Chapter 5

Chapter 5

He smiled again. “Rules are meant to restrain oneself. In these chaotic times, the common people already suffer enough. Life is difficult even for men, so how could I make things harder for a young woman like you?”

He patted my head. “Live well. Being alive is the best thing in this world.”

Du Baiyi sent someone to escort my little sister and me to Jingzhou. I told them I still had family there.

Yet the once-glittering Prince Zhong’s Mansion had collapsed, its gatehouse reduced to ruins and dust.

A hunched man by the roadside sidled up to us. “Little girl, who are you looking for?”

I put on a foolish smile. “We’re just passing through. I’ve never seen such a big house before.”

“Ha! It was even grander before it fell! Old Prince Zhong had his head chopped off by a Tatar barbarian. His household was confiscated, and the members of his family were imprisoned. Everyone in that family is either dead or scattered by now. There’s no one left.”

“Did he die fighting the Tatar people?” I asked.

“Bullshit! He was a great traitor who colluded with a Tatar barbarian. I heard he pledged himself to the wrong man. After the Tatar King died, their Fifth Prince took power and slaughtered everyone who wouldn’t support him. Serves them right!”

I knew nothing of court politics or the state of the world. They said they would reclaim our rivers and mountains, but the mountains and rivers had never belonged to me.

I was nothing more than a speck of dust. Yet even a great figure from the heavens like the master of Prince Zhong’s Mansion could be toppled and scattered to ash in a single day.

Why did everyone, from those above to those below, struggle desperately for the faintest chance of survival, only to find no way out?

I asked, “What about Zhao Manzhu?”

“Who? Didn’t I just tell you? They’re probably all dead. I did hear that Third Lady Qiao, who was known for her kindness, met a terrible end. They said she was violated in the street until she was barely recognizable.”

As the hunched man spoke, he led us toward the roadside.

I sensed that something was wrong, but it was already too late.

Several men surrounded us. The hunched man bared his teeth in a sinister grin. “The older one can be sold to a brothel. She’ll be taking customers in no time. The younger one can be sold as a servant girl.”

Two burlap sacks were pulled over our heads. I screamed and cried, but a vicious punch sent everything before my eyes into darkness.

When I woke, I was in a woodshed. An old woman with graying temples pried open my mouth to inspect my teeth, then patted my cheek.

“Not much of a beauty, but she can still serve some lowborn dogs and field hands.”

I seized the hem of her clothes and rasped, “Where is my little sister?”

A hard slap struck my face, filling my mouth with the taste of blood.

The old woman turned away. “Hang her up, as usual. One whipping a day, and only a mouthful of water every three days. Teach her a lesson.”

Hunger was an old acquaintance. Only the pain of the whip was unbearable. Day and night blurred together, and I had no idea when the agony would end.

On the third day, the old woman asked me, “Have you figured out what you’re supposed to do?”

I crawled toward her inch by inch. My cracked lips could produce no words, only a trembling rasp of air. “I’ll obey. Please tell me where my little sister went.”

The old woman flew into a rage. “Beat her again.”

“Good sister, give the girl to me. Tell me how much you paid for her, and I’ll make up the difference,” said an older woman nearby who still retained some of her former charm.

“Old Woman Rou, what kind of suicidal kindness are you trying to show?” the old woman spat.

Granny Rou said, “Come on, sister. Do me this favor. The girl looks obedient, and I want to take her in as company. Look at her. She looks so much like my dead Erya.”

The Granny Rou who took me away was a madam, a woman who arranged illicit liaisons.

Her son had died on the battlefield, and her daughter had starved to death during the famine.

I followed Granny Rou to her little courtyard. She settled me in a side room and made me a bowl of noodles.

As if in a dream, I fiercely pinched my own thigh. It hurt.

Overjoyed, I knelt and repeatedly thumped my head against the floor, promising that I would repay her kindness one day.

Granny Rou helped me make inquiries. My little sister had been sold as a servant girl to a powerful official named Shen. The powerful official of the Shen Family had once been a grand secretary of the Wan Dynasty. When Jingzhou fell, he defected to the Tatar people and was highly favored.

I went to look for my sister. The Shen Family had her contract of servitude and declared that the only way she would leave was feetfirst in a coffin.

My sister reached out with hands reddened by the cold water used for washing clothes and took hold of mine. She beamed. “Elder Sister, it’s all right. I have new clothes now, and I get to eat every day. The masters don’t beat me, either.”

She hugged me. “Elder Sister, I’m living better than you are. You have to make sure to stay on my good side.”

We had barely exchanged a few words when a servant from the Shen residence cursed her for being slow. The young lady had no tea.

She gave me a hurried smile, pulled the new flower hairpin from her hair, and shoved it into my hand. Then she answered repeatedly and hurried back inside.

I watched my little sister. It was as if she had grown up in an instant.

After that, I followed Granny Rou as she moved through the hidden world of illicit affairs, arranging the sordid transactions that respectable people could never be seen touching.

With nothing but her glib tongue and her talent for coercion and enticement, she made the young ladies and married women she targeted, whether coy and half-willing or steadfastly chaste, willingly climb into the beds of the men who wanted them.

Granny Rou taught me how to speak and handle matters, and how to read people’s expressions. During the day, she harshly scolded me whenever I mishandled an arrangement. At night, she tucked my blanket around me and blew out the oil lamp.

“Erya, never show kindness out of pity,” she warned me. “A person can only look after herself.”

She called me Erya many times.

So I became Erya.

Using the weaving skills my mother had taught me, I made her an ugly little sachet.

She laughed and cursed that it was as hideous as a ghost, then patiently taught me how to embroider.

Yet she wore that hideous ghost of a sachet on her person the entire time.

In this chaotic world, I had an elder to rely on, and I could still see my little sister from time to time. In my heart, I prayed that this peace would last a little longer.

When spring arrived, two major things happened.