Chapter 2

Mama died when I was ten.

Winter had already come. In her thin clothes, her frail body curled on the bare bed boards. I could even hear her bones rubbing against the wood.

I ran to Father’s courtyard to ask him to summon a physician for her.

I wanted to tell him that Mama had coughed for years, that she was always unhappy and had never received treatment, and to beg him to come and see her just once.

But when I reached his courtyard, the manservants stopped me. Father was busy with official duties all day and retired early at night, they said. He had ordered that no one disturb him.

Then what were those breathy moans and creaking noises coming from the side chamber?

I knelt and knocked my forehead against the ground until it was almost battered raw, but I still did not see Father.

With no other choice, I took Mama’s favorite hairpin and begged an old woman in the kitchen for some hot water.

I set a foot warmer at Mama’s feet and held her hands, breathing on them. But my breath was cold. Nothing I did could warm her blue-purple hands.

Her violent coughing filled the room, yet it could not escape that neglected, dilapidated little courtyard.

Snow began to fall outside. Mama spoke her last words. “My Sisi, whatever will become of you…?”

The room fell quiet. My tears made no sound as they dropped, just as the passing of a life stirred not a ripple in the duke’s household, flourishing in all its splendor.

Mama was buried the day the snow stopped.

There were no white mourning clothes, no wailing. Only three lonely sticks of incense marked the loss of a life.

Our household was known for its benevolence. Afraid that someone would use his mistreatment of his concubines and children against him, Father immediately ordered the little courtyard locked and placed me in his principal wife’s care.

Mother had a son and a daughter of her own. Her family was a great clan a hundred years old, and her position was secure.

She was not beautiful, but she was dignified. Perhaps all the mistresses of great households were like that: solemn and unsmiling.

Most of the time, there was little emotion in Mother’s eyes. Only at the sight of her own two children did a smile of true pleasure appear.

As for me, I was merely a concubine’s daughter whom Father had foisted on her.

One she had neither wanted nor wished to look after.

On my first day in Mother’s courtyard, I met my eldest sister.

She was five years older than me, the eldest daughter of Father’s principal wife, and nearly of age to receive her first hairpin. Father doted on her.

She wore a vivid red jacket and skirt. In the sunlight, her delicate skin was almost translucent.

She was so beautiful I could hardly look away.

I, however, had gone hungry for so long that I was sallow and scrawny, less presentable even than one of her second-rank maids.

Frowning, she threw herself into Mother’s arms. “Mother, I won’t live with this ugly thing. Send her away!”

“Don’t talk nonsense. She is your fourth sister.” Mother rebuked her, but held her close and patted her back soothingly.

I stood in the middle of the room with my feet together, like a broken doll tossed from one person to another.

My eldest sister eyed me with disgust. Covering her nose and mouth, she looked me up and down as though I were something filthy.

“Now that you’re here, you’d better not cause any trouble. Otherwise…”

She did not say what would happen otherwise.

I nodded meekly. “Sisi will listen to Mother and Eldest Sister. I won’t cause any trouble.”

My eldest sister wheedled and chattered with Mother until lunchtime.

The maids bringing the meal walked around me and laid out one delicacy after another.

The scent filled the room. I lowered my head and swallowed several times.

After the meal, as a maid served tea, Mother seemed finally to remember that I was still there.

“Choose a few dishes and send them to the fourth young miss’s room.” Then she added, “I’m busy during the day. You girls are to look after her properly.”

That day, I ate the food Mother bestowed on me. Even her leftovers tasted hundreds of times better than what I usually ate.

From now on, I would never have to dig for bamboo shoots in the garden or steal steamed buns from the kitchen again.

Mother housed me in a side room. The bedding was so soft that it no longer dug into my bones.

Even from that side room, the view was lovely. At night, I could open the window and see the moon, sometimes curved like a saber, sometimes disappearing into cloud.

“Mama, Sisi is warm in bed now. Look.”

I spread my fingers in the moonlight shining into the dark. “All the chilblains on Sisi’s hands are healed!

“Sisi is doing very well. Mother even gave me a piece of cake today.”

For a moment, Mama’s face appeared in the hazy moonlight, her eyes sorrowful and filled with hope.

I murmured as I drifted into sleep, “Mama, don’t worry about me… Mama…”