Chapter 3

But Shangguan Yao was pregnant. As her belly grew, her back ached day and night, and she sent for my sister to return and attend her.

My sister was pregnant too. Though a few months behind Shangguan Yao, she was already showing.

“Sister, why did you have to come? Don’t ruin your health over this. It isn’t worth it!”

Whenever I saw her going to rub Shangguan Yao’s aching back late at night, my heart hurt for her.

But she held me in her arms, a gentle smile on her face.

“Our young lady is generous. Fifteen taels a month.”

She smiled, pressing her lips together.

“What does fifteen taels matter? You’re carrying a child yourself.”

I frowned, a little angry.

She said she only had to rub a back. It was no hardship.

I could not persuade her. All I could do was heat water for her feet once her work was done.

Pregnancy had made them terribly swollen.

She would stroke her belly and look at me, smiling.

“Xia’er, I have you, little Bao’er, and my husband. I have something to look forward to now. Nothing feels tiring.”

I smiled too, and rested my cheek against her belly.

“You’ll turn fifteen this year, Xia’er. I’ve prepared a surprise for your coming-of-age.”

She stroked my hair so softly, her smile so tender.

But when I saw her again, she had been dumped in a paupers’ burial ground.

A cold corpse.

Her belly had been cut open. The child, barely seven months along, was gone.

A midwife who still clung to life told me Shangguan Yao had cut my sister open with her own hands.

She had said my sister should count herself fortunate to ease her troubles.

Shangguan Yao’s troubles had begun with her swollen belly.

She was the Minister’s eldest daughter by his principal wife.

Her mother had borne no other child after her, and had spoiled her beyond measure.

Before she married, Shangguan Yao had already formed a secret attachment to a Kunlun slave.

His name was Daji. One of the family’s sons by a concubine had supposedly bought him as a curiosity, something to amuse himself with and show off.

The man had dark skin, a tall, powerful build, and curling hair.

He always went bare-chested, with only a length of coarse cloth wrapped around his lower body.

His strength was immense. He could split a great stone with his bare hand.

He had been in the household barely a month when Shangguan Yao took a fancy to him.

One word from her, and he became her servant.

He stayed at her side each day, and secretly remained in her chamber at night.

Their relationship was a secret no one in the household could speak of.

When the Minister’s wife discovered it, she wanted to send him away.

Shangguan Yao refused to relent and went on hunger strike.

Unable to bear her only daughter’s suffering, her mother thought that closer supervision ought to prevent a disaster.

Perhaps it was only the novelty. In time, Shangguan Yao might tire of him.

Instead, she kept him for three years.

He cured her sleeplessness.

And for his sake, she kept delaying her marriage.

Not until she was twenty did she marry the widowed Marquis.

He was over fifty, thin and frail, with hollow cheeks.

He looked older even than the Minister.

On their wedding night, it took several bowls of tonic before the marriage could be consummated.

Shangguan Yao presented herself as an innocent girl who knew nothing of the world.

In private, she had prepared a packet of chicken blood to smear on the silk cloth.

The Marquis had only three daughters.

Eager for a legitimate son with Shangguan Yao, he went to her courtyard every night.

Whenever he left after spending the night, she would take her anger out on the maids.

Even Sister Chunying, her most favored senior maid, had been struck in the forehead by a porcelain cup.

“That old thing! What can he do except slobber all over my face?”

Then she beckoned Chunying over and whispered a few words in her ear.

Chunying was horrified and tried quietly to dissuade her.

She received two slaps and a threat to sell her to a brothel.

With no choice left, Chunying helped her mistress carry out the secret plan.

Whenever the Marquis slept in another courtyard, Chunying went to the side gate to receive an enormous chest.

But no secret stays hidden forever.

Before long, word spread that Chunying was having an affair with a man from outside. She was beaten to death, her pelvis shattered by the staves.

The man in question vanished without a trace.