The Concubine's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

You are a girl, but I have decided to fill your bowl for three more years. On your eighth birthday, you will go to stay with a great-uncle upriver and learn the silk trade.” He took a tiny bottle from his sleeve, tapped snuff on the back of his hand, and sniffed hard, pinching his nose. “The few coins that I will get for you will never recover your debt to me. You will repay me with your respect and obedience. If you cause no further trouble in this house, you will not be beaten, but you will earn your rice.” He reached into the sleeve of his robe and held out a flat, square package. “I have something for you.” Li-Xia took it from him with a bow so low she almost fell at his feet.
    “You will repay me with your obedience and respect, but take great care; it is costly and not to be broken.” She took it carefully from its red paper wrapping, uncovering a colored tile with a single Chinese word upon it, hard and cold but quite pretty. Li-Xia studied it, tracing the shiny character with her fingertips, turning it over in her hands. It was the first gift she had ever received.
    “It is a very nice tile, and I like it very much. But I cannot read it.”
    ´The word says ‘happiness.’ Now take it and be happy. Do not make me or your gracious aunties angry.”
    “But I cannot read it for myself. Will you teach me to read?” The words tripped from her tongue before she could stop them.
    Yik-Munn scowled darkly. She felt her smile snatched away as the happiness tile fell from her fingers and shattered loudly into many pieces on the hard stone floor. The sound of it smashing seemed to echo through the room and beyond its open windows. It seemed to Li-Xia as though the ground shook beneath her feet. Her father shot to his feet quickly, tall as a giant. His voice was loud with anger and shock.
    You see? Even the gods are ashamed of you. They have struck the happiness tile from your hand. You are a useless girl, a disappointment to me and to the ancestors. You must know your place in this house and in the world. Do not try to rise above it. Books are no business of yours.
    These were the words that rang out within him. His arm twitched with the will to strike her, his teeth clenched as he looked down upon her with evident disgust. Instead, he thought before he spoke. Perhaps it was best, he told himself, to make a promise he knew he would never keep. He had found this to be useful when keeping a female in her place—to keep her never quite sure but always hopeful.
    “Perhaps one day, when you are a little older, we may speak of it,” he said in an easier voice. “But first I have another gift for you—one far greater than the greatest book or the reading of words written by others. A gift that will turn you into a princess. I have decided to give you the feet of the golden lotus, as small and as beautiful as your mother’s.”
    He spread his arms wide, the sleeves of his robe spread like the wings of a peacock. For less than a heartbeat, Li-Xia thought he would descend from his throne and reach for her. But he did not.
    Li-Xia looked puzzled. Has this child no gratitude? He cupped his hands as though they cradled something very fragile but very, very precious.
    When she continued to show no understanding, he waved a hand to dismiss her. “Go now. Perhaps one day, if you are respectful and never run away—if you obey me and your gracious aunties in all things—then perhaps you will be taught to read … even to write and count the beads of business.”
    When she was gone, Yik-Munn sat back in his chair, reaching with an unsteady hand for the long-stemmed pipe carved from pig bone that rested on the table at his elbow. The tile, it seemed to him, had struck the floor with a force beyond the strength of a five-year-old child. He shook his head to clear the sound still ringing in his ears, forcing unwanted thoughts from his mind. From a pot no bigger than an eggcup he speared a small black bead on the tip of an ivory