1
As far back as I can remember, I had never met my mother. I only heard Auntie Hoa next door say that, to pay for Father’s medical treatment, Mother had sold herself to a trafficker that year. No one knew where she had been taken.
But in the end, Father still died of his illness.
On his deathbed, he was so emaciated that he was little more than skin and bones, yet he kept calling, “Đào’er, Đào’er…”
I knew that was my mother’s name.
There was no money left in the house. We’d borrowed all we could, and couldn’t even afford a coffin.
I decided to do what Mother had done all those years ago: sell myself.
I went to Auntie Vương in the village, but she looked me over for a long while, then shook her head and finally let me go.
Maybe she thought I wasn’t worth much.
Sigh… I’m so useless.
When I got home, Auntie Hoa called out to me from a distance:
“Oh, Mật Nhi! Where have you run off to? Hurry home—an important guest is waiting for you!”
Auntie grabbed me and hurried me back.
As soon as I stepped into the courtyard, I saw a nobleman standing beneath the plum tree outside.
He was truly handsome—more handsome than any of the young nobles who performed at the market.
But… what could someone so exalted want with my family?
I stood nervously in the courtyard as a servant woman decked in gold and silver looked me over. She even bent down and wiped the sweat from my forehead with a fine handkerchief, without the slightest disgust.
I was terribly embarrassed.
“Are you Thẩm Mật?” she asked gently.
I nodded.
“Poor child… Your mother and I once served together in the Marquis’s household. We were like sisters. You can call me Nanny Lưu. Your mother… she passed away a long time ago.”
So Mother had died even before Father…
“Your mother once cared for the heir. We happened to be passing through this area and remembered it was her hometown. Here are sixty taels of silver. Ten are from me, and the heir is giving you the other fifty. Keep them, and take good care of yourself. If you get the chance, visit your mother’s grave in the capital.”
Nanny Lưu placed a pouch of silver in my hand.
Sixty taels… I had never seen so much money in my life.
“Th-thank you, Nanny!” In this situation, how could I dare refuse?
“You don’t need to thank me. If you want to thank someone, thank our heir.”
I was led out into the courtyard. The heir was still standing beneath the plum tree, holding a sprig of blossoms. His long, fair fingers were even lovelier than the plum blossoms.
“Kneel at once!” Nanny Lưu reminded me softly.
I hurriedly knelt and bowed my head low:
“Thank you, my lord!” I didn’t even dare lift my head.
The heir replied blandly:
“You needn’t.”
I couldn’t quite describe his voice. I only knew it was wonderfully pleasant to hear.
The sprig of plum blossoms in the heir’s hand fell to the ground, scattering petals across the courtyard. He seemed to have returned to his luxurious carriage.
“Nanny, let’s go.”
“Yes.”
Nanny Lưu helped me to my feet, exchanged a few brief farewells, then quickly mounted her horse and climbed into the carriage. The whole party departed.
I clutched the sixty taels in my hand, feeling as though I were in a dream.
2
With the money the heir and Nanny Lưu had given me, I spent twenty taels on a little shop with a back courtyard in town. Auntie Hoa and I opened a tofu shop.
As time passed, business became more and more steady.
Perhaps because I was eating well, my figure began to fill out. Quite a few matchmakers came by, hoping to arrange a suitable marriage for me, but I had no intention of marrying. I politely turned them down, saying I was still too young.
I thought I’d save up enough money, then set up a household of my own as a woman in another year or two.
Auntie Hoa scolded me as she ground the beans, saying I shouldn’t turn everyone down. What if I met a good man?
But I was used to letting her words go in one ear and out the other.
I was astonished when a letter from the capital arrived.
I couldn’t read, so I asked the old scholar at the end of the lane to read it for me. The contents were hard to understand, and after reading it, he explained them to me.
In short, the Marquis of Vệ Quốc had suffered a terrible calamity, and they hoped I would come to their aid. The letter was signed “Lưu Tứ Nương.”
Lưu Tứ Nương? It must have been Nanny Lưu from all those years ago.
But… what good could I possibly be? What could a lowly young woman like me do?
After thinking it over for a long while, I still decided to make the trip.
Father had taught me that one must repay kindness.
After all, without those sixty taels, Father could never have been laid to rest, and I wouldn’t have survived to this day.
I counted my money, setting aside a little for Auntie Hoa to keep the business running and converting the rest into banknotes, which I sewed into the lining of my clothes. After taking care of everything, I set off north with a caravan guard.
The journey took more than twenty days by riverboat and then carriage. By the time I could hardly take the vomiting any longer, I had finally reached the capital.
As befitted the capital, it was far more prosperous than the little town where I lived.
But I had no time to take in the sights.
I found a cheap inn, checked in, and began asking around about the marquis’s household mentioned in the letter.
For twenty copper coins, I learned what had happened to the Marquis of Vệ Quốc.
It turned out the Marquis of Vệ Quốc was the Fifth Prince’s father-in-law. A few days ago, the entire household—more than thirty people—had been beheaded for supporting the Fifth Prince’s rebellion and attempted usurpation.
The Fifth Prince had been placed under house arrest for life.
But out of regard for the great contributions made by the Marquis of Vệ Quốc’s ancestors, the emperor showed mercy and spared the lives of two young lords.
Could it be… that everyone else was dead? What about Nanny Lưu?
I paid more to ask around and learned that the bodies of the Marquis of Vệ Quốc and his wife had been placed in the government cemetery. Everyone else had been thrown into the mass grave.
