Chapter 6

When Grandmother was alive, I took no part in running the house.

From childhood, I listened to Grandfather’s stories about wandering swordsmen and heroes. In idle moments, I warmed his wine and stole a little cup for myself.

I sat on the heated bed reading all sorts of books and practicing my writing, and learned to make clothes and shoes from Grandmother.

When Grandfather practiced a sequence of boxing moves, I followed along, though I could not have named them.

Song Jin stopped going to school after a year. Grandfather told me privately that his teacher probably had nothing left to teach him.

He stayed in the courtyard every day and only went out when his one close friend, Chen Rong, sent a servant to fetch him.

I had grown up without brothers or sisters. Though he was aloof, he was not unpleasant.

I was full of curiosity about him. When he sat reading beneath the eaves, I squatted beside him and watched, and he ignored me.

Sometimes he practiced calligraphy. I stood nearby, watching his running script flow across the paper with effortless grace.

His formal examination hand, on the other hand, was precise and square.

When he was in a good mood, he painted, mostly landscapes.

I had endless things to tell him: trouble I had caused, books I had read, delicious things I had eaten. I could talk without stopping. Though he never joined in, he never interrupted, either. All in all, I supposed he would do very well for a listener.

Three years passed in a flash.

I had reached fifteen and come of age. If a betrothal was arranged, I could marry at sixteen.

If he passed his examinations, he would be due to marry, too.

For the first time since his mother entered our household, I went specially to see her.

Our family was no great noble clan. Since her arrival, Grandmother had never made her stand attendance or come to pay her respects every morning.

After Grandmother died, Grandfather could not even bear to mention her. They never shared a meal.

I stayed with Grandfather. Matron Wei might find fault with me now and then, but their own position was not secure enough for them to force me to pay my respects every day.

I simply pretended not to understand, and that was that.

She probably did not much want to see me, either.

Behind me came the wet nurse I had found for Manman. I loathed Manman’s mother, but that tiny baby, a red little bundle, cried with her eyes open and cried with them shut. Her mother could not bear the sound. Since Manman’s birth, I wondered whether she had ever properly looked at her.

I had heard Manman crying with hunger while Matron Wei softly urged her mother to feed her.

She had said only that we must find a wet nurse or give her cow’s milk. She could not bear the child crying. It gave her a headache.

Nursing would make her breasts sag, and then she would no longer look pretty.

Such a selfish person, and she had become someone’s mother. What right did she have?

When I entered, the room was stifling. Even with my cloak off, I was sweating.

She lay on her side with her hair loose and a ruby-set band across her forehead. Matron Wei was massaging her legs.

Even after giving birth to another child, her figure had scarcely changed. She remained as perfectly proportioned as ever.

She lifted her eyelids to glance at me, then lowered them again in disgust.

I truly did not understand why. Since she came into our house, I had never called her Mother, but neither had I gone out of my way to make her unhappy.

Perhaps sometimes there really was no reason to dislike someone.

Like the two of us. We did not even need to pretend.