Chapter 3

In truth, there was nothing wrong with my sister.

The moment she learned that icy well water would be used to cool her down, she stripped off the layers of thick clothing she had been wearing under the quilt. The redness slowly faded from her face.

“I only want what I was supposed to have,” she sobbed. “Is that so wrong?”

Mother kept comforting her, promising to buy her a necklace when we had money.

I looked at her. “Money? Where will that come from? Our family has fallen on hard times. Our brother is six. By the time he reaches twenty and is old enough to take some work with the clan, you’ll probably be married. Will you still want a necklace then?”

My sister burst into fresh tears. “Mother, listen to her! She’s being horrible.”

I hadn’t even said the worst of it.

My brother, in fact, had an intellectual disability.

When he ran a high fever at three, Mother hadn’t called for help. She had only cried, insisting on waiting until Father returned from drinking with his acquaintances before tearfully asking him to decide whether to fetch a doctor.

The fever had damaged his mind.

In my last life, that was why I had been so frightened: I feared the same thing would happen to my sister.

Mother, however, refused to admit that anything was wrong with him. Important men spoke late, she said. He was merely slow to talk and a little fond of his food.

She told me to stop picking on him.

On the day I was smothered, before my body had even cooled, my brother had taken the pastries I had brought home from my clothes and sat beside me, eating them slowly.

To him, I was only a means of getting food at regular intervals.

To all of them, really.

I turned and left the room.

Behind me, my sister was crying loudly. “Mother, do we really have no money left? Then what about my coming-of-age ceremony? My sister had one. You can’t deny me mine! And Qiuhe and the others are buying rouge already, from Qiushuang Studio! What am I to do? Stop crying, Mother. Ask my sister what we’re going to do!”

Beneath my pillow, I had hidden a few dozen copper coins.

I had meant to surprise Mother, to tell her that I could earn money too.

Clearly, there would be no need for that anymore.

Lately, I had claimed to be going next door to embroider with an older girl. In fact, I had been helping Widow Liu in Cat’s Alley wash clothes for money.

Ten garments for two coppers. The work left my whole body aching.

I put my money away and began carefully recalling the events of my last life.

I remembered the blizzards that swept the north that winter. Northern raiders came south to plunder, and medicinal herbs soared in price.

If only I could find some capital—

I could multiply it tenfold, perhaps a hundredfold.