Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The moment I finished speaking, every maid in the room burst out laughing.

Miss Zhao laughed the hardest. Her voice was like jade beads striking together, crisp and lovely.

“He won’t.” Miss Zhao sat on the canopy bed, slipped off her embroidered shoes, and rested her feet on a little stool.

I immediately found the Jade Complexion Cream on the dressing table, knelt on the floor, and carefully rubbed it onto Miss Zhao’s feet.

Miss Zhao was beautiful, and even her feet were lovely. Even her toenails had an alluring pink sheen.

“Why not?” I asked, puzzled. “Miss Zhao trusts your maidservant that much?”

Miss Zhao lightly covered her lips, tapped my forehead with one finger, and teased, “Because Young Master Pei’s family is full of clever people who are excellent scholars. He won’t like a silly little fool.”

I scratched my head and gave a simple, foolish grin.

That was true.

I looked up at Miss Zhao and went blank again. To me, she was like peach blossoms in March, sweet and radiant, standing out alone in the spring.

Then I lowered my eyes and looked at myself. My waist was thicker than a water bucket, and my whole body was padded with dull, clumsy flesh.

Any man with eyes in his head would never like a fat little fool like me.

Actually, I hadn’t always been this fat.

My family was very poor. Strange, wasn’t it? The poorer people were, the harder they tried to have sons.

In my memories, Mother’s belly was always round and swollen.

She was a woman, yet she hated women. She was always beating us sisters with a broom, cursing us for being useless, for being born without a little handle.

Mother was like a yaksha to us, but in front of Father she was meek and cringing. Not only did she let him beat and scold her, she even handed over every coin she earned from washing clothes so Father could eat, drink, whore, and gamble.

She believed she was guilty, that she had cut off the family line.

Only after she gave birth to Sixth Brother did Mother’s neck finally stiffen with pride.

Sixth Brother was as precious as a phoenix egg, even though he was a fool.

Our family was too poor, and Father was greedy and lazy, so he could only sell his daughters cheap to get by.

The fates of my four older sisters weren’t too miserable. Most of them were sold to wealthy households as rough-work maids.

The luckiest was Third Sister. She was the prettiest, and Butcher Liu from the neighboring village bought her to be his concubine.

That Butcher Liu was old and ugly, greasy all over. You could even see the black hairs under his red, bulbous nose!

I both pitied Third Sister and envied her.

Because after marrying a butcher, she would have meat to eat for the rest of her life.

I had never eaten meat. Once, when I was too hungry, I secretly ate half of Sixth Brother’s egg yolk. Who knew Mother would nearly beat me to death for it?

When I was nine, Father did something unprecedented and bought me a secondhand red padded jacket.

You have to understand, in all the years I had lived, it was the first time I had ever worn clothes that good, that new!

Father washed my face himself, trimmed my nails, and said to me with tears in his eyes, “Wumaozi, Father is going to send you to a good place where you can eat meat. Are you willing?”

I nodded without even thinking. “I’m willing!”

Very soon, I sensed something was wrong and grabbed Father’s hand. “Then are you, Mother, and Sixth Brother going too?”

Father lowered his head. “We’re not going. Only you are going there to enjoy a better life.”