Chapter 4

I had never seen Father’s face so dark. It was black as the bottom of a pot.

When the midwife shouted from the birthing room that Xingdi was hemorrhaging, he roared, “Good if she dies!” and turned away.

Mother was frantic with anger and fear. Saving Xingdi required rare and costly wild ginseng. Father controlled all the money. With no other choice, Mother brought out the last jewelry hidden at the bottom of her chests. Only then did she manage to keep Xingdi alive.

Afterward, relieved, she suddenly remembered that the physician’s desperate work had left no one watching me or the baby. She searched everywhere and had nearly collapsed with fear when the curtain over the east-wing door lifted.

Ruyan emerged with the baby in her arms and my hand in hers.

“Take them,” she said impatiently. “They’re driving me mad.”

Her palm around mine was soft, however. So was the look she gave the baby.

Mother snatched us away as if Ruyan were a child thief. Ruyan gave a cold snort and shut her door again.

Xingdi lay in bed. Sometimes, in the delirium of her fever, we heard her moan, “Mother… Mother, it hurts.”

I sat beside her without blinking, fascinated. Until then, I had not known that Xingdi, too, had once had a mother.

I knew only that Mother’s jewelry had not been burned for nothing. Day by day, Xingdi recovered. On the sixth day, she could sit up and nurse the baby.

Her face was tender as she sang a lullaby.

“Moon so bright and wind so light,
Leaves cast shadows on the pane.
Crickets chirp, zheng-zheng, ringing
Like the music of a string.

“Soft the strings and sweet the tune,
Gently rocks the cradle now.
Mother’s baby dreams in slumber,
Sleep, my child, sleep safely now…”

Suddenly, she stopped. She stared at Mother in terror.

“Elder Sister—why isn’t the second little miss moving?”

Mother reached out. Her face went white.

The baby was burning.

Mother leapt up to find a physician. He said the child also needed expensive medicine—fifty taels’ worth.

Mother opened the money cabinet, but after searching through it, found only a few strings of coins. She took me to knock on Ruyan’s door. The news that the baby was dying startled Ruyan too, but when she learned Mother had come to borrow money, she ground her teeth.

“I have none! That bastard Cheng Baowu swindled it all from me!”

Mother turned to run and find Father.

“Come back!” Ruyan called. “That bastard will be at a brothel. I’ll go—those places know me better! You stay and watch the children!”

Without waiting for an answer, she threw on her clothes and ran.

From the east wing came Xingdi’s sobs. “My little girl, my little girl! Your mother has brought you nothing but suffering. I’m sorry. Why did I give birth to you only for you to suffer? My little girl…”

Mother went back and held her. “Don’t be afraid. Husband will be home soon.”

We waited and waited beside the baby.

One moment she was cold, the next hot. At last, the cold won. Her little body turned to ice.

Father did not return.

The brothel’s porters carried home Ruyan’s corpse.

One of Father’s lovers had killed her with a kick.

Father had been making merry with Xianglan, the brothel’s reigning beauty, when Ruyan began pounding on the door and cursing them. Irritated by the noise, Xianglan opened the door and kicked her away.

By terrible chance, the blow landed over Ruyan’s heart. She died on the spot without even the chance to cry for her mother.

Father gave the brothel porters two strings of coins to carry the body home and told Mother to deal with it. Then he returned to that tender realm and went back to his lover’s bed.

What did he dream of? I do not know.

I know only that the night was very, very long.

Mother held me. Xingdi held my sister. On the floor lay Ruyan, sleeping too.

Beyond the window, the moon shone and the stars shimmered. Cicadas sang softly. Leaves brushed the lattice, and the water clock dripped as though afraid to wake their dreams.

Then a rooster crowed. The east grew pale. Golden sunlight crept inch by inch across the sill.

It fell upon Xingdi’s silver hair.

In a single night, her black hair had turned to snow from grief.

Tear tracks still marked Mother’s face. Yet she narrowed her eyes against the sunlight and smiled.

“Xingdi.” She turned to her sister, her voice low and strangely excited. “Shall we kill our husband?”