Chapter 1

One remark from Madam Huang—that my mother was exceptionally beautiful—saved my life. She made an exception and allowed my mother to give birth to me.

Behind her back, the other women in the brothel said Madam Huang was playing favorites and breaking the rules of Springview House.

From time immemorial, women in brothels had been forbidden to bear children.

It was not entirely impossible, of course. If one of them wanted to keep a child, she had to pay a year’s worth of childbearing money herself.

That “childbearing money” meant the silver she would otherwise have earned entertaining clients.

So long as she made up a full year’s earnings from her private savings, the madam would allow her to have the baby.

A year’s earnings were no small sum. Youth was a courtesan’s livelihood, and a year spent away from clients was a year of income lost.

If she did not save while she was young, she would live worse than a stray dog once age robbed her of her beauty. Almost no one chose to have a child.

There was another taboo as well. If a courtesan became pregnant by a client, she had broken the rules, and men might stop patronizing the establishment altogether.

My mother had not conceived me at Springview House, but the other women still feared that allowing her to give birth would ruin the house’s reputation and destroy their livelihood.

Naturally, they objected.

Madam Huang offered no explanation. She only said mildly, “I am favoring her. But if any of you can match her beauty, I will favor you too.”

No one had anything more to say.

In their trade, youth mattered—but beauty mattered even more.

My mother was lovely, like a lotus rising from clear water, perfect without ornament.

Madam Huang had been delighted the moment she saw her. In my mother, she saw a money tree that would keep bearing silver for the next ten years.

When the slave broker offered my mother below market price, Madam Huang did not ask where she had come from. Even after buying her, she never questioned her identity.

Once, my mother quietly asked, “Madam, aren’t you afraid I might bring trouble to your door?”

Madam Huang looked at her with an unreadable smile. “People may look down on our trade, but once a house like mine has been in business long enough, its connections run deep. We are not so easily bullied.”

“I care only about making silver. Nothing else concerns me.”

Then she glanced at my mother’s belly. “And the child in there is no trouble at all. If it’s a boy, he’ll be a valuable bargaining chip. If someone comes looking, I’ll hand him over and collect a handsome reward.”

“If it’s a girl, even better. I’ll have another money tree.”

Madam Huang burst out laughing, pleased with what she considered a bargain in which she could not lose.