Hearing this, Caihong dropped her face.

“I know very little about my family. Not only father but also all of them,” she said with a sad voice.

“It looks like your family treats you not good.”

“It can say not good but also not bad.” Caihong took a few seconds pause before she continued, “Though they seem to not consider me as their family, they don’t abandon me to live on the street. At least, they give me a house, give me food, and give me a dress.”

“I think eldest madam does not like you.”

“Eldest mother does not like anyone, even my other younger half-sisters. But she cannot do anything to them because they have mothers.”

“Because your birth mother was a maid, that’s why your eldest mother dares to harass you!”

The younger girl didn’t comment on this point.

“I wonder why your father ignores you. He agrees to name your mother his wife, it means he has a feeling over your mother too. How can he do this to you? You are also his daughter.”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t you know how your mother became the wife of your father?”

Caihong shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t have a clue about this matter.”

“What’s about the people in the house?”

“No one talks with me. Only my wet nurse.”

“Then does your wet nurse know about your mother’s history?”

“I ever asked her. She told me that my mother became a wife of my father before she came to work in the house. When she entered the house, she was assigned to be my mother's private maid. She knew a little since she was caring for my mother inside the room.”

“Do you ever ask what your mother looked like?”

“I did.” Caihong nodded her head.

“What did she say?”

“She said that I have a face shape, eyes and lips like my mother.”

“I bet your mother was pretty or she would not be able to give birth to a pretty daughter like you.”

Though it was a compliment, Caihong didn’t have a feeling towards it.

“Perhaps I have many looks like my mother, that’s why my eldest mother is angry when she sees me,” she spoke with her eyes low. “I heard that eldest mother hates my mother so much. When my mother was alive, eldest mother liked to harass her when she met her. That was the reason my mother liked to stay inside the room. She was afraid to meet with eldest mother. Me too. I am afraid to meet with her and my eldest sister.”

“So you stay inside every day, from morning till night?”

“It seems to be like this. I rarely walk away from my homestead. I remembered when I was about four years old, I chased butterflies till I arrived at the front gate, then there was a lady coming to meet with my eldest mother. She saw me and asked who I was. The maid told me that I was the second daughter of my father. That lady said that my dress was dirty, and it looked like the family treated me poorly. Eldest mother heard it, she was angry, then she prohibited me not to show up before the guests. From that day, I stayed inside the room only.”

“It's like living in a prison,” Lantian claimed. “Then what did you do while you were in the house?”

“I stayed with my wet nurse. She taught me how to cook, how to do embroidery, she taught me what she knew.”

“What about your other half-sisters?”

“Liqing and Li Ai were the same age as me but younger than me by a few months. Because they have mothers, so their lives are not like mine. They could get what they wanted and they could learn what they wanted to learn.”

“You meant they could study letters and you didn’t!”

“I studied.”

“You can read, can’t you?.”

“I can. In our hometown, when we were young, father hired a teacher, and he allowed me to take a class with my sisters. But I could only study letters, for the dance or embroidery class, I could not enroll.”

“It is good that they allowed you to study.”

“Um.” Caihong smiled but was not very happy. “I can read, I can write, but not so well. As for my four half-sisters, they know how to read, they know how to write, they know how to compose a poem, they know how to draw, they know how to do embroidery, they know how to dance, they know almost everything.”

At that time, the two girls arrived at the carriage.

“It’s night. Let go back,” Lantian stated.

“Um.” Caihong nodded her head; afterwards, she climbed up the cart and the elder lass went up after her.

 

 

The blinking stars started to come out one by one in the blue. On the ground, along the quiet road, the horse ca