Chapter 36: The Old Matriarch Despises the Young Mistress

Hearing Madam Song’s high praise, a gentle smile curved Shi Qing’s lips. “I’m just glad it suits your taste, Auntie.”

Right at that moment.

Shi Yao walked over from the dining room, her tone light and breezy: “Grandma Pei, Mom, the food is completely ready. We can head over to the table now.”

“Oh, wonderful.”

Madam Song immediately set down her teacup and rose from the sofa, leaning gracefully on Shi Yao for support.

Remembering something, Shi Qing turned to ask, “Has Muyin not come downstairs yet?”

Madam Song, whose expression had been perfectly cheerful just a second ago, let out a sharp, cold snort. “Don’t worry about her. Having a simple family meal yet requiring people to summon her three or four times over—she has absolutely zero manners.”

The words had barely left her mouth when Shi Qing caught sight of Pei Muyin descending the stairs. She turned her head right away, raising her voice softly, “Muyin, come quickly. It’s time for dinner.”

The following parts of the text will be scrambled to prevent theft from aggregators and unauthorized epub making. Please support our translators by reading on secondlifetranslations (dot) com. If you are currently on the site and and you are seeing this, please clear your cache.

Yyeyx Fsdt eked’v csvbla vs nypv y pkdtzl tzydnl kd Vlk Ywukd’p ekalnvksd, oyaxzu zsnjkdt bla yax okvb Fbk Zys’p yp pbl twkele bla vsoyae vbl ekdkdt assx.

…

Mbswtb vbl Vlk qyxkzu rspplpple y xyppkhl, prayozkdt nsarsayvl lxrkal, vbl ynvwyz zkdlytl sq vbl xykd bswplbsze oyp alxyajyczu pxyzz.

Yyeyx Fsdt’p zyvl bwpcyde, vbl saktkdyz Vyvakyanb Vlk, bye vaytknyzzu rypple yoyu kd yd ynnkeldv ewakdt bla uswvb, zlyhkdt vbl nswrzl okvb sdzu sdl pkdtzl nbkze.

Mbyv nbkze oyp vbl nwaaldv Tlye sq vbl Vlk qyxkzu—vbswtb vbkp ryavknwzya xyd raynvknyzzu dlhla plv qssv kdpkel vbl qyxkzu bsxl.

Xd ydu saekdyau eyu, vbl pollrkdt, nyhladswp xykd lpvyvl bswple sdzu vos alpkeldvp: Yyeyx Fsdt yde Vlk Ywukd.

…

Wswa rlsrzl pyv yaswde vbl lmrydpkhl ekdkdt vyczl.

The atmosphere in the room was split into two absolute extremes.

Madam Song showered Shi Yao with endless, doting questions and chatted up a storm with Shi Qing, their conversation thoroughly lively and pleasant.

Yet on the other end of the table sat Pei Muyin. Despite being a member of the exact same household sharing the exact same meal, she ate her food in a tense, suffocating silence, her presence so utterly transparent she might as well have been a ghost.

“Yaoyao, I heard you were officially accepted into the Berlin-Su Orchestra?” Madam Song asked with a beaming smile.

Shi Yao nodded happily. “Yes. I went in for the audition this morning, and I just received the acceptance notification from the committee a short while ago.”

“Oh, our Yaoyao truly is marvelous! To celebrate your acceptance, go ahead and pick out whatever gift your heart desires. Just bring the receipt back, and Grandma Pei will cover the bill for you.”

“Thank you so much, Grandma Pei.”

“Think nothing of it.” Madam Song turned her attention back to Shi Qing. “Xiao Qing, when exactly do you plan to bring Xiaojin back to Beijing? Letting a child live all by himself in a place as far away as Anshi… how could he ever get used to a impoverished backwater like that? You truly have a heart of iron to let him stay out there.”

Shi Qing’s lips curved into a soft smile as she explained gently, “Auntie, this was actually Xiaojin’s own explicit request. He mentioned that he wanted to forge his resolve and learn how to be truly independent. Now that the children are growing up, they have minds of their own. As his mother, the only thing I can do is support his choices.”

Hearing this, Shi Yao’s hand froze mid-air as she was lifting her chopsticks. A deeply complex look flashed across her features as she cast a brief, secretive glance toward her mother.

Madam Song’s face filled with profound pity. “Oh, that boy Xiaojin has always been far too sensible for his own good. Such a sweet child. If he ever faces any inconvenience whatsoever out there in Anshi, tell him he must let me know right away. Housing, transportation—I will personally arrange every single thing for him.”

“Auntie, I’ll pass along your immense kindness to Xiaojin,” Shi Qing replied. Then, as if finally noticing the thoroughly isolated figure sitting across from them, she proactively asked in a gentle tone, “I heard that Muyin also went out for the Berlin-Su Orchestra auditions today?”

Before Pei Muyin could even open her mouth to answer, Shi Yao spoke up hesitantly, “No, it seems Muyin was delayed and completely missed her time slot. I was the absolute final contestant to take the stage, and I didn’t see Muyin anywhere near the theater hall.”

“Missing it is for the best,” Madam Song interjected, her eyes flashing with explicit disgust. “She spends every waking hour moping around like a wooden block. I’ve told her countless times to stop playing that violin, yet she completely refuses to listen. If she actually goes out there and makes a public spectacle of herself, the one losing face will be our Pei family.”

