Chapter 3
Wan Niang had been married. Soon after bearing a son, she lost her husband and lived with her child in a leaking hut. When there was no food left, she sold herself to Yichun House and gave the price to her mother-in-law to raise the boy.
The others called her foolish. At barely twenty she could have remarried; why walk into hell? Wan Niang only smiled, dimples appearing beside gentle lips. She was mild and considerate, welcomed by old patrons and liked by the women.
When Miss Lu tried to die, Madam Yu sent for her.
We found Miss Lu perched on an open window. Wind lifted her robes above the racing moat. Yichun House owned her contract and could govern her life, but not her death. Madam Yu stood helplessly in a corner.
“The night is cold,” Wan Niang said. “Come have sweet soup.” She opened a box of osmanthus broth, the dish for which everyone praised her.
Miss Lu did not turn. Wan Niang sat down. “If you jump, the current will wash you west. Soldiers will fish you out covered in weeds and mud and carry you back. How embarrassing. If death is what you want, there are scissors and white silk here. Those are cleaner.”
Faces at the door blanched. Was she persuading the woman to live or teaching her to die?
Wan Niang quietly stirred the fragrant soup. A gust shook Miss Lu. Madam Yu lunged, but Miss Lu turned and landed inside with effortless grace, moonlight making her as remote as a river goddess.
Wan Niang took her hand. “Death is not the only choice. While you live, there is hope.”
Miss Lu drank the soup. Tears crossed her face. “Madam, I accept this fate.”
Madam Yu rejoiced and ordered her card prepared. Seeing me, she pinched my cheek. “Learn from Wan Niang, stupid girl.”
Wan Niang shielded me. “A-Xi is still small.”
Later I asked how she had known Miss Lu did not truly wish to die.
“Even ants struggle to live. Who chooses death when life remains possible?”
The welcoming drum sounded. Wan Niang gave me the cakes Madam Yu had rewarded her with. “Go outside, Xi-girl. Come back at dawn.”
I slipped through the gate to Zhao Si. Moonlight revealed bruises across his face. He claimed he had fallen. I knew some patron or servant had beaten him, someone we could not afford to offend. Yet he grinned and produced a warm egg. “Happy birthday, A-Xi.”
Only then did I remember it was the winter solstice, the day Mother said I was born. “I gave all my money to Madam Yu,” he said, embarrassed. “I couldn’t buy a present. Steward Zhang gave me this for my bruises, but I didn’t eat a bite.”
I peeled it and wrapped it in my handkerchief. “Forget eating. Use it on your face.”
He looked at the moon. “What will you wish for?”
Warmth and a woman’s muffled cry leaked from an upper room, then vanished beneath the pipa. Crickets sang in the cold ditch. I closed my eyes and made my first birthday wish.
Mother, this time, please—do not bear another daughter.
Miss Lu eventually took a stage name: Cairong, from a poem about plucking lotus across the river. Wan Niang told me she had been the sheltered daughter of a censor. Her father, though not powerful, enjoyed imperial favor until his sharp tongue made too many enemies. One mistake brought confiscation. Men over sixteen were exiled; the women were sold or killed themselves. Cairong’s mother and sisters chose death in prison to preserve their chastity.
“So that was why—”
Wan Niang covered my mouth. “Once sold here, we sever parents and kin. Call her Cairong, not Miss Lu, or you will only hurt her.”
Everyone obeyed except Xiangjun, who taunted her as “Miss Lu.” The worst clash came during Cairong’s first engagement. She was still a performer, entertaining poets with verse, wine, and the moon lute. That evening her patron was Young Master Zhao, a kindly man who particularly pitied Xiangjun and usually watched her sword dance.
Someone told Xiangjun that her admirer had chosen Cairong’s lute instead. Furious, she stormed in with a nine-section whip. By the time Madam Yu arrived, Young Master Zhao had left and the room lay wrecked. Cairong crouched behind the curtains, blood seeping between fingers pressed to her face.
Madam Yu confiscated the whip, locked Xiangjun away, sent gifts to the Zhao residence, and brought Cairong the best salve. “It may scar.”
Wan Niang volunteered me as nurse, warning privately that women who survived by climbing over one another might ruin Cairong’s face if given the chance.
I spread salve over the shallow wound. As the scab began to itch, I offered her my own cheek. “Scratch me instead. Your face is precious. I’m young; mine can bear it.”
Cairong studied me, then laughed for the first time since entering Yichun House. “Silly child.”
People said she was loveliest when cold and forlorn like a river goddess. I thought she was loveliest smiling.