Chapter 1

The year I turned sixty, my granddaughter, only fifteen, went to the flower banquet at the Hall residence.

When she came back, she was thrown out through the side gate in a shabby little palanquin.

The pleated skirt she'd worn there was gone, and she was wrapped in a man's overcoat.

More than twenty bite marks and bruises of varying depths covered her fair neck and her bare ankles.

She didn't cry, didn't make a scene. She only soaked herself day and night in the icy well water, scrubbing her skin raw until it festered and bled.

Half a month later, the Hall residence sent someone with fifty taels of silver and a concubine contract.

That very night, my granddaughter swallowed a pair of scissors and died in agony on her bed, lying in a pool of blood.

I went to the Hall residence to demand justice, and a vicious dog tore my throat clean open.

When I opened my eyes again, my granddaughter was cheerfully fixing a crabapple blossom in her hair before the bronze mirror.

"Grandma, the Hall carriage is already waiting at the village entrance. They say I'll get to meet plenty of important people."

Looking at her bright, radiant face, I felt all the blood in my body run backward in an instant.

The next moment, I snatched up the bone cleaver beside the stove and split that brass mirror apart with a single stroke.

Then I turned and braced myself hard against the wooden door, the blade pointed at my own neck.

"If you dare step past this threshold today, you'll have to walk over my dead body first!"

......

My granddaughter shrank back in fright, staring at me in disbelief.

"Grandma, what are you doing?"

"Put the knife down, quickly—someone's going to get killed."

I gripped the bone cleaver tight, my hands shaking violently with sheer terror and rage.

The sight of her from my past life, thrown out wrapped in a tattered straw mat, stabbed at my brain like an awl.

"Be good. Go back inside."

"We're not going to this flower banquet."

My granddaughter's eyes reddened with distress, and she gathered up her skirt, meaning to step forward and wrest the knife away.

"Grandma, that's a favor from the Hall residence. I was the only one in the whole village to get an invitation."

"They say if you go just once, you get two taels of silver as a reward."

"With that money, you could buy medicine for your leg."

The moment I heard the words "Hall residence," my stomach churned.

That was no favor at all.

That was a den of monsters that ate people and didn't spit out the bones.

Just then, the already ramshackle wooden door was kicked violently open from outside.

"Well now, what kind of show is this?"

Alison Lambert, the Hall residence's steward, stepped over the threshold, pinching a gilded, embossed invitation card between her fingers.

She looked me up and down, her face full of contempt.

"Old woman, don't refuse a kindness when it's offered."

"The Hall carriages have been waiting at the village entrance for half an hour now. Is Young Lord Hall's flower banquet something dirt-poor peasants like you get to hold up?"

I glared at Alison Lambert.

A gust of wind blew past, and that cloying sweet scent of hers drove straight up my nose.

That smell.

When my granddaughter was thrown back in my past life, the man's overcoat wrapped around her had carried this very scent.

My eyes went red in an instant.

"What damned flower banquet."

"That's plainly a whorehouse for breeding that beast of a young lord of yours."

Alison Lambert's face changed at once, and she began cursing in a shrill voice.

"You old thing, are you sick of living?"

"You dare slander the Hall residence? See if I don't rip your mouth apart."

I didn't hesitate for a second.

I flung the bone cleaver down, spun around, and hoisted the slop bucket that had been fermenting three days by the stove.

Sour, reeking slop water and rotten vegetable leaves and all, I flung it right over Alison Lambert's head and face.

It caught her square on, foul water dripping down from her oil-slicked bun.

She wiped at her face in a fury, stamping her feet and shrieking.

"Rebellion! Rebellion!"

"Somebody, beat this old wretch to death for me!"

My granddaughter was scared out of her wits by the scene.

She had never seen the lofty steward of the Hall residence suffer such humiliation.

She threw herself at me and clutched my arm hard.

"Grandma, have you lost your mind?"

"Those are people from the Hall residence. You'll bring ruin on the whole village."

I tried to pry her hands loose.

"Foolish girl, let go."

"They'll take your life."

My granddaughter was crying so hard she could barely breathe, dragging at me and refusing to let go.

"Grandma, please stop this. I'll kowtow to the steward and admit my fault."

"I'll go, all right? I'll go."

Footsteps suddenly came from beyond the door, and four Hall retainers rushed in.

They carried thick wooden clubs, with hemp ropes hanging at their waists.

Alison Lambert pointed at me, grinding her teeth.

"Break this old thing's legs."

"Bag that girl up and haul her away. Young Lord Hall is waiting to sample something fresh."

Two of the retainers came straight at me.

The other two, seizing the moment while my granddaughter clung to me, pulled out a black burlap sack.

From head to foot, they yanked her down into it in one motion.

My granddaughter's cries were smothered inside the sack.

They dragged her out like they were hauling a beast.

"Let her go."

My eyes split with fury. I snatched the bone cleaver off the ground again and lunged like a madwoman, hacking wildly.

The blade bit into one retainer's arm.

He screamed and staggered back, clutching it.

Another retainer's eyes turned savage, and he raised a thick-soled boot and slammed it hard into my chest.

My whole body was sent flying.

The back of my head cracked hard against the bluestone slab in the yard.

Everything went black in an instant, and a bloody-sweet taste welled up in my throat.

From inside the sack came my granddaughter's faint sobbing, and Alison Lambert spat out a mouthful of bloody spittle.

"Wretched, unlucky old thing. Lock the gate and let her wait for death in there."

The courtyard gate slammed shut.

I lay on the cold ground, my vision so blurred that all I could see was a wash of blood-red.

The searing pain in my chest made even breathing feel like my organs were tearing apart.

No. I can't fall asleep.

I bit down hard until my tongue bled, forcing myself to hold on to that last thread of clarity.

I rolled over and crawled, inch by inch, toward the courtyard wall.