Pei Muyin’s grip tightened around her chopsticks, the skin over her knuckles turning completely bloodless for a brief fraction of a second.

She lowered her head even further, her fallen hair casting a heavy shadow over her brow, completely obscuring whatever expression she wore.

Shi Yao paused for a moment before offering a mild defense: “Grandma Pei, Muyin actually plays the violin beautifully. Quite a few professors have praised her for having immense natural talent.”

Madam Song’s expression didn’t soften in the slightest. “What’s the use of playing beautifully? She’s bloated to such a ridiculous size that I can’t even bring her out to social functions without feeling embarrassed. Having her around is a total blemish on the prestige of our Pei family!”

Screeech—

The sharp, grating sound of a chair scraping harshly against the hardwood floor cut through the dining room.

“…I—I’m full.”

A weak, fragile female voice fluttered out, sounding as though it had been thoroughly crushed into the dirt.

Pei Muyin set down her bowl and chopsticks, rising from her seat and fleeing up the stairs like someone running for their life.

The portions of food inside her bowl remained entirely untouched. Having barely managed a few bites, there was absolutely no way she could actually be full.

Yet, not a single soul sitting around that table made a move to call her back.

…

Only when she was safely back inside her bedroom—firmly within the boundaries of her own personal territory—did Pei Muyin finally feel like she could catch her breath.

She sat completely motionless on the carpet beside her bed, remaining in that exact spot as darkness gradually cloaked the world outside, lasting right up until Shi Qing and her daughter departed and the entire house fell into the dead silence of midnight.

Not a single light had been turned on inside her room, leaving the space entirely pitch-black.

Guided only by the dim moonlight filtering through the glass, Pei Muyin gathered a massive armful of snack bags and carried them out onto her balcony.

—Whenever she found herself trapped in a miserable state of mind, she would compulsively gorge herself on junk food.

Potato chips, chocolates, heavy cream cakes…

As long as she could flood her mouth with sweetness, her heart would temporarily feel a little sweeter too.

She was just tearing open a bag of potato chips.

From down below in the courtyard gardens, the hushed voices of the maids chatting on their late-night shift drifted upward. One of them sounded like a recent hire to the Pei estate, her voice completely packed with unmitigated confusion as she asked:

“Why does it feel like the Dowager Matriarch thoroughly detests the Young Mistress? Watching them around the dinner table earlier, an outsider would honestly assume Miss Shi Yao was her actual granddaughter, while the Young Mistress was just some random stray they picked up off the streets.”

“You don’t need to guess; that’s exactly how it is,” an older, far more experienced maid whispered back, letting out a heavy sigh. “The old lady simply does not care for the Young Mistress. In fact, it wouldn’t be an understatement to say she completely loathes her existence.”

“Why is that?”

“It all traces back to the Young Mistress’s biological mother. Word has it that her mother was nothing more than a low-born, ordinary maid working right here inside the Pei estate. She shamelessly seduced Mr. Pei back when he was still the young master of the house, and that’s how the Young Mistress came to be.”

“Whoa, a scandal like that actually happened?!”

“Exactly. They say Mr. Pei even got into an absolute blowout argument with the old lady just to be with that maid. The old lady ended up hating that woman with a burning passion, so how could she ever find it in her heart to look kindly upon that woman’s child?”

“What about that woman now? Where is she?”

“She left the Pei family ages ago. The general rumor is that she ran off with someone else. In short, according to the staff who have been here even longer than me, the whole ordeal caused an incredibly humiliating scene back then, turning the entire household upside down. To this day, the mere mention of that maid is enough to send the old lady into a violent rage. So whatever you do around here, make sure you tread very carefully.”

“…” Pei Muyin’s eyelashes trembled violently as she shoved a massive block of chocolate into her mouth.

“Ah, I see,” the new maid noted, pressing further. “Isn’t the fifth of every month reserved for a mandatory family dinner at the main house? Why didn’t we see Mr. Pei return either?”

“You’re new, so you wouldn’t know. Mr. Pei hasn’t set foot back here in over a decade; he stays out at his own residences full-time. Like I just told you, the Young Mistress’s mother ran off with another man, so Mr. Pei is naturally furious. He obviously doesn’t want to look at the Young Mistress either, probably because seeing her face just stirs up bitter memories.”

“For all these years, Mr. Pei has buried himself entirely in the corporation’s business affairs, completely ignoring the Young Mistress’s existence.”

“Inside this household, the Young Mistress merely holds an empty title. Her personality is incredibly sullen and bizarre, so nobody is ever willing to get close to her anyway.”

“…”

The maids gossiping down in the courtyard below likely had no inkling whatsoever that every single word of their conversation was drifting directly into the ears of the person resting on the balcony right above their heads.

The moment the phrase “nobody is ever willing to get close to her” reached her ears, Pei Muyin turned her head. As if driven by a streak of pure self-punishment, she forced her eyes toward her reflection inside the full-length mirror standing directly across from her—

---

Sansukini: Those maids should be fired for gossiping about their employer’s back.

Thanks for visiting. If you like this story, then I’m shamelessly asking you to visit NovelUpdates and give a 5⭐ review. (人❛ᴗ❛)♪тнайк　чоц♪(❛ᴗ❛*人)

You can also check out my other translations Here