Chapter 2

My mother was the finest embroiderer in the capital.

To her, every stitch and thread carried feeling.

Emperors, princes, generals, scholars, farmers, craftsmen, merchants—Mother treated them all alike. She said she loved seeing young women wear the clothes she made.

Once, a young woman came to commission a wedding gown. She chose a fine fabric in the shop, but after asking the price, she feared she could not afford it and quietly turned to leave.

Someone caught her by the collar and laughed. “No money, and you still want a wedding gown? Why not get married in what you’re wearing?”

Mother frowned without a word.

She simply drove the mockers out of her shop and closed early.

When she took me home, I saw that she had already lit a lamp.

Mother worked by lamplight all night to finish the wedding gown. Early the next morning, she searched more than a dozen streets in Chang’an before finding the young woman and giving it to her.

The shop assistant heard about it and said Mother was doing business at a loss.

Mother shook her head.

There was a smile in her eyes. In the light reflected from the sun and the fabrics, her gaze was warm and bright.

“Women are born beautiful. They spend their whole lives waiting to marry, but marriage may not bring them happiness. My clothes can make them beautiful and happy.

“That’s a bargain no fortune could buy.”

Mother stilled the hand sorting colored silk and looked up toward the gongs and drums in the streets of Chang’an.

“The human heart holds more colors than anything else. And the skin that covers it is the most beautiful garment a woman is born with.”

I did not quite understand.

But looking at Mother’s expression, I thought she must be right.

The day the Princess Royal arrived, I learned how terribly wrong that was.

The princess had heard of Mother’s reputation. She ordered her to produce, in haste, a wedding gown unlike any other in the world.

The princess had a beautiful face. When she smiled, her glances shone, as though she wore the colors of sunset.

Mother thought so too. She put everything she had into making that wedding gown.

In barely half a month, she coughed up blood more than ten times.

I sat on a little stool beside her with an embroidered handkerchief. Whenever she coughed blood, I wiped it from the corners of her mouth.

Weakly, Mother shook her head at me. “The Princess Royal cannot tolerate flaws. Neither can an embroiderer.”

I said nothing. My eyes merely reddened.

Under the lamp, Mother kept drifting toward sleep, then forcing herself awake. With a gentle, hopeful smile, she said, “Don’t cry, Xiao Qiu. Once I finish this gown and receive the princess’s reward, I’ll take you traveling through all the lands. I’ll buy you the finest fabrics in the world, and save these hands to make you the most beautiful wedding gown.”

But the princess was repeatedly dissatisfied. She even threatened my father and me, forcing Mother to remake the gown again and again.

“If you fail me again, I’ll have your daughter’s hands torn off.

“Remember. I want a wedding gown that is the only one of its kind.”

Mother finally made it.

The princess was delighted and rewarded her lavishly.

Chests of gold and silver were carried inside. More astonishing still, the princess came to bestow the reward herself.

Seated in our hall in Mother’s newly finished gown, she gave me a pair of golden scissors.

“This is your child? She’ll surely become the finest embroiderer in the world one day. What a pity.” Her smile was unreadable.

Stroking my head, she said softly, “A pity that while your mother is alive, you can never be the one and only.”

She smoothed her wedding gown and smilingly ordered me to take the scissors. Otherwise, she would kill my entire family.

“Come. Cut off your mother’s hands, and you will be the only embroiderer left. Clothes and people are much the same.” She coaxed me patiently.

Scissors were made to cut thin, fine things like silk thread.

How could they cut hands? How could they…?

Mother’s hands were slender, but there were bones inside. The scissors cut slowly, inch by inch, for a long time before severing her fingers through blood and flesh.

I cried as I cut. Then I thought: Mother was in pain.

How much more it must hurt when my tears fell into the wounds on her hands.

At last, I forced back my tears. But Mother still died from the pain.

The princess brushed at her gown and left at her leisure.

In the end, she found an excuse in the dirt on her skirt and burned our residence to the ground.

I hid inside a dyeing vat and escaped.

By the time I came out, she was far away. All I could see was the fiery red hem of her gown.

So very red.

Sooner or later, I would make the clothes she wore redder still.

She surely had no idea that it was she who had taught me how to cut human skin.