chapter 3

As dusk fell, Xie Jiangshi’s voice grew subdued.

“It isn’t safe for a young woman to be outside after dark. The court built a relief shelter in the west of the city. We can spend the night there.”

Xie Jiangshi knew the capital well. Following his directions, I walked for a long while before finally finding the so-called Jihui Relief House at the far western edge.

It was nothing but an empty lot beneath a shelter several zhang long, its roof patched from straw and mud. It kept out neither wind nor rain.

People with nowhere else to go crowded beneath it, each claiming a little territory.

Some were alone, all their possessions rolled inside a straw mat. Others had entire families in tow, with small clay pots scattered at their feet and chipped bowls beside them.

The place was wretched, but at least it offered somewhere to sleep.

I dragged over a pile of straw and squeezed in beside an old woman.

As we exchanged small talk, she broke a begged flatbread into boiling water to soften it.

There was no salt and no oil. Xie Jiangshi would never have swallowed it.

“Miss, do you have nowhere to go either?”

I thought bitterly that I had been farming perfectly well at home and would never have fallen this low if not for Xie Jiangshi.

But one should never reveal too much to strangers while traveling. I answered vaguely, “I came to stay with relatives. My travel money ran out before I found them. I have a lead, though. They’re in the Prince of Qin’s residence.”

The old woman said nothing more and filled a bowl for me.

I did not dare take it. She began talking anyway.

“My husband died when I was young, and his family drove me back to my parents. Later, my father married me off again. Unfortunately, the month after my first childbirth left me ill, and I could never bear another child. My second husband’s family would not keep me, and my own family would not take me back. Living like this is all I have left.”

Xie Jiangshi could not resist interrupting.

“Why doesn’t she find work?”

I ignored him.

Great households hired young servants because children were easier to train and considered more trustworthy. Ordinary women were never taught to read. They kept house or farmed and had no trade. A woman married twice would be worn down by age and hardship. What household would take her in merely out of kindness?

If she could survive by begging, she was fortunate. Less fortunate women ended up selling themselves behind unmarked doors.

Xie Jiangshi looked across the crumbling shelter, his voice trembling.

“The court allocated several thousand taels. There should be hundreds of rooms here. Families with children were supposed to have caretakers for them. Each family was meant to receive two rooms for only three mace a month. If this is all they built—a roof—then what happened to the money? The Ministry of Revenue keeps demanding more funds. Where did it all go?”

How would I know?

I had come here to spend the night, but I had no intention of sleeping. Wrapped in straw, I listened to every movement around me.

Xie Jiangshi was deeply shaken. His normally ceaseless chatter fell silent.

For once, he noticed how tense I was.

“Sui Zhu, why aren’t you asleep?”

I forced my eyelids open and kept talking to him.

“Have you noticed how few women are here alone?”

Only then did he see it. “You’re right.”

No one could hear him, yet he still lowered his voice instinctively.

“Why?”

Apart from elderly women, nearly every woman in the shelter clung to a man.

Some might have been husband and wife. Others might have joined together only for a while.

I could count the women alone like me on one hand.

That was why I had not accepted the old woman’s food.

You could never see inside another person’s heart. No one knew what a stranger might be planning.

“Xie Jiangshi, do you know how many eyes follow a woman when she travels alone?”

Women could bear children. Traffickers sold them to poor families, sometimes reselling them more than a dozen times.

If a woman was pretty, they sold her to a brothel. Once money and flesh had changed hands, no one cared where she had come from.

They would devour her until not even the bones remained.

I began to tremble.

Xie Jiangshi softened his voice. “Sleep. I’ll keep watch. If any villain comes near, I promise I’ll run away very quickly.”

Then his tone turned vicious. “When I recover, I will report every last bastard in the Ministry of Revenue to the emperor and have them flayed.”

I did not stay long at Jihui Relief House. The moment dawn broke, I went into the streets to look for work.

The truth was, I knew how to do almost nothing.

In storybooks, the heroes possessed every talent.

They could compose poetry, play music, paint, and master every board game. At the very least, they knew embroidery well enough to feed themselves.

Reality was different. Filling one’s stomach was no simple matter.

After the grain was harvested, the landlord took thirty percent. Then came the imperial tax. After that, seed had to be bought. Only what remained went into our own pockets.

That was in a good year. In a year of disaster, our stomachs bore the loss.

If we did not pay the court and landlord first, then when the disaster passed we would have no land and life would be even harder.

So all I knew was farming. Beyond that, I had only my strength to sell.

But women were born weaker than men.

Naturally, we were paid only half as much for the same labor.

That was when an employer was kind enough to hire us at all. Most refused women outright.

After the sixth rejection, Xie Jiangshi finally spoke.

“Go to the prince’s residence. I’ve found work you can do.”