The Rose and the spider
The house was breathing. That was how it felt to Little Cabbage as she stood in the center of the silent courtyard. The Yang estate, usually a clockwork mechanism of servants and schedules, had fallen into a rare, heavy slumber.
It was a day of social obligations. The formidable Lady Ye and the fragile Lady Zhan had been summoned to a banquet in the city, taking the household staff with them to display the family's prestige. In the tenant quarters of the western wing, Ge Pinlian—the stunted "Dwarf"—had taken his idiot sister to the canal to watch the boats, leaving his wife behind.
For Bi Xiugu, known to all as Little Cabbage, the silence was a narcotic.
She was twenty years old now. The poverty of her life—the smell of fermenting beans, the rough cotton against her skin, the snoring of a husband she had never truly touched—had not dulled her beauty; it had sharpened it, like a blade whetted on a stone. She felt her own loveliness as a physical burden, a jewel she was forced to wear in a pigsty.
Boredom, dangerous and restless, drove her out of her room. She crossed the moon gate into the main garden, ostensibly to find companionship, but in truth, seeking a glimpse of the life she felt she deserved.
She found Lord Yang Naiwu in his private study.
He was not working. The "Noble Lord," the most celebrated scholar in Yuhang, lay sprawled on a daybed of carved rosewood. His outer robe was unbelted, cascading to the floor in a pool of sapphire silk. A book of Tang poetry rested open on his chest, rising and falling with his breath.
He looked like a fallen god, resting between miracles.
He heard the scuff of her cloth shoe—a cheap, clumsy sound against the polished floor—and opened his eyes.
"The house is empty of ghosts," he murmured, his voice thick with sleep, "yet a flower walks in."
Little Cabbage froze, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. "My Lord... I thought you were gone."
"And leave my ancestors unguarded?" He sat up, the movement fluid and languid. "I am keeping watch. As are you."
He stood and walked toward her. In the rigid hierarchy of the Qing world, she should have knelt. She should have fled. But Yang Naiwu did not look at her like a landlord looking at a tenant. He looked at her with the weary, hungry gaze of a connoisseur who has found a masterpiece in a junk shop.
"Come in, Little Cabbage," he said. The nickname, usually a slur in the mouths of the townspeople, sounded like an endearment on his tongue. "Do not stand in the sun. It will ruin that skin, and that would be a tragedy greater than a lost war."
He gestured to the cool, incense-scented interior. It was a trap, and she knew it. But the trap was lined with velvet.
"My husband..." she whispered, invoking Pinlian's name as a weak shield.
"The Dwarf?" Yang laughed softly. "Let him watch the boats. He belongs to the mud. You do not."
He moved to a cabinet of lacquered ebony and retrieved a bottle of cut crystal that caught the afternoon light. "Do you know what this is?"
She shook her head.
"Rose Dew," he said, pouring the crimson liquid into two cups as thin as eggshells. "Distilled from the petals of the Imperial gardens. It tastes of summer."
He held the cup out to her. "Drink with me, Little Sister. The world has left us alone. Let us punish them for their neglect."
She took the cup. Her hands were rough, his were smooth as marble. The contrast made her ache with shame and longing. She drank. The wine was sweet fire, burning away her caution, leaving a warm, heavy lassitude in her limbs.
"You are unhappy," Yang said, stepping closer. The scent of him—sandalwood, old paper, and expensive soap—filled her senses. "I see it. You are a phoenix trapped in a coop of chickens."
Tears pricked her eyes. The alcohol and the flattery broke the dam she had built around her heart. "I am cursed," she whispered. "I am married to a half-man. I am nothing."
"You are everything," Yang whispered. He reached out and touched her cheek.
The touch was electric. It was the first time a man had touched her with anything other than clumsiness or cruelty.
"Let me correct the mistake of the gods," he murmured.
He pulled her into his arms. The silk of his robe felt like water against her skin. She did not resist. She melted. In the shadowed study, surrounded by the wisdom of the sages, the scholar and the peasant girl crossed the line that separated their worlds.
When she left an hour later, flushed and disheveled, she did not feel fallen. She felt elevated. She had tasted the ambrosia of the gods, and she knew she could never go back to gruel.
The Winter of Contentment
The affair bloomed in the shadows. It was a secret kept in glances, in brushed hands, in the silent transfer of silver coins and bolts of cloth.
Yang Naiwu, invigorated by the conquest, became a benevolent ghost in the lives of his tenants. He subsidized their existence, ensuring the Ge family had rice and charcoal. To Pinlian and the others, he was the "Righteous Lord," a paragon of charity. Only Little Cabbage knew the price of that charity, and she paid it willingly.
She began to look at Pinlian with a new, cold detachment. He was no longer just her husband; he was an obstacle. He was the toad squatting on the well of her happiness. She compared his grunts to Yang's poetry, his smell to Yang's incense, and her heart hardened.
Winter arrived, turning the canals to slate gray. It was the eleventh year of the Tongzhi reign.
The New Year festival approached, but in the western wing, the cupboards were bare. The "charity" of the landlord could only go so far without raising suspicion.
Madam Yu, the mother-in-law, arrived like a whirlwind of guilt and affection. She had scraped together her savings from her new husband's house to buy a New Year's feast for her son. She unpacked her basket on the scarred table: wax-cured pork, wind-dried chicken, salted fish, and sweet cakes.
"We must eat well," Madam Yu declared, her breath clouding in the cold room. "To invite fortune."
Little Cabbage looked at the food. A sly thought, born of her new confidence, crossed her mind.
