Chapter 1
Chapter 1
On the day Mother was buried, Father gave me three copper coins.
He said he wanted candied hawthorns and told me to buy him some.
“Go farther,” he instructed. “The shop on West Street makes the sweetest ones.”
I spent half the day walking there and back, only to find him gone.
I waited at home for two days. When hunger finally became unbearable, I went looking for him.
I walked from daylight until nightfall.
At last, I found him at the lantern festival. Beside him stood a lady beautiful as a fairy, and in his arms was a little girl.
She, too, held a skewer of candied hawthorns.
“Daddy, have some,” she said.
He smiled and shook his head. “Good girl, Yuanyuan. Daddy doesn’t like sweets. You eat it.”
So he had lied to me.
He did not like candied hawthorns at all.
And he did not like me.
But I had not even unwrapped the skewer I bought. Throwing it away would be such a waste.
Not far away, in a teahouse, someone was pleading, “Your Highness, please. Take your medicine.”
After a moment’s thought, I walked over and offered my candied hawthorns to the handsome young man who refused to drink his medicine.
“Are you afraid it’ll taste bitter?”
“I have candied hawthorns. They’re very sweet. You can have them.”
Perhaps I had approached too suddenly. The handsome young man stared at me, startled.
A gust of wind came. He began coughing so hard that his already pale face turned even whiter.
The black-clad man beside him darkened. Without thinking, he shoved me away and hurried forward to rub the young man’s back.
“Where did this child come from? Go away.”
“Your Highness, are you all right?”
I had not eaten in two days. I was too weak to keep my balance and fell.
The candied hawthorns I had clutched for three days slipped from my hand and landed in the muddy water with a plop.
I stared at the skewer, its paper wrapper soaking through.
So they did not want it either.
That was all right, then.
I picked it up and trudged away with my head hanging.
But a voice called from behind me. “Wait.”
When I turned, the handsome young man had stopped coughing and was slowly walking toward me.
He wore beautiful white robes and carried a painted paper umbrella.
When he crouched before me, he tilted it so the drifting snow fell on him instead of me.
He was so handsome.
But he also looked very ill. Those few steps had left him breathless, and it took him a long while to recover.
“Little girl, what is your name?”
He looked so sad that I forgot Mother’s warning never to speak to strangers.
“Ah Yao.”
“How old are you?”
“Six.”
He froze again. He was smiling, yet he looked as if he might cry.
His voice was impossibly soft. “Why are you alone on such a cold day? Where are your parents?”
I had not meant to cry. I had thought I could hold it in.
But when I saw his reddened eyes and heard the concern in his voice, the tears came spilling out.
“Mother died.”
“And Father… doesn’t want the candied hawthorns. He doesn’t want me either.”
Father did not want me.
I had known since the beginning of the year.
When I was two, he left home for the capital to sit the imperial examinations. He promised that once he succeeded, he would return for Mother and me.
Three years passed without a word.
The village women would say, “Your Zhou has probably become an official in the capital and married someone else. Why would he remember the two of you?”
Mother insisted she did not believe them, but she sent letter after letter to the capital.
At the start of the year, Father finally returned. He rode a tall horse and wore fine clothes, just like the hero in Mother’s stories.
But he had not come to take us with him.
He quarreled terribly with Mother.
“Yunniang, I have wronged you,” he said.
“Sign the divorce papers. Do not make this difficult for me.”
I did not understand his words. I only knew Mother was heartbroken.
And Father had changed.
He did not sweep me into his arms as he had when I was little. He stayed less than two days before leaving again.
He took neither Mother nor me.
After that, Mother fell ill. She worsened by the day, and the physician said she would not survive the winter.
So she brought me to the capital.
Xianzhou was so very far away. Throughout the journey, Mother would tell me with red-rimmed eyes,
“When you meet your father in the capital, Yao’er, you must smile.”
“If I am gone, don’t cry. You must be good—good enough that your father will keep you.”
“Remember what I taught you. Obey him. The less you say, the fewer mistakes you’ll make. Work hard, all right?”
“Yao’er, your mother is useless, but you must live. You must survive…”
I remembered every word.
So on our first night in the capital, Father came secretly after dark. I heard Mother tell him, “You want me to sign the divorce papers, don’t you?”
“I will. Just keep Yao’er. Give her a way to live and a mouthful of food.”
I did not cry.
When Mother’s body turned cold and I understood that I would never see her again, I hid my tears where Father could not see.
When I overheard him call me a jinx who had killed her, I did not argue.
And after we buried Mother, when Father gave me three copper coins and insisted I go all the way to West Street for candied hawthorns, I did not ask why I had to go so far.
I only hesitated.
“Father, have you forgotten? I don’t like candied hawthorns.”
He stared at me for a long time. At last, he patted my head and sighed.
“Go buy them. I like them.”