Chapter 2

My mother was the daughter of a concubine in Count Cheng’en’s household.

Years ago, her legitimate elder sister died and left behind two children. The family immediately married my mother to the widower as his second wife.

She spent every day on thin ice, cautious in word and deed. Only after giving birth to me did she feel her life might finally hold some hope.

Unfortunately, although I was a pretty little thing, there was something simple-minded about everything I did. At three, I still could not speak.

Mother took me to doctor after doctor. Every one of them said there was nothing wrong with me.

Remembering the past, she hugged me and cried. “I will never forget the first time you spoke. You were five years old.”

My brother had been using her as a target for his slingshot. She dodged, but a stone still split her forehead.

At the sight of blood, I shouted, “Don’t bully my mother!”

I charged over, lifted my brother above my head, and threw him into the pond.

He caught a chill and ran such a high fever that night that he began to rave.

Father was furious. He made me kneel in the ancestral hall and prepared to whip me.

I was only five, but I was not afraid. I stared straight at him and said stoutly, “I don’t want to be hit. If you hit me, I’ll hit you.”

“You really are a witless child!” Father roared. “What will happen to my reputation if anyone hears of this?”

At that age, I could not understand why defending yourself when someone hit you made you stupid. It seemed very clever to me.

Father had six servants hold me down while he gave me twenty lashes.

I lost consciousness.

Mother nearly cried herself blind, certain I would not survive.

Yet a month later, I was as lively as ever.

Once my wounds healed, I waited for Father to come home every day.

In the blazing summer heat, I stood on the roof and dumped night soil over him. The stench made him unable to eat for five days, and he wasted away until he fell ill.

When he recovered, I put worms in his rice bowl. He jumped at every meal and lost his appetite again.

He fell sick a second time and ended up little more than skin and bone.

Father sent men to catch and beat me again.

But I was not stupid. Why would I stand there and wait to be whipped?

I stole his silver, left Mother a message, and ran away. When the money was gone, I came back to torment him some more.

At last, Father snarled through clenched teeth, “You are my living ancestor! Tell me—what will it take to make peace?”

I thought about it. “No one is allowed to bully my mother.”

He immediately ordered my brother and half-sister to leave her alone.

Looking back on those years, Mother laughed and wept at once. “Everyone says my Yupu is a fool, but I say they are the fools. My daughter knew how to protect her mother when she was barely old enough to walk. You have the kindest heart of any child.”

Father and I made peace.

My siblings did not.

My brother tripped Mother and nearly sent her into the lake. My half-sister ordered the kitchen to serve us spoiled food.

I smashed the bowl on the spot.

Then I grabbed a spear and marched straight to my brother. His attendants tried to stop me.

“Anyone who isn’t afraid to die, come at me!” I bellowed.

I was six years old.

But I ate four bowls of rice and one bowl of meat every day. I was tall, strong, and savage when I fought.

The attendants knew how powerful I was. They cowered rather than risk their lives to stop me.

That was when I learned that anyone willing to stake their life had already won half the battle.

The attendants left an opening, and I seized my brother. I hung him up with half his body submerged in a bucket of night soil.

As for my half-sister, I tied her down and fed her bowl after bowl of spoiled rice.

Father came home to find the courtyard in uproar.

He recoiled in horror. “Once you’ve beaten them, you are not allowed to beat me!”

There was nothing he could do. I ran faster than a rabbit, and he could hardly make a spectacle of hunting me through the capital without humiliating himself.

That taught me another truth: cast aside shame and propriety, and you won the other half.

Someone like me, who feared neither death nor disgrace, was invincible!

“Lin Yupu,” Father thundered, “you can run, but can your mother?”

I looked him in the eye. “I can’t support her yet, so she cannot leave. But I will grow up one day. Lin Changqing, if you hurt her, I will kill you.”

He stared at me in disbelief, lips trembling. “You really are a little demon! Threatening to murder your own father at six—what will you be like when you grow up?”

I considered the question seriously. “Even more formidable. I won’t just dare to kill my father. I’ll dare to kill my brother and sister too.”

My siblings had been about to enter. They heard me and fled.

Mother was worried too. “Yupu, it is because I am useless that you have had to fight and kill from such a young age. Tell me honestly: when you run away each month, who are you with?”

I had a master.

The first time I ran away, at five, she sat drinking atop a wall while I beat a gang of child traffickers in the street.

She laughed. “A straightforward heart, extraordinary bones, and monstrous strength. You were born to command armies. Little girl, would you like to take me as your master?”

I shook my head.

I was too young to know what taking a master meant. I only knew better than to trust strangers who approached me.

Yet every time I ran away, I met her again.

“Anger in her words and murder in her rage,” she said approvingly. “I have not met such an untamed child in many years.”

She taught me martial arts and took me to sit outside a private school so I could listen to the lessons.

“At birth, people are naturally good,” the teacher recited.

I asked, “Who decides what is good and evil?”

“You do,” my master replied.

“Then who judges right and wrong?”

“Your fists.”

I nodded, knelt, and knocked my forehead against the ground three times. “I accept you as my master.”

By the time I was eight, Father could tolerate me no longer.

He thought I was stupid beyond saving. I knew nothing of music, chess, calligraphy, or painting, but I had mastered cudgels, blades, spears, and swords. I knew nothing of proper ethics or ritual. Whenever anyone tried to lecture me, I asked whether they wanted to eat night soil again.

Everyone knew Minister Lin had a second daughter, yet no one had ever seen me.

Mother worried. Girls in the capital began attending social gatherings at eight. A few years later, they would be betrothed.

Father feared I would disgrace the Lin name in public.

Mother feared something else. “A girl must marry eventually. But my Yupu is so special, a one-of-a-kind gift from Heaven. How could any mediocre man in this world deserve you?”

Everyone else called me a fool. Mother alone thought me extraordinary.

Father made up his mind to send me to a Taoist convent in Jiangnan and have me locked away.

When Mother learned of it, she met my master and decided to send me with her to the frontier.

That year’s Lantern Festival, Mother held my hand and walked with me all night. She cried enough tears to fill the Yongding River.

She held me close. “Yupu, I have neither ability nor wisdom, but your master possesses both. Go with her and behave yourself. I will send you silver every month.”

I left with my master and left Father a note.

“Treat my mother well. I will always be watching you.”

Ten years passed.

Now I was home.

When Mother asked why I had returned, I rested my head in her lap and answered earnestly, “I’m grown now, Mother. I can take care of you.”

Her tears fell like rain.

“My good Yupu! I have missed you every day!” She held me and sobbed.

Her room was crammed with all the things she had bought for me over the years.

I could see every bit of the longing she had carried.