Chapter 1

Chapter 1

For the first three months, I focused mainly on two things:

Observing, and making myself look harmless and useless.

The West Third Institute had twelve crooked, dilapidated rooms in all, housing eight ruined people.

Aside from Attendant Li and me, there were:

Consort Zhao, once a palace maid at the Bureau of Medicine. She had been deposed after something went wrong with a bowl of medicinal soup, and the little finger on her left hand was missing.

Most of the time, she simply stared at the wall in a daze.

Cui’er, a palace maid, was only sixteen. She had been caught stealing a hairpin from her mistress, beaten half to death, and thrown in here. The terror in her eyes never quite faded.

Then there were four matrons so old no one could remember where they had come from, collectively known as Zhang-Wang-Li-Zhao.

All day long, they huddled in a sunlit corner by the wall, like four dust-covered clay statues.

Every morning around eight, that mute old eunuch would come by once.

He would carry in two buckets of filthy water and one bucket of sour rice that no longer resembled food, then dump them into a cracked old vat in the courtyard.

That was our rations for the entire day.

Rain or shine, without fail-and with utter indifference.

The days were like congealed lard, greasy and sticky, smearing themselves over each passing day.

The turning point came with the first snow after winter set in.

Cui’er came down with a high fever in the night. Curled up on a thin straw mat, she shivered violently and muttered nonsense.

Attendant Li went to pound on that creaking, rotten wooden door. She pounded for a full quarter of an hour, until her palms were red, before the mute eunuch finally arrived at a leisurely pace. He gestured:

Imperial physicians did not come for people in the cold palace. That was the rule.

I walked over and stood in front of the howling north wind. Slowly, I said to the eunuch,

“Sorry to trouble you with this errand, Eunuch. I have a silver hairpin at the bottom of my trunk. It’s old, but it is solid silver.

Please bring back a packet of cassia twigs tomorrow.”

His cloudy eyes rolled in sockets crusted with sleep. Then he held up three fingers, withered as dead branches.

“Three packets.”

I added, “And some clean cotton cloth. A piece the size of a palm will do.”

A gurgle sounded in his throat. That counted as agreement. Then he turned and vanished into the snowy night.

That night, Attendant Li and I wiped Cui’er down with ice-cold well water.

I tore up the only undershirt I owned that was still somewhat thick and used it as a cloth.

At some point, Consort Zhao had moved over. In the dimness, she said softly,

“Wipe her armpits, the soles of her feet, and her neck.”

Just before dawn, a small oil-paper packet dusted with snow was shoved in through the crack under the door.

Three packets of cassia twigs. Inferior stuff, mixed with broken stems and dirt.

Consort Zhao brought it to her nose and sniffed, then nodded. “Usable.”

The fire came from Matron Zhang. She had hidden away a flint worn almost smooth and a few strands of dry grass fiber.

We crouched in a corner sheltered from the wind and brewed the medicine in a chipped clay pot we had picked up somewhere.

The medicinal steam spread through the moldy air, and somehow, it brought a strange trace of warmth.

Cui’er survived.

After she woke, she knelt on the freezing ground and kowtowed to us, her forehead striking the floor with heavy thuds.

I helped her up and pressed a hand to her thin shoulder.

“Remember this. You owe me your life.”

This was not kindness. In this stagnant pool of deathly still water, it was my first clear investment.