chapter 2

After that day, Matron Wang vouched for me, and I replaced Jixiang inside the Marchioness’s bedchamber.

Before me, only servants born into the household had enjoyed such a “privilege.”

I became quieter and steadier still. Every thought, every glance, seemed devoted to being the perfect living screen.

My obedience pleased the Marchioness. With a wave of her hand, she even gave me the private room she had once bestowed on Jixiang.

I thanked her profusely. When I turned away, I saw Jixiang’s parents gathering their daughter’s belongings.

My fists clenched as I watched the elderly couple silently erase every trace that she had ever existed.

Servants had no rights.

That was the first lesson I learned after I was sold to the Marquis’s estate.

The year I turned seven, drought ravaged the realm.

My parents fled toward the capital with me and my younger brother and sister. Our provisions ran out long before we arrived, and all five of us starved until skin clung to bone.

The instant my parents looked away, refugees seized my little sister and threw her into boiling water.

My parents did not dare fight for her. They only clutched my brother tighter and kept running.

When our begging finally brought us to the Marquis’s gate, the steward happened to be instructing a slave broker to purchase new servants.

My father hardened his heart and shoved me forward. “Please, my lord. Take her in.”

The steward raised a foot to kick him, then saw my face.

“Pretty enough.”

And so I was sold to the estate for ten taels of silver.

When we parted, Mother wept until her voice tore. “Fugui, don’t hate us for being cruel. If you stay with us, you’ll die sooner or later…”

I did not hate them.

Ten taels was enough for them to return home and survive the year of famine.

The first thing they did after I entered the estate was strip me naked and douse me three times from head to toe with well water.

A matron pried open my mouth to inspect my teeth, then examined every inch of me for scars. Afterward, someone else asked whether I could read and what skills I possessed.

I could do nothing.

All I had was a face that would not offend a noble’s eye. It was not enough to serve in the inner household, so I became a cleaning maid.

My monthly wage was two mace of silver, with food and lodging included.

I was too young for heavy labor and too weak to fight the older girls for food. I was always tired and hungry, but I could not cry. If anyone saw, they beat me.

The first time I could endure no more, Matron Zhang from the rear kitchen gave me half a steamed bun.

I swallowed the dry, hard bread almost whole, then knocked my head against the ground before her.

“Please take pity on Fugui. I want to live.”

I knew she had once had a daughter who died young, a girl who would have been about my age. The vast estate was full of schemes and cruelty. She alone was willing to spare me half a bun.

So I clung to her and begged her to save me.

At last, worn down by my pleading, she gritted her teeth. “There is one decent post. Whether you can bear it is another matter.”

That decent post was becoming a living screen.

Zheng Ru demanded elegance and display in all things. As a maiden, she had invented the “living screen,” selecting pretty girls to serve as human furnishings, pleasing to the eye and useful against both summer heat and winter drafts.

But people were not objects. They inevitably failed.

So Zheng Ru hired the harshest matron she could find from the imperial palace to train her screen maids.

They had to stand perfectly straight, sit with grace, and kneel with softness. In every season they wore only thin gauze. On duty, neither wind nor rain could make them stir. A mosquito bite meant nothing. Even boiling water poured over their skin must not draw the slightest flinch.

I was not afraid of pain. I was afraid of dying.

Matron Zhang spent her private savings on blood-swiftlet soup and delivered it to Matron Wang for three days running. At last she bought me a chance to appear before the Marchioness.

That jewel-draped woman glanced at me and nodded.

“Pleasant enough.”

Only then was I permitted to train.

They trained me for five full years. The three-foot bamboo switches they broke across my body could have filled a basket before I finally earned a grudging “acceptable.”

At twelve, I was transferred to Zheng Ru’s courtyard and formally became a screen maid.

The night before my first day, Matron Zhang warmed a pot of wine and sliced a plate of ham for me.

“I have no great ability. All I could do was help you become a living screen.”

“Blame our wretched lot. How can common folk like us afford to think of ourselves as people?”

She wiped the corners of her eyes, then brightened her tone.

“At least you serve in the Marchioness’s courtyard. A single hair from a noble’s body is thicker than our thighs. Behave yourself, suffer for a few years, and you will surely save enough to buy your freedom.”

I had already learned to keep my feelings still. Yet at the mention of freedom, I could not help filling with hope.

“Matron, when I have enough silver, we’ll leave together. You can be my mother, and I’ll care for you in your old age.”

“Yes, yes. We will!”

Beneath the moonlight, the strong wine made her cough through her laughter. A long while later, she stroked my hair.

“Fugui, a person mustn’t be too greedy.”

One must not be greedy. Merely living in peace was already an impossible dream.

I did not understand then.

A year later, Matron Zhang was accused of serving two foods that clashed. They chopped off both her hands.

The woman I had promised to support after buying our freedom bled across the floor and died in agony because Zheng Ru said, “No physician.”