Chapter 3

# Chapter 3

The neighbors said Mother had once possessed a beautiful singing voice.

The voice I remembered was always hoarse and harsh.

More often than not, what I remembered was her crying: grief, screams, pleas for mercy, despair.

After giving birth to me, Mother could bear no more children. Father beat her often, and Grandmother tormented her at every turn.

Then Father began seeing Widow Wang from the next village. The widow had given birth to three children, every one of them a boy.

When Mother heard, she took me away from home. We walked all the way to town, then wandered its streets in a daze for the entire day.

At dusk, we passed a restaurant. From inside came the sound of a pipa woven through a soft southern melody, sweet enough to stop passersby in their tracks.

Mother listened, and tears began to run down her face.

She pressed the three taels of broken silver she had stolen from home into my hands. She told me never to go back. I was to travel to the capital, find the Yu family, and ask for Su Liuniang.

Then she returned home alone.

I was worried and secretly followed. Mother was not there when I arrived. Then a neighbor told me she had stormed into Widow Wang’s house with a kitchen knife and cut off the root of Father’s manhood. When Grandmother rushed over, Mother stabbed her too.

Afterward, Mother ran headfirst into a tree.

She was already dead.

I had not even begun to cry when the woman next door shoved me toward the road. She told me to run. If I stayed, they would beat me to death.

I fled, stumbling from place to place and begging for food until I reached the Yu residence in the capital.

Fortunately, Concubine Su took me in, and the Yu family allowed me to stay.

That night I dreamed of Mother and woke to find my pillow wet with tears. Through the haze of sleep, it seemed that Concubine Su sat beside the bed, her face full of pity as she gently wiped my cheeks.

“Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid, poor child.” She wiped at her own tears as she spoke. “Su Wuniang’s daughter is Su Liuniang’s daughter too. From now on, I will be your mother in her place.”

When I asked her about it the next morning, she looked away and refused to admit she had said any such thing. I must have been trapped in a nightmare, she said. It had all been a dream.

Although the Lady and the Old Madam had said the Yu family did not employ children as servants, Concubine Su still sent me to wait on the Eldest Young Lady.

A person living on another family’s charity ought to understand her place.

When the Eldest Young Lady attended the family school, I could carry her book bag and run errands. If I was clever enough, perhaps I might even learn a few characters while I was there.

Concubine Su dressed me neatly before sending me off. The Eldest Young Lady was a good person, she said, though rather proud. Girls from great houses were naturally aloof. I did not come from a family with any standing. If the Eldest Young Lady showed me a cold face, I should endure it and never displease my hosts.

I promised again and again.

All the way to the family school, I wondered what sort of stern young lady could inspire so many warnings. The Old Madam and the Lady both seemed gentle. Surely the Eldest Young Lady could not be too difficult.

I soon arrived outside the school. A cluster of young masters and young ladies surrounded a tall girl like stars around the moon, talking and laughing.

I hurried forward and bowed.

“Greetings, Eldest Young Lady.”

She turned. Tall, graceful, and perfectly mannered, she looked like an immortal descended from the heavens.

“You are?”

“Hmph. Isn’t she the poor relation who came to sponge off that Concubine Su?” A bright, pretty girl in pale green scoffed from beside her.

My face burned.

“Wanrong, mind your manners.” The Eldest Young Lady gave her a cool glance, then looked back at me. “Concubine Su has always known the rules…”

She paused. Perhaps she noticed how young and painfully thin I was, how shabby I looked among all these splendidly dressed sons and daughters. Her fine brows drew together. Then she reached out and patted my head.

“What is your name?”

“Su Ying,” I answered timidly.

After Mother died, I had abandoned my father’s surname and taken hers.

“Very well. From now on, you may follow me and serve as my study attendant.”

I looked up in delight and thanked her over and over.

Concubine Su had been wrong. The Eldest Young Lady was not proud at all. She was easy to approach.

She understood how frightened and uncertain a poor relation who had come to live on the Yu family’s charity would feel, and how badly I needed a place that was truly mine.

The Eldest Young Lady was a good person.