BingLing not blaming the Mistress was a fact, but the reason why she would gladly take the Mistress’s punishment was not as simple as what she had stated.
Even if fate played a huge joke on her, she still held no resentment. Her ugly countenance only scared her at that moment. After she woke up, she had already started considering how to remedy her face. Not knowing her father from birth? She simply did not need to know. Losing her mother when she was three, she merely cried for three days before burying the memories of the beautiful young mother in the depths of her heart.
It was just that even though she had the mind of an adult’s, she still only had the body of a three year old. Plus, she and her mother had constantly been on the run, hence she did not even have a fixed place to live. In this day and age without an orphanage, the problem that she faced was a problem of survival.
At this time, ShangGuan YunJing appeared in front of her, like a spring breeze. Although her mother had left a letter entrusting her to this person whom BingLing had only met once, but no one said that he had to accept her, this orphan girl.
BingLing had to say, this ShangGuan YunJing was like a hero. He not only helped her bury her mother, but also did not mind her face and brought her to his home. Despite his wife’s strong opposition, he also took her as a discipline and betrothed the three year old her to his only son, who was three years older, ShangGuan YuChen.
Of course, ShangGuan YunJing did not discuss this with BingLing, who was only three. He could not have imagined that within BingLing’s heart was an opposition even stronger than his wife’s. Thinking about how she was highly educated, and had a psychological age of a twenty-something year old, how could she become the fiancée of a six year old? How was she supposed to endure this!
She was only three. Naturally, she should not know such “high level” things like a small daughter-in-law. Therefore, she could not say anything, but only accept the goodwill of ShangGuan YunJing. He was worried that she would not be able to marry out because she was ugly. Therefore, when his son was young and ignorant, he made this wishful decision.
Of course, whether he held the intentions of making his son complete what he could not, BingLing did not know. BingLing could only swear, when only when she was capable of relying on herself, would she get her destiny back in her hands.
But the consequences of ShangGuan YunJing’s actions caused his wife, who was already bitter about her existence, to hate her even more. The master often went on home visits, and each trip took ten days to half a month. It was also impossible to bring along a three year old. Therefore, the mistress hence became her guardian.
Just after the three year old BingLing was able to run around, the mistress had already made her take out medicinal herbs to dry in the sun, before making her put them back into the labeled medicinal boxes. This kind of work, even if an adult was to do it, they might not be able to complete. Because first they had to differentiate between similar looking herbs, and they had to also know the names of the drug recorded on the medicine boxes, then make sure the physical products matches the label. Letting a three year old do these kind of work, her intentions were obvious.
The BingLing who saw through the mistress’s heart could have originally acted out a three-year-old’s reaction like what the mistress had wanted. She could have messed up the medicinal herbs that Master treasured the most, waited for Master to come back, before waiting for Mistress to expose her. Then, she could have obediently admitted that she did it only because she wanted to play around. In the end, she would have been severely scolded by Master, and be labeled as a dangerous person.
But she did not do that. Her still present sense of perfection and her only remaining pride did not let her do those kinds of deliberate destruction. Furthermore, if the herbs were even a little off, it would cost a life. Therefore, BingLing followed Mistress’s instructions and put the herbs into their respective cabinets.
Looking at Mistress and the housekeeper’s pupils tightening, mouth dropping expressions made BingLing feel a little proud of herself. But once her ill-intentions fell through, Mistress did not give BingLing any time to gloat before assigning her to never-ending tasks that pushed both her wisdom and her body to the limits.
Fortunately, the Mistress always stopped her antics before BingLing became unable to endure it. BingLing knew that it was because she was afraid of being unable to explain to the Master if she went too far. This was the plight of women in the ancient days where man ruled over the world.
Little BingLing herself was looking forward to the intentionally increasing difficulty of the tasks, as she was training her will and tapping her potential. She also found the perfect excuse for herself: it is said that in medicine, the potential of a person had to be cultivated from a young age.
Although these kind of days were full of hardships and were tiring, it allowed BingLing to regain her self-respect and confidence. Thus, she started treating Mistress’s tasks as a way to repay them. This way, she thought that when she wanted to leave, she would not owe Master’s family a great debt. Especially since after the Spring Festival when she was five, the grievances Mistress had against her had ascended into hatred.
On the eve of the Spring Festival, the entire ShangGuan household was lit with lanterns, as though welcoming a happy occasion. BingLing heard from others that it was because her little fiance was coming back home for the New Year’s.
It was said that this young master had a weird trait since he was a child. Once he entered the medicine room and smelled the herbs, he would immediately start crying endlessly. Even the Medicine God could not figure out what was wrong. But the strangest thing was that, once he left the medicine room he would stop crying. And when he entered the study and martial arts practice room, he would become excited.
Later, when an old friend of Medicine God ShangGuan visited, he discovered that the kid was a rare martial genius that only came around once in a hundred years. He tricked the only descendent of the Medicine God into following him to learn martial arts, only letting him return home once a year. Because there were no one going to pick him up in the first two years, and his master also did not send him home, thus BingLing never saw him previously. Consequently, the year that BingLing was five was also the first time that the eight year old ShangGuan YuChen returned home.
The first time they met could be classified as a major catastrophe, with ShangGuan YuChen never coming home again. After that, the mistress pinned this crime upon BingLing’s head, making BingLing blame herself a little.
As the saying goes, being ugly was not her fault. But scaring people was her fault. With her nimbleness, it was entirely possible to have stopped that brat from removing the two veils on her face. But she did not to so, because she wanted to let her master realize that she and his son could not marry. Plus, she also had some bad intentions. She had wanted to see if others would have had the same reaction to her face as she did.
As it turned out, her tolerance was really good.
Nanashi Translations 
This is starting to get interesting
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