Chapter 1

I was born in Rouge House. My father was its most sought-after male courtesan; my mother, an actress past her prime who had offended a powerful patron and been sold there.

Two souls mired in the same filth had fallen in love, and I was the result.

My mother died bringing me into the world.

Holding me while I was still in swaddling clothes, Madam Lin threatened my father. “Now that she’s been born, she belongs to this house. She can do the menial work while she’s little, then take clients when she grows up. Don’t think she’ll get food and lodging for nothing.”

To warn the other women against stepping out of line, Madam Lin forced my father to take clients day and night to pay for my keep.

From my earliest years, she found all manner of ways to torment us both, making me watch my father’s humiliation at his clients’ hands.

“Your father is the most accomplished male courtesan in the house. He can’t get you out of Rouge House, but he can teach you all those fine tricks of his.”

Through the blur, I thought I saw a single tear at the corner of my father’s eye.

Afterward, he took all the blame upon himself with a bitter smile. “When you’re born into a brothel, your life belongs to slavery and prostitution. Your mother and I were fools. We’ve made you suffer for it.”

To change my fate, Father used the savings he had scraped together over the years to secure me a place at Lady Song’s side.

Lady Song was beautiful and talented. Proud though she was, she never made life difficult for her maids.

Serving her was hard work, but a hundred times better than enduring the clients’ abuse in the front rooms.

She pitied me for having been born into such times. Seeing how honest and hardworking I was, she grew more willing to talk to me.

Often she would stare at my face, lost in thought. “I was only ten when my family’s property was confiscated. But you’re better off than I was. You have parents who plan everything for your sake.”

Lady Song had once been a daughter of a great household. Her father and brothers had joined a failed rebellion, and she had been implicated and sent to Rouge House as a prostitute.

She often sat by the window, gazing at the people in the street, alone with her sorrow.

When she roused herself, she would teach me to read and write. “Once you enter Rouge House, no amount of cleverness can save you from becoming a powerful man’s plaything. But learning makes a difference. When you’ve saved enough to buy your freedom, you’ll be able to hold your head high.”

Little by little, her influence kindled different hopes in me.

One day, I thought, Father and I would leave Rouge House together.

Once we had bought our freedom and been registered as free people, we could set up a stall outside and earn a modest living.

But whenever I mentioned it, Father dampened my hopes. I could not understand why.

When he came to see me, he would draw me aside and whisper, “Serving the house’s finest courtesan means you meet men of noble birth who care about appearances. Be attentive. Try to catch some patron’s eye so he’ll take you home as a concubine.”

Young and headstrong, with some of Lady Song’s pride rubbing off on me, I could not help arguing. “Everyone grows old and loses their beauty. Serving men with your looks leads nowhere but death. I’m clever and willing to work. Even if I stay here as an entertainer who takes no clients, I’ll earn my own living. Why should I spend my life watching the faces of the powerful?”

All I got was Father’s furious disappointment. “Fool! Do you think Madam Lin is easy to outwit? Staying out of trouble under her is harder than reaching heaven. If you don’t find someone to protect you while you’re young, sooner or later she’ll devour you, bones and all!”

In the front rooms, Father was seductive and smooth-tongued. Yet his eyes reddened as he said it.

At last he left, desolate, murmuring only, “It’s all our sin…”

Back then, I did not understand his fears.

I thought he had struggled in the mire for so long that he had lost the courage to resist.

Like a frog at the bottom of a well, he could see only the patch of sky above his head.

I did not know—

Once you entered a brothel, how could getting out ever be easy?

All those foolish, innocent hopes meant nothing when your life was at stake.