Chapter 1

After Father died, Mother carried me on her back and made a living selling tofu by the roadside.

Her tender hands, fresh and pale as spring shoots, cradled blocks of white tofu, and her hawking call was as sweet as an oriole singing in the willows.

The Third Master of the Marquis’s household happened to ride past. One glimpse of her stole his senses, and that very night he took her into the estate.

The Third Master kept a lively harem. After scarcely a month, the novelty wore off. He cast Mother aside and turned his attention to a newly famous courtesan.

The Third Madam was jealous and merciless. Seizing her chance, she had the gates to Mother’s courtyard locked, intending to starve us to death.

I still had Mother’s milk, but Mother herself could eat only the weeds growing in the courtyard.

Then the weeds ran out, and her milk dried up with them. In desperation, she climbed the tall tree in the courtyard and shouted for help.

She fell while trying to cross the wall and landed near one of the Old Madam’s senior maids.

The physician discovered that Mother was pregnant.

The child was the Third Master’s.

The Third Madam was confined to her rooms—but confinement was the only punishment she received.

Mother did not care for the Marquis’s estate, yet she awaited the child in her belly with all her heart, sewing one tiny outfit after another.

Eight months into the pregnancy, she died in childbirth.

She left behind a baby girl, the Seventh Young Lady of the household.

The Old Madam named her Meng Xi.

The character *Xi* could mean regret. It could also mean cherishing something precious.

While Mother was alive, she often copied Buddhist scriptures for the Old Madam and sewed her shoes and stockings.

Taking pity on the Seventh Young Lady for losing her mother so young, the Old Madam raised the child at her own side.

At first, she kept the girl merely as a diversion. In time, affection grew between them.

Nanny Wang had meant to send me away.

Perhaps there truly was a bond between sisters, for whenever I left, my little mistress wailed until she could barely breathe, her kitten-soft cries enough to break anyone’s heart.

With no other choice, Nanny Wang let me stay.

My mistress’s first word was “Sister.”

She beamed at me and held out two plump, lotus-root arms.

I was just about to pick her up when Nanny Wang called me away, her face cold.

She warned me never to forget my place as a servant.

I nodded again and again.

My mistress had many relatives. She was the only family I had left.

When she was eight, she finally learned the truth.

“Lianwu, you’re my sister, aren’t you?”

Her eyes shone with curiosity.

Without changing expression, I replied, “My lady, Lianwu is only your servant. The Fifth Young Lady and the others are your true sisters.”

She shook her head. “My birthday is the anniversary of Mother’s death. I saw you crying that day, and I saw all the offerings you secretly bought. Look—we even have moles in the same place on the tips of our ears.”

Though still so young, she had already learned to read a person’s face.

I opened my mouth, but Nanny Wang’s warning came back to me. In the end, I said nothing.

My mistress was not angry. Instead, she rested her soft little head against me and smiled.

“Big Sister, promise me. You and I will always be the closest two people under heaven.”