chapter 1

The wounds all over my body had festered, and my fever refused to break. I knew that if I could not survive this ordeal, I was as good as dead.

Outside, I heard someone complain that taking in a jinx like me had cost them several taels for nothing. Another voice told them to dump me far away before I spread some plague to the other girls. Even dying several times over would not repay that loss, they said.

One person took my shoulders and another my feet. They threw me onto a handcart and wheeled me away beneath the blazing sun.

The light stabbed my eyes. I had long since gone numb from the pain.

Through the haze, fragments of my short eighteen years flickered before me.

My parents had sold me for a pittance when I was eight. After passing through several hands, I entered the palace as a maid to the Noble Consort. I was plain and forgettable, but I had a quick mind. One of Her Highness’s senior matrons thought well of me and taught me to read for several years. I also learned my way around the kitchen and became a fine cook, good enough that the Noble Consort would occasionally eat what I made.

I had thought that if I stayed obedient, polished my cooking, and saved enough money, I could leave the palace at twenty-five.

But Heaven had other plans. At seventeen, I was appointed the Third Prince’s bedchamber instructor. The Noble Consort allowed me to serve him precisely because I was plain and knew my place. She was certain I would never tempt him into losing himself in lust.

When the Third Prince married at eighteen and moved into his own residence, I went with him.

People said mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law were born enemies. No matter how much the Noble Consort had initially approved of the Third Princess Consort, the two gradually began fighting openly and covertly over the prince. The Third Prince never suffered for their struggle. I, his lowly concubine, did.

One day, the princess consort returned from the palace and summoned me. Because I stepped over the threshold with my left foot first, she accused me of scorning her authority. Her rough servants beat me half to death. Then she casually told her matron to sell me to a broker, with only one condition: I was to be sent far away.

Did she imagine the Third Prince cared for me? That the Noble Consort would send someone looking?

There was no place colder than the imperial family. I was no peerless beauty who had won the prince’s heart. The Noble Consort probably had not even remembered my name, much less cared whether I lived or died.

And still, I had been required to kowtow and thank them for their mercy.

Before they tossed my battered body into the cart, they wrenched the gold bracelet bestowed by the Noble Consort from my wrist. As for the money I had saved…

Ah.

In the delirium of the past few days, I had believed death was upon me more than once.

But I could not accept it.

I was only eighteen, in what should have been the finest years of my life. I had never known freedom. I had never truly lived a single day for myself. How could I willingly die?

So when the jingle of bells drew near, I reached out on instinct.

My hand closed around a man’s sleeve.

The sun burned too fiercely for me to open my eyes, but the desperate will to live forced a plea from my lips. “Save me.”

“Hey, lad, isn’t this fate? Got a wife yet? She came from a wealthy household. Buy her for a bride and you’ll come out ahead.”

“I don’t have any money!”

“Then what are you looking for? Get lost.”

I clung to his sleeve. In my state, he could have shaken me off without the least effort.

I could not see him, but I could feel his hesitation and struggle.

“H-how much?”

“Two taels?”

“That’s too much. I can’t afford it.”

After some haggling, he bought me for one tael of silver.

Even that one tael had been borrowed from his employer.

“You’re buying someone half dead? Cheng An, I don’t mean to lecture you, but that’s more than a year’s wages. What if the woman dies and the silver’s wasted too?”

“Master, I understand.”

One tael was worth three thousand two hundred copper coins. Cheng An borrowed it to buy me.

Then he carried me to a clinic and begged the doctor to treat me.

“Her injuries are severe, and the best time to treat them has already passed. Cheng An, if you want a wife, your uncle here can help arrange one. Trying to save her is like throwing a meat bun to a dog. Why bother?”

“Uncle, please treat her. Whether she survives or not, I’ll accept the outcome.”

In the end, his soft heart saved me.

When I woke again, every part of me ached. Someone pushed open the door. Seeing me awake, he laughed softly and spoke in a local accent I could understand.

“You’re awake. Are you thirsty? Would you like some water?”

I murmured assent.

He fed me carefully with a spoon, but he was so clumsy that water ran down my neck. He had clearly never cared for anyone before. He hurried to wipe it away and apologized. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

He seemed to blush, though his face was so dark from the sun that I could hardly tell. Avoiding my eyes, he rushed on, “Uncle said that if you woke up, you’d live. Don’t worry. I can earn enough to support you.”

Rely on him to support me?

He earned only a few hundred copper coins a month. He had taken an advance on his wages and owed money for medicine and treatment. Could he truly feed me? One more mouth would only make his crushing poverty worse.

But refusing him would be both ungrateful and a path to death. My only choice was to hold on to him with everything I had.

“All right.”

I learned that his name was Cheng An. He was twenty-one, the second son in his family, and unmarried. He worked as a laborer for the Zhao household in the county town, earning two hundred and eighty copper coins a month. His employer provided food, lodging, and one set of clothes for each season.

Before saving me, he kept none of his wages and sent everything home. Now he had taken a one-tael advance and accumulated fees for medicine and treatment. In other words, he would work for nothing for the next two years.

The plain rice porridge and vegetables I ate each day were an expense too.

His mother had already come into town to demand why he had brought no money home. When she learned he had spent more than two years’ wages saving me, she slapped him several times and cursed him for being unfilial.

Cheng An did not tell me any of that. He had not even dared show me his swollen face.

Su Ye, the doctor’s daughter who cared for me, was the one who told me.

“Brother Cheng An’s face swelled up like a pig’s head. It looked terrifying,” she said.

Even so, he never let me go without porridge. My daily medicine cost plenty, and he brought me two old sets of clothes so I would have something clean to wear.

He had done everything anyone could have asked of him.

If he would not speak of it, I would not ask. Once I recovered, I would find a way to repay him.