Chapter 1
Before Matron Qin came to find me on the marchioness’s orders, I had been celebrating my eighteenth birthday in my mother’s room.
The housekeepers who had always looked down on our family had deigned to visit the servants’ quarters by the outer courtyard stables to wish me a happy birthday.
They crowded around Mother and me, offering one auspicious wish after another.
To Mother, they said:
“Mistress Ping, what a fine, promising daughter you’ve raised! Once the young lord takes Chunxu as his concubine, your position will change too. You’ll be all but the mother of a mistress!”
To me, they said:
“You’re blessed, Chunxu. After all these years you’ve spent serving the young lord, Her Ladyship hasn’t forgotten your efforts! Now that he’s passed the examination with such distinction, she’s promised to make you a concubine as soon as his lawful wife enters the household. Your good days are coming!”
I had no desire to join in their flattery. I simply smiled and sipped my noodle broth.
Mother had made me longevity noodles with her own hands.
In all my eighteen years, it was the first time I had ever eaten them.
Usually, that kind of maternal affection was reserved for my elder and younger brothers.
“Chunxu, we were poor before, and we didn’t treat you as well as we should have. But things will be different now. Our lives are improving. Never mind a bowl of longevity noodles—whatever you want to eat, I’ll make it for you.”
Mother sat beside me, gently stroking my hair as she spoke with a smile.
I gave a soft laugh and murmured assent.
I thought my good days really were coming.
I had heard that the young lord’s intended bride was the marchioness’s niece.
She was a legitimate daughter of Duke Hua’s household, well known throughout the capital for her gentleness and virtue. Surely she would be a cultivated, reasonable young lady.
As long as I knew my place, life should not be too bad.
Then the five years I had spent serving the young lord since being assigned to him at thirteen, accompanying him through his daily studies, would not have been in vain. At last, the hardship would be over.
I was still lost in that happiness when Matron Qin arrived.
Her face was grim. Six broad-shouldered serving women followed behind her, looking ready to make an arrest.
“Bind this little bitch!”
At her command, the women advanced on me like demons, coarse hemp ropes in their hands.
“Matron Qin, what’s going on? Even if you’re going to bind me, surely—”
Before I could finish, a filthy rag was stuffed into my mouth.
They dragged me to the young lord’s residence, Cloudrest Study.
At the sight of the charred ruins, I began to suspect what had happened, but I dared not believe it.
They forced me to my knees before the wreckage.
The marchioness, usually so dignified, rushed at me with her hair in disarray and her eyes red from crying.
Slaps rained down on my cheeks.
“You bitch! You killed my son!”
“What did you do to him? What did you do?”
“He took first place in the metropolitan examination! He was one step from glory, and you’ve destroyed his future!”
The blows made my head spin, but I dared not stop defending myself.
“Have mercy, my lady! I never harmed the young lord. I never did!”
I bent low, knocking my forehead against the ground again and again.
“You didn’t? Then what is this?”
She took an inkstone from the maid behind her and hurled it at me.
One corner struck my forehead. Blood immediately streamed down, flooding my eyes.
With difficulty, I raised my head. Through a haze of red, I saw the words carved into the underside:
“Chunxu, go die.”
A chill swept through my entire body.
“If you did nothing, why would he hate you so much?”
“Matron Qin, throw this bitch into the punishment chamber. Make her tell the truth!”
For seven days in that chamber, I could neither live nor die.
The women in charge of the torture beat me over and over.
They kept asking the same questions:
“Why did the young lord carve those words on his inkstone?”
“Why did he set fire to Cloudrest Study?”
“What exactly did you do to him?”
I didn’t know!
I truly didn’t know!
How could the young lord, always so gentle and gracious, have died so suddenly?
The evening before the fire, when I asked the young duke for leave to celebrate my eighteenth birthday with Mother, he had smiled and agreed.
He had even given me a gold ingot.
Frightened by such generosity, I tried to refuse, but the young lord held my hand still.
“You’ve worked hard serving me, Chunxu. You deserve this. Go and celebrate your birthday with your mother.”
After I left that night, he dismissed the other servants and set Cloudrest Study on fire.
If I had known what he would do, I would never have gone.
But now, whatever I said, it was too late.
Because of that inkstone, the marchioness was convinced I had killed him.
She meant to beat me to death and send me after him into the grave.
Nor was I alone enough for her. She had my parents and brothers bound and brought in to be beaten to death as well.
Our family had been born into slavery in this household. All five of our worthless lives together could not quench her fury.
Screams rose and fell throughout the punishment chamber.
Mother, who only days earlier had made me longevity noodles so tenderly, began cursing me under the unrelenting torture.
The last thing I heard before I died was her blood-choked abuse.
“You wretched creature! I’d have been better off giving birth to a beast! You’ve never brought me a single benefit, and now you’ve brought this disaster down on the whole family!”
“I should have let your brother pledge you as a wife to that groom who beat three women to death! He could have beaten you to death long ago!”
Each curse cut into my heart.
I had always known Mother did not love me. Even so, hearing those words hurt.
Before my last breath, I made a wish.
If there was another life, I never wanted to be a slave in a great household again.
Nor did I want to be born into this family.
I wanted only to be like the spring catkins of my name, free to drift across a wide and boundless world.