Chapter 5
In the fifth year after my eldest cousin, Ning Boxian, married into the general’s household, her husband brought a pregnant souvenir home from the frontier.
He wasn’t especially fond of the healer who had climbed into his bed. He simply couldn’t bear to give up the child she carried.
The couple quarreled over it.
My cousin felt as though she’d swallowed a fly that she couldn’t get down.
She brought her son and daughter home for a short stay, looking thoroughly miserable.
As she leaned against a soft cushion and tearfully poured out her grievances to my aunt, I sat obediently nearby, shaking a rattle for her children.
My aunt listened for a while.
Then she set her teacup on the table and asked me gently, “Jizhao, that healer is pregnant. We can’t get rid of her, and we can’t keep her. Your eldest cousin is trapped. What would you suggest?”
I put the rattle into little Zheng’s hand and softly raised my dark eyes.
“Things are valuable because they’re rare. When they’re everywhere, they’re worth nothing. That goes for children and their mothers alike.”
My cousin went pale.
I looked at her and spoke plainly.
“Can the general’s household not afford concubines and their children? Rather than dirty your own hands, let someone else wield the knife.”
Shock flickered in her dark eyes. I enunciated each word.
“You are the mistress of that house, and you have children of your own. Don’t be foolish enough to trade your future for a man’s love.”
She thought it over all night and understood.
The next day, when her husband came to fetch her, she thanked me for opening her eyes and went home composed.
Within a month, I heard that she had given him three concubines and two bedmaids.
Plump or slender, every kind of beauty was represented.
Within two months, happy news began arriving from the general’s house one announcement after another.
Unlike the healer who had slipped into his bed, these women all had recognized places in his household.
Their standing gave their unborn children an advantage over hers before any of them had even been born.
The general hadn’t much cared for her to begin with.
Nor could she match my cousin’s competence, generosity, or dignity.
Within a few months, he had tired of her completely and left her out in the cold.
The woman who had entered with her head high, using her pregnancy to challenge my cousin, finally showed her true colors over a bowl of poison meant for a favored concubine’s child.
My cousin protected the concubine and saved her. The woman retaliated with a vengeance.
She forced the healer to drink her own poison. Mother and child died together and were buried on the hill behind the house.
Consumed by guilt, the general became more obedient to my cousin than ever.
She had chosen every concubine herself. They all followed her lead.
Their children could never outrank hers, who were both legitimate and older. Her position as mistress of the house was unshakable.
My cousin gave up romantic love and won a complete victory.
And that was the victory that made my reputation.