The Sentence
The announcement came over a pot of congee that had thickened into a grey, gluey paste.
It was deep winter. The damp cold of the Yangtze Delta did not just sit on the skin; it worked its way into the timber of the house, swelling the doors so they wouldn't shut and settling into the joints of the living. In the kitchen of the western wing, the air was thick with the smell of charcoal smoke and the sour, pervasive odor of fermenting beans that clung to Ge Pinlian like a second skin.
Madam Yu, flushed with the benevolence of a mother arranging her son's happiness, set down her chopsticks.
"Pinlian," she said, her voice dropping to the conspiratorial whisper of the matchmaker. "The years are passing. You are twenty-nine. A man cannot live half a life forever." She glanced at Bi Xiugu—Little Cabbage—who was scrubbing a wok with a bundle of bamboo strips. "I have spoken to your uncle. We will borrow the money. This month, we will light the red candles. You and Little Cabbage will round the room. You will be man and wife in truth, not just in name."
At the table, Pinlian froze. A slow, incredulous grin spread across his face, revealing a landscape of yellowed, uneven teeth. He looked at Little Cabbage's back—the curve of her waist, the nape of her neck exposed by her pinned-up hair—with a hunger that was sudden and terrifyingly raw.
"A real wife?" he grunted, the words wet in his mouth.
At the sink, Little Cabbage's hand slipped. The bamboo scrubber scraped screechingly against the iron.
She did not turn around. She could not. If she turned, she knew they would see the revulsion written on her face as clearly as ink on paper.
A real wife.
The words were not a promise; they were a sentence. For years, their poverty had been her shield. They were too poor for the wedding feast, too poor for the rituals that sealed the body of the bride to the groom. She had slept in the same room, yes, but on a separate cot, guarded by the ghosts of their destitution.
But now, Madam Yu was threatening to buy her a cage.
Little Cabbage closed her eyes. The image of Lord Yang Naiwu rose unbidden in the darkness behind her lids. She thought of the scent of him—dried tangerine peel and expensive ink. She thought of the weight of his silk robe sliding off his shoulders, the smooth, pale skin of his chest, the way his hands moved with the deliberate grace of a scholar turning a page.
And then the sound of Pinlian slurping his congee brought her crashing back. The contrast was a physical blow. The Dwarf and the Aristocrat. The mud and the jade.
"Wedding!"
The shriek came from the corner. Third Girl, the "Withered Vegetable," was clapping her hands, her face smeared with rice paste. "Wedding wine! Sweet wine! New Sister-in-Law!"
She began to dance, a lumbering, heavy-footed stomp that shook the floorboards. "Little Cabbage sleeps with Brother! Little Cabbage sleeps with Brother!"
The chant was a hammer. Little Cabbage felt the bile rise in her throat. She dropped the scrubber and fled into the biting wind of the courtyard, the laughter of the idiot girl chasing her like a pack of hounds.
The Architecture of Escape
That night, the western wing was a symphony of torment.
Pinlian slept in the outer room, his snoring a jagged, rhythmic rasp that sounded like a saw cutting through wet wood. Little Cabbage lay on her narrow bed, her eyes wide open, staring at the soot-stained rafters.
She touched her own arm, remembering the way Yang Naiwu's fingers had brushed it. She was twenty-three years old. Her mirror told her she was beautiful; the town told her she was desirable; Lord Yang told her she was exquisite.
Was this to be the end of it? she asked the darkness. To be mauled by a man who smells of rot? To bear stunted children who look like him?
Panic, cold and sharp, crystallized into a plan. It was a plan born of the breathtaking arrogance of the beautiful and the desperate.
She would not submit. She would trade up.
Lord Yang loved her. Had he not said she was a pearl in the dust? Had he not poured her the Emperor's wine? He was a man of the law, a Juren who could write petitions that made magistrates tremble. He could find a loophole. He could break the contract with the Ge family. He could take her as a concubine.
She imagined life in the inner quarters of the Yang estate—pouring tea in a room filled with orchids, wearing silk that whispered when she moved, safe forever from the millstone.
She needed to speak to him. Alone.
Fate, it seemed, was listening. The next morning, Madam Yu decreed that Pinlian must take Third Girl to pay New Year respects to their uncle. They would be gone until sunset. And Little Cabbage knew, from the gossip of the servants, that the women of the Yang household—the formidable Lady Ye and the fragile Lady Zhan—were attending a temple fair.
The house would be empty. The stage was set.
The White Robe
The morning broke with a sky the color of a bruised plum. Little Cabbage moved through the house with a feverish efficiency. She packed a basket of food for Pinlian, tied Third Girl's shoes, and ushered them out the door with a smile that felt painted on.
"Go," she told them. "Eat well at Uncle's."
She watched them disappear down the alley—the hobbling gait of the husband, the rolling shamble of the sister. She felt a pang of pity, but she strangled it. Pity was a luxury for the safe.
She returned to her room and stripped off her rough house-clothes. She washed with cold water until her skin tingled. She dressed in her finest tunic—a moon-white cotton that hugged her frame—and oiled her hair until it shone like a crow's wing. She pinched her cheeks to bring up the blood.
She did not look like a tenant. She looked like an offering.
She waited until the heavy wooden gates of the main estate creaked open and the sedan chairs of the Yang women were carried out. Then, when the silence settled back over the compound like dust, she crossed the courtyard.
She found Yang Naiwu in his library.
He was not reading. He was reclining on his daybed, staring at a scroll of calligraphy on the wall, looking every inch the bored aristocrat. He wore a casual robe of slate-blue silk, unbelted, his feet bare.
