After I Was Chosen as His Concubine - Chapter 1

Everyone called me Juan Ke, a name the Old Madam gave me after I entered her service. Before that, I had been called Li’er.

I came from a poor family. After both my parents died, my aunt took me in. Her husband depended on the Marquis of Xinan’s household for his modest business. He was well-off enough to feed me.

Unlike the other sallow little girls, I was fair-skinned and delicately made. By eight, it was already clear I would grow into a beauty—beauty that seemed misplaced in such a humble home.

My uncle was a calculating man. Knowing such a gift should not go to waste, he searched diligently for an opportunity. Through one connection after another, word finally reached the wife of one of Madam’s dowry retainers: Tao Xin’s niece was exceptionally pretty.

Wang Fu’s wife came to see me and was pleased. Strolling in her garden, she lightly held out a hand, and my aunt hurried forward to support her.

“Your niece already looks like this at her age,” Wang Fu’s wife said with a smile. “Who knows how lovely she will be when she grows? It would be a pity to leave her in an ordinary household.”

My aunt understood at once. The moment we returned home, she told my uncle. They took me to the marquis’s estate and exchanged me for six taels of silver. From then on, they had nothing more to do with me.

The Tao family had not been a kind place. The day before I entered the estate, I tossed a handful of sand into their kettle and soup jars.

My uncle was always scheming, and the brood born to his two wives were just as capable. One brother informed on another one day; the sisters fought over hair ornaments the next. I lived under their roof, and though my uncle had swallowed the money my father left me, everyone still bullied me and ordered me about. My cousins were especially vicious because they envied my looks. Had I stayed two more years, I feared I would have died.

At the estate, I first spent half a year learning the rules. The steward saw that I was pretty, careful, and capable, so I was assigned to the Old Madam’s quarters.

She held my hand and renamed me Juan Ke, after the orange jasmine flower. There was already a maid named Yun Ke in her rooms, and another girl who entered with me was called You Ke.

I served the Old Madam for a year before she passed away. I wept several times in private, for she had treated me very well.

After the funeral, Yun Ke, who had attended her for years, asked to keep the incense burning at the family temple. You Ke went to serve the Second Young Lady, while I was transferred to Madam’s main courtyard.

From the day I arrived, I acted with care and served Madam attentively. I never competed with the senior maids.

As for the young lord, I never dared go near him. He was Madam’s precious son. Anything involving him, however small, became serious.

My desire to stay alive was stronger than anyone’s.

I had learned a few characters before. When Madam discovered that, she had an older maid teach me, handing me several old books and telling me to ask whenever I did not understand.

Madam was kind, but a literate maid was useful too. She could write, read account books, and check gift lists.

Time and tide urged each other onward; winter solstice passed, and spring returned.

I rose to become a second-rank maid. Besides serving tea, carrying messages, and sewing, I looked up passages, wrote letters, and read aloud for Madam. The woman who taught me had been married off to a junior steward, and I had taken her place.

Whenever I held a brush, the thought sent a chill through me.

Was that to be my future too?

In secret, I considered my way out. If I left, where could I go?

Unlike the other maids, whether born to servants or purchased, I had no family to shelter me. They could return home and continue living. I could not go back to my uncle. My aunt was his subsequent wife and had no authority; she could not protect me. The moment I returned, my uncle would likely bind me up and send me to some minor official or wealthy merchant as a concubine.

Could I survive alone and make a life for myself?

It would be very hard. In such times, possessing beauty could itself be a crime. With a face like mine and several comfortable years in a great household behind me, I would not fare well outside.

I thought of many plans, but none seemed sound.