Chapter 3

I was eight that year, old enough to understand the meaning hidden in my mother’s words.

I knew my father was no ordinary man.

Once, when my mother was unhappy, she sat alone drinking beneath the moon.

After she became drunk, she slumped over the table and wept under her breath, cursing someone. I listened for a long time before I finally caught his name.

He was Song Yanchang.

I did not know how many men in the capital shared that name, but everyone knew the most famous one.

He was Song Yanchang, the current Grand Tutor, a man renowned for his integrity and lofty character. After that night, I secretly waited outside the Song residence for half a day until I finally saw the Grand Tutor leave.

One glance was enough. I knew he was my father.

We looked too much alike.

But he was holding another daughter in his arms.

Her name was Song Zhixin, his only acknowledged daughter.

Father and daughter laughed together. Song Zhixin was sweet and charming, her delicate face as flawless as a jade maiden beside the Goddess of Mercy.

She whispered something in Song Yanchang’s ear. He burst out laughing and reached up to pinch her little cheek.

The two of them passed right by me, wrapped in their own happiness. Neither spared me a glance.

I was disappointed, but not heartbroken. I might not have had a father, but I had the best mother in the world.

I knew how much she suffered, so I worked hard at embroidery and stitched handkerchiefs to sell for silver.

For every ten extra handkerchiefs I finished, my mother could be spared one more client’s abuse.

We endured like that, day and night, until the year I turned fifteen, when at last we saved enough to buy our freedom.

When we handed Madam Huang the silver and received our two indenture deeds, my mother and I clung to each other and wept.

The women of the house wept with us. In twos and threes, they pressed jewelry, clothing, and silver into our hands.

“Once you leave, never look back. Live well.”

“Never trust a man!”

“Take care of yourselves!”

Whether they had gotten along with my mother in the past or quarreled with her, in that moment they sincerely wished us a better life.

That night, my mother and I fell asleep in each other’s arms. We dreamed aloud of finding a place to live quietly, raising a few chickens and a pig, and clearing two plots of land.

Whenever the picture grew especially lovely, we looked at each other and smiled. That moment was so sweet, so full of happiness.

We did not fall asleep until deep into the night.

When I woke again, it was already noon the next day.

I called for Mother several times, but she did not answer.

I got up and found a pot of porridge still warm on the stove. I assumed she had gone out to buy supplies for our journey home.

I drank the porridge and waited patiently.

But the sun sank behind the western hills, and still she did not return.

Panic seized me. I rushed out to look for her.