Chapter 3
I later learned what had happened. When my mother went to an embroidery shop to sell her handkerchiefs that day, she encountered Madam Song, my legitimate half-sister, and several officials’ wives who were close friends of Madam Song.
One of those ladies recognized my mother and saw her selling handkerchiefs. She deliberately called attention to it, clearly hoping to humiliate Madam Song.
Madam Song and my half-sister felt disgraced. They ordered their servants to teach my mother a harsh lesson on the spot. She had never recovered properly after giving birth to me, and years of hardship had left her frail. It took only a few blows to kill her.
My mother might have been a purchased Yangzhou courtesan, but beating her to death in public would still have stained Madam Song’s reputation. And so Madam Song falsely accused her of stealing property from the estate to sell, claiming she had merely been executed when caught.
With a respectable justification in hand, Madam Song’s good name remained intact.
The incident changed nothing for Madam Song, my half-sister, or the Song household. It merely added a lonely mound of earth to the hills outside the city and one more wronged ghost to the world.
I wiped away my tears. For the rest of my life, I wanted only to drag the filthy Song family into hell to keep my mother company.
My mother had not even been a concubine. She was only a Yangzhou courtesan purchased by the household, and I was merely a bastard born to a servant. Against the behemoth that was the Song family, I was an ant facing an elephant. I had no chance at all.
I knew I had to conceal my strength and bide my time. Slowly, I would wait for an opening. So I became a personal servant to the legitimate daughter of the Song family, Song Zhiyin.
Song Zhiyin was beautiful. Thanks to my father’s careful efforts to promote her, she was also celebrated in the capital as a talented young lady. Madam Song and my father expected great things of her. Once she turned fifteen and came of age, they planned to send her into the palace to attend the emperor and restore the former glory of the Song family of the Marquis of Qingyang.
But she had inherited both her parents’ nature. Before others, she was the picture of a refined, virtuous noblewoman. In private, she revealed her cruelty and amused herself by tormenting servants like us.
I served her for five years and endured five years of abuse. In the sixth, after she came of age and entered the palace, my days finally grew a little easier.
My father and Madam Song’s efforts paid off. On the strength of her reputation for talent, Song Zhiyin entered the palace and was immediately named a jieyu, an imperial concubine. She was said to be greatly favored by the emperor.
By the end of the year, word arrived from the palace that she was carrying an imperial child.
Madam Song and my father were overjoyed and rewarded every servant in the estate. Even I received twenty copper coins.
Their joy lasted less than two months. The mood in the household soon began to change. Rumor had it that once Song Zhiyin’s pregnancy began to show and altered her figure, the emperor had gone an entire month without visiting her. Several new beauties had also entered the palace, upsetting her so badly that she nearly miscarried more than once.
Madam Song and my father began to panic.
I knew my chance had come.