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GNU Ch.30 Part 2 – Previous Life (II)

When Cheng Yujin knew, she didn’t stop Cheng Yumo. Cheng Yumo was sitting in a carriage, crying all the way home. She kept sobbing, feeling that her life was too bitter. Heaven was unfair. Why did it favor her sister so much?

Halfway, she was stopped by Huo Changyuan. Cheng Yumo didn’t know how to describe his face at that time. She only remembered that Huo Changyuan apologized to her and said that he would give her an explanation.

At that time, Cheng Yumo was dazzled by excitement. Later, after she became Marchioness Jingyong, she recalled the scene of that day, and found out that Huo Changyuan’s expression at that time was clearly admitting the fate between them.

After the death of the scheming woman, the suffering young miss finally got together with her beloved general. But the reality wasn’t a stage drama. After the story ended, how was their life?

In the years after their marriage, Cheng Yumo could not tell how miserable her married life was. After all, Huo Changyuan pampered her, and Huo Xue-shi gave her enough face. To outsiders, her life was like a flower on a brocade, or a sun soaked in a honey jar: perfect and beautiful. But Cheng Yumo always felt that she was living under Cheng Yujin’s shadow. And the remnants of Cheng Yujin’s memories were left everywhere in the manor.

Huo Changyuan couldn’t forget his first wife who died young, and the manor’s servants couldn’t forget the perfect deceased Madam. Even Huo Xue-shi always disliked Cheng Yumo’s inability. In Huo Xue-shi’s words, it was: “You cannot even do such a simple thing. When your elder sister was here, I don’t have to worry at all, and it only took two days for her to finish the arrangement.”

Cheng Yumo smiled bitterly. Yes, because such a perfect woman like Cheng Yujin has once existed, she would always get compared no matter what she did.

In the years after her marriage, Cheng Yumo endured unspeakable aggrievance. Later, she woke up to find herself back to her younger self before everything happened. Cheng Yumo cried with joy. Great, nothing has happened. She had to go and tell Huo Changyuan the truth early. With this, she didn’t have to kneel before Cheng Yujin(1) and didn’t have to endure others comparing them. More importantly, she didn’t have to look at Huo Changyuan stroking the embroidery pattern left by Cheng Yujin day after day, silently remembering his deceased wife.

She wanted to thoroughly purge Cheng Yujin’s existence from her and Huo Changyuan’s life.

Cheng Yumo thought that she had succeeded. Huo Changyuan promptly broke off his engagement with Cheng Yujin and took her as his fiancee instead. Both grandmother and mother accepted her engagement, and even grandfather gave her one thousand silver taels for her dowry. This has never happened in her previous life.

Cheng Yumo came out of the side building with satisfaction, but unexpectedly bumped into Cheng Yujin.

When caught off guard, people didn’t have time to hide their thoughts and inadvertently revealed their true feelings. It was also at this moment Cheng Yumo realized that she has never escaped from Cheng Yujin’s shadow. Perhaps Huo Changyuan and the people of Jingyong Marquis manor would no longer have Cheng Yujin in their memory. But in Cheng Yumo’s heart, her deceased sister would always be a huge mountain she couldn’t cross over.

Cheng Yumo’s expression turned stiff. After she realized, she quickly tried to control her emotions. She showed the face a younger sister should have and smiled at Cheng Yujin: “Elder sister, you are here.”

Cheng Yujin nodded lightly: “Yes.”

The atmosphere soon turned awkward again. Cheng Yumo desperately tried to bring back the scene. She glanced at the box in Cheng Yujin’s hands and deliberately asked nonchalantly: “Elder sister, why are you carrying that by yourself? Where is your servant girl?”

Du Ruo was about to step forward to apologize, but Cheng Yujin reached out and stopped her movements. Cheng Yujin then said: “This is my own intention. Du Ruo injured her waist and is inconvenient to carry things. Anyway, it is just an empty box and is not heavy. I can bring it myself.”

Cheng Yujin once again arranged everything properly and easily. All right, everyone always praised Cheng Yujin for being sensible and generous, as if Cheng Yumo was the ignorant child. At this moment, Cheng Yumo seemed to return to her previous life, and a surge of hostility suddenly burned in her heart. She tried to control the expression, pretending to chat with Cheng Yujin pleasantly: “Really, ah. Elder sister truly treats your servants well. Since elder sister said so, how can this younger sister bear seeing you bring back things by yourself? Let this younger sister help you take that box back.”

When Cheng Yumo reached her hand to the food box, Cheng Yujin immediately took a step back: “No.”

Cheng Yumo’s hand stopped in the air stiffly. She looked at Cheng Yujin in surprise.

Cheng Yujin quickly calmed down and said: “It’s just a food box, I can bring it myself. No need to bother you. I am the elder sister, and I should take care of you. Your body isn’t healthy, and you cannot be tired.”

Cheng Yumo clenched her palms unconsciously. Elder sister should take care of her younger sister; Cheng Yumo grew up listening to these words. When she still lived in her natal family, she never thought anything was wrong. But after getting married, Cheng Yumo realized that this sentence had become an invisible barrier. Her sister’s limelight had become something that she could never be able to break through.

Suddenly, an unknown desire engulfed Cheng Yumo’s mind. As if she was deliberately competing with Cheng Yujin in her previous life, she said: “Elder sister, what are you talking about? You and I were born on the same day and the same hour. You are only a few dozen minutes older than me. Why should you always take care of me? Even if your servant girl is injured, she shouldn’t let you bring things personally. Zhu Xin, go and help elder sister bring the box.”

