Chapter 2
By the time I woke the next day, I had forgotten all the unpleasantness of yesterday.
Something new had happened: Mama sent me to school.
After my very first day, I never wanted to go back.
My eyes swollen from crying, I ran home and buried myself in Mama’s arms.
“How did your eyes get so puffy?” she asked. “Were you unhappy at school?”
With my face pressed against her chest, I mumbled, “It was awful. All of it.”
Almost everyone studying with me was a boy, yet the teacher allowed only them to read the classics, histories, philosophers, and anthologies.
He put me alone in a separate corner and made me read Lessons for Women.
“A woman without talent is virtuous,” he told me. “Her most important duties are to support her husband and raise her children.”
For the sake of learning, I endured it.
Several spoiled young rakes threw stones at me during breaks and deliberately tossed insects onto my clothes. They called me a bastard, a motherless cur.
It hurt, but I endured that too.
Then one of them called Mama wanton, shameless, and filthy.
That I could not endure.
I grabbed the speaker by his collar and slapped him twice, hard and clean.
Mama had taught me those moves for self-defense. She said the Princess had taught her, and that a girl could only benefit from knowing how to protect herself.
The boy stood frozen. By the time he recovered, I was already walking away. He had never imagined I would dare strike him, and neither had his lackeys.
I did not understand. Mama had done nothing wrong, so why was she the one made to bear every foul insult?
Was it only because she was a woman?
Why could boys study openly while I was allowed to read nothing but books about serving a husband and raising his children?
Why had everyone learned to accept such injustice as ordinary?
Mama dried my tears. “Don’t cry, little Yue’er. Neither you nor I did anything wrong.
“What is wrong is this age. This age will not permit women to become wise.”
I stopped crying, stunned by the weight of her words.
We were not wrong. The age itself was wrong.
Mama’s eyes shone with conviction. She gripped my shoulders and looked straight at me. “Do not believe them. You must study. Those people are afraid of women gaining wisdom, and that is why they will not let us learn.”
I nodded doubtfully. I understood a little, though not much.
When the Princess returned and learned what had happened, she stroked my head and crouched before me. A trace of sorrow crossed her regal face.
“You will not return to that school. Mother will build Yue’er a school where only girls may study.
“Do not take those people’s words to heart. Learning may bring wisdom, but only worthwhile books can truly enlighten us. We will not study rites designed to bind us. Whatever men may learn, we women may learn as well.”
The Princess commanded the revenue of ten thousand households. With her private silver, she founded the capital’s first school for girls.
Its students were no longer limited to noble daughters. Many were brilliant girls from poor families.
Every one of them was clever as snow and ice, yet they still studied diligently, with no less determination than the boys.
The only pity was that even after ten years of bitter study, we would never be allowed to win official honors or build a career of merit.
Winter approached, each day colder than the last.
It was during an otherwise ordinary winter that year that Wen Ying came into my life.
The Princess and Mama told me Wen Ying would remain at my side from then on, protecting me wherever I went.
I was eight years old. I stood with my hands tucked into my pockets, staring at a Wen Ying as skinny as a bean sprout, and wondered who was supposed to protect whom.
I soon made up my mind.
Fine. If it came to it, I would protect her.
By then, Mama was publicly acknowledged as the second lady of the Princess’s household.
Those eager to curry favor with the Princess first sent her several fair-skinned, handsome boys.
She bought their freedom and let them go.
When a few stubbornly refused to leave, the Princess suggested sending them into the palace to be gelded, where they could enjoy a lifetime of comfort.
The schemers scattered like frightened birds and beasts.
To please the Princess, the Empress somehow found several women who resembled Mama.
In my opinion, they were all gaudy mediocrities. The resemblance stopped at their faces; in temperament, they could not have been more different.
The Princess could not simply send them away, however, so she sent them all to school.
They studied from morning until night, never letting a book leave their hands.
By the time their studies were complete, each young woman carried herself with such upright dignity that every trace of her old powder-and-perfume air had vanished.
The Princess and Mama exchanged a smile and patted my head. “Do you see, Yue’er? That is the power of learning.”
The women bobbed their heads mechanically like chicks pecking grain. They looked rather funny.