Chapter 1

Wang the Mute could not speak.

No one knew how he had lost his voice. All anyone knew was that, ever since Qingyun Lane had opened to trade, a mute man surnamed Wang had sat on the corner sanding wood.

Wang was short and squat, and awkward in his movements.

My mother was soft and lovely as a flower, with a graceful figure.

They lived on the same lane, but otherwise their lives had nothing to do with each other.

Then, when my mother was sixteen, her monthly bleeding failed to come. Granny noticed something was wrong and called in a woman physician. Only then did they discover that my mother was five months pregnant.

Furious, Granny beat her and shouted at her until she named her lover.

It was Chen Qinghe, the licentiate who lived at the far end of Qingyun Lane.

In a lane full of peasants, Chen Qinghe counted as a learned man.

He had passed the licentiate examination at twelve. Even the magistrate called him the God of Literature come down to earth. Unfortunately, after twelve years in the mortal world, that god seemed to have gone back to heaven.

After gaining his licentiate degree, Chen Qinghe failed one examination after another and never advanced.

By twenty-seven or twenty-eight, he was scraping by in a thatched cottage with his old mother.

Whenever he heard that someone else’s son had passed an examination with distinction, he would spit and sneer, “So what if he passed? He has a long road ahead. Who knows how he’ll end up?”

Yet my mother willingly humbled herself before this sour, pedantic scholar.

All because Chen Qinghe had promised to write poems about her and preserve her beauty for posterity.

Her name had yet to go down in history, but they had already been intimate several times.

By then, the pregnancy was five months along. Ending it was no longer an option.

Granny had to swallow her pride and go to the Chens to arrange a marriage.

But the licentiate had already heard the news. Three days earlier, he had packed his bags and fled to the capital.

His mother, Madam Zhang, had a vicious temper. When she heard why Granny had come, she raised her broom and swung it at her.

“You say it’s my son’s child, so it must be his? You think you can dump some filthy slut on our doorstep? Get out!”

There was nothing Granny could do but slink home.

Grandpa was furious. He said my mother ought to be drowned in the pond.

Granny cried all night. In the end, she could not bear to let that happen.

The next day, she sent a matchmaker to Wang’s house.

Granny was honest. She had no intention of concealing anything and explained my mother’s circumstances in full. She expected Wang to take some persuading.

Instead, he agreed at once. Three days later, he brought betrothal gifts as generous as those of any ordinary bridegroom.

And so my mother married Wang the Mute.

Unfortunately, the woman physician Granny had called was a gossip. Within days, all of Qingyun Lane knew the scandal: my mother had conceived a child out of wedlock.

Humiliated and angry, my mother shut herself indoors.

Everyone in the neighborhood had advice for Wang.

Some told him to get rid of the bastard with a strong dose of medicine. Others told him to write a divorce letter and throw my mother out.

Wang only smiled, turned around, and sent for the best midwife for miles.

And not long afterward, I was born.