chapter 2

Shen Yan chose Wangxian Tower, the finest teahouse in the capital, for our meeting. A single pot supposedly cost three or four taels of silver—roughly the entire monthly allowance of a sixth-rank official’s concubine-born eldest daughter.

My opinion of him improved at once. At least he was willing to pay for an expensive teahouse, which showed a basic sincerity about the marriage.

To return the courtesy, I gritted my teeth and sent Miaomiao to buy rouge and powder from the Pavilion of Flowery Faces. To save money, I did my own hair.

Pale clothing looked expensive only when made from fine silk. Unfortunately, nearly all the good fabric in our house went to my legitimate younger sister. By the time my share was measured out, only cotton and hemp remained.

Father and my stepmother claimed those fabrics were good for the body.

Ha. The only thing that nourished people was money. Poverty was poverty, scarce resources were scarce resources, and unkind parents were unkind parents. Why dress them up in excuses?

Cotton and hemp wrinkled the moment one moved. I might be a concubine-born daughter with strong opinions about my family, but I still had to maintain the dignity of an official household. I could not afford to appear in rumpled clothes.

Fortunately, Ming Xi had given me a bolt of pure black Huzhou silk for my birthday. Three months ago, Miaomiao and I had cut it into a dress, then saved it for an occasion worthy of it.

Now was the occasion.

I arranged my hair in the round coil favored by unmarried girls in the capital. My fingers moved over porcelain, wooden, and silver hairpins, and I sighed again.

People called me practical. How could I be otherwise? I was a poor official’s concubine-born daughter. From outside, I looked like a cultivated young lady. Behind closed doors, I did not own one respectable ornament.

I broke off a red rose in full bloom and tucked it into my hair. If anyone asked, gold and jade were vulgar. If they asked twice, I would kill them and bury them in the garden as fertilizer.

Two small carnelian drops went on my ears. With a little powder and rouge, a young beauty appeared in the mirror: a face like a flower, an edge like a blade. Black silk and one slash of red framed a slender waist; still, I was an orchid in a shadowed wood, moving, a peony by night.

I thanked the mother I had never met for my face, and myself for tending it so diligently.

I let the ambition fade from the woman’s eyes in the mirror, dabbed floral water on my wrists, and left with an equally polished Miaomiao.

In the important respects, Shen Yan had told the truth. He was rich, his rear courtyard was clean, and he had one young daughter.

In smaller respects, he had been less honest.

Tea leaves drifted in a celadon cup while I glanced from the gold-and-ruby collar on his daughter’s neck to the diamond bracelet on his concubine’s wrist, then let my gaze settle on Shen Yan’s slightly rounded belly.

The portrait he sent showed a straight-backed youth. Apparently it had been painted when he was eighteen. He was now twenty-eight.

A merchant could hardly avoid banquets and wine. Understandable, I told myself.

Jin Zaisi, endure it for the sake of all that gold and jewelry.

Shen Yan’s bloom was fading, but traces of his former handsomeness remained. He had traveled widely and spoke with some wit. I encouraged him, and by the end of the tea both host and guests seemed pleased.

Before I left, he drew me aside.

“I did not know what Miss Jin might like, so I prepared two modest gifts.”

I curtsied and accepted both brocade boxes without false reluctance. “Thank you, Young Master Shen.”

I never refused a man’s gifts. Careful dressing cost effort. New cosmetics cost silver. Had Shen Yan been stingy, I would have despised him. A man so much older than I was, already discussing marriage, ought to spend lavishly for a beauty’s smile. Otherwise I would suspect he only meant to jingle his purse beneath my nose and feed me promises.

I could not open the boxes in front of him. Inside the carriage, I tore into them at once.

The first held a palm-sized jade pendant pierced through the center, with clean bands of black, white, and yellow. I knew little of jade, yet its quiet, restrained elegance made the trinkets in common jewelry stalls seem like painted courtesans beside a noble young lord.

The second was a filigree gold hairpin shaped like a pavilion. Fine threads of pure gold made it delicate and weightless, and the sapphire set within was clear as a mermaid’s tear.

Together, the two ornaments barely compensated me for meeting an older man.

As our carriage neared the main gate, Miaomiao lifted the curtain. “My lady, Young Master Yao’s carriage is outside.”

Yao Qingchuan was the legitimate second son of the Chief Justice of the Court of Judicial Review. Gifted in scholarship and blessed with family connections, he had entered the Hanlin Academy while still young. He was negotiating marriage with my legitimate sister, Jin Shanyi.

His family, post, prospects, and rear courtyard were all beyond criticism. A perfectly rounded prospect.

If my stepmother and Lady Yao had not been childhood friends, creating a convenient shortcut through years of familiarity, Jin Shanyi would never have been in his league.

“Go around. Stop at the side gate.”

I had to avoid him. Jin Shanyi had inherited Father’s ordinary looks; cruelly put, the features on her face existed to hear, see, breathe, and speak, not to provide decoration. My presence in the same household already placed invisible pressure on her.

If she learned I had met Yao Qingchuan at the gate, she would complain to my stepmother. Then rumors would say I had interfered with her marriage and tried to steal my future brother-in-law. My name would stink for ten miles downwind.

A person lived not for a day or a year, but a lifetime. To survive, one had to protect one’s feathers.

In storybooks, a sister’s husband might be fair game. In real life, he was untouchable. If every other man beneath Heaven died, I still would not say an extra word to Yao Qingchuan.

We slipped through the side gate, and only in my room did I relax and wash my face. Even the finest powder felt stifling, and sparring with Shen Yan’s half-truths had been more exhausting still.

As Miaomiao put the gifts away, she asked, “My lady, will it be him?”

I understood, but nothing was settled and I refused to speak too soon.

“We’ll see.”