Zhaowei

When the palace coup failed, my father was implicated.

The night before his exile, he brought out two bamboo lots and told my older sister and me to draw one each. One would place us with an old friend, the Marquis of Huai’an; the other, with a former subordinate.

Mother whispered in my ear, “The short lot is the marquis’s household. With your delicate health, that’s where you should go.”

For the next five years, I lived in the marquis’s household while my sister lived in the countryside.

I spent those years treading on thin ice. The heir tormented me; his sisters treated me with contempt.

Once, as I poured his tea, he gave a sudden, scornful laugh. “Your parents promised to send your sister. Why did they send you instead? You must have interfered. You scheming little thing. Wanyao ended up in the countryside because of you.”

Stunned, I lowered my head.

After five years, Father was exonerated and our family returned to the capital.

My sister came back from the countryside more beautiful than ever, neatly dressed, without a trace of hardship in her face.

She looked at my callused hands in surprise. “Didn’t Father and Mother leave you any gold or silver to win people over in that household?”

I looked at the lustrous jade bangle on her wrist, and understood.

They had meant me to draw that lot all along.

Then came another drawing, this time to decide our marriages.

One lot was for the country subordinate’s son; the other, the marquis’s heir.

As before, Mother told me to draw first.

I shook my head and stepped back.

“I want neither.”