chapter 1

“My real brother?”

I scratched the bird’s nest I had not washed in six months. A louse seized the opportunity to execute a triple somersault and landed with perfect precision on the gold-threaded cuff of the young lord’s robe.

“That can’t be right. I’m an orphan. How could I have a brother?”

He stared at the louse dancing on his sleeve. His face looked as if he had swallowed ten pounds of lemons.

“Is it possible,” he said through his teeth, “that you once had a family and merely got lost?”

According to this rich fellow claiming to be my brother, I was the long-lost daughter of Marquis Anding.

Fourteen years ago, Mother had given birth to me at a temple just as a rebellion broke out. In the chaos, some half-blind thief had stolen both the swaddling cloth and the baby inside it.

“Mother weeps every day, saying she failed you. We searched all of the capital. We even checked the privies!”

He caught my sleeve. “Come home. Your brother will make sure you never suffer again.”

“Wait!”

I looked down at clothes so ragged they could have doubled as fishing nets.

“What makes you so sure I’m your sister?”

“Did you once sell a string of eighteen beads with a crescent moon in the middle?”

My eyes lit up. “Yes! I would never have pawned it if I hadn’t been hungry enough to swallow an ox.”

“Then it is you!” He slapped his thigh. “Mother left that string of beads to you. Father had more than a hundred copies made to comfort her and even found girls to pose as you. But Mother saw through every one. She said the seventh bead on the real one had a crack.”

That did fit.

Still, I was no fool. Blind Wang, the storyteller under the bridge, had spun this kind of tale a hundred times.

I lifted my chin. “Hah! Next you’ll tell me there’s a sweet, scheming foster daughter at home whom you all treasure more than your own eyes. She is supposed to marry someone, but she threatens to die, so you’ve brought me back to take her place!”

The young lord’s brow furrowed.

I swept out a hand. “Let’s settle the terms first. Ten taels of silver a month, ten big white buns every day, and no fewer than two meat dishes. I won’t do it for less.”

If I could eat my fill, what did marriage matter? Nothing could be worse than starving to death.

His eyes suddenly went wet.

“Come on,” he said. “First, your brother is taking you…to a bath.”

And so I, a wild child who had spent ten years rolling around in a beggars’ den, finally entered the legendary perfumed baths.

I promptly turned an entire pool black as ink.

Several maids pinched their noses and retched as they scrubbed me. The crusts of dirt were thicker than city walls. They floated on the surface and mingled lovingly with the delicate rose petals. It was a remarkably harmonious sight.

They scrubbed me seven or eight times and changed barrel after barrel of water, yet my skin continued shedding color.

The lice in my hair were even more spectacular. The maids formed an assembly line with fine-toothed combs.

“Another one!”

“There’s one here!”

“Heavens! Is an entire dynasty of lice living in this hair?”

Then they found the eggs: dense ranks of them, neatly arranged like toddlers lined up for a school ceremony.

My brother stood in the doorway. Shock gave way to despair, and despair to profound grief.

“Maybe…we should cut it off.”

I touched the knots in my hair, which were sturdy enough to serve as a chain whip, and waved grandly. “Cut it.”

Yes, one’s body and hair were gifts from one’s parents. But if my parents saw the henhouse on my head breeding a louse army, they would probably sever our blood ties on the spot.

When I returned to the manor, my polished bald head would make the perfect backdrop for my saintly foster sister.

I could already see it: the flower-filled great hall, me standing at center stage with a head bright enough to reflect light, a human moon pearl. My foster sister would glide in wearing a fairy’s gown and pose beside me—the Immortal Maiden and the Braised Egg, live on stage.

She would offer me tea, then “accidentally” spill the scalding cup on her own skirt. She would collapse, eyes brimming with tears, and bite her lip.

“Sister, what have I done to offend you?”

I would seize her wrist and give her the most sincere smile ten years in the Beggars’ Guild had taught me.

“Goodness, Sister, why is your hand shaking like a sieve? I learned massage from an old street physician while I was begging!”

Then I would give her an ancestral bone-twisting treatment. Her face would go white with pain, and she would wet herself on the spot.

Before my bargain-bin parents could scold me, I would fall to my knees and wail.

“Father, Mother, blame me! Your daughter is crude and unworthy of such a delicate teacup. I’ll fetch the pig trough from the kitchen and drink from that!”

My cheap father would tremble with rage. “Insolence!”

I would slide across the floor, land at his feet, and wrap myself around his leg.

“Father, I was wrong! I’ll empty your chamber pot to make amends!”

The more I imagined it, the more excited I became. The bun in my hand turned into the face of my imaginary foster sister, and I bit off half of it.

My brother watched me, clearly at a loss for words.

“Slow down. We have plenty of food at home. You may eat as much as you like.”

Hah. Naive.

I viciously stuffed my sixth bun into my mouth. Judging by the plot so far, I was clearly the heroine of a misery novel. If I did not eat enough to get my money’s worth now, was I supposed to gnaw on rats after they locked me in the woodshed?

Before dawn the next morning, eight maids hauled me out of bed like a pig bound for slaughter and pinned me in front of a dressing table.

Half asleep, I felt them plaster at least three pounds of flour onto my face.

When I opened my eyes again—

Holy hell!

What a peerless beauty, lovely enough to shame the moon and make fish forget how to swim!

“Is this one of those painted-skin horror stories?” I touched my face in terror.

“Don’t move, miss! Your lashes will fall off!”

The head maid frantically pressed something onto my eyelid. I looked closer.

Good heavens. Those lashes were long enough to sweep the floor.

Then I stared at the architectural wonder piled on top of my head. It was tall enough to fly a kite from.

Wait. Where had my bald head gone?

The maid proudly gave my head a little shake. “On the day you cut your hair, the young master ordered this wig made overnight. He said you must return to your family in splendor.”

I stared at the unfamiliar beauty in the mirror, and revelation struck.

I understood!

They were packaging me as the substitute heroine of a melodrama. Whenever the sweet foster sister caused trouble, I would take the blame. Then came the grand showdown between the real and false heiresses!

Blind Wang had never lied to me.

Plots. All of them were plots.