Chapter 3

Chuntao came in to say that the master wanted me back in my rooms.

Now Lady Qiao’s face turned livid too. Madam, on the other hand, looked noticeably happier.

Her maid Caijuan even supported my arm and saw me out.

When I returned, he was still in bed.

I hurried over and sat gently on the edge.

Smiling, he reached to stroke my hair. The movement loosened his collar, exposing red marks on his skin.

I hesitated. My eyes reddened as if it hurt me to see them.

Startled, he sat up, tilted my face toward him, examined it, and took me in his arms. “It’s nothing. Don’t trouble yourself, Wanniang.” After a moment, he smiled again and murmured against my ear, “Your husband is very pleased.”

My tears turned to laughter, and I gave him a shy look.

But my mind was perfectly clear. What was there to feel sorry about? This was only a fraction of what Sister Xiaotaohong from Yicui House had taught me!

He held me and teased me. I struck him lightly in embarrassed indignation.

I wasn’t some enchantress. But I was a concubine. I didn’t want to be beaten or go hungry. I had to please the master.

I really ought to add more oil to the lamp before Sister Xiaotaohong’s spirit tablet. What she taught us hadn’t saved Wang Sanya, but it had certainly done me a great deal of good.

Rubbing my waist, eating the meat I liked, and looking at Sanlang gazing at me so fondly, I calmly considered what to do that evening beneath my shy expression.

Sanlang said that if he hadn’t investigated my respectable family, and if I hadn’t been a virgin when I came to him, he would truly have suspected someone had trained me specifically to suit his tastes. He said he loved me and feared me in equal measure.

“Wanniang,” he said, “whatever you want, I’ll give you. Only don’t betray me.”

I wanted to say, Don’t be afraid. All I want is enough to eat, warm clothes, and no beatings. Truly.

Three days later, when he had to go to the government offices, I finally learned he was an official.

The servants were visibly more respectful. I still remembered them laughing at me as I stood in the courtyard on the day I arrived. Looking at the silks and satins I wore now, even I thought that pink jacket had been rather ridiculous.

I pointed casually to a maid. “Sister, would you bring me a cup of water?”

She dropped to her knees with a thud and begged for mercy.

Chuntao hurried over and slapped her. “Her ladyship only asked for water! Is serving your mistress beneath you? All this sniveling—are you refusing to serve her? Do you mean to defy your mistress?”

I was rather bewildered.

Later, Chuntao told me I mustn’t call that maid “sister.”

I was a concubine. I was the mistress of Spring Breeze Courtyard.

I had grown up under vicious beatings, and I had managed to slip into a brothel with Wang Sanya to ask someone to teach us about men and women. My teacher Xiaotaohong had once given me a meaningful look and said I had the shrewdest mind. It was a pity no one had taught me anything.

Well. No one had taught me, but I could teach myself.

Later, I learned that Lady Qiao was the old madam’s niece. I also learned why Madam had brought me into the household.

Madam wasn’t being kind to me out of the goodness of her heart. Otherwise, why hadn’t she handed over the servants’ bond contracts for my courtyard?

Why did she keep sending the prettiest maids she could find into my rooms?

She generously supplied everything I ate, wore, and used, yet gave me only two undergarments. I often had nothing to change into. I wasn’t even allowed to buy cloth with my own money and make more.

I admitted that the mistress, a lady from a distinguished family, was as far above me in status as the clouds above the mud.

But when I thought about it, in the bedroom she surely couldn’t match an ordinary girl like me.

One day, when Sanlang came, I didn’t get up to greet him. I lay on my side in bed instead. He asked whether I felt unwell. Blushing, I caught the hem of his robe, lowered my head, and said nothing.

The problem was solved.

He held me and said, “Your husband hasn’t known when to stop.”

After that, silks and satins flowed into my courtyard.

He called me delicate. Said I tormented him.

I looked at him with an innocent pout. “Sanlang, at home I could wash clothes and cook. I’m not delicate at all. If I’ve become so, you’re the one who’s made me that way. Besides… what do you mean, torment you?”

He roared with laughter and said he loved my sincerity most of all.

See? If he likes you, you’re sincere. If he doesn’t, you’re making a fuss over nothing.

It was Lady Qiao he called a fussmaker. One rainy night, I clung to him and said I was frightened. As I held him, I pushed him down beneath me.

He told me a story about a scholar and a fox spirit on a rainy night. As he lingered with me, he asked if I was a fox spirit too.

The mood was lovely. Desire went to my head, and I grew bold enough to say, “If I am, Sanlang is the only man I’ll bewitch.”

Just as we lost ourselves in each other, Lady Qiao’s maid came to say her mistress was afraid of thunder.

He smashed the cup beside the bed and snapped that she was making a fuss over nothing. Oh—and added, “Get out.”