Chapter 1

My father took my mother to his bed on her first night in the estate. By the time she was carried back to her rooms, she was covered in injuries and unconscious.

The first thing demanded of her when she woke was that she drink a sterility draught. It was not that my father did not want heirs. Pregnancy would ruin a woman’s slender waist, and until he tired of them, he would never allow my mother or the other women to conceive.

Every Yangzhou courtesan brought through his gates therefore received a bowl of that draught. My father happened to favor my mother, so the servants took special care of her and gave her an extra bowl.

The draught was violently cooling. Even one bowl caused agonizing cramps; two were far worse. That very night, my mother began hemorrhaging.

Yet the other Yangzhou courtesans who had arrived with her were jealous of my father’s favor. They cared nothing for whether she lived or died. They locked her in a side room and left her to cry out as she bled through the night.

She barely survived that night. The ordeal shattered her health, and by the next day, she had fallen ill.

The illness lingered for more than a month. By the time she recovered, the willow-slim waist my father had prized had thickened.

Displeased, he cast her into the rear courtyard to fend for herself.

It was then that a physician discovered she was pregnant.

My father’s principal wife, Madam Song, came from a great aristocratic clan and cared deeply about bloodlines. In her eyes, even ordinary commoners were base, let alone a woman sold as a Yangzhou courtesan. She immediately ordered my mother killed.

My father never concerned himself with such matters, just as Madam Song never interfered with his pursuit of courtesans.

Fortunately, the dowager was still alive then, and she stopped Madam Song. The Song family of the Marquis of Qingyang was among the foremost houses in the capital, yet after five years of marriage, Madam Song had borne only one daughter. The family needed a male heir. Lowly though my mother was, the dowager wanted to keep the child.

The duty of continuing the family line left Madam Song no room to argue. She was forced to let my mother live.

Still, Madam Song was the daughter of an eminent clan, and the dowager had to show her some consideration. In private, she told her, “That woman is nothing but a plaything. If fortune favors her and she bears a boy, bring him to you to raise, then have her beaten to death. If her belly disappoints us and she produces another worthless girl, you may dispose of mother and daughter as you please.”

They said this in front of my mother without the slightest attempt at discretion. To them, she was only a vessel for bearing a child, powerless to resist.

Even so, the dowager feared Madam Song might act behind her back, so she brought my mother into her own courtyard and kept watch over her. She waited eagerly for the birth of a boy. But after ten months of pregnancy, my mother gave birth to me—a worthless girl in the dowager’s eyes.

The dowager flew into a rage and cursed my mother for being useless. Before my mother had even recovered from the birth, she had the two of us thrown into Madam Song’s courtyard and told her to do as she wished with us.