.

Empathizing too deeply with others wasn’t always a blessing. As Meng Bai lay there, she could hear the rush of water in her ears.

It was as if she’d gone back to that night, plunging into the river alongside Miao Bai.

“You look so upset.” Li Yue and Zhou An helped her to her feet while Xu Zhou massaged her temples. Other classmates dug snacks from their bags and pressed them into her hands.

Zhou An dabbed at her tears with a tissue, murmuring comforts. “It’s okay, it’s okay. No crying now.”

“I’m not crying,” Meng Bai sniffled. “I just didn’t eat. I’m starving…”

Everyone humored her. “Right, no tears. Have something to eat first.”

The driver up front couldn’t stand it anymore. He pulled over to the side. “Fine, fine—let’s take a ten-minute break!”