Chapter 4

As Mother’s pregnancy advanced, she found the children in her courtyard too noisy and disruptive to her rest.

She assigned each of us motherless daughters born outside the main marriage to the care of a concubine.

The woman given charge of me was Concubine Zhao.

At first, Concubine Zhao did not like having me with her.

She had no children and did not enjoy raising someone else’s.

But as time passed, she saw that I never spoke, fussed, or made trouble, and her manner toward me softened.

She loved embroidery.

Whenever she embroidered, I sat quietly beside her and watched.

Perhaps she had been lonely for too long. Now that she suddenly had a quiet little child beside her, Concubine Zhao gradually began talking to me.

She said she had no surname. Where she came from, only officials and prominent families possessed surnames.

She was merely a farmer’s daughter. At home, her parents had called her “Eldest Girl.”

Then my father took a fancy to her. He said she resembled the legendary beauty Wang Zhaojun, gave her the character Zhao from that name, and called her Concubine Zhao.

I suddenly thought of my mother.

I had never known her surname or her given name.

Before we returned to the Luo estate, I called her Mama.

Afterward, they told me to call her my lesser mother.

But by then I had become mute. I never called her anything again.

As for Luo Hongsheng? By now, he likely could not even remember her face, much less her name.

Concubine Zhao said that Luo Hongsheng had spent one hundred taels to redeem Concubine Huan from the brothel, and even my mother had cost him ten.

But when Concubine Zhao entered the estate, her parents had asked for no more than one ox before letting someone cart her away on a wooden wagon.

He had called her beautiful, but the novelty lasted only two years.

Now he had forgotten her too.

She gave a bitter laugh.

What good was it for a woman to be valuable?

Concubine Huan had been valuable: the young and beautiful reigning courtesan of her brothel. One hundred taels. She entered the estate believing she would be cherished beyond measure.

And in the end? She was still passed on to another man, made into a stepping-stone on a man’s path to power.

She was registered in the debased class, nothing more.

Concubine Zhao herself might have been worth only an ox, but at least she was a respectable commoner’s daughter. She could not be bought and sold at whim like a toy.

Listening beside her, I thought that no matter how they compared their prices, every one of them was pitiful.

Mother gave birth to a daughter.

She was deeply disappointed.

She had expected a son.

But the baby was still flesh from her own body, and before long Mother began to dote on her.

Luo Hongsheng only glanced at the little miss on the day Mother emerged from her month of confinement and the baby turned one month old.

He named the child Luo Ying.

After staying only a moment, he left again.

The instant he was gone, Mother ordered the servants to throw away the cup and saucer he had used.

She called them “filthy” and said they made her “sick.”

A young maid accidentally knocked the spoon from the set to the floor and was dragged away.

Mother watched with cold eyes.

Then she turned and slipped a red gift envelope into my hand.

Beaming, she told me to share in the little miss’s good fortune.

Feeling the few copper coins inside, I lowered my head and thanked her obediently.

I pretended not to see the despair in the eyes of the maid being dragged away.

Those above us could say certain things that people like us were not permitted to hear.

Even if we heard them, we could never repeat them.

Fortunately, I was mute.