chapter 2

Zhou Rongshan praised her. “Qingruo, you are truly kind and gentle.”

My sister smiled shyly, took his arm, and left the Red Pavilion without looking back.

She cast me from her mind.

During the first year, I still foolishly hoped she would keep her promise. When she did not come, I comforted myself that she had only just entered the Zhou household and lacked the freedom to rescue me.

I waited and waited, year after year. I waited until she became a celebrated noblewoman of the capital, until Zhou Rongshan gained greater wealth and office, until her status rose so high that she could enter and leave the palace to mingle with members of the imperial clan.

Still, she never came for me.

Five years later, her magnificent sedan passed through the streets on the way to a banquet attended by noble ladies. Her procession was grand. People said the brocade she wore was woven entirely of gold thread and that any one of the pearl hairpins on her head was worth five taels of gold.

According to Madam Qin, my redemption price was only five taels—the price of one hairpin.

That day, I risked my life to block her sedan. “Sister! Have you forgotten your promise?”

Her maid lifted the curtain, and my sister looked me over. My clothes were torn, my body covered in bruises and red marks, and I could not have appeared more wretched.

She covered her nose with her fan. “I have no sister as disgraceful as you.”

Through my tears, I demanded, “Did I not become this way because of you? Do you truly not understand what I suffered?”

She pouted. “I watched every step that brought you here. What hardship could possibly excuse you?”

With that one sentence, she turned the whole street against me. They cursed me as a shameless whore.

At a glance from my sister, her maid shouted, “What Red Pavilion whore dares block the sedan of the grain commissioner’s wife? Beat her!”

The guards thought me too filthy to touch. They kicked me instead.

My sister’s sedan rolled over my body, and she never once looked back.

My heart gave out under the fury, and I died coughing blood in the street.

When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn on the day my sister first performed at the Red Pavilion.

“Sister! Save me!”

The patron had almost reached her. Clutching her qin, she screamed for my help.

I remained where I stood and smiled at her. “Sister, if you want dignity, you must earn it yourself. You cannot always expect me to provide it for you.”

Her expression changed. Back in the Ye household, a single cold look from its legitimate daughter had been enough to put her concubine-born sister in her place.

Now she could not even save herself. Without me to shield her, the man seized her. Her qin crashed to the floor, and brute hands tore open her clothes.

My sister shrieked and struggled, but he was immensely strong. Like a chicken pecking wildly, his mouth moved down her body toward the most intimate place, all before a crowd of male patrons.

Nausea surged in my chest. In my previous life, I had been humiliated in exactly the same fashion.

I forced the pain down, picked up my own qin, and walked onto the stage. Taking the seat my sister had abandoned, I began to play High Mountains and Flowing Water with open, unhurried grace.

My skill was no worse than hers. I had merely been forced to conceal it in the Ye household out of deference to the distinction between a legitimate daughter and one born to a concubine.

Here at the Red Pavilion, I would use my qin to win myself a life with some measure of dignity.

The strings rang out, drawing the attention of many patrons.

I had my sister’s precious dignity to thank. She had convinced these first-floor men that High Mountains and Flowing Water was too lofty for their ears. Now I offered it freely, playing with warmth and devotion and giving them the respect they had been denied.

“I heard this one is also a daughter of the Ye family, only born to a concubine.”

“They’re in a brothel now. Who cares about legitimate or concubine-born? That’s as foolish as falling into a brothel and still demanding dignity.”

“This younger one has far more sense than the eldest.”

Some lost themselves in the music. Others deliberately mocked me.

“Your sister refused to play this so-called refined piece no matter what. Why are you willing? Have you given up your dignity?”

Laughter swept through the hall.

My hands never paused. I lifted my eyes with a smile. “If princes and noblemen may hear this piece, then naturally so may all of you. True music belongs to refined and common ears alike.”

“As for my dignity, gentlemen, I must ask you to help me preserve it.”

The room fell silent. Then someone shouted his approval.

Men immediately tried to request me. Seeing how popular I was, Madam Qin sprang forward and announced, “From this day onward, our Miss Zhengzheng will sell only her art, never her body!”

I smiled as the strings sang beneath my fingers, mingling with my sister’s screams under the man who had dragged her down.

I focused only on playing.

Sister, in this life, I would save no one but myself.

That night, I ate the richest meal I had seen since being sold into the Red Pavilion.

In my previous life, my sister and I had first refused to submit, so they locked us in the rear courtyard with many other women who had been sold there for one reason or another.

The food they sent was spoiled. Only the steamed buns were edible, but each meal brought five buns for ten people, so we had to fight for them.

My sister and I had been raised in seclusion, while many of the others were tenants’ daughters sold to repay debts. They had done farm work since childhood and were stronger than I was. Unable to compete alone, I asked my sister to help. Another pair of hands could only improve our chances.

She said, “Even sold into a place like this, I must live with dignity. Fighting for food is something dogs and other beasts do. I am the eldest young lady of the Ye family. How could I do anything so shameful?”

She even looked with contempt at the women wrestling for buns, though after days without food she clearly craved those soft white morsels as much as anyone.

Unable to persuade her, I squeezed into the crowd alone. I finally tore half a bun from someone’s hand, only to be shoved to the ground. Before I could rise, my sister snatched it away.

“Do not get the bun dirty!”

Complaining all the while, she peeled away the outer layer. Before I had climbed to my feet, she had stuffed the rest into her own mouth.

Then she wiped her lips and watched the other women wolf down their prizes. “Fighting so desperately over one bite of food. How undignified.”

During those days in the rear courtyard, I was often too dizzy with hunger to think, while my sister always managed to fill her belly with perfect dignity.

Later, once she became the Red Pavilion’s celebrated prodigy, every meal she ate was lavish, but she never allowed me at her table. Too many men had touched me.

“Sister, without chastity you have no dignity. Someone without dignity is not worthy to eat at the same table as me.”