Chapter 4

Chapter 4

My mother rarely spoke of the past.

Except for the time she left Kunzhou.

Once, she told me in painstaking detail how to get from my maternal grandfather’s back courtyard to the nearest hidden alley, where the well was at the mouth of the alley, and where, beneath that well, the cave led to the underground river.

She talked about the reek of spoiled leftovers in the river water and the thick scent of perfumed powder.

Every detail was crystal clear.

I asked Mother if she was like me, always sneaking out to play.

Mother said she had only gone out that once.

She said she would never go back there in this lifetime. Not even in death.

I asked what would happen if my maternal grandfather and the others came looking for her.

Mother touched her face with a complicated expression and said not to worry. They would never find her.

I didn’t understand back then. Now, all of a sudden, I think I do.

The women in Kunzhou’s Red Sleeve House, the woman being beaten in the rice shop, the expressionless women washing clothes by the well-some were old, some were dark-skinned, but they all looked so much alike. Every one of them looked like my mother.

Even if she were placed among them, no one would be able to tell her apart.

How strange. They weren’t born of the same parents, so how could they look so similar?

My father said the great disaster had only just passed, and wealth should not be flaunted. We needed a proper business as a cover.

He went to the docks and bought a big fish, dried it in the sun, and then I pulled piles of dried fish out of the Fortune Cauldron.

Those dried fish cost us nothing, and we sold them for money.

Copper coins bred more copper coins. Then they were exchanged for silver, which bred more silver, which in turn bred gold.

In less than a month, jars had been buried beneath all three cabinets at home, each one filled with gold and silver.

Then Father rented a storefront facing the street at a low price.

At first, I could still leave the shop and go out onto the street, but after Third Brother lost track of me a few times and caught me at the city gate…

The two of them talked it over and locked me in the back courtyard.

When I struggled, my father shackled my feet with chains as thick as an ankle.

He said this was how disobedient women in Kunzhou were dealt with.

“Ah Yu, there are too many bad people outside. Haven’t you heard? There are ghosts in Kunzhou that eat women. Look how miserable those women who run around outside become once they’re caught. Father is doing this for your own good. Be obedient. Once you behave, I’ll let you out.”

He made trip after trip out of town, moving boxes of gold and silver back and forth and claiming he had earned it himself. Soon, he bought new shops and started new lines of business.

Then he expanded the courtyard, moved to a new residence, and hired guards and cooks.

Money gives cowards courage.

Once fed and warm, men start thinking of lust.

After moving to a new place and changing into new clothes, flesh began to grow on my father and Third Brother’s gaunt faces.

My father started wanting to marry a woman from a proper, well-bred, wealthy family who could read and write-someone like the educated ladies from the River Patrol Office official’s household.

But women in Kunzhou were not allowed to go to school.

Only the richest and noblest Yu Family had such women.

He was no longer afraid of the Yu Family now. He said he was destined for wealth and honor, and since his first wife had been a young lady of the Yu Family, his second wife could not be of lower birth than the first.

My Third Brother wanted to marry too, but he wanted the younger of the Twin Courtesans at the Yu Family’s Fengyue House.

My father refused and even slapped Third Brother across the face.

The two of them fought at home.

I secretly said to Third Brother, “Third Brother, Father is awful. He controls you like this-aren’t you angry? Why don’t you take me away? I’ll listen to everything you say. However much money you want, I’ll pour it out for you. How about it?”

Third Brother said, “Then what if he comes after us?”

My eyes darted, and I said, “Then we just have to… make sure he can’t catch up.”

I also told my father, “Third Brother resents you in his heart! Last night, I saw him secretly sharpening a knife. Father, aren’t you going to do something about it?”

The next day, they beat me together.

Those two were truly impossible to turn against each other.

No matter how much they loathed and guarded against each other, when it came to doing evil to my mother and me, their stance was unshakably the same.