Chapter 1

The day the marquis’s estate was seized happened to be my fifteenth birthday. The young lord had taken me into town to choose a hairpin for my coming-of-age gift.

Opportunities like that were rare, so I picked a butterfly-shaped buyao made of solid gold. It cost a small fortune.

It nearly emptied his private purse.

As he paid, he looked torn between laughter and exasperation. “You love money so much. I truly can’t imagine what you’re saving it all for.”

I gave him a silly little chuckle.

To myself, I thought that of course I needed something put by. If I failed to marry the young lord, I could ask Madam to release me from the household and find a decent man to wed.

And if I did become a concubine, having money of my own would keep life from becoming too miserable.

I had no intention of ending up like Concubine Liu, whom the Marquis had cast aside until she lived worse than the drudges.

But I could never let the young lord hear any of those private calculations.

Not that he truly wanted to know.

He had only been teasing.

We were laughing and jostling our way toward the street corner when the plaque over the marquis’s residence crashed to the ground. The Marquis and Madam stood in shackles, while everyone in the household had been herded together. Niu Er from the kitchens, relying on his great height and strength, tried to fight his way free. A soldier raised his blade and hacked off his right arm.

Blood sprayed out. The sight terrified the crowd, and no one else dared resist or make a sound.

After his first stunned moment, the young lord tried to rush forward. I seized him and held him back.

He was only ten and did not yet come up to my height. I locked an arm around his waist and covered his mouth, refusing to let him make so much as a peep.

Perhaps some instinct between mother and child alerted Madam to us. She dared not show any sign of recognition, but her eyes filled with tears and pleaded with me.

I knew what she was asking: take her son and run.

The confiscation of an estate was a grave criminal matter. If he showed himself, he could not possibly escape.

I gritted my teeth, nodded, and dragged the young lord away from Vermilion Bird Avenue.

The boy fought with all his strength. As his family receded farther and farther behind him, grief and fury overcame him, and he sank his teeth hard into the web of my hand.

I trembled with pain, but I still would not let go.

By the time we reached home, my left hand was streaming with blood.

Mother opened the door and jumped in fright. “What are you doing? Kidnapping the young lord?”

Her mind never seemed capable of imagining anything good of her own daughter.

I shoved the boy, who had nearly cried himself unconscious, into the room. “The marquis’s household is gone,” I said crossly.

“What do you mean, gone?”

Mother stared at me in complete confusion.

I knew little more than she did. “The estate was seized. I don’t know why.”

“Seized?” Her voice shot up an octave. “You mean the whole family will be executed?”

“Not exactly. At least no one was beheaded on the spot.”

But there would be no escaping a spell in prison.

“Well, that’s something.” She had only just breathed a sigh of relief when another thought struck her. “Could we get dragged into this too?”

“Why don’t you take the young lord and find somewhere else to stay?”

I nearly died of anger. “Mother, are you really my mother?”

At a time like this, she wanted to throw her own daughter out.

She rolled her eyes and muttered, “I’m not your real mother in the first place. How many times have I told you? I found you in a field of rapeseed flowers.”

Mother had once been a second-rank maid in the marquis’s household, bound there for life. Later, Madam married her to Xu Qingshan, a clerk in the accounts office—and my father.

They had been married for years without a child. It was only after she found me that they finally had a daughter.

Since they were both servants of the household, I too became a bondservant born to the estate.

Two years earlier, my father had accompanied the Marquis on a trip to collect debts. They encountered bandits, and he died protecting his master.

In gratitude, Madam freed Mother from her bond and gave her this little courtyard home.

Mother was now a commoner, unlike me. I still belonged to the servant register and had no way to leave.

For all her grumbling, Mother found the wound powder and bandaged my hand.

“So young, and already such a vicious bite.”

As she spoke, she glanced toward the bed.

The young lord had exhausted himself crying and fallen asleep.

“What are you going to do with him?”

He might have escaped for the moment, but he was now a wanted criminal. I was only a maid and could barely protect myself. How was I supposed to protect him too?

“Madam’s family lives in Suzhou. They’re merchants, but rich enough to rival a kingdom. He’s their own flesh and blood. They should shelter him.”

My task, then, was to take him to Suzhou.