Peacetime had been a facade

Chu Changying had a secret that she dare not tell.

A whole life that she had left behind to pursue a life that was her own and no one else's. It wasn't that she had no sense of filial piety. She did, but her parents were dead. (And they might have been idiots.) 

It wasn't that she wasn't grateful to the aunts and uncles that raised her either. (She was, but they never were quite able to provide what she needed.)

And so she ran away, shed her old identity to one anew, one that felt more like herself than the one that her parents had dictated for her.

Sure, perhaps one might see Chu Changying as selfish, self centered but if that's what it took to taste freedom, to alleviate the sharp feeling in her chest then she would go do it. 

The moment she stopped being Jiang Suiqi and became Chu Changying was like her first breath of fresh air. Like a phoenix, she was reborn and the world around her changed from gray to vibrant and colorful.