Chapter 1

In the fifteenth year of Wanhui, Yanzhou flooded.

After the flood, the emperor ordered the Shen family’s property confiscated and all thirty-five members of our household sold off.

Fortunately, a jailer named Chen lived in Qin County. He was a distant younger cousin of my mother’s, which made him my uncle.

Uncle had once been betrothed to my mother in their youth, and the Shen family had helped him before.

Because of that connection, he hurried to the capital the very night he heard the news and paid a woman who traded in servants ninety taels of silver for my little sister and me.

Uncle Chen took us home with him to Qin County.

He told his wife, “These girls were raised as young ladies. They may have fallen on hard times, but they are not our slaves. We must continue to treat them with care.”

Aunt agreed. She cleared a clean room for us and even bought a young maid to look after our meals and clothes.

My little sister Yi was eight that year, a small girl forever on the verge of tears.

Deep in the night, she would bite the corner of her quilt with her little white teeth, some still waiting to be replaced, and whimper miserably beneath it.

I pulled back her covers. “What are you crying about now?”

“I miss Mother,” she answered timidly.

By Mother, Yi meant her birth mother, Father’s concubine Madam Wang.

My own mother had died when I was seven. Fearing the Shen family would have too few descendants, Father had taken three concubines in succession.

Of those three women, only Madam Wang had borne a child, a daughter.

In the calamity that had struck us without warning, all three had been sold by the broker to places unknown.

Uncle was only a jailer. Saving the two of us had already been difficult enough.

I could hardly expect him to rescue everyone in the Shen household.

Before such disaster, even the closest kin could only bear their separate fates.

“Stop thinking about her. It won’t help.”

“But, Sister, I can’t sleep.”

“Then get up and read. Practice your writing.”

While Father was alive, he had always educated us as he would have sons. He never forced us to learn sewing or needlework; instead, he urged us to apply ourselves to our studies.

Whenever sleep escaped us, I lit the silver lamp and guided Yi through her lessons by its flame, leafing through the poetry and books Uncle had bought for us.

Uncle took great care of us. He gave us the best food and clothing he could afford, and whenever official duties took him away, he reminded Aunt again and again to look after us, afraid we might suffer even the slightest neglect.

But Aunt’s mind was full of twists and turns.

At first, she treated us kindly enough. Nothing lovely lasts forever, however, and little by little, she began to complain.

When Uncle was away, she deliberately cut back on our allowance, gave us old clothes and cold meals, and seized on the maid’s mistakes to scold us through her.

“You lazy little good-for-nothing! Who are you trying to fool with this grand young lady act?

“You’d better know your place. Make me angry and I’ll beat you out of here and marry you off to some village oaf. Let’s see how proud you are then!

“The older one’s up to no good, the younger one’s all airs. Bah! You think I can’t see those looks you exchange behind my back?”

…

She stood outside my window, hands on her hips, shouting abuse. Yi cowered in my arms, her little shoulders jerking, trembling too hard to cry aloud.

After Aunt left, she looked up at me through her tears. “Sister, I don’t like her.”

I stroked her head.

“Uncle took us in out of kindness. We must never hurt him, or trouble him over little things like this. The Chens feed us and give us a home. It’s only human for Aunt to be harsh sometimes. But if you bear her ill will because of it, that would make you ungrateful.”

“Will things only be good when Uncle is home?”

“Silly girl. Depending on yourself is better than depending on heaven or earth. Uncle has his own difficulties too.”

That winter, the county office sent Uncle to Qingzhou, a thousand li away. He did not return until late spring the following year.

While he was gone, Aunt dismissed our maid and took all the clothes and jewelry he had bought for us into her own room.

She even stopped giving us light at night and ordered the kitchen to serve us nothing but cold steamed buns.

All the while, I sewed clothes, shoes, and stockings for her, helped in the kitchen whenever I could, and did everything in my power to please her.

Still, she was determined to drive us out.

I was fourteen now, with bright eyes and white teeth, growing very much like my mother. That made me a thorn in her side.

We would leave. Of course we would.

But I could not simply slink away.

I still had my little sister. Even if not for myself, I had to find a good future for Yi.

Outside Qin County lay South Mountain, its slopes covered in graves.

With the money I earned making decorative knots, I hired someone to build an empty grave near the main road there. Each day, I quietly took a basket and led Yi to the foot of the mountain to weep before it.

Kneeling on the ground, Yi turned to me timidly. “Sister, who’s buried here?”

“Father and Mother,” I said, crying as I broke flatbread into crumbs and scattered them on the earth.

“But wasn’t Father swept away by the flood?”

“Don’t ask. Just cry loudly.”

“I can’t.”

“Think about your mother.”

“Waaaah—Father! Mother!” Yi’s eyes reddened, and the tears came at once.

I cried louder and harder than she did, tears rolling down my face as I sobbed until I could barely breathe, reciting all the while.

“Two lean swallows on the rafters, plump young within their nest. Before their wings have feathered, the nest is broken, the children scattered. When shall we return to repay our parents’ kindness?”

South Mountain was wild and lonely, its woods thick with shade. Startled by our cries, wild birds fluttered from the branches and scattered in search of food.

Woodcutters on the mountain, farmers carrying hoes, travelers on the road—all stopped, all were shaken. As they listened, tears began to run down their faces too.

Within seven days, the story had spread throughout Qin County.

People said two young women on South Mountain had moved heaven with their filial devotion. Even the birds were drawn to them, circling nearby each day, reluctant to leave.

Curious scholars came eagerly and went away with tears in their eyes.

Soon, a mournful poem called “Children Parted from the Nest” was being repeated in every academy, teahouse, and theater boat in Qin County.

People even came from the capital, determined to see the filial daughters of South Mountain for themselves.

Yi was still very young. Uneasy, she asked, “Sister, the birds only came because they were hungry and wanted the crumbs. Why does everyone say they’re sacred birds with souls?”

“Because people only believe what they want to believe,” I said with a smile.

“Will we go and cry at the grave tomorrow?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because a fleeting glimpse is what makes people long for more, waking and sleeping.”

Yi was not quite convinced. Yet the very next day, a carriage arrived outside the Chen house, and the maid reported that distinguished visitors had come from the capital.