Chapter 4

That voice…

I had heard it somewhere before.

I looked back and saw the face of Third Young Master Gu, stripped of its fox mask.

Him?

Oh. Him.

Madam Gu was in for a blessed reunion.

I had heard that Concubine Shuang, Gu Zheng’s mother, had been hounded to death by Madam Gu. Before she died, Madam Gu even had her taken away and sold.

Gu Zheng had been too young to protect her. He could only watch as she was dragged away. Not long afterward, she was dead.

Swimming in a pool and swimming in a wild river were entirely different things. I managed for a while, then gave up and floated on my back, letting the current carry me.

At dusk, I finally crawled ashore where the water slowed.

I threw my buoyant shoes back into the river and climbed through the grass.

It was spring, but the night air was still cold.

I wandered into a wood and meant to climb a tree, but my hands and feet were stiff.

Then I heard the distant howl of a wolf.

I froze. As I tried once more to climb, green eyes appeared all around me.

Wolves were like dogs in one respect: if you ran, you were finished. I bent slowly, staring at them, and reached for a dead branch.

The instant I leaned down, the lead wolf sprang.

Oh, hell.

I spun around and ran with a howl of my own. A rush of fetid heat came from behind.

So this was how I died!

An arrow hissed through the air and struck the ground before the wolf.

A stallion screamed. In an instant, my feet left the ground and I landed across a saddle.

The young, powerfully built herdsman did not look back. Wolves howled behind us.

My rescuer belonged to the Anyang Tribe of the Northern Rong. His name was Anyang Ge.

Only when he set me down did he see my face clearly. I thanked him with a formal bow.

Firelight reddened his dark cheeks. “No need for such courtesy, young lady.”

I told him I had fallen into the river after becoming separated from my family. I could not remember where I had come from or how to return.

Kindheartedly, he took me in. He brought me to his mother’s tent and found a set of clothes she had worn when she was young. Once I put them on and braided my hair into little plaits, I looked almost like a Northern Rong girl from the Anyang Tribe.

Anyang Ge studied me for quite a while, then smiled.

The Anyang Tribe was small. It depended on the Danyang Tribe, whose chief was the most powerful prince of the Northern Rong, and made regular tribute payments in horses.

War had made horses scarce. Not one could be lost.

After bringing me home, Anyang Ge went out again to search for the missing horse. Fortunately, he found it.

I settled in with his family for the time being.

He was shy and quiet, from a family of modest means. His skill with horses and his riding were among the best in the tribe, making him a valued aide to the chief. Several young women in the tribe admired him.

He no longer seemed interested in any of them.

He brought me fresh goat’s milk and butter tea. Before coming to see me, he washed the sweat from his hands and face. Sometimes he returned with pretty flowers he had picked outside.

I was not stupid. I understood what he meant.

Given my circumstances, settling in this little corner of the world would not have been so bad. At least I was being treated like a person.

But change came quickly.

When the superior officer arrived to collect tribute horses, Anyang Ge was out with the herd. I sat in the tent sewing a new garment for him.

A young woman from the tribe lifted the tent flap and told me to come out as a member of Anyang Ge’s household to help count the horses.

The Northern Rong officer studied me for a long time and stroked his beard with a smile.

The next day, Anyang Ge’s quota and deadline changed.

Ten extra horses. Due by the end of the month.

Unless he stole them, he could never gather so many.

If he failed, the whole tribe would suffer.

Anyang Ge chose theft.

He took several men to rob a gang of thieves, but the thieves captured them instead.

Their demand was simple: ransom money.

Along with the demand came a severed little finger.

His mother gathered every coin the family possessed. It was not enough.

That night, someone tied me up in my sleep.

His mother sold me with tears in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, good daughter. But Ge is my only child. I can’t—I am so sorry…”

I could not break free, so I stopped struggling.

Outside, the buyer haggling over me was also a woman. She kept forcing the price down.

I sighed. “Enough. Raise your offer by twenty taels, or I’ll bite off my tongue right now.”

The procuress looked at me, clenched her teeth, stamped her foot, and agreed.

Anyang Ge’s mother gazed at me through her tears as I was blindfolded and thrown onto a cart.

Then I heard her wiping her eyes and saying, “That coat she’s wearing is mine too. Can you add another tael?”

In a world at war, it seemed that everyone but you had the power to decide your fate.

To live as an ordinary commoner was to turn yourself into grass beneath someone else’s blade.

That was the tragedy of the powerless.