Chapter 2

The past drifted away like smoke.

I had now been the heir’s bedchamber maid for a year and had gradually learned something of his temperament.

He was frightening when angry, but when he was not, he treated me well.

Two days earlier, Teacher Zhang had sent word through the gatekeeper that he needed to see me urgently.

Teacher Zhang was my benefactor. I had once promised to repay him.

“…I truly had nowhere else to turn, Miss. I would never have troubled you otherwise. Shuang’er is my only daughter, but Assistant Director Sun has taken a fancy to her and means to force my family to send her to him as a concubine. That old wretch is old enough to be her grandfather! Disaster hangs over our home. Her mother does nothing but weep, and I am helpless… I am useless. I cannot even protect my own daughter!”

Assistant Director Sun’s family had official connections. For an impoverished scholar like Teacher Zhang to oppose a man like him would be like an ant trying to topple a tree. It could only end in death.

I knew the matter was far beyond my power, but the sight of Teacher Zhang in tears made me promise that I would think of a way.

He left as though granted a reprieve. Uneasy, I entered the study at Hanshan Courtyard.

For people like us, such a problem was harder than climbing to heaven. For certain others, it could be solved with a single sentence.

The heir seemed to be in a good mood that day, I thought.

After I haltingly explained the matter, he took my hand and toyed with it. “Yu’er is not only beautiful, but has the heart of a bodhisattva as well.”

His tone was impossible to read. I could only let him squeeze and knead my hand, sometimes hard and sometimes gentle, as though he were doing the same to my heart.

Silence lingered in the study. Just as I could bear it no longer and began to tremble, he let out a low laugh. Smiling, he said, “I will grant Yu’er this one request. Now you had better think about how you will repay me.”

When I raised my head and met those smiling phoenix eyes, heat rushed to my ears and I lowered my gaze again.

While I yielded to his pleasure, tears blurred my vision and my thoughts swam. Memories long faded came crowding back once more.

By then, my family fortunes had collapsed. My father suffered a ruinous defeat in business and was driven to drown himself in the river. When my mother heard the news, she followed him with a length of white silk, leaving me alone in an empty world.

With no one to protect me, I soon drew the attention of several men of unknown origin.

What returned in nightmare after nightmare were their lecherous, obscene stares.

Behind me lay a pitch-black alley. The night was starless and moonless. I ran and wept, but the footsteps behind me came ever closer, until I could hear their filthy laughter.

Just as despair overtook me, a pair of hands reached from the side. One covered my mouth while the other wrapped around my waist and dragged me forcefully through a nearby doorway.

“Miss, don’t make a sound! It’s Teacher Zhang.” A deliberately hushed voice spoke beside my ear.

Teacher Zhang had once been hired by my father to teach me my first lessons.

He had never earned a degree beyond the lowest scholarly rank and his family was poor, but he was an upright man. Even after he stopped teaching me, my father continued to provide him with a small allowance.

After my family was destroyed, the first person to extend a helping hand was not one of the clansmen who had benefited greatly from my father’s generosity, but a teacher who had instructed me for only three years.

Teacher Zhang took me home and let me share a room with his daughter, Shuang’er. A few days later, however, I heard an argument in his room.

“She’s the daughter of a ruined household. Why should she eat and sleep in my home for free?”

“Madam, please, keep your voice down.”

“Keep my voice down? Why should I? Zhang Sheng, you bastard! It is bad enough that you never try to better yourself, and now you’ve brought home another mouth for me to feed. I am the one who runs this entire household. If not for my natal family, you would never even have had the money to sit the examination for the lowest scholarly degree!”

…

After that, I took my leave of Teacher Zhang and sold myself into service at the Prince of Zhenbei’s residence.

I worked my way up from a maid who swept the courtyards to one of my young mistress’s senior attendants.

I had believed that if I devoted myself to serving her well, a better future would surely await me.

Only later did I learn that my future had never been mine to command.