Chapter 5

Chapter 5

In any case, Xiao Wan really did start taking clients.

She was eighteen. Around here, that was not considered young.

Take me, for example. I entered the trade at fourteen. Hongying entered at twelve. Even now, I’m only twenty, and Hongying is twenty-two. Neither of us is that much older than Xiao Wan.

There were younger girls among us too, fourteen or fifteen, fresh and dewy, their eyes watery and timid when they looked at people.

But we worked day and night without rest, and we never got enough rich food to nourish us. Our bodies were hollowed out, worn too thin. Xiao Wan looked like someone raised and spoiled by a decent family. Her skin was fair and soft, with flesh on her bones. There were no spots or scars on her face, and she was tall-taller than any of us.

When she was first let out, she had been covered in injuries, so weak she could not move. Madam told me to help wash her. I looked her over carefully. Aside from one tiny scar on her upper arm, there wasn’t a mark on her body.

Now I truly half believed she had been a Manchu princess from the old Qing.

So even though she was already not that young, she was still terribly popular.

From the moment Drunken Fragrance Pavilion opened its doors for business, her room was never empty. At the busiest, she took more than a dozen clients in a single day, and at night she could still be booked by an overnight guest.

I knew what that felt like. It was enough to make a person wish she were dead. Every day, despair showed through her face, but her eyes grew firmer by the day.

When she was not receiving clients, she chatted with us. She was no longer the same girl who had arrived with her nose in the air.

Perhaps it was my imagination, but sometimes I felt that when she looked at us, there was even pity in her eyes.

The questions she asked were all hard ones to answer. How many thugs did Madam keep? How much did it cost to redeem oneself? Did the Patrol Police Office on this side actually do anything?

I knew she wanted to run.

“Madam doesn’t keep that many thugs. Four of them, all Ah Hai’s relatives and sworn brothers. But Xiao Wan, this isn’t just anywhere. This is Pink Butterfly Alley.”

Nearly every brothel and pleasure house in the city was here.

“If you step out the doors of Drunken Fragrance Pavilion now, you won’t make it more than a few dozen paces before people from another house drag you back. Then you’ll probably get another vicious beating… You can’t get out of Pink Butterfly Alley.

“To redeem yourself costs five hundred silver dollars. If you pay in paper notes, the number goes up.

“Last year, a girl saved up five hundred silver dollars and gave it to Madam to buy her freedom. Madam swallowed the money, then refused to admit anything had happened and told her to keep working.”

Xiao Wan asked me in panic what had happened to her. “And then? No one stood up for justice?”

“She cried for a while. That same night, she hanged herself in her own room.”

I remembered the sight of that sister swaying from the roof beam, drool spilled all over the floor. When we saw her, we were frightened and heartbroken, always feeling that her today would be our tomorrow.

And Madam, as if venting her rage, whipped her corpse more than a dozen times.

Because there was no way any of us could save five hundred silver dollars on our own. She must have used some method to pry silver and valuables out of her clients.

She was that capable, yet she died just like that. Madam resented her for not staying alive to earn money.

I shook my head and stopped thinking about that sister.

“If an outside client redeems you, that goes a little better. The year I first came, a girl caught the eye of an army officer. He paid eight hundred silver dollars and took her away.

“As for the Patrol Police Office, don’t put too much faith in them. From the county magistrate down to the Patrol Police Office, every one of them takes money from the brothels. No one is going to care about you.”

She seemed to steel herself, gritting her teeth. “Then I’ll set fire to Drunken Fragrance Pavilion…”

“Someone has tried that before.”

She froze.

“Someone has tried that before,” I said, piercing through her fantasy. I imagine my expression then must have been very cold. “The fire was discovered and put out before it could even spread. Because no one admitted to setting it, in the end everyone was beaten half to death. For three whole days, no one was given any food, but we still had to take clients.

“One sister was so dizzy from hunger that when she went downstairs, she missed a step and fell. She ended up paralyzed, and they sold her to the lower houses. No one knows what happened to her, or whether she’s still alive now.

“Another sister met a client who was too rough. She had been starving for too long, and he tormented her to death right there in bed. She lived next door to me at the time. I didn’t have a client then, and I heard her wailing until she breathed her last.

“That client was a bandit, not someone easy to get rid of. After killing a girl, he still said she couldn’t take a little handling and had brought him bad luck.

“In the end, Madam paid money to settle it. Madam resented that girl for costing her money, so she found a buyer and sold her off for a ghost marriage.

“When they carried her away, they didn’t even put a stitch of clothing on her. She left naked.”

Xiao Wan instinctively looked toward the room next to mine. By now, someone else’s name plaque was already hanging there.

Real despair surfaced in her eyes.

“After that fire, no one came to a good end. To this day, everyone grits their teeth and hates the person who set it, only we truly don’t know who it was.

“Fire doesn’t spread that easily. You need oil. Tung oil, vegetable oil, any kind would do, but you can’t get your hands on any, so the fire was doomed never to catch.

“Those beauty posters you thought were so ugly when you first came-the scorch marks from that fire are what they’re covering.

“Oh, and there’s one more path you haven’t thought of. You can pretend to be sick and go out to see a doctor. But Madam won’t spend that money. She won’t even let you rest and recover. If you make your illness sound too serious-if Madam thinks you can’t take clients anymore, she’ll sell you straight to the lower houses.”

Every possible way to get out had already been tried by someone.

But no one could climb out of this boiling oil cauldron with its scalding rim. In the end, they were always burned all over and thrown back in, never able to turn their lives around.

Xiao Wan was booked by another client. With a sigh, she went to greet him.

As she turned away, I clearly saw a tear at the corner of her eye.