He heard her enter and turned. His face lit up—not with love, perhaps, but with the delight of a man who has found a forgotten sweet in his pocket.
"The house is empty," he murmured, sitting up. "And the Little Cabbage walks in."
She did not smile. She closed the door behind her and threw the latch.
"My Lord," she whispered.
She walked to the bed and sank to her knees. It was a gesture of submission, but also of claim. She buried her face in the silk of his robe, weeping.
Yang Naiwu was startled. He reached down, stroking her hair. "Xiugu? What is this? Has the Dwarf beaten you?"
"Worse," she sobbed. "He wants to claim me."
She poured it out—the wedding, the mother's demand, the horror of the coming night. "I cannot do it," she choked out, looking up at him with eyes swimming in tears. "I have known you. How can I go back to him? It would be like drinking ditch water after wine."
She gripped his hands. "Save me. You are powerful. You know the law. Help me divorce him. Buy me from them. I will be your slave. I will be your concubine. I will serve your wife on my knees. Just don't let him touch me."
It was a raw, naked plea. She offered him her life, her body, her future.
Yang Naiwu looked down at her. The afternoon light caught the curve of her throat, the delicate arch of her brow. He felt a surge of desire, certainly. He felt pity, yes.
But beneath the desire and the pity, a cold, hard stone of pragmatism began to turn in his gut.
The Reversal
He pulled his hands away, gently but firmly.
"Little Cabbage," he said, his voice taking on the smooth, resonant tone he used when debating points of law. "You ask for the moon."
"I ask for life," she whispered.
"Divorce is not a thing to be done lightly," he said, standing up and moving away from her. He put distance between her beauty and his judgment. "On what grounds? He does not beat you excessively. He feeds you. If I interfere... if I try to buy you... think of the talk. The Juren stealing a tenant's wife? My enemies would feast on it. My reputation—my family's honor—would be destroyed."
Little Cabbage remained on her knees. The cold from the floor seeped into her bones. She watched him pace—elegant, rational, and utterly unreachable.
"Your reputation?" she said, her voice hollow. "What about my soul?"
Yang Naiwu turned back to her. He crouched down, bringing his face level with hers. He looked earnest. He believed, in that moment, that he was being wise.
"There is another way," he said softly. "We do not need to break the marriage. We simply need to... render it meaningless."
He took her cold hands. "Let him have his ceremony. Let him have the title of husband. What does it matter? He is a dullard. He will never know that your heart lives here, in this room."
"You want me to... to share myself?" Horror crept into her voice.
"I want you to be safe," he insisted. "If you try to leave him now, you will be an outcast. A beggar. Stay. I will care for you. I will give you silver. We will have our afternoons. You will be his wife in name, and mine in truth."
The illusion shattered.
Little Cabbage looked at the handsome face she had worshipped. She saw the weakness around the mouth, the vanity in the eyes. He did not want to save her. He wanted to keep her convenient. He wanted the pearl, but he didn't want to pay for the setting.
She realized, with a sickening clarity, that she was alone. The god was just a man, and a cowardly one at that.
She stood up. The tears had stopped. Her face was dry and pale as bone.
"I understand," she said. Her voice was unrecognizable—flat, dead. "I am to be a whore for two men. One for rice, and one for silk."
Yang flinched. "Do not be crude, Xiugu. It is... a compromise."
He reached for her, trying to salvage the mood, trying to pull her back into the warmth of the affair. "Come. Forget the future. We have an hour. Let us not waste it."
He kissed her. She let him. She let him push her back onto the daybed. She let him untie the moon-white tunic. But as his hands moved over her, her mind detached. She floated above the room, looking down at the foolish girl who had believed in fairy tales.
The Dark Seed
When it was over, Yang Naiwu buttoned his robe, looking satisfied and slightly melancholy, playing the role of the tragic lover.
Little Cabbage dressed in silence. She moved to the door.
"Wait," Yang said. He went to a small cabinet of drawers—his medicine chest. He was an amateur physician, proud of his knowledge of herbs.
He pulled out a small packet of paper.
"You seem distressed," he said, handing it to her. "These are herbs for the nerves. And..." He paused, a conspiratorial smile touching his lips. "If Pinlian is... difficult... or if his snoring keeps you awake... give him a little of this in his tea. It is a strong sedative. It will make him sleep like a stone. It will give you peace."
He meant it as a kindness. A way to help her endure the indignity he had refused to prevent.
Little Cabbage took the packet. She felt the texture of the paper against her thumb.
Sleep like a stone.
She looked at Yang Naiwu one last time. He was already turning back to his books, his conscience clear.
She walked out into the blinding gray light of the courtyard.
The wind had picked up, rattling the dry bamboo. She clutched the packet of powder in her hand. Her mind, stripped of hope and romance, began to work with a terrifying, cold logic.
The scholar would not save her. The law would not save her.
She looked at the packet again.
If he sleeps, she thought, he cannot touch me.
And then, a darker thought, unbidden and serpentine, coiled around her heart.
And if he sleeps forever... I am a widow. And a widow is free.
She walked back to the western wing, her steps heavy. She went to the kitchen and placed the packet next to the jar of tea leaves.
The gate creaked. Pinlian and Third Girl were returning, their voices loud and cheerful.
Little Cabbage smoothed her apron. She lit the fire in the stove. The flames licked up, hungry and bright. The girl who had begged for divorce was gone. In her place was a woman who realized that in a world of men, a woman's only weapon is what she pours into the cup.
"I'm home!" Pinlian called out, stumbling into the kitchen. "Is the water boiling?"
"Almost," Little Cabbage said softly. "Almost."
To see how a thought becomes a crime, read the next chapter.