Chapter 2

She told me expressionlessly, “I have no interest in your man. My father promised that once I bear a child, he’ll let me go to war.”

She was a woman, yet she said she wanted to fight.

Nobody believed her. Only Wang Xinghua tugged at me and said, “She’s clever. She knows to have a child as soon as she arrives. You’ve been married to Brother Hu for ten years without one. You need to hurry. Don’t let her get ahead of you.”

A woman had two lifelines: her man and her child. Truth be told, the child came first.

Wang Xinghua had a point. I began pestering Bighead Xiao. By day, I ate more meat to build up my strength. By night, I pulled him onto the heated brick bed.

Yang Yuehua wasn’t idle either. If I had today, she demanded tomorrow. Her father’s army was stationed right there in the city. I couldn’t refuse to give her even half his time.

Yet while we competed, Liu Lanxin became pregnant first.

She was Bighead Xiao’s second concubine, taken just six months after Yang Yuehua.

Having secured Mo City, he was now a power in his own right. Liu Lanxin’s father was a wealthy merchant who could provide enough grain to feed the army.

His demand was the same as Yang Rong’s: take the grain, and he had to take the daughter too.

My heart still hurt, but this time I didn’t even make a fuss. Grain—everyone had to eat. What could I say?

Liu Lanxin was a girl blessed by the goddess who granted children.

Bighead Xiao visited her a few times during the very month he took her, and she conceived.

I was jealous. I put heaps of softshell turtles and terrapins in his soup. If I couldn’t get pregnant, I’d wear him to death.

After exhausting him for more than half a year, Yang Yuehua and I conceived almost at the same time.

The next year, we each gave birth to a son.

Bighead Xiao got gloriously drunk. “I’ve got sons! Three sons all at once!”

Suddenly, I ached for my boy. He was only one of three.

But troubled times left no room for idle thoughts. We attacked others, and others attacked us.

It was our narrowest escape. While Bighead Xiao was away with the army, another faction attacked Mo City. The commander left behind was close to defeat. The three of us hid in the residence, holding our babies.

Liu Lanxin, the most timid, huddled to one side, trembling. I was beside myself and could only pace. Yang Yuehua alone picked up a spear.

She pushed her son into my arms. “Elder Sister, I’m going to fight. I leave Zhan’er to you. If I don’t return, you’ll be his mother.”

She was a cold-tempered woman. This was the first time she’d called me Elder Sister.

I couldn’t say we were close. Who could be close to a woman who shared her man?

Still, I took the child. The light in her eyes was so fierce that it made you want to obey her.

Yang Yuehua won. We were saved. From then on, she never stayed long in the women’s quarters again.

Like Bighead Xiao and the other men, she wore armor and went endlessly into battle.

After that siege, we women and children were hidden in different places.

Bighead Xiao told me, “Wife, you can’t keep running around with me. It’s too dangerous. Live well with our son. Even if I don’t return, our Xiao family will still have someone to carry on its line.”

Plenty of others thought the same way and hid their wives and children. Wang Xinghua was hidden with me.

Yang Yuehua left Xiao Zhan in my care.

With the same cold expression, she said, “Elder Sister, you’re an honest woman. I saved your life. I trust you’ll treat my son well.”

She didn’t appeal to our closeness, but to my debt. What could I say? I could only raise her son exactly as I raised my own.