Chapter 7

Master Su’s gifts arrived in an endless stream.

Food, clothing, everything at home improved.

The crease between Mother’s brows began to ease.

She spent every coin she received. Even my uncle began turning up for handouts, calling her his dear sister at every turn.

My sister had new clothes and a new jeweled necklace. She came to sway it before me and urge me to accept the marriage.

I smiled. “Think carefully, dear sister. If I become Master Su’s concubine and you later fall for his son, what will you do then? Leave people a little room. You may need it someday.”

She scoffed. “As if I’d ever fancy his son. Look at him! His son can’t be much better.”

Sometimes, when Master Su sent gifts, his men took my brother out too. My brother loved going with them. There was plenty to eat.

I warned them, “He isn’t bright. He copies everything. If you let him follow old Su around, aren’t you afraid he’ll learn something bad? Old Sun, you ought to say something.”

Mother bristled. “There’s nothing wrong with his mind. He’s just late to understand things. Seeing the world with Master Su will do him good.”

I couldn’t even be bothered to remind her how terrifying my brother had become in my last life, once he learned to torment people. In broad daylight, with his clothes in disarray, he had chased Old Sun through the house with a whip.

“Perhaps Miss Miao should worry about her own wounds first,” Old Sun said sourly. “All that money spent on medicine, and still no improvement.”

Mother bought the finest medicine and dressed my injuries every day.

She was waiting for the wounds on my body, head, and face to heal completely.

Then I could meet Master Su.

“I don’t know what’s got into herb prices lately,” she muttered. “They’ve risen again. Ah Miao, why are you still bleeding?”

This was nothing. The prices hadn’t truly started soaring yet.

That would come in another two months, with the blizzards.

“Perhaps you’ve tied me too tightly, Mother. The wounds can’t breathe.”

My meeting with Master Su was set for the Winter Clothing Festival.

On that day, every household made offerings of winter clothes for the dead.

Master Su would have a carriage waiting along the route to our family rites.

After bathing me and combing my hair, Mother rode alone with me in a carriage.

Outside, wind and rain began to rise. Passersby wore bamboo hats and had no time to look at anyone else.

In the carriage, she quietly imparted her experience.

She had even prepared warm wine, supposedly to calm my nerves.

She explained how to use wine, how to be tender and submissive, how to look shy, how to keep a man wanting more.

But she didn’t know that Master Su liked none of that.

He preferred a whip.

In my last life, I had lasted so long with him because I was hard to kill, not because he was faithful.

Mother held the cup to my lips, pinching my chin with her other hand. “Have a sip. Just one. It’s for your own good.”

I kept my mouth closed and looked at her.

After a moment, she unlocked the shackles around my ankles.

Her fingers squeezed my cheeks. “Just one sip. I don’t want you to suffer. One day you’ll understand… everything I do is for your sake.”

I opened my mouth and let the wine in.

Mother smiled. “Ah Miao, this is the finest drug—”

Her voice stopped. I lunged forward, pinned her to the carriage floor, and forced the mouthful of wine into her mouth.

She coughed and choked.

“You… you…”

I looked at her. “Crows feed their parents; lambs kneel to nurse. You taught me to give good things to my mother first. Isn’t that right?”

She opened her mouth to shout. I seized her head and slammed it hard against the carriage. She went limp.

Then I returned the shackles to her and stuffed a handkerchief into her mouth.

Only then did I lift the rear curtain and jump out.