Chapter 1

Chapter 1

When He Manor was raided, my father, Grand Secretary He Song, and my three legitimate brothers were flayed and stuffed with straw.

My noble legitimate mother swallowed the gold beads from her hairpin in prison, six in all, but the head jailer refused to let her die. Several guards slapped her and forced their fingers down her throat, tearing the corners of her mouth until blood poured, keeping her alive by force.

Afterward, like the other aunts and matrons of He Manor, some were exiled and others were sold off.

Most of the men were beheaded. The elderly, the weak, the women, and the children were largely banished to the frontier. As for the remaining young female relatives, the prettier ones waited to be auctioned off, while the more ordinary-looking were sent straight to the military brothels.

At the time, my five older sisters, four younger sisters, more than a dozen female cousins, and I had been given a cursory tidying up and were standing on the platform at Qizhuang Office, waiting to be sold.

Anyone who could come to the imperial Qizhuang Office to buy people belonged to a wealthy household.

My sixth sister was bought first. The whispers below said the buyer was from Yanwei Mansion.

Zhang Yanwei was old enough to be her grandfather, a man with one foot already in the grave, and he kept more than a dozen concubines in his household.

My twelve-year-old little cousin was also bought. Her buyer was the Heir Apparent of Wu Commandery Prince Residence. The Heir Apparent was infamous for lust and cruelty, and countless women had died at his hands.

Before the He Family fell, it had countless disciples and followers. I was waiting for a scholar named Zhang Yang to come save me.

His family was poor, so poor they could barely keep a pot boiling, but he had some talent. During the autumn provincial exam, he made the supplementary tribute list. My father thought highly of him but feared backing the wrong horse, so he betrothed me, an unfavored concubine-born daughter, to him.

I had met him once. He was very shy. I thought he probably liked me.

I believed he would gather enough silver to redeem me.

My Ninth Sister He Zhen was waiting too, and the person she was waiting for was no ordinary man. It was the current Fifth Prince.

Ninth Sister had some fame in the capital. She was brilliantly talented and especially skilled at the harp. If the He Family had not fallen, she would have had a real chance to marry the Fifth Prince.

But neither of us saw the person we were waiting for.

I figured Zhang Yang was probably short on money and too ashamed to come.

Someone below mentioned Ninth Sister by name. Her price was the highest, not only because of her talent, but also because she had once been the most dazzling and favored youngest legitimate daughter of the Palace Secretary’s Residence.

Someone wanted to buy her. The buyer was Young Master Li, son of the richest family in the capital. Young Master Li had money, and he wanted to buy her as a gift.

Young Master Li said, “I have a cousin who has been married for four years without any children. I want to buy him a concubine to help bear a child. She must be excellent in every way to be worthy of him.”

My Ninth Sister was unwilling. Her lips pressed into a hard line, and her face looked awful.

She had always been proud and unyielding.

At that moment, I stepped forward and said to the buyer, “My Ninth Sister He Zhen has been frail since childhood and is not suited to bearing children. Buy me instead. Not only am I cheaper, I am healthy, rosy-cheeked, and well suited for childbirth.”

Young Master Li laughed.

I said to Ninth Sister, “Make plans while you can. Stop waiting. Staying alive matters most.”

In response, she cursed me in front of everyone, and her words were especially vicious.

“He Chen, have you no shame? You have utterly disgraced the He Family. Are you really that low? Why do you not just die? I would rather die than lose my chastity.”

Someone below praised her fierce spirit. She was decisive too, slamming her head straight into a pillar on the platform.

In the end, she fainted with her head covered in blood. By the time she woke, the auction was already over. Her Fifth Prince had not come to redeem her, and she had been sent to the military brothels.

She truly had no sense. Even then, she still had not woken up to reality.

By that time, I had already been taken to the Li residence.

As the richest family in the capital, the Li family owned a vast estate with tall buildings and deep courtyards.

I was pushed into a bathing tub and scrubbed clean inside and out. Then I was dressed in fine silks, placed into a sedan chair, and sent on to another manor just as grand and imposing.

Only later did I learn it was Changning Marquis Manor.

That night, the people at the manor bathed me again and rubbed fragrant balm over me. I felt as if they were about to scrub off a layer of my skin.

Then the Marquis, Shen Jiayuan, came over.

Fortunately, he was handsome, with a tall, straight figure, a high nose, and thin lips.

But he was very cold. He did not say a single word to me before putting out the ever-burning lamp.

The bed curtains fell, and the room filled with veiled intimacy.

Ninth Sister said I had disgraced the He Family. I could not help thinking that even when the He Family still stood, my unfavored birth mother, Concubine Yang, and I had already been living miserably.

My father paid us no attention. My legitimate mother stood high above us. The stewards treated people according to their status. In winter, our room did not even have charcoal for heat.

Year-round, I had only those few pieces of clothing, and I was still growing taller. One winter, my old padded jacket had become too small, so I wanted a new one. When I mentioned it to my legitimate mother, she snapped angrily, “Are you accusing me of mistreating you?”

I did not get a new jacket. Instead, I was slapped several times, hard enough to make my head ring, while my legitimate sisters covered their mouths and laughed.

Later, Ninth Sister threw me two padded jackets she no longer wore.