"Mother," she said, smoothing her apron. "Since we have such bounty, we should share with the main house. Master Yang has been... generous. The wind-dried chicken is a delicacy. It would show we know our manners."
Third Girl, the "Withered Vegetable," let out a howl. She snatched a packet of honey dates and hid them behind her back, crumbs spraying from her mouth. "No! My chicken! Don't give it to them!"
Madam Yu laughed, swatting the idiot girl's hand. "Hush, greedy pig. Your sister-in-law is right. We must pay our respects."
She selected the plumpest chickens and a slab of pork. "Go, Xiugu. Take these to the Lord."
Little Cabbage took the basket, her heart racing. It was a legitimate excuse to see him. She walked across the frozen courtyard, her steps light.
She found Yang Naiwu and his wife, Lady Zhan, in the main hall. She presented the food with a deep, theatrical bow.
"My mother sends her respects," she said, her voice demure.
Yang Naiwu looked at her. His face was a mask of polite gratitude, but his eyes danced with a private, wicked amusement.
"Your mother is too kind," he said. As she turned to leave, he brushed past her, whispering so only she could hear:
"The chicken is good. But the messenger is delicious."
Little Cabbage flushed crimson and hurried away, a secret smile burning on her lips. She felt powerful. She felt safe.
She was wrong.
The Trap
Back in the western wing, Madam Yu watched her daughter-in-law return. She saw the flush on the girl's cheeks, the brightness in her eyes.
The older woman misinterpreted the signs completely. She is happy, Madam Yu thought. She is finally accepting her life here.
A plan, born of maternal anxiety, solidified in the widow's mind. Pinlian was twenty-nine—almost an old man by the standards of their class. Little Cabbage was twenty-three. They had been "married" in name for years, sleeping in the same room, but poverty and the lack of a formal ceremony had kept them in separate beds.
It was a dangerous anomaly. A beautiful wife who is not a wife is a flight risk.
"Pinlian," Madam Yu said suddenly, interrupting his chewing. "How is the work at the shop? Is the money steady?"
Pinlian frowned, wiping grease from his chin. "It is hard, Mother. If Xiugu didn't work, and if the Lord didn't help... we would starve."
Madam Yu nodded. "But she does work. And she is here. Listen to me, son. You are not getting younger. I cannot visit often. You need a wife—a real wife—to care for you properly."
She leaned in, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
"I am going to speak to your uncle. We will find a lucky day this month. We will have the 'Round-the-Room' ceremony. You and Xiugu will become true husband and wife. You will consummate the marriage."
The room went silent.
Pinlian stopped eating. His face turned a deep, mottled red. He looked at Little Cabbage, who was standing at the stove, her back to them.
"I... I would like that," he stammered, a shy, foolish grin spreading across his face. "But the money..."
"I will handle the money," Madam Yu said firmly. "I will borrow if I have to. It must be done. We must secure the Ge bloodline."
Third Girl, catching the drift, clapped her sticky hands. "Wedding! Wedding wine! Little Cabbage is going to be a real sister-in-law! I want sweet wine!"
At the stove, Little Cabbage froze. The iron spoon in her hand hovered over the pot.
A real wife.
The words hit her like a physical blow. The blood drained from her face.
To sleep with Pinlian? To let those rough, clumsy hands touch her where the aristocrat had touched her? To trade the silk of the study for the sweat of the straw mat?
A wave of nausea rolled over her. She had tasted the wine of the gods; how could she go back to drinking ditch water? The contrast was too brutal to bear. She realized, with a jolt of absolute terror, that her double life was collapsing. The walls of her sanctuary were turning into a prison.
"Wedding wine!" Third Girl shrieked again, dancing around the table. "New Sister-in-Law!"
Little Cabbage dropped the spoon. It clattered loudly against the iron pot, ringing like a funeral bell.
"I... I forgot the salt," she stammered, her voice high and brittle.
She ran out of the room, fleeing into the biting cold of the courtyard, gasping for air.
Madam Yu watched her go, smiling indulgently. "Look at her," she told Pinlian. "She is shy. It is a good sign. A modest bride is a blessing."
But outside, in the shadows of the moon gate, Little Cabbage was not shy. She was terrified.
And she was not alone.
As she leaned against the wall, trying to steady her breathing, a figure detached itself from the darkness of the garden. It was not Yang Naiwu.
It was Liu Zihan.
The former servant, a man with a grudge against the Yangs and a face like a hatchet, had been loitering near the kitchen, hoping to beg or steal leftovers from the feast. He had seen Little Cabbage running. He had seen the flush on her face when she came from the Lord's house earlier.
He stepped into the moonlight, blocking her path.
"Little Mistress," he whispered, his voice oily. "Why such tears on a festive night? Is the Lord's wine not sweet enough?"
Little Cabbage froze. "I... I don't know what you mean."
Liu Zihan grinned, revealing yellow teeth. "I think you do. I saw you, Little Cabbage. I saw you in the study on Qingming day. I saw the Rose Dew."
The world stopped.
"You are going to be a real wife soon, I hear," Liu hissed. "Does the Dwarf know his wife has already been tasted by the Master?"
He leaned in close. "Secrets are expensive, Little Mistress. Silence costs money."
Little Cabbage looked at him, horror dawning. She was trapped. Behind her was the bed of a dwarf she despised. Ahead of her was a blackmailer who held her life in his hands. And high above, in the golden light of the main house, Lord Yang Naiwu laughed, oblivious to the catastrophe gathering in his garden.
The trap had snapped shut.
To see how the wedding night turns into a nightmare, read the next chapter.