Cheng Yujin frowned. She wondered what kind of strange medicine did Cheng Yumo eat today. Whenever she gave out benefits for her younger siblings before, she never saw Cheng Yumo said that they are of the same age and Cheng Yujin shouldn’t relent for her. Why did she suddenly so persistent today?

Cheng Yujin has always used her own thought to gouge other people’s minds. She immediately suspected whether Cheng Yumo was also aiming for Old Master Cheng’s remaining fortune. Was she perhaps trying to let her servant girl checked if there was anything in the food box?

Unfortunately, there was.

 

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(1) Second wife is considered lower status than the original wife, even if both are technically legal wives. So after she married in, Cheng Yumo had to kneel and give Cheng Yujin’s memorial tablet a respectful greeting.


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13 thoughts on “GNU Ch.30 Part 2 – Previous Life (II)”

  1. Although this chapter was supposed to be a way for us to give sympathy to Cheng Yumo I just can’t. I have a slight urge to slap her even. (a biased opinion😎)

    1. For the author to write such a bright character as yujin, they couldn’t possibly be so simple-minded. They didn’t reveal this point of view to sympathize with her, rather to get a clearer view of this girl’s thoughts. Although she is almost like an open book we don’t really get to see the truth of cheng yumo by her childish and timid act in yujin’s point of view. Before this, we can smell green tea on yumo but only now are we able to know that she has an incurable victim complex and is ridiculously simple minded for someone who have lived two lives

  2. Jeez, that Huo Changyuan is SUCH a scum! And his mother is no better than she should be – I think she would tyrannize any daughter-in-law just because she can. On the other hand, they’ll make a very suitable family for Cheng Yumo and won’t ruin the lives of innocent girls who might’ve married into that family otherwise.
    Thank you for the translation <3
    P.S. Ninth Uncle, go help your niece out, she's in a predicament 😉

  3. I don’t know why but when I was reading the pov of Chenmo I laughed so much as she is ridiculous. She really thought if she came back in Time, It would be better. She is so naive immature and delusional. Chenmo doesn’t even question herself and she puts everything on others. As you said her mother in law is petty and selfish and so his son is. It would not change anything before or after.

  4. This idiot already were miserable with the man once in the past life and still decides to marry with him again

    1. She’s so lost in her delusion that everything happened because of her sister that she’s forgotten this little tiny detail. She won’t be compared but she’s still not as skilled as her sister. She will still be reprimanded by her mother-in-law who doesn’t like her.

  5. Thanks for the update ❤️!

    Now is when she decides she needs a backbone?! 😤 I hope her maid is clever enough to not even try to go against the first miss’s orders.

  6. Thank you for the chapter!

    It’s always interesting to see thing from the perspective of other characters, and it’s definitely easy to understand how Yunmo became how she is in that kind of environment. But it doesn’t make her any more likeable.

    I mean, I can sympathize with the pampered 14yo who thought her world was ending when her (first?) crush married her sister in the first life, but I have no sympathy at all for the reincarnated version of herself. Because she never grew out of being that spoiled, dumb kid. The only thing that grew was her victim complex.

    What’s really telling is how she talks about how her life wasn’t as beautiful as it looked to others, but not for one second does she stop to wonder if maybe it was the same for her sister – her sister who died alone after being neglected during childbirth. Also, not only does Yunmo put no effort into improving herself, she can’t recognise the efforts made by others. After running a house for who knows how many years, how can she not realise ow hard her sister must have worked to be able to do it flawlessly at 14/15? But no, Yujin is just naturally ‘lucky’ and ‘perfect’, and it’s all her fault that Yunmo was unhappy.

    Yujin might not be a saint, but at least she’s capable of empathy and compassion, and when placed in a difficult situation, she worked her hardest to survive, instead of curling up and blaming others.

    1. Ha! Even in the last life HCY fell for her! how could he not?! They were together and even had a child, of course he would miss her even if he was hurt by her actions but if he ever regretted his choice why didn’t he raise their son well. HCY is just scum! Spit! Spit! Spit!

      If I was supposed to feel sympathetic for her, I didn’t. She ran off on her own, she risked her reputation for a man (who wasn’t guaranteed to be a good match) she ruined the marriage late instead of admitting it before the engagement and saving them all trouble and what she did to her sister’s son (oh wuwuwuwu I should marry to raise my sister’s son but nah I’ll let him be a hedonist) it just made me more angry

      1. I just realized, her son had to be fostered by his aunt, in a similar way to how MC was fostered by her aunt. Both didn’t have it easy. Although he’s a male and had many more options than her, her son must have suffered a lot without his birth mother’s and maternal family’s support. Qingfu is not the type to lift a finger and Ruan-shi would have only helped out Yumo and Yumo’s child.

        It’s weird that his grandma, at least, didn’t love him enough to protect him. Without his mother from birth, wouldn’t she have been perfectly happy to raise her grandson to her liking without outside influences? But of course that’s not what the story calls for, ahaha.

  7. I Lost Her On this Line :

    “Elder sister should take care of her younger sister; Cheng Yumo grew up listening to these words. When she still lived in her natal family, she never thought anything was wrong. But after getting married, Cheng Yumo realized that this sentence had become an invisible barrier. Her sister’s limelight had become something that she could never be able to break through.”

    What does it mean ?? Cheng Yujin is Taking Care of her what does that have to do with Limelight anyone..

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