At noon, I borrowed a handcart and loaded it with a flimsy coffin. Following the villagers’ directions, I went to the mass grave.
From a distance, I heard muffled sobbing in the woods.
Nanny Lưu had once shown me kindness. I couldn’t leave her exposed in the wilderness.
Still, I didn’t dare ask anyone for help, afraid I’d bring trouble upon myself.
At the emperor’s very doorstep, even a single person could crush me underfoot.
The mass grave was desolate and bleak. I had been brave since childhood. When I was little, I’d secretly gone to retrieve bodies from the river to earn money for Father’s treatment, so I wasn’t very afraid.
A faint sob reached my ears. Curious, I pushed aside a branch to look.
The first thing I saw was a heap of rotting corpses. Beside it, a frail child was struggling to drag the twisted, disfigured body of an adult.
A deep purple ligature mark circled the corpse’s neck.
The child clenched his teeth and struggled to drag the dead body away.
Under his tattered clothes, his skin had been rubbed raw and was beginning to bleed.
“Triều Nhi… don’t be afraid. Triều Nhi is a son of the Marquis of Vệ Quốc…”
He… just said “Marquis of Vệ Quốc”?
03
The little boy was startled to see me. He scrambled to his feet in a panic and tried to run, but I quickly caught hold of him.
“Let go of me!” He struggled and screamed.
Seeing that, I let go so I wouldn’t hurt him and explained gently, “Don’t be afraid. I’m not a bad person. I only heard you say you belonged to the Marquis of Vệ Quốc’s household…”
He still looked suspicious, so I explained my background and situation to him.
He fell silent and stopped shouting. Wiping the dirt and tears from his face, he looked at me seriously. “Did Nanny Lưu really call you here?”
I nodded. “I think so.”
The little boy’s expression didn’t change. He pointed at a corpse. “Nanny’s over there.”
I circled back, took hold of the handcart, and pulled it along the main road. The coffin was rather heavy, and I gritted my teeth as I dragged it forward.
The little boy glanced at me several times, seeming to want to say something but holding back. At last, he came over to lend a hand.
I guessed that this child must be one of the two young masters of the Marquis of Vệ Quốc’s household who had survived, the ones the vegetable seller had mentioned.
The corpse had long since begun to rot. Its eyes were bloodshot, as though it had died with them open. The weather was hot, and the mass grave reeked of decay, flies swarming everywhere.
I had only one coffin, so I could bury Nanny Lưu and no one else.
After that, the child and I dug pits and buried the others.
The little boy seemed not to have expected me to keep helping. After a long while, he softly uttered two words: “Thank you.” If my hearing hadn’t been so sharp, I might not have heard him.
Even with my help, digging graves and burying everyone took until dusk. I was drenched in sweat and so tired I could barely breathe.
I counted again. There were thirteen graves in all. I couldn’t help wondering—hadn’t the vegetable seller said there were more than thirty people?
The little boy explained that some of them had relatives who had taken their bodies home to bury them long ago. The rest had no family and no one to claim them.
They had all been born into the household as servants*. They had treated him well, and he couldn’t leave them to become wandering ghosts.
(*Household-born servants: servants born into their master’s family.)
I asked him if he knew where my mother’s grave was. He said that, as far as he knew, my mother had died of an illness at a country estate and had also been buried on a nearby mountain.
But the estate no longer belonged to the Marquis of Vệ Quốc’s household.
All I could do was sigh helplessly. It seemed I wouldn’t be able to pay my respects to my mother this time.
I knelt before Nanny Lưu’s grave and burned the spirit money I’d brought. The little boy quietly knelt behind me.
As night fell, the spirit money burned to ashes. I bowed my head three times, hard.
“Nanny, may you rest in peace on your journey.”
After tidying up, I stood to leave, but when I looked at the little boy beside me, I hesitated. “Where… are you going?”
At my question, the little boy looked up at me with tear-filled eyes, then suddenly dropped to his knees and begged through his sobs:
“Big sister, please help me. Save my older brother. He’s… going to die. I’m begging you!”
His heart-wrenching cries echoed through the woods.
Older brother? Was he the heir?
I sighed and held the little body trembling from bowing over and over, gently wiping away his tears.
“Don’t cry.”
04
Night had fallen. I lit a torch and followed the little boy, Hàn Mộ Triêu, through a maze of winding alleys until we reached a dilapidated, abandoned temple. All its windows were broken, making it look like a monster with its jaws open, waiting to swallow anyone who came near.
The little boy hurried inside without hesitation. I followed right after him.
Looking around, I saw someone lying on the ground in the right-hand corner of the temple.
“Big brother, Triều Nhi’s back!” The little boy rushed over.
I secured the torch and slowly stepped forward.
An indescribable smell hit me full in the face.
In the firelight, I couldn’t reconcile the ragged beggar-like man before me with the person who had appeared in my dreams.
His eye sockets and cheekbones were sunken, and he was so thin he was little more than skin and bones. His hair had gone uncombed for so long that it was matted into clumps. His clothes were torn and smeared with blood, covered in countless lash marks and scabbed-over wounds.
Worst of all were his hands. His wrists were twisted at unnatural angles, and even his left hand, which was in slightly better shape, was swollen and red. His legs were in an even worse state; both knees were swollen as big as rice bowls.
I shuddered. It seemed… someone had broken his arms and legs.
“Big brother, wake up! Big sister’s here to save us!” The little boy called to him several times and even shook his older brother, but he still didn’t react.