My mistress kept a Kunlun slave.
Even after she married, she found ways to keep him at her side.
Later, she conceived what was to be her husband’s legitimate son, and spent her pregnancy pampered like a princess.
But when her ten months were up, the baby she bore was black.
Every maid and midwife who attended the birth vanished that night.
My elder sister was among them.
That night, the birthing room floor was slick and scarlet, as though it had been washed in blood.
By dawn, the black infant carried out of that room had become a white one.
Having borne the first legitimate son, my mistress was given control of the household.
I was quick-witted enough to offer her schemes, to have servants beaten and old women punished.
I helped secure her position as mistress of the house, and rose to become a first-rank maid.
Behind my back, the servants called me her dog.
When I heard, I merely curved my lips in a smile.
I meant to be a dog, all right.
A mad dog that killed its master.