Concubine-born daughters were left for them to bully as they pleased. I still remember one time when my legitimate mother took my sisters to the Grand Commandant’s Residence to watch polo and let me come along too. But when it was time to return, they deliberately did not call for me. The carriage went far ahead, and I walked alone for five whole hours. By the time I made it back to the manor, the sky was already dark.

I was terrified then. On the road, a scoundrel’s carriage kept following me, and I nearly let myself be tricked into going with him. The memory was seared into me.

Ninth Sister had the gall to call me shameless, but what had I done wrong? When I was still a daughter of the He Family, I had never enjoyed a single day of wealth or glory. Now that disaster had struck, was I supposed to die for the family?

No. I still had a younger brother who had been exiled.

My brother, Ah Ying, was only nine years old. He had been sent to the frontier with that group of the old, the weak, the sick, and the crippled.

When my birth mother, Concubine Yang, was sold off by the officials, she wept and said to me, “Ah Chen, save your brother. The frontier is bitterly cold. Your brother will die there.”

I did not know where she had been sold, but she was so foolish. I could barely protect myself. How was I supposed to save him?

But Ah Ying was my own brother.

Because he was a boy, his days in the He Family had been somewhat better than mine. He had been fostered under the main wife’s name.

He studied hard. At such a young age, even when winter left his hands cracked with frost sores, he still kept reading.

Once, with his nose running, he had said to me in a muffled voice, “Elder Sister, when I grow up, I’ll take the imperial examinations too. Then I’ll be able to protect you and Mother.”

My foolish little brother, Ah Ying, was still on the road to exile.

In that freezing cold, starving and chilled to the bone, how long could he last?

I thought I ought to please Marquis Shen, so I called to him softly without thinking. “My lord.”

He glanced at me, his expression unreadable, and covered my mouth with his hand.

So I understood that he did not like me making sounds, and I shut my mouth.

After we were done, I was already exhausted, but I still had to force my aching body to dress and kneel before him to thank him for his favor.

He lifted my chin and asked my name. I answered, He Chen.

He said, “You are the eleventh daughter of the He Family?”

I nodded. He said again, “From now on, you will be called Shiyi Niang.”

He truly was miraculous. He had used my original childhood name to give me a new one.

Early the next morning, I was woken and made to dress, then brought to kowtow to Madam.

Shen Jiayuan’s wife, Lady Qin, was a beauty, but she was stern. Because the He Family had fallen, I was now registered as a slave. I was not even qualified to be his concubine. I was a bedchamber maid, lower even than a concubine.

A bedchamber maid was lowly. Before her masters, she had to stand with her head lowered forever, serving tea and water, massaging legs and shoulders. Whatever Lady Qin wanted me to do, I had to do.

It was the same before Shen Jiayuan. Every night after we were done, I was not allowed to linger in his bed. Even if my bones felt as if they had fallen apart, I had to get up at once, get dressed, and kneel before him to await his orders.

Only later did I learn that Shen Jiayuan and Lady Qin had been married for four years without children, not because Lady Qin was barren, but because Shen Jiayuan rarely spent the night in her rooms.

The couple did not get along. It was said to be because Lady Qin had caused the death of the illegitimate younger sister who had married into Changning Marquis Manor with her, Third Miss Qin.

Third Miss Qin had been the Marquis’s secondary wife, the white moonlight in his heart.

None of that had anything to do with me. I was a gift Young Master Li had given to Shen Jiayuan, a tool for continuing the family line.

Marquis Changning was already twenty-three and had no children. Last year, the manor had also taken in a maidservant for his bedchamber, but there had been no news from her either, and Old Madam was burning with anxiety.

Young Master Li was Old Madam’s nephew and Shen Jiayuan’s cousin. Lady Qin did not dare refuse a woman he had sent.

But Lady Qin was jealous. I knew the methods of great households. She was probably planning to wait until I gave birth, then keep the child and get rid of the mother.

I wanted especially badly to please Shen Jiayuan. Since he did not like me making sounds, I kept my mouth tightly shut.

I worked very hard, doing everything I could to accommodate him.

He was very satisfied, but I collapsed onto the bed and could not get up again.

He did not hurry to make me leave either. His long fingers toyed with a lock of my black hair.

“Shiyi Niang, you are very bold.”

I was not afraid of him. Slowly, I crawled over.

“My lord, whatever you ask this concubine to do, this concubine will do.”

I deliberately tried to please him, looking up at him with wide, innocent eyes, but a cold smile flashed through his gaze, and he pushed me away.

“Tell me. What do you want?”

I swallowed. “I have a younger brother who was sent to the frontier…”

Before I could finish, he cut me off and looked at me with amusement.

“He Ying?”

I hurriedly nodded. For a powerful noble like him, how could he have bought a bedchamber maid without investigating everything about her first?

Sure enough, he said, “Your brother fell gravely ill soon after arriving at the frontier. He nearly died.”

I knelt blankly before him. In his dark eyes, I saw my own faintly trembling body, my long hair loose around me, my gaze unfocused.

He said again, “Since he is your brother, naturally someone must be entrusted to look after him. Don’t worry. For the time being, he won’t die.”

My eyes burned, and I hurriedly kowtowed to him. “Thank you, my lord.”

He lifted my chin. “As long as you behave obediently, you siblings will see each other again one day.”

In my heart, I thought to myself, Am I not obedient enough already? Hah. Men.