Chapter 2

I did not meet my father before I turned five. In fact, I never even left our courtyard.

Lady Wang, the principal wife, was not an easy woman to live under. She despised my mother, believing Mother had stained Father’s reputation.

She confined us to our own courtyard. If either of us took so much as one step beyond it, we were punished. At best, she withheld our food for several days. At worst, she ordered thirty strokes of the rod.

Mother and I lived miserably and often went hungry. I was still very young when someone lured me out of the courtyard with half a steamed bun. When Lady Wang learned of it, she had a matron beat us savagely with a cudgel as thick as a man’s arm.

Mother shielded me in her embrace and took all thirty blows herself. Her back was reduced to bloody pulp, and she lost consciousness.

That was the day I first saw my father. He had come with Lady Wang and watched with his own eyes as she ordered the matron to punish Mother.

He ignored our pleas and sobs. He merely looked down at us, his eyes brimming with loathing, as though we were the filthiest things in the world.

“A person should know her place. Some things will always be beyond your reach!”

It took Mother half a year to recover enough to leave her bed. I never understood what Father had meant.

I asked Mother, but she would say nothing. If I pressed too hard, she only held me and wept. After that happened enough times, I no longer dared to ask.

When I was eight, I finally began to understand his words.

That winter, snow fell on the capital for a month without stopping. Our food allowance was docked, and we were given no charcoal at all for heat.

Years of toil had already ruined Mother’s health. Within days, the cold made her ill, and she remained sick for half a month. I begged the household steward to summon a physician, but he ignored me and even sneered at my desperation.

“The sooner she dies, the better. Then she won’t have to suffer anymore. A tainted woman like your mother should have died long ago!”

As Mother’s condition worsened, I finally gathered my courage and slipped into the front courtyard.

I found Lady Wang in a garden pavilion, holding a hand warmer as she admired the snow. With her was her seven-year-old daughter, Father’s legitimate child, Liu Qingyan.

Bright-eyed and lovely, Liu Qingyan danced through the snow in a cloak of red fox fur, as ethereal as a winter fairy. I clutched the frayed edge of my own clothes, suddenly ashamed of how wretched I looked.

I went to the pavilion and knelt before Lady Wang. “Please, Madam, show us mercy and have someone call a physician for my mother!”

Lady Wang’s face turned cold. Before she could speak, the matron beside her snapped, “Wretched little maid! Who gave you permission to leave your courtyard? Do the madam’s orders mean nothing to you?”

She strode over and kicked me square in the chest.

I did not dare dodge. I took the blow head-on.

Agony tore through my chest, and the metallic taste of blood rose in my throat.