chapter 1

I knew exactly what Fu Yanxiu meant.

The glittering world was full of temptations. A wild country girl from the middle of nowhere could never handle it.

Put more plainly, Fu Yanxiu now served the emperor, and I was no longer good enough for him.

I stood there gripping the sickle I had been using to cut hog grass, several thin scratches from the blades of grass still bleeding on my face.

Fu Yanxiu sighed and, for once, stepped down into the mud.

He had always considered himself above such things. Even at the height of planting season, he would never bend his back to set rice seedlings.

The reek of the mud made him gag, and he loathed the feel of it squelching beneath his bare feet.

Fu Yanxiu should never have been born in the countryside. He was made to be a young master.

Now, perhaps afraid that I would make a scene, he let his white-soled brocade boots sink into the sodden field and wiped my forehead with his sleeve.

“Sui Zhu.” He said my name again. “Don’t cry. I have wronged you. Whatever you want, just name it.”

I wanted to punch him.

But the village chief and county magistrate stood behind him, along with people I knew and people I did not, all respectably dressed. More importantly, several soldiers had come with them.

My short work jacket suddenly felt tight and awkward.

Worse, one of my straw sandals had split in half. If I put any weight on it, half my foot slid straight out.

So I stood on tiptoe, facing Fu Yanxiu on one and a half feet.

“What could I possibly ask for? Give me some money.”

Fu Yanxiu relaxed. That request was nothing to a man like him now.

“All right, Sui Zhu. How does seventy taels sound?”

Seventy taels was a fortune. In all my eighteen years, I had never seen so much money.

Fu Yanxiu watched me in silence, apparently waiting for an answer.

I sniffed, bent down, and swung my sickle again.

“Go. I still have work to finish.”

Fu Yanxiu left.

He had arrived with great fanfare and departed the same way. All he left me was a field of trampled grass—and a woman who felt half dead.

Seventy taels. Ten taels for each year. That was what I had been worth to him.

Only then did I understand that Fu Yanxiu had never thought much of me.

I sat in the dirt and cried.

Xie Jiangshi cried with me.

At last, he started begging.

“Sui Zhu, stop crying. When you hurt, I hurt too. Keep this up and I’ll start wondering whether I’m the one in love with Fu Yanxiu!”

Xie Jiangshi was a wandering soul lodged inside my body. He claimed to be the heir to the Prince of Qin, but I did not believe him.

He had to be some spiteful ghost from a mass grave, clinging to me in hopes of stealing the incense meant for the dead.

I had burned paper offerings and lit incense for him.

He refused to leave. Instead, he snarled, “You think I like following you around every day while you farm, cut grass, and feed pigs?

“I am the heir to a princely house. I dine on delicacies and sleep amid silks and perfume. Why would I need offerings from a village girl like you?”

Some people did not stop dreaming just because they became ghosts.

I wiped my tears and crammed my basket full of hog grass before heading home.

Xie Jiangshi carried on as if he were dying.

“My heart aches. I’m dying, I’m dying! Is this what people call heartbreak?”

Xie Jiangshi was unbearably talkative. He said he had never known what it felt like to lose one’s soul over someone.

In his world, women came running if he merely crooked a finger.

So he could not understand why Fu Yanxiu had left me in such misery.

By the time I got home, Father had already cooked supper.

One of his legs had been crippled when he was conscripted to fight. The wound had not been treated in time and festered.

He had seen doctor after doctor after returning to the village, but none could cure it.

Our annual harvest brought in only seven taels, barely enough to keep us fed and clothed.

Father’s medicine cost four taels. After a year of treatment, he was buried in debt.

So he stopped taking it.

He watched me cautiously.

Fu Yanxiu’s silver had already arrived, stacked in neat rows on the table.

Back then, Fu Yanxiu had refused to work the land and devoted himself wholly to the classics.

Everyone laughed at him for having ambitions higher than the sky and a life thinner than paper. Only Father believed he was different.

“That boy Fu Yanxiu will make something of himself one day.”

Fu Yanxiu’s family had been poorer than ours.

His father died on the battlefield and never returned, and someone in the village embezzled half the family’s pension. His mother suffered a hemorrhage while giving birth to his younger sister and was left half-paralyzed. The entire burden of the household fell on him overnight.

Father sent me to plow their fields.

“Do him a kindness now, and he’ll remember it later.”

Father had judged him correctly. Fu Yanxiu did make something of himself.

But when a man did not love you, he did not love you. A debt of gratitude could not buy affection.

What hurt was not only remembering how I had worked myself senseless in his family’s fields.

I truly had liked him.

In those days, Fu Yanxiu would stand on the ridge while I drove the ox borrowed from our neighbor.

I plowed and stole glances at him.

“Fu Yanxiu, you’re so handsome. I like you so much. When you come back from this examination, let’s get married.”

Fu Yanxiu pressed his lips together and lowered his eyes.

“Do you?”

Neither agreement nor refusal. Nothing I could make sense of.

Only now did I know the look in his eyes had been reluctance.

Since losing the use of his leg, Father could only manage chores around the house. He was getting old and always watching my expression without meaning to.

His lips opened and closed. His trembling hands closed around the silver as if he had finally made up his mind.

“We won’t take this money. Come on. Fu Yanxiu owes us an explanation, at the very least!”

I caught hold of Father, tears gathering in my eyes.

“What explanation? I’m not some noble young lady whose reputation is everything. A country woman who can work will always find someone willing to marry her.

“Fu Yanxiu isn’t one of us anymore. If we keep pestering him, he won’t even have to lift a finger. The people trying to curry favor with him will make sure we suffer for it.”

Father covered his face, furious. “So that’s it? We’re just letting him get away with it?”

I ladled out sweet-potato congee.

“Yes. That’s it.”

I had misjudged him. There was no one to blame but myself.

The congee was thicker than usual that day. Normally, I could manage only two bowls. Perhaps grief had sharpened my appetite, because I ate nearly four.

Xie Jiangshi howled in agony.

“I’m going to burst! Even a pig couldn’t eat this much!”

My stomach was so swollen that lying down made me want to vomit, while sitting up pushed the food to the back of my throat.

Xie Jiangshi suffered with me. In a weak voice, he said, “Sui Zhu, we share all five senses. Have mercy on yourself—and on me, would you?”

I belched, and sour, half-digested sweet potato rose into my throat.

Xie Jiangshi finally retched. I followed, vomiting until there was nothing left.

That was when I began to suspect that Xie Jiangshi really had come from a wealthy family. Sweet-potato congee was such a treat that, if it had been mine alone, I would never have had the heart to bring it back up.

Xie Jiangshi complained as though I had grievously wronged him.

“Sui Zhu, I am not one of the pigs in your yard. I never want to eat sweet potato again!”

It took him half a month to recover from that meal.

Once the mess was cleaned up, he began urging me to go to the prince’s residence again.

“When my soul returns to my body, I’ll find you a good husband. A fine official’s son—someone leagues above Fu Yanxiu. I could even introduce you to a prince or nobleman. How about it?”

What a ridiculous dream.

“Me? Walk into a prince’s residence? At best I might beg two steamed buns when they hand out alms. If you don’t leave me alone, you wild ghost, I’ll hire a Celestial Master to scatter your soul!”

Xie Jiangshi fell silent. Half an hour later, he suddenly laughed.

“Sui Zhu, you don’t scare me. It costs at least thirty taels just to bring a Celestial Master down from his mountain, and that doesn’t include the altar or ritual implements. Therefore, my soul is perfectly safe!”

That wretched ghost!