As for any family heirlooms passed down through the generations, after asking her grandmother in detail, Bai Ci's hopes were dashed once again.
Ultimately, the sheer destructive power of that spendthrift ancestor was truly formidable; absolutely nothing of value had been left behind.
As for the worthless items, they had degraded over the long years and were eventually thrown out as junk.
With bedtime approaching, Bai Ci decided she had nothing left to lose. Using the genealogy book as the associated object, she lit the Dream-Inducing Incense.
A pale blue smoke rose slowly, and a crisp fragrance drifted through the room, gradually growing thicker.
Bai Ci's consciousness blurred in the scent until she finally fell asleep.
In her dream, she saw a quaint, traditional courtyard with blue-brick paving, vermilion doors, and black-tiled roofs. A crabapple tree in full bloom stood in the yard, its petals fluttering down in the gentle breeze.
A little girl in a pink dress sat beneath the crabapple tree. A strangely colored jade hung around her neck, and her eyes curved into crescents as she smiled.
Standing beside her was a finely dressed couple, looking down at her with tender, doting eyes.
Bai Ci had an intuitive feeling that this little girl was a young Bai Zhen'er.
The scenes in the dream shifted. Bai Zhen'er gradually grew up and blossomed into a graceful young woman. The strangely colored jade still hung around her neck. She spent her days reading, playing the qin, and admiring flowers, living a peaceful and carefree life.
Soon, the other girls of her generation reached marriageable age. Their parents arranged matchmakings and weddings for them.
Some married into wealthy families, only to be plagued by domestic strife in the inner courtyards, weeping day in and day out. Others married ordinary commoners, their sharp edges worn away by the daily grind of survival, living lives of exhausting toil.
Bai Zhen'er watched all of this and took it to heart, becoming more and more resolved never to marry.
She had witnessed too much misery in marriage and did not want to be bound by it for the rest of her life.
Fortunately, her parents were highly open-minded. Even as she grew older, they never forced her to marry. They continued to dote on her and indulge her, letting her live according to her own wishes.
“Zhen'er, if you do not wish to marry, then do not. As long as we are here, we will never let you suffer the slightest grievance.” This was what her father often told her.
But tragedy struck without warning, claiming the lives of both her parents.
Their carriage plunged off a cliff, leaving no remains behind. Bai Zhen'er was left alone with a house full of family property and the jade that had been with her since birth.
After her parents passed away, the relatives who had seemed so kind on normal days instantly revealed their greedy natures, descending upon her home one after another.
They either demanded the Bai family assets outright or used underhanded means to pressure Bai Zhen'er into marriage, hoping to seize the family wealth for themselves through an alliance.
Though Bai Zhen'er was a woman, she possessed a resilience and decisiveness that rivaled any man.
She guarded the estate her parents had left behind, repeatedly rejecting her relatives' pressure. She even went so far as to tear off the polite facade and kick those greedy relatives out of her house.
But she was isolated and outnumbered in the end. Nursing their grudges, those relatives began to spread rumors about her.
They claimed she was unfilial, eccentric, and cold-hearted. They even slandered her, saying she was having affairs and was unfit to be a daughter of the Bai family.
The rumors spread further and further. People around her began to point fingers, and even the neighbors she knew well started to give her the cold shoulder and ignore her.
Whenever she went out, she could feel those strange looks and hear the whispers. The malicious rumors stung her again and again.
Still, she guarded the empty courtyard and everything her parents had left behind. Clutching that strangely colored jade, she lived in isolation day after day.
She stopped going out, stopped playing her qin, and stopped admiring the flowers. She simply sat alone under the crabapple tree, staring into the distance with eyes full of desolation and loneliness.
When the clan later revised and compiled the genealogy book, the elders and senior relatives had already reached a quiet consensus. Using the widespread rumors as an excuse, they deemed her reputation ruined and her character flawed, declaring her absolutely unqualified to be entered into the Bai family genealogy book.
They finished writing and binding the genealogy book early. Only after everything was set in stone did they pretend to gather the clan at the ancestral hall to announce the matter to her in public.
The onlookers either sighed quietly or watched coldly; not a single person was willing to speak up in her defense.
She had nowhere to voice her deep grief and indignation. Alone and without anyone to rely on, despite her immense resentment, she could only grit her teeth and bear it in silence, unable to utter a single word of protest.
In the long years that followed, she was never allowed to take her rightful place in the Bai family genealogy book, and this injustice became a thorn in her heart.
Later, she fell gravely ill. Her body burned with fever, and she was so delirious that she lacked even the strength to get up and pour herself a cup of water.
The courtyard remained deathly silent. No one came to see her, and no one cared. The relatives who had once swarmed around her and the neighbors she saw daily had all vanished without a trace.
As she lay on the cold bed, her consciousness gradually fading, she still tightly clutched the mutton-fat jade in her hand.
As she drew her final breaths, an obsession arose in her heart.
“I hope the other sisters in the family never have to suffer a fate like mine. I hope they will have someone to accompany them, so they never have to die in such utter loneliness.”
As the obsession took hold, her figure gradually turned translucent, transforming into a spiritual entity that merged into this blessing. The jade also lost its vibrant colors, turning a chaotic, cloudy white.
It was only after her tragic death that a few sisters in the clan, unable to bear the cruelty, sneaked out in the dead of night when no one was watching. They quietly took up a brush and secretly added her name to the genealogy book, finally granting her a posthumous place in the family.
With her physical form laid to rest, her spirit—now freed from the constraints of human nature—caused the independent rules to gradually solidify.
Her wish for her “sisters to have companionship” was slowly warped, turning into “hoping the women of the Bai family find a lifelong companion before the age of thirty.”
In the end, it completely mutated, becoming the rule that “if a Bai family woman does not marry before thirty, she will lose her life”—the very “curse” passed down through the generations of the Bai family.
The dream came to an end, and Bai Ci slowly opened her eyes. The Dream-Inducing Incense had just finished burning.
She reached up to wipe the moisture from the corners of her eyes. The scenes from her dream replayed repeatedly in her mind, every single image crystal clear.
She finally understood. It really had been a blessing.
It was a wish made by Bai Zhen'er on her deathbed, a form of protection born from her empathy for others.
It was only because the rules had solidified that it gradually mutated, turning into a shackle that bound the women of the Bai family.
Outside, the sky was already bright. Bai Ci got up and walked out of her room.
On the stone table in the courtyard, steaming hot rice porridge was served alongside pickled vegetables freshly scooped from the jar, but Mother Bai and her grandmother were eating without any appetite.
Seeing her come out, Mother Bai immediately stood up and hurried over to meet her.
“Xiao Ci, how did it go?” Mother Bai asked anxiously.
Due to her advanced age, her grandmother was not as quick as Mother Bai. She stood up a beat slower and joined them at Bai Ci's side, her eyes filled with deep concern.
Bai Ci recounted everything she had seen in her dream to Mother Bai and her grandmother.
Since it was a dream, after all, Bai Ci didn't remember every single detail perfectly. When she explained it to them, she focused on the key points.
Even so, Bai Zhen'er's story still brought tears to the eyes of Mother Bai and her grandmother, leaving them sighing with deep emotion.
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