My eldest brother passed the imperial examination two years ago in the 24th year of the Kangxi Emperor's reign, and his ranking was quite good. There aren't many Manchus who have passed the imperial examination now, and he also has a reputation for filial piety.

After my grandfather passed away, my eldest brother built a hut in front of his grave and observed mourning for a year.

The Qing Dynasty ruled the country with filial piety, which suited the tastes of those in power.

Now, my eldest brother has entered officialdom as a fifth-rank official. You should know that only the top scholar in the imperial examination is a fifth-rank official. He has already been in the Hanlin Academy for two years.

The second and third brothers are fraternal twins, 10 years older than He Zhuo, and are now 23 years old.

My second sister-in-law observed three years of mourning for her mother, and then my second brother observed a year of mourning for his grandfather. This delayed their wedding, and both my second brother and sister-in-law were 20 years old when they got married.

My second brother is 22 years old, and passed the civil and military examinations last year. His father found him a sixth-rank position in the Imperial Household Department as a Blue-Lanyard Officer.

My second sister-in-law was born out of wedlock and only came under the legal mother's name when she was over 10 years old. Because she was the only daughter in the family, she was officially registered as the eldest legitimate daughter. However, her legal mother treated her only so-so and didn't care much for her. She simply hired a nanny to raise her as usual, so she still couldn't help but have some petty manners.

Because she was the daughter of an imperial censor, and had some of the pedantry of a scholar, she constantly quoted "Women's Virtues" and "Admonitions for Women," which clashed with the Irgen Gioro family's approach to raising women. She was disliked by her grandmother, who was born a Mongolian princess, and was not well-liked among her sisters-in-law and cousins.

Second Sister-in-law has the common flaw of scholars: she cares most about her reputation. As soon as she entered the family, she promoted Second Brother's maid to concubine, thinking it showed her virtue. In fact, Mother thought she was both stupid and foolish.

After giving birth to a son and a daughter, she showed no concern for her children, but was very kind to the maids and servants in her own courtyard. She was also kind to her second brother's concubine, and focused on cultivating her reputation for being kind, generous, and virtuous.

Later, he was subdued by his second brother in one move.

After his daughter turned one month old, the second brother discovered that his wife's condition was getting worse and worse. He then spent half a year living in the front yard with his son and daughter, not letting his sister-in-law see him, nor seeing her, nor his concubines or maids.

For the first month, my second sister-in-law didn't pay any attention. How careless she must be to not care!

She hasn't seen her own daughter and son for a month, living only in her own reputation, indulging in self-pity. In such a short time since she married into the family, she's already given away two or three tenths of her dowry. The servants, concubines, and maids praise her to her face while holding her things, but behind her back, they all curse her as an idiot.

Although her second brother started visiting her sister-in-law's courtyard again six months later, he made it clear to her that while those items were indeed her dowry, if he discovered anything beyond what was supposedly given to the servants, maids, concubines, or other women in private, regardless of the pretext, she would have her right to manage her second brother's household affairs revoked.

The second sister-in-law valued this position, which demonstrated the principal wife's authority over the household, and therefore dared not utter a word.

The second brother sold off all the maids and servants in his backyard, except for his sister-in-law's dowry, and replaced them with a new batch.

The second brother's courtyard was full of his people. He would know about any little thing that happened. After that, the second brother, his mother, and other family members would intentionally or unintentionally keep his sister-in-law's nephew and niece away from her, for fear that she would teach the children bad things.

Anyway, she doesn't care about her own child.

The second brother also told the second sister-in-law's wet nurse that being soft-hearted towards the second sister-in-law would harm her. The wet nurse was reasonable, but she was self-preserving and stopped trying to persuade her after two attempts.

Now, having been pointed out by her second brother, she's terrified, fearing that her reputation will be ruined and she'll be kicked out of the mansion by her son-in-law and sent back to the Wang Imperial Censor's house. If that happens, she'll have no way out and will definitely be beaten to death by the reputation-conscious Wang Imperial Censor.

From then on, whenever the second sister-in-law did anything wrong, the wet nurse would point it out. This wet nurse was also clever; she started by addressing the second sister-in-law's reputation, which was what she cared about most.