Chapter 3

What had I just heard?

The soaring ambitions of a young man and woman—and the fate of the four of us.

A dowry maid? A dowry concubine?

At last, I understood what had felt so wrong.

They called us legitimate daughters of the Marquis’s household, but our names had never entered the clan genealogy. The outside world might not even have known we existed.

They had promised that we could see our families twice a year, but thousands of mountains and rivers lay between us. Our parents had taken the silver, built houses, and found wives for their sons. They had long since forgotten the daughters they sold.

If they did not remember us, their consciences remained quiet. Spending the money became easier too.

I glanced sideways to see whether Yuxi and the others had heard clearly. Yuxi and Nanxi clutched their handkerchiefs tightly, while Yanxi trembled with excitement.

So all of them had heard.

I could not tell what Yuxi and Nanxi were thinking. As for Yanxi, she had probably already begun planning how to seduce the Fifth Prince.

She was only eleven, yet her mind was already a hornet’s nest of schemes.

But in the hands of my elder sister—a clever, ambitious girl with both power and freedom—did Yanxi have any chance of succeeding?

Had she ever wondered what awaited her if she failed?

One of the young ladies asked my elder sister, “Who are those four?”

“Servants.”

“Oh…” Her tone was meaningful. Clearly, everyone understood.

My elder sister said nothing more. She merely glanced toward the maids beside us and lifted her chin. One maid immediately said, “Young ladies, you may return to your rooms.”

Yanxi refused to leave. Her maid pinched her arm viciously.

When she tried to scream, the maid clapped a hand over her mouth.

The warning in the maid’s eyes made Yanxi wilt. She did not dare make another sound.

On the way back to our compound, I put as much distance as possible between Yanxi and myself. I walked quickly, not caring whether she kept up.

Yuxi and Nanxi followed close behind, as though demons were chasing at their heels.

This estate was a demon’s lair. Of course evil spirits were chasing us.

As I entered my little courtyard, I noticed someone crouching under a tree in the flower bed, grunting as he dug at something.

His clothes were made of tribute satin in the latest capital fashion. The Marchioness owned several dresses of the same fabric and treasured every one.

Who was that enormous lump of a person?

After a moment’s hesitation, I pretended to be curious and walked up behind him.

He startled, fell onto the ground, and stared at me in terror. Tears instantly welled in his eyes.

“Y-you-you…”

Was he a stutterer?

“You scared me. You’re bad.”

With that, he burst into tears.

Such a large man, crying at the drop of a hat. It was almost painful to watch.

Alarmed, I backed away several steps and hurriedly took a sweet from my purse, holding it out to him. “I’ll give you a sweet. Please stop crying, all right?”

At the sight of it, his tears vanished. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and grinned. “Thank you, Big Sister. You’re so nice.”

He took the sweet from me and stuffed it straight into his mouth without caring whether his muddy hands were dirty.

“It’s dirty.”

My warning came too late.

He had already put it in his mouth. He spat it out with several ptooey sounds, stared at the sweet smeared with mud, and burst into tears again. “My sweet!”

I understood. He was a fool—and the foolish son of a wealthy family at that.

“Don’t cry. I’ll give you another.”

He brightened at once.

When he reached toward me with tear-filled eyes, he noticed the mud on his hands and hurriedly wiped them on his clothes.

When several swipes failed to clean them, he looked ready to cry again.

“Open your mouth.”

Obediently, he did. Before he could cry, I popped the sweet between his lips.

Once he tasted it, he beamed with delight.

Then he showed me the flower he had been digging up.

“This flower is so pretty. I want to dig it up and take it back to Father Emperor.”

So he really was the emperor’s foolish son—digging up flowers in a subject’s garden.

As he prepared to leave, he stared longingly at my purse.

Very cautiously, he asked, “Big Sister, can you give me one more sweet?”

A man taller and older than I was calling me Big Sister. Gooseflesh rose all over me.

After a moment’s thought, I gave him the entire purse. There were only a few sweets left, and I did not eat them anyway.

If he remembered me or offered even a single word of praise, that alone might give me a way out.