Chapter 1

The sun blazed overhead on the day Zhao Mingyi’s daughter was born, and the shrill chorus of cicadas outside was enough to drive anyone mad.

Zhao Mingyi had never been much of a scholar. People liked to say that everything he had learned had gone straight into a dog’s belly. And so, inspired by the insects screaming beyond the window, he named the wailing infant Zhao Xiaochan—“Little Cicada.”

The Zhao family were merchants. While Zhao Mingyi’s father was alive, business had flourished. But the moment the old master died, Zhao Mingyi threw off every restraint. Not even the birth of his daughter could call his wandering heart home.

He became addicted to opium.

When the smoke put him in the mood, he sought women. His own wife came from a respectable family and, in his opinion, was too timid and knew too few tricks. So he scattered money in the pleasure houses and demanded their most expensive girls.

No one could have imagined that one day his own daughter would enter such a house.

He drove his wife to an early grave. By then Zhao Xiaochan was fifteen, already a graceful beauty with skin like polished white jade, willow-leaf brows, cherry lips, and a promise of allure still unopened in her eyes. Her waist was so slender a man could nearly circle it with one hand.

Opium had swallowed Zhao Mingyi whole. He neglected the family business, and after his wife died, he became even more unrestrained. Before long, he could no longer afford the finest courtesans and had sunk to the cheapest.

Cheap goods were cheap for a reason. Zhao Mingyi contracted a foul disease, then planted himself in a brothel and demanded compensation.

When he had money, everyone had treated him like a lord. Now he pinched every coin and could no longer afford a whole cake of opium, only the dregs. Who would still treat him as a man?

That was when some conscienceless soul offered him an idea.

“Master Zhao, you’ve got a money tree growing in your own home. Xiaochan is fifteen now. Shouldn’t you be thinking about her future?”

Zhao Mingyi’s heart had gone blind. He knew the disease would probably kill him soon, so he hardened himself and resolved to enjoy however many days he had left.

The handsome, refined young master he had once been had withered into a filthy wreck who constantly sniffled through his nose.

When Zhao Xiaochan found him, he was haggling over her price.

“My girl has a tiny waist, broad hips, fair skin, a beautiful face, and an education besides. Twenty silver dollars? You think I’m a beggar?”

The instant Xiaochan heard him, half her heart turned to ice.

She had been tricked into coming. Someone had told her that her father was being beaten to death and that she had better hurry over to collect the body. She had been so delighted that she had forgotten to ask how it had happened. In her excitement, she had walked straight into the trap and let her own father sell her.

She hated Zhao Mingyi. She wished she could tear the flesh from his bones with her teeth.

But she could not kill him. He was still her father.

When she was little, before madness consumed him, he had held her, kissed her, and coaxed her to sleep.

On the way there, she had thought how wonderful it would be if Zhao Mingyi truly died. Then she would no longer spend every day terrified that he had run up another debt. Nearly everything in the house had already been sold. All she had left was the vivid green jade cicada around her neck.

Before her mother died, she had said, “Chan’er, don’t hate your father. Hate the opium instead. When he learned you had been born, he had that cicada carved for you from the finest jade, modeled after the ancient Han-style eight-cut technique.”

“He was a good man once. Don’t hate him…”

Those had been her mother’s final words.

Zhao Xiaochan touched the pendant. A terrible chill spread through her heart.

From this day on, her father was dead too.

That was what she told herself.

The madam of the brothel was surnamed Qian, but everyone called her the Coin Clutcher because her eyes had been made for raking in money.

Every girl she chose became famous.

The Japanese invaders had come, yet places of pleasure like hers had escaped the worst of the violence. Bombs and bullets might skim over people’s scalps outside, but once the brothel hung the proper gaudy flag, someone would always protect it.

Madam Qian swayed her heavy hips over to Zhao Xiaochan and examined the girl’s face from every angle. She even reached out to feel her breasts and bottom. Her ratlike eyes narrowed with delight.

“Add another twenty silver dollars for Master Zhao!”

The brothel attendant was every bit as shifty-eyed as Madam Qian. Bowing and scraping, he counted twenty more dollars into Zhao Mingyi’s hand.

“Master Zhao, keep them safe. Forty silver dollars in all. Put down your fingerprint, sign the papers, and the sale is settled. From now on your daughter belongs to us. Don’t you worry—we’ll look after her so well she’ll never suffer the least grievance!”

The attendant poured out a whole basket of sweet assurances. Zhao Mingyi had felt a flicker of reluctance, but with those promises in his ears and forty warm silver dollars in his palm, every trace of regret vanished.

He pressed his fingerprint to the contract and signed. Then he had the gall to tell his daughter, “Chan’er, you’re going off to feast on the finest food and live the good life! Your poor father is the one who’ll have to keep suffering in poverty.”

Zhao Xiaochan did not wail as they had expected. It was as though she had foreseen this fate long ago.

Beauty in a life of hardship was as fragile as treasure held in the arms of a small child.

She walked slowly to Zhao Mingyi. Her eyes were still and her composure utterly unlike that of a fifteen-year-old.

“From today on, whether you live or die, never come begging to me. I, Zhao Xiaochan, have repaid fifteen years of upbringing. Zhao Mingyi, you took the money from selling my body. Now go. Pretend I was never born into the Zhao family.”

Then she turned and followed Madam Qian away.

The attendant shoved Zhao Mingyi out. This was a place that worshipped the powerful and trampled the fallen. Why would anyone spare another glance for a ruined pauper?

Clutching the money, Zhao Mingyi suddenly felt as though a great wound had been ripped across his chest. The pain left him helpless.

“Xiaochan…” he murmured.