Chapter 4: The Nymph’s Smile

Maomao first learned of the prince’s passing when black mourning sashes were distributed at the evening meal. The women would wear them for seven days to demonstrate their sorrow. But what caused more frowns than anything was the announcement that their serving of meat, already miserly, would be eliminated entirely for the duration. The women servants ate two meals a day, chiefly millet and soup, with the occasional vegetable. It was enough for the petite Maomao, but many of the women found the meals something less than filling.

There were many kinds of women among this lowest class of servants.

Some came from farming families; others were city girls; and although uncommon, a few were the daughters of officials. Children of the bureaucracy could expect a modicum more respect, but even so, the work a woman was given to do depended on her own accomplishments. A girl who couldn’t read or write could certainly not expect to become a consort with her own chambers.

Being a consort was a job. You even got a salary.

I guess maybe it didn’t matter, in the end.

Maomao was aware of what had killed the young prince. It was Consort Lihua’s and her serving women’s liberal use of white powder to cover her face. That powder was so expensive, the average citizen couldn’t expect to use it a day in her life. Some of the more established ladies in the brothel had had it, though. Some of them made more money in a single night than a farmer would earn in his entire lifetime, and they could afford their own makeup. Others received it as an expensive present.

The women would cover themselves in it from their faces down to their necks, and it would eat away at their bodies. Some of them died from it.

Maomao’s father had warned them to stop using it, but they ignored him.

Maomao, attending at her father’s side, had witnessed several courtesans waste away and die with her own eyes. They had weighed their lives against their beauty, and in the end had lost them both.

That was why Maomao had broken off a couple of convenient branches, scrawled a brief message to each of the consorts, and left it for them. Not that she had expected them to heed a warning from a servant girl who couldn’t get her hands on so much as paper or a brush.

After the mourning period was over and the black sashes disappeared, she began to hear rumors about Consort Gyokuyou. People said that after the loss of the prince, the Emperor, sick at heart, had begun to take comfort with Gyokuyou and his surviving daughter. But to Consort Lihua, who had lost her child just as he had, he did not go.

How convenient for him. Maomao drained her bowl of soup—today furnished with the smallest sliver of a piece of fish—then cleaned up her utensils and headed to work.

“A summons, sir?” Maomao was carrying a laundry basket when she was stopped by a eunuch, who told her to report to the office of the Matron of the Serving Women.

The Office of Serving Women was one of the three major divisions of service in the rear palace, and encompassed responsibility for the lowestranking of the women servants. The other two divisions were the Office of the Interior, which dealt with the consorts, and the Domestic Service Department, to which the eunuchs were attached.

What could she want with me? Maomao wondered. The eunuch was talking to other serving girls nearby, as well. Whatever was going on, it involved more than just Maomao. They must need more hands for some chore or other, she reasoned. She set the basket outside its proper room, then went following after the eunuch.

The Matron of the Serving Women’s building was situated just to one side of the main gate, one of the four gates that separated the rear palace from the world outside. When the Emperor visited his ladies, this was the entrance through which he passed.

Despite being there on an official summons, Maomao didn’t feel comfortable in the place. Although it was somewhat lackluster compared to the headquarters of the Office of the Interior, located next door, it was still noticeably more ornate than the residences of the mid-level consorts. The railing was worked with elaborate carvings, and brightly colored dragons climbed the vermilion pillars.

Urged inside, Maomao was somewhat less impressed than she had expected to be: the only furnishing in the room was a single large desk. Ten or so other serving girls besides her were present, and they seemed animated by anxiety, anticipation, and a strange sort of excitement.

“All right, thank you. The rest of you may go home,” the eunuch said.

Huh? Maomao felt unnatural, being singled out this way. She went alone into the next room as the remaining women left with suspicious glances in her direction.

Even for the chamber of an appointed official, it was a large space.

Maomao looked around, intrigued, whereupon she noticed that all the serving women in the room were looking in one particular direction. Sitting unobtrusively in the corner was a woman, attended by a eunuch, and not far away was another, somewhat older woman. Maomao remembered the middle-aged woman to be the Matron of the Serving Women, but the haughty-looking lady she didn’t recognize.

Hum? Now she registered that the person’s shoulders were rather broad for a woman’s, and their dress was so plain. Their hair was mostly held back by a sort of scarf, the rest of it cascading down behind them. He’s a man?

He was surveying the female servants with a smile as soft and gentle as that of a heavenly nymph. Even the Matron was blushing like a girl.

Suddenly Maomao understood the flush in everyone’s cheeks. This had to be the immensely beautiful eunuch of whom she had heard so much. He had hair as fine as silk, an almost liquid presence, almond-shaped eyes, and eyebrows that evoked willow branches. A heavenly nymph on a picture scroll could not have competed with him for loveliness.

What a waste, Maomao thought, not remotely blushing herself. The men in the rear palace were all eunuchs, deprived of their ability to reproduce.

They now lacked the equipment they needed to bear children. Precisely how gorgeous the offspring of this man would have been would remain a matter for the imagination.

Just as Maomao was thinking (with no small amount of impertinence) that such almost inhuman beauty might ensnare even the attentions of His Majesty, the eunuch stood up with a flowing motion. He went over to a desk, took up a brush, and began to write with elegant movements of his hand and arm. Then, with a smile as sweet as ambrosia, he displayed his work to the women.

Maomao froze.

You there, with the freckles, it said. You stay here.

That, at least, was the gist of it. The beautiful man must have noticed Maomao’s reaction, because he turned his fullest smile on her. He rolled up the paper again and clapped his hands twice.

“We’re done here for today. You may all go back to your rooms.”

The women, with plentiful disappointed glances back over their shoulders, exited the room. They would never know what had been written on the nymph’s paper.

Maomao watched them leave, and after a moment it occurred to her that they were all petite women with prominent freckles. But they hadn’t heeded the sign, which must mean that they couldn’t read.

The message hadn’t been for Maomao alone. She made to leave the room with the others, only to feel a hand placed firmly on her shoulder. With much fear and trembling, she turned around to find herself confronted with the almost blinding smile of the nymph-man.

“Now, now, mustn’t do that,” he said. “I want you to stay behind.” That smile—so bold, so bright—wouldn’t take no for an answer.

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