Chapter 3
From my handkerchief bundle, I took a little copper thimble I treasured.
Father had stopped a passing peddler on my fifteenth birthday and told me to choose something for myself.
My sister saw it and cried until she was promised one too.
Father said he would buy it when the peddler next returned. Days later, he slipped into the water, caught a chill, and fell gravely ill.
I had kept the thimble with me throughout my years at the Crimson Bower, hoping one day to return home.
Now it fit Xiaoyun’s finger perfectly.
She stroked it with care, and the knot between her brows loosened.
Watching her made my heart ache.
After she left, I wiped my eyes and turned back toward the house.
Laiwang raised a hand with a rueful smile. Another red bite mark stood out on it.
He clicked his tongue. “That girl! She will either suffer terribly one day, or make something so remarkable of herself that no one will dare look down on her.”
If a sixteen-year-old boy truly used his strength, how could a little girl bite him twice?
“You have a kind heart,” I told him. “Good will come of it.”
A gossip repeated what I had said at the door to Yujiao, seasoning the tale along the way.
She screamed and sobbed and refused to dress for business.
Madam Chun hurried over to soothe her.
Yujiao cried harder. “Qiu Niang cursed me so cruelly that my heart is dead. I cannot work.”
The madam agreed it was intolerable.
She had me bound and dragged in. Before everyone, she kicked me savagely. “From now on, Qiu Niang gets nothing but thin gruel. Add whatever we save to Yujiao’s meals.”
Only then did Yujiao stop crying and slowly begin her toilette.
I rose, straightened my clothes and hair, and returned to my room.
That evening they brought a bowl of gruel thin enough to reflect my face.
It did not matter.
I had long since stopped eating meat.
The smell of men sickened me. Meat made it worse, and if I vomited in bed, the patrons beat me.
They smiled so sincerely when seeking pleasure, then struck as though the thing beneath them were not a person but dead flesh.
Living was bitterly hard, but death was more frightening.
To survive, I softened rice in tea and coaxed my stomach into accepting it. My looks faded quickly.
Deep in the night, Biyun slipped in and sat beside my bed.
In the moonlight, her face looked serene and unworldly, like an immortal’s.
I wound a finger around her sash as I had once nestled against Mother, wholly absorbed in the small comfort.
The immortal suddenly cursed. “I leave for half a day and you make yourself look like this. Who are you trying to impress?”
She took dried meat from her robe. “Imperial-kitchen beef. Swallow it if I must force it down your throat.”
I dared not disobey. I sat up and tore off small pieces.
The peppercorn made it savory and bright.
Perhaps I could eat only because seeing Biyun filled me with joy.
She tilted her head, smiling. “There is Mother’s good daughter.”
I freed my mouth to protest. “Nonsense. I am three years older than you.”
I remembered clearly the year Biyun came.
I had only recently taken the name Qiu Niang. My face was fresh and business brisk.
After reviewing the accounts repeatedly, the madam borrowed money and bought Biyun at an extravagant price.
The young woman carried herself with quiet elegance. Her lowered head bore an exquisitely arranged courtly coiffure, though there was no fine jewelry in it. Nobility clung to her.
Other women copied the style from pattern books and looked ridiculous.
Only later did we learn that a specialist had dressed her hair before her entire family was taken to prison, her old nurse’s tears dripping into her collar.
Biyun never caused trouble after entering the house. She accepted her fate.
She treated patrons gently and possessed endless ingenuity. In her free hours, she helped the other women with cosmetics, incense, flowers, and dress.
After that, men of the highest rank often visited.
Young nobles competing for favor might throw away a thousand taels in one night.
At year’s end, Madam Chun declared Biyun worth every coin.
High-class business was best. The most foul and vulgar men were no longer admitted, and all of us benefited.
Biyun and I became close after she was injured.
Ignoring her pleas, the madam sent her to a rich, corpulent man who had been her father’s political enemy. Learning where she was, he came solely to humiliate his enemy’s daughter.
By morning, Biyun was covered in wounds, barely alive, her face scored with blood.
Madam Chun clutched her chest in anguish and tried to demand justice.
The man coldly dropped a thousand-tael banknote.
Her anger became delight. She bowed him out and called, “Come again, honored guest. I have several other excellent girls.”
Women who usually fawned on Biyun thought her ruined. They laughed from the doorway. “What happened? Did he dislike your music?”
The madam calculated that my business was poorest and assigned me to nurse her.
I washed her carefully and applied medicine. When the wounds scabbed and she tried to scratch, I lay beside the bed, held both her hands, and guarded her until dawn.
Two months later, she recovered and became more popular than before.
Surrounded by admiring patrons, she called only me to her side. She praised my purity and quiet grace so persuasively that several older, honest landowners truly began asking for me.
For a time, my life improved.
I saved money, sent some home, and kept the rest for my redemption.
Yujiao’s interference had cost me all of it.
Chewing the beef tired me. As sleep clouded my mind, Biyun sighed.
“Leave, Qiu Niang. I cannot, but if you escape, it will be as though I did.”
I wanted to tell her I had no money and could not leave.
The cleverest woman I knew had become foolish.
But I fell asleep before I could answer.