maidservant

Chapter 1: Memories of the Slave Station

The north wind blew sand and gravel onto his face, and Song Ashan buried his face deeper into his sister's clothes.

This was the sixth time she had hit her sister's ribs. The sharp bones hurt her cheeks through the coarse linen clothes.

It was a three hundred li journey from Cangzhou to Yezhou. Her mother passed away on the third full moon night of her baby's birth month. Her father wrapped her in a straw mat and buried her without even a wooden memorial.

"Sir, please be kind!" My father's knees slammed into the snow, and the flag with the word "Ye" on the city wall fluttered in the wind.

My sister suddenly covered her ears, but the words still slipped through her fingers: "Without a travel permit, you are a refugee. Go to the slave post."

The brick walls of the slave station were taller than the city walls, and icicles hung from the eaves.

The trafficker in the sable coat lifted my father's chin with a horsewhip and pressed his rough thumb on his teeth.

"Five taels," he said.

When my father was tied up with an iron chain, he left two crooked tracks on the snow, just like the earthworms my mother drew on the yellow mud before she died.

The fishy smell of the ground vegetable soup swirled in her throat, and my sister poured the last half bowl into her chipped ceramic bowl.

Amid the coughs coming from the straw pile, Song Ashan heard his sister's stomach growling like a frog on the riverbank in summer.

Her sister tucked her cold little feet into her arms, and her purple toes pressed against the scar on her chest - it was from the burn she got from the tongs when she stole sweet potatoes from the neighboring village last winter.

"Yezhou is a vast land with abundant harvests. We will definitely have enough to eat." The white mist exhaled by my sister when she spoke condensed on her eyelashes and formed frost flowers.

The sister's hand groped under the straw mat and suddenly stuffed something hard into Ashan's hand.

It was half a wheat cake with some grass scraps on the edge. She must have secretly hidden it when they shared the food yesterday.

The gong sounded for the seventh time at the hour of Yin, and the gate of the slave station creaked open.

Ladies dressed in silk came in wearing wooden clogs, and their gold-embroidered shoes left lotus patterns on the snow.

The elder sister suddenly pinched Song Ashan's palm and whispered, "If anyone asks, just say you can weave straw sandals and feed chickens."

She wiped Song Ashan's face with snow water, her fingertips turning blue from the cold. "Don't ever tell me you've read the Thousand Character Classic."

The old woman in the corner suddenly coughed violently, and blood foam splattered on the wall like a field of blooming red plums.

The elder sister tried to pull her younger sister behind her, but the old woman's dry branch-like hand had already grabbed the corner of her clothes.

"Young lady," she grumbled in her throat, "don't drink the water from the third jar on the west side of the well." Before she finished speaking, a servant in soap boots came over with a wooden stick.

Little Ashan huddled in his sister's arms and counted the shadows of the window frames. When the seventh wooden bar moved to the corner of the wall, he heard the hurried sound of horse hooves outside.

A young man in fox fur rode past on horseback, and his jade pendant jingled against the saddle.

The elder sister suddenly covered little Ashan's eyes, but she could still see through her fingers - there was a human figure wrapped in a straw mat lying on the snow, and the servants were sprinkling lime on it.

My sister was bought away, and the owner did not leave her surname or the name of the house. Ashan did not dare to ask for fear of affecting my sister.

Fleeing has worn down human nature, making people afraid to speak out or ask for things.

Ashan was very hungry. She was too young and without her father and sister, so she could not compete with other slaves.

When the snowflakes fell into the empty bowl and made a slight sound, Song Ashan realized that the straw mat beside him was empty.

The copper keychain on the human trafficker's waist swayed lightly, and the indenture at the bottom had my sister's bright red fingerprints on it.

She held the coarse earthenware bowl tightly. At the bottom of the bowl was still half a mouthful of vegetable soup that her sister had secretly poured for her last night - now she had licked even that little bit of saltiness clean.

Suddenly, there was a burst of crying and shouting at the east wall, and several half-grown children were fighting over a piece of stale steamed bun.

