Chapter 3

The next day, Su Futang put on the Noble Consort’s ceremonial robes and went to the temple’s main hall to await the phoenix palanquin that would take her back to the palace.

To bring me back, Xiao Mingyi had publicly declared that I was a palace maid given to him by the late emperor, and that I had left the palace only to pray for the nation.

Outside the temple, members of the Su family mingled with the crowd of onlookers.

Almost every man in the clan had come, jostling for a glimpse of the Noble Consort in all her glory.

Only a handful of the Su women were entitled to attend such an occasion.

I spotted Mother at once.

She followed Father humbly, yet stood ahead of all the other female relatives, her face flushed with excitement.

“Let’s see who dares call washing away daughters nonsense now!”

“I did give birth to the most promising child in the Su family!”

I searched for Grandmother, but no matter how often I looked, I could not find her.

I owed my survival to her care.

She was a kindly old woman, gentle with everyone.

But goodness had brought her no reward. She had married into the Su family and drowned three daughters with her own hands before she had my father.

It was not that she had never resisted.

The clan elders said that if a mother refused to do it herself, the girl’s spirit would be unwilling to leave. Then needles and fire would be needed to end that ill-fated bond.

When Grandmother spoke of those days, her face was numb. Only the corners of her eyes twitched, as though with boundless pain.

Before Mother gave birth, Grandmother took advantage of the men’s absence at an ancestral rite to urge her to run. “Go, dear child, quickly. This gold and silver will keep you and the two little ones comfortable for the rest of your lives.”

“Don’t let them catch you and make you suffer the agony of drowning your own daughter!”

Mother refused to leave.

“You must be losing your wits, Grandmother,” she said. “I’m about to give birth to the most promising son the Su family has ever had. I’ll enjoy honor and luxury all my life. Why should I run?”

After Mother bore two girls, there were women who questioned the diviner. Grandmother and my aunt were the most outspoken.

My aunt was pregnant too. Everyone said her round belly showed she was carrying a girl, so she stood firmly beside Grandmother and demanded that the diviner leave the Su household and stop harming its daughters!

That was when Mother betrayed Grandmother.

Eyes bulging, she pointed in Grandmother’s face and shouted, “She was the one who tried to make me run! She’s the one whose heart wasn’t sincere! She wanted to keep me from completing the tenth generation’s washing away of daughters! She turned my son into a girl!”

“It’s all her fault, not mine!”

Grandmother stared blankly at Mother, forgetting to defend herself. The clan elders subjected her to the family’s punishment.

Father brought her home half dead, disgust written across his face. “Mother, the elders only spared your life because you gave birth to a son—me.”

“Don’t be a fool again. Mind you don’t ruin your good name in your old age!”

From then on, Grandmother was confined to the house and never went out.

The beating had left her back crooked, but she still came to see me often.

She taught me that staying alive mattered more than anything.

Outside the temple, I looked around and sighed deeply.

What a pity. The people I did not want to see crowded together here, making an endless din.

And those I longed to see were not even allowed out of their doors.