Chapter 5
The days passed.
Yujiao and her wealthy patron grew inseparable.
They said his principal wife was ill. The moment she died, he would redeem Yujiao.
At Mid-Autumn even the wildest men stayed home with parents, wives, and children. The Crimson Bower fell quiet.
The moon rose.
Laiwang called me softly to the door, where Xiaoyun waited with a basket on her arm.
Beneath a clean white cloth lay warm cakes, crisp lotus root, and tender water caltrops.
We shared them.
The round, full moon made the world bright.
Upstairs, Biyun played the flute.
Its long, ethereal notes made heaven and earth seem washed clean.
I held Xiaoyun’s hand and listened.
Laiwang slowly packed the gifts I had brought for her, arranging them until nothing shifted when he swung the basket. He looked very proud.
That rare night was peaceful and happy, like a little time stolen from fate.
I knew I would remember it until I died.
After the festival, the men returned.
One noisy evening, a trader arrived leading not a horse but a living woman by a chain.
She stumbled into the hall.
Madam Chun took a lamp from a maid and held it to her face.
Dust covered pale skin, and her eyes were green like the cat kept for mice.
The madam covered her nose. “What is that smell?”
Yujiao said, “Foreign women stink. Throw her out.”
Biyun lowered the lamp.
Heavy shackles had rubbed the woman’s ankles into infected flesh.
I offered an old, soft handkerchief and begged the trader to loosen the chain so we could dress the wounds.
“I caught her beyond the frontier,” he said. “She is vicious. Beat her half dead and she still bites. Loosen that chain and she will run.”
Madam Chun did not want her. Foreign women had no reliable market, and a savage one might injure patrons.
Biyun spoke softly to the woman in a language I did not know.
The numbness left the woman’s face. With tears in her eyes, she raised both hands and shook them toward Biyun, making sounds of gratitude or pleading.
At the madam’s puzzled look, Biyun whispered that women like this were fashionable in the capital, that even the palace possessed one. An old man of the same people had once sheltered with her family, so she knew a little of their tongue and could train her.
Madam Chun’s eyes brightened.
She turned and impatiently drove the trader toward the door. As the shackles clattered after him, he sighed three times. “Fine! Sixty taels and she is yours.”
He removed the irons, and we carried the woman to a room.
Yujiao spat behind us. “Qiu Niang, you truly are a dog, always wagging your tail where it is least useful.”
I ignored her.
What one person held in her heart could be worlds away from another.
To me, the men in the house were the dogs. Yet Yujiao fawned on them gladly.
I washed the foreign woman and dressed her wounds. Biyun fetched soft bedding.
The moment Biyun returned, the woman cried out with emotion. They spoke gently together.
Seeing my curiosity, Biyun sighed. “She quarreled with her husband and set out for her mother’s home with her two children. Men abducted her on the road and abandoned the children. They were so small. She fears wolves ate them. I told her I can divine the future and saw them alive, fated to reunite with her.”
For nights afterward, the woman wept in her sleep, waking to huddle blankly against the headboard and hum fragments of a sorrowful tune.
It must have been a song for her children.
Listening from the opposite bed, my heart ached.
Half a month later, the woman the house had named Wildcat was presented to the patrons.
As always, Madam Chun spread rumors to provoke bidding.
The corpulent man who had brutalized Biyun happened to arrive.
He stroked his face and smiled. Two hundred taels. Wildcat belonged to him for the night.
Biyun argued with the madam but could not stop it.
Wildcat meekly followed him inside.
Biyun clutched my hand, her palm slick with cold sweat.
Yujiao began a song. Strings, pipes, and flutes rose together, smothering every sound.
When the song ended and nothing stirred upstairs, Biyun finally released her breath and my hand.
By late morning the patron had not risen.
Madam Chun knocked with a flattering smile. No answer. She pushed inside and lifted the bed curtains.
The man stared with ox-like eyes, a dagger buried in his heart.
The jeweled blade he had used to torment Biyun had ended his own life.
Wildcat lay curled at the foot of the bed, as still as the dead.
Madam Chun ran out shouting for the authorities and gathered silver for bribes.
Furious, she cursed Biyun.
Yujiao declared the house cursed, packed her baggage, and rode away to live with her patron.
After days of chaos, Biyun sent for me but would not let me enter.
From far inside she called, “Qiu Niang, I wrote to Lu Bomiao. Leave with him as soon as you can.”
I pounded on the door and demanded to know why. She had promised I could stay another year.
She did not answer.
Madam Chun came up coldly. “Luck favored us. Wildcat died in prison before she could implicate anyone. The case is closed.
“Stop pretending to be ill, Biyun. Get up and earn back the money this affair cost me.”
She summoned a porter to break down the door.
Biyun looked at me and weakly waved me back.
I understood. I stepped forward and took her hand.
“Do not be afraid. I am here.”