Song Ashan curled up his frozen toes. Yesterday, a boy with a fever was curled up there, but this morning there was only a puddle of water under the straw mat.

She felt the small raised mole between her eyebrows. Her mother had said it was Guanyin's tears, bringing peace. But now she just wanted to pick the red spot off with her fingernail to avoid being stared at.

A dirty little face was reflected on the ice surface of the well. Song Ashan scooped up snow water and rubbed his face vigorously.

The ice chips stung my skin, but they also made the teardrop mole between my eyebrows appear brighter.

When I was fleeing from famine, my sister always said that this mole in the middle of my eyebrows looked like a cinnabar mark, and I would definitely meet a good family.

"It's quite neatly made." The old woman in the crimson jacket was standing outside the wooden fence at some point.

Song Ashan hurriedly hid his torn cloth shoes in the haystack, showing the obedient smile taught by his sister.

The old woman's golden armor lifted her chin, and her nails suddenly pinched the red mole: "Little girl, are you willing to serve the young master of the governor's family?"

"Slave is willing"

"You are about four or five years old. What's your zodiac sign?"

"I am six years old and born in the Year of the Snake."

"Bad luck! I'm in conflict with the young master. Let's go, let's go."

The woman left this sentence and walked towards the back.

Dusk spread over the mottled brick walls of the slave station, and Song Ashan smoothed his messy hair in front of the puddle.

Blood oozed out from the frostbite, and she carefully wiped it across her temples, fearing that it would stain the red mole between her eyebrows.

When the halo of the lantern dyed the snow in front of the steps red, she straightened her back so that the teardrop mole was reflected in the moonlight - just as her sister taught her, to be as upright as a boy offering sacrifices to the Bodhisattva.

Yes, she was afraid that no one would buy it.

When Ashan shrank back into the corner, he raised his hand to smooth his hair, and the blood from the frostbite happened to fall on the red mole.

The sound of the slaves in the back rows being picked one by one, mixed with the sound of snowflakes hitting the tiles, gradually condensed into white frost on her temples.

When the icicles hanging from the eaves began to drip, and a foul smell came from the straw mat in the east, she knew that the hunchbacked old man who was always coughing up blood had passed away.

The short-legged woman, collecting the earthenware bowls one by one, sneered as she passed by her, "Your eyes are bright, but it's a pity you look like a reincarnated hungry ghost."

The midnight wind blew snow and hail into her collar. Ashan tied her ankles three times with straw rope. She saw the shoes of the little girl next door being stolen like this last night, so she had to be careful.

Her nails dug into the old wound on her palm, and blood oozed out. She licked it with the salty taste.

My sister said that when the wolf cubs in Cangzhou are about to starve to death, they bite their own claws to survive.

----

Suddenly, a string of lantern lights exploded in the front yard.

The sound of the patent leather boots rolling across the snow startled the crows in the yard, and Ashan saw the hem of the brocade skirt in the swaying light and shadow.

The leading woman's bun was so shiny it could have deflected a fly, yet her gold-and-jade hairpins dangled steadily from her temples. Ah Shan knew she was truly wealthy. She had once seen the county magistrate's wife's personal maid on the famine-stricken road; her hairpins swung like a hanged man's tongue, nothing compared to the one before her.

"What?" When the gilded armor poked the red mole between her eyebrows, Ashan heard her stomach growling louder than the answer.

"I can weave straw sandals and feed chicks." She swallowed the blood foam in her mouth, revealing eight teeth. Her sister had taught her to practice with a branch, saying it was called "Guiren Xiao."

The patches on her knees were soaked into a dark brown by the snow. She secretly turned her frozen hands over, revealing the calluses on her palms.

The woman suddenly pinched her earlobe: "You have double ingot ears."

Ah Shan was scrutinized from head to toe, then lifted up and weighed like a chicken. The woman examined her very carefully, and Ah Shan felt happy, knowing that this was someone who really wanted to buy her.