Chapter 4
Yin Zonglin was easy to fool.
I let him glimpse the red marks on my knees, still vivid after hours of kneeling. My eyes shone with unshed tears, while my lips praised Madam Du’s benevolent face and Miss Du’s gentle dignity.
Yin Zonglin pitied my frailty and goodness and congratulated himself on my tact. He gave me a heap of trinkets, then held me through the night and painted a glorious future in the air.
He and Jiang Chunyi had grown up together. She had been his first woman and, so far, his only one. If she managed the relationship well, she could still build a decent life.
For a maid whose fate belonged to her masters, becoming her young master’s concubine was the finest end a lifetime of struggle could secure.
Not long ago, a group of maids in the inner household had come of age. Like livestock, they were casually assigned to servants of every description. The prettier ones were claimed by senior stewards, either as second wives or as brides for drunken, gambling nephews.
They all envied me.
Serve the second young master well, they said, and I would enjoy wealth for life.
I stood at the window with a robe around my shoulders. Before me stretched a black night with no visible end. Behind me, Yin Zonglin slept amid a tall bed and soft pillows.
No one cared what a slave wanted.
No one except Eldest Miss Yin.
She asked, “What do you want? I can grant you one request.”
By then, her nurse’s foster son had returned from his journey, and the Cao family’s circumstances had been laid bare.
Her crimson wedding dress still hung on its frame. Its reflection made her eyes seem full of fire.
I met her gaze. “I want to accompany you when you marry.”
Her surprise lasted only a moment.
“What makes you think I’ll still obediently marry into the Cao family?”
“You have one full brother and three male cousins here. There are too many obstacles if you want to control your birth family. The Cao family is different. They have had only one male heir in each of three generations. Master Cao is bedridden, and the current Madam Cao is a second wife, not Ninth Young Master Cao’s mother. Taking control of the Cao household would be much easier.”
If not the Cao family, Master Yin would find a Zhang or a Li. No one knew where his greed might send his daughter next.
At least now, she truly understood the Caos.
And no man suited a leave-the-child-and-remove-the-father plan better than Ninth Young Master Cao.
Killing one’s father or brother would be difficult to accept even in one’s own mind. Killing a husband—especially a husband like Cao—was different. That was simply striking first in self-defense.
A faint smile touched Eldest Miss Yin’s lips as she added a few stitches to an embroidered handkerchief. “I have liked Sister Chunyi since I was little.”
No one understood why she had suddenly taken such a fancy to me.
First, I possessed no trade that made me indispensable. Second, she and I had never shared much affection as mistress and servant.
At first, Madam Yin found the proposal ridiculous. “Who has ever heard of a bride taking her brother’s bedchamber maid as part of her dowry? You couldn’t find another case in the whole capital.”
Her daughter persuaded her. “Doctor Zhou says her health is ruined and she will probably never conceive again. A pretty woman who cannot bear children is perfect for serving your son-in-law when I am indisposed, isn’t she?”
Madam Yin found the argument compelling. She was not a merciful mistress, but she was a good mother.
Yin Zonglin, however, refused to let me go.
“That Cao man is so violent he even strikes his own mother. How could I bear to send you there?” He told me not to worry. “You are mine. Without my permission, no one can take you away.”
He looked like the very portrait of steadfast devotion.
Then he changed his mind.
Eldest Miss Yin invited him to tea and joked, “Give me thirty thousand taels instead, Brother, and I won’t take Chunyi.”
Yin Zonglin immediately suspected that his sister knew something. He wanted no complications, and all at once giving me to her did not seem so terrible.
Afraid I might resist, he set about persuading me. “I know how devoted you are to me. But I have only one full sister. She’ll be far from home, and I’ll rest easier if you are there to look after her.”
“Ninth Young Master Cao may have a bad temper, but you are gentle, considerate, and understanding. No one could dislike you.”
I nodded. “All right.”
He froze. The rest of his carefully prepared consolations died in his throat.
He had expected a scene.
When I made none, he became unhappy instead.
In his imagination, I should have sobbed, clung to him, and begged never to leave. I should have sworn that I belonged to him in life and in death. Then he would reason with me tenderly until, unable to bear his anguish, I finally yielded.
Instead, I had agreed too quickly, and he did not know where to put his face.
Before long, though, he found an explanation that suited him.
My heart was simply too broken for tears.
He even secretly ordered Nier to watch me in case I tried to kill myself.
His imagination was certainly lively.