Chapter 1

Chapter 1

“What is your name?”

“Xiao Ming.”

“What did Mei Niang say to you?”

I lifted my head and looked at the man seated in the place of honor. Though his thick beard covered half his face, his sharp brows and bright eyes were almost identical to mine.

When we first met a moment ago, I hadn’t noticed. I thought I’d offended the master of the house by coming here looking for someone and was about to be punished, so I was so frightened that I stammered out everything about why I’d come.

But to my surprise, the moment the high-ranking lord heard that Lady Mei was dead, he calmly asked me the same thing more than a dozen times, confirming again and again that Lady Mei was truly dead. Then he fell silent.

Kneeling on the thick carpet, I started to feel that something was off. The moment I raised my head, the servants took me away, scrubbed me clean, and only brought me back after I had been properly tidied up.

While I was bathing, I began to understand what Lady Mei had meant by “that will depend on your ability.”

Fortune might be found in danger, but after thinking it over again and again, I still said, “Lady Mei said that an old friend of hers worked at Prince Hongyang’s Manor. If I came here to seek shelter, that person could make sure I didn’t starve to death.”

The answer was still perfectly ordinary. Perhaps the man was disappointed, because he stopped speaking. The bootlicker at his side saw that his master was displeased and urged me to say something more.

So I repeated what I had said when I first came in.

I was the adopted daughter of the proprietress of Mei Tower in Jiangcheng. The Yellow River had flooded the whole of Jiangcheng. The proprietress took me and fled the city, but she caught a chill on the road and died of illness. She told me to seek out her old friend. A mouthful of food would be enough, as long as I didn’t starve…

“After she died, how were her remains handled?”

“The soldiers were pressing us hard. They said they were afraid it might be an epidemic, so they burned her with one fire. I didn’t have any kind of jar to put the ashes in, so I picked a dead plum tree and scattered them there.”

He fell silent again. Clearly, he was not satisfied with that answer.

The second time I was brought in, they did not make me kneel, but the pressure of the man in power made me feel as if I were sitting on pins and needles.

“About that old friend… what else did she say to you?”

Here we go again.

I looked down at the carpet beneath my feet. It was a piece from the Western Regions. Lady Mei had owned one about two feet long and two feet wide, so thin it was only a little thicker than a scarf. She had hung it on the wall of the main hall as decoration and said it was worth ten years of my wages. But here, in this manor, it was nothing more than a carpet for anyone to step on.

“That her old friend was rich and could make sure I didn’t starve to death.”

“What else?”

“That her old friend would definitely take care of me.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirteen.”

“And your birthday?”

“I don’t know. Lady Mei picked me up and brought me home.”