Chapter 2

After seeing the police off, Father questioned Li Xiao.

“Tell me. Who put you up to this?”

Through clenched teeth, Li Xiao said, “Nobody.”

Father waved a hand. The servants dragged Li Xiao into the outer courtyard.

Then the thud of wooden paddles rang out, mingled with Li Xiao’s screams.

I had grown up on the Fu estate without friends. Only Li Xiao, who was my age, would play with me.

I begged Father through my tears to stop the beating. He pushed me away coldly.

I rushed into the courtyard and tried to shield Li Xiao with my small body, but Chen Qiuhua carried me forcibly indoors.

A boy not yet seven was beaten until he stopped breathing.

Two living people. Gone, just like that.

Because they were born poor, their lives were worth no more than weeds.

The hatred pressing on my chest was enough to suffocate a child. Enough to make a child grow up in an instant.

The pool was filled in.

Flowers in full bloom were transplanted into the grounds.

The sprawling Fu estate was lovelier than it had been when Mother was alive.

After Li Xiao was beaten to death in front of everyone, no servant dared mention her again.

Mother disappeared without a sound or a trace, as though she had never existed.

Six years passed.

I learned to hide my hatred. I learned how to survive in the Fu family.

One day when I was twelve, I was crouched alone in a flower bed, tending Mother’s favorite white chrysanthemums.

Then I overheard Chen Qiuhua talking to Father.

“Third Young Master, I’ve been with you for ten years. When are you going to make an honest woman of me?”

Ten years?

So someone had been coveting Mother’s place even before she died.

Father pinched Chen Qiuhua’s fleshy backside. “Tonight. How’s that?”

The sight made my eyes hurt.

It seemed the Fu men had a family gift for hiding beasts behind human faces.

Before long, I did indeed have a new mother.

Chen Qiuhua went from servant to mistress overnight. Her triumph was written all over her face.

Even when she spoke to me, she no longer bothered with her old gentleness and patience.

She lost no time claiming Mother’s jewelry and secretly trying on her clothes, forcing her thick body into the fitted qipaos.

The seams split. Furious, she tore the entire wardrobe of qipaos to shreds.

I happened to see it. I wanted to tear her to shreds too.

But a moment before she noticed me, I hid my hatred and threw my arms around her thick waist, just as I had when I was little.

“Your tummy has so much soft flesh, Auntie Chen. It’s lovely to cuddle. Not like my dead mother—she was a willow twig. A breath of wind would make her shake.”

Chen Qiuhua shoved me away, put on her loose clothes, and stormed off.

At dinner, I deliberately put a piece of greasy braised pork in her bowl.

“Auntie, this is delicious.”

She swallowed. “I don’t want any.”

Father glanced at her. “No appetite?”

I laughed loudly. “Auntie burst one of Mother’s qipaos today. Her bottom was showing! That’s why she won’t eat meat. Ha!”

Father shot me a glare. “What young lady speaks so shamelessly?”

Grandfather promptly defended me. “She’s a child. Children speak their minds. Why make a fuss?”

I stuck out my tongue playfully.

But my words made everyone glance at Chen Qiuhua…and the fat around her waist.

Her already dark face darkened further. With Fu Zhenguo there, she dared not lash out at me.

The sight of her bottled-up fury gave me a hearty appetite. I did not forget to charm Grandfather with a sweet laugh.

“Have some vegetables, Grandpa.”

Pleased, Fu Zhenguo drank a few extra cups of wine.

As I escorted him back to his room, he suddenly caught my hand.

He stared blankly at my face and murmured, “Yanyun…”

I went rigid.

Yanyun. For years, the name had been forbidden on the Fu estate.

Had Fu Zhenguo not suddenly spoken it, people might soon have forgotten that it was my mother’s name.

“Grandpa, I’m Fu Xin. Your good little granddaughter.”

Fu Zhenguo came to himself. “You’ve grown up, Xin. Grandpa’s getting old. My eyes aren’t what they were.”

I gave him an innocent little smile and casually drew my hand away.

Back in my room, I took the old photograph from its hiding place in the wardrobe.

On the yellowing paper, a young woman held a swaddled baby and smiled at the camera, serene and happy.

It had been taken when I was a month old. It was the only photograph of Mother and me together.

She was still lost in her illusion of happiness then. Her smile was unclouded.

Chen Qiuhua had told me a few things about her.

Malnutrition in childhood had left Mother frail. When she gave birth to me, a difficult labor and severe blood loss nearly killed her.

Too weak after the birth, she could produce very little milk.

And I was a ravenous baby. I would suck until her skin broke and bled, and still refuse to let go.

Rather than let me go hungry, she carefully selected a wet nurse from a hundred candidates. She chose Chen Qiuhua.

Chen Qiuhua had told me this to boast about herself.

All I could think of was how hard the birth must have been for Mother. How much it must have hurt when I broke her skin.

I brought my thoughts back to the present.

My gaze shifted slowly from the photograph to the dressing-table mirror.

I had not noticed how much I was coming to resemble her.

I looked at the face in the mirror, only twelve, yet startlingly fine-featured.

I remembered Grandfather taking my hand and calling me Yanyun.

At last, I understood what he had done to Mother every night while Father was abroad.