In the capital, the temperature swings between day and night are so severe that frost forms on the window frames after the onset of autumn. I'm wrapped in the new fox fur cloak my eldest sister gave me. The fur is as warm as a cloud, but it can't dispel the chill of the morning ink grind lingering on my fingertips. Curled up on the pearwood couch by the window in the warm room, revising manuscripts, the manuscript of "The Story of a Concubine's Counterattack" lies spread out on a Shu brocade paperweight. The three characters "Liu Yi Niang" (concubine Liu) on the rice paper are pricked by the tip of the pen, and the ink smears spread out, reminiscent of the fine lines at the corners of Liu's eyes when she faked a smile in my past life—back then, she'd always say "It's for your own good," then pawn the jade bracelet left by my biological mother for a pearl hairpin.
"Miss, Boss Wang's been circling the corner door three times!" Mo Zhu, clutching a freshly baked candy cake, pushed open the carved door. Warm icing oozed from the edges of the oil-paper wrapper, glittering in the morning light like scattered silver coins. She set the celadon food box down on the low table, and the clinking of the covered bowl made a resounding sound, startling the swallows perched on the beams. "He said if he doesn't let me see you again, he'll bang his head against the door. His belly might have put a dent in the panel!"
The wolf-hair brush made a single dot of ink on the passage about "Madam Liu secretly swapping her dowry." I stared at the scene on the manuscript page, where the heroine, Shen Weiwan, kneeled and begged, and my throat suddenly tightened—the scene overlapped with the moment in my past life, when I'd caught Madam Liu stuffing a jade bracelet into her dressing box in the ancestral hall. As my fingertips brushed against the page, I could still feel the chill that seeped through the cracks in the blue bricks, and the poisonous, fake smile that Madam Liu wore when she turned back.
"Have him wait in the side hall." I put down my pen and rubbed my swollen temples. The wind that seeped in through the cracks in the window frame lifted the edge of the manuscript paper, revealing the small sun secretly drawn on the back by Mo Zhu. "Give him the stack of 'special' manuscript paper in the east wing."
Mo Zhu's eyes lit up, and as she leaned closer to me, the jasmine powder in her hair mingled with the scent of Sichuan peppercorns. "Is that the one with Sichuan peppercorns? Last time, when Madam Liu sneezed at your manuscript, she went home and sneezed for half an hour. Even after drinking three bowls of ginger soup, the sneezing didn't stop!"
"Shh." I made a hushed gesture and watched her run out while suppressing her laughter. The hem of her skirt raised a cloud of dust as it swept across the threshold. I suddenly remembered the look on the face of the young marquis blocking the door this morning with a wooden sword on his shoulder - his hair was askew, half a piece of candied cake was dangling from his mouth, and the red silk on the tassel of the sword made a "crackling" sound when it swept across the door frame: "Sister! The street vendor selling candied haws said that the bad woman in your book is just like Liu! Take me to the bookstore to have a look?" In the end, I stuffed her with a whole string of candied haws, and she went to school while chewing and humming, with the wooden sword still swaying behind her like a small flag.
The pearwood chair in the side hall creaked under Boss Wang's slumping posture. When he saw me, his fat face smiled like the Maitreya Buddha, his triple chin pushing the wrinkles on his neck all the way to his earlobes. The oil stain on the front of his satin jacket left a dark mark on the chair, resembling a crooked flower. "My Miss Su! You're finally willing to show up!" He slapped his thigh, and his saliva splashed onto the sample copy of "The Story of a Concubine's Counterattack" on the table, causing the ink on the pages to tremble. "This book has been running in the 'Yue Lai Teahouse' for three consecutive days, and now all the women in the capital are trying to guess who Mr. 'Jin Xin' is! Yesterday, the old man from Zhang's Sugar Painting Shop asked me if Concubine Liu really melted her own daughter's gold hairpins to make bracelets. The old man looked as if he could see through me!"
I lifted the teacup to hide my smile. The surface of the tea reflected Boss Wang's nose, reddened by the heat. The steam from the spout blurred the celadon vase on the antique display stand behind him—the withered branch in the vase bore a striking resemblance to Boss Wang's eyebrows. "What do you want, Boss Wang?"
"Buy it out! Five hundred taels of silver!" He shook a silver note from his sleeve. The ink on the note was still wet, glistening in the sunlight. "Next time you write a book, I'll give you three hundred taels! The highest price in the whole capital! Enough for you to buy ten carts of sweets and cakes!"
"Buyout?" I put down the teacup, the white porcelain base clattering against the rosewood tabletop with a resonant sound, startling the sparrows pecking on the windowsill. "Boss Wang, do you know that 'one book becomes a hit, ten thousand copies generate profit'?" I pushed the first twenty copied chapters aside, a faint aroma of Sichuan pepper wafting through the pages—that's Mo Zhu adding a full spoonful of Sichuan peppercorn powder to the paste. "I want a 30% royalty, a cut of the profit from every ten copies sold."
Boss Wang's eyes widened as his fat fingers scrambled on the abacus, the beads clattering like his frantic heartbeat. "Miss Su! How can a woman show up in public and expect royalties? How will you ever get married if this gets out?"
"I wrote the book, so naturally I have the final say." I flipped open the first page of the manuscript, and the passage where Madam Liu harshly treated the heroine stood out. The words were like ice. "Either do as I say, or..." I pointed out the window at the sign of the "Wen Xin Pavilion" next door, which rustled in the wind. "I'll try to talk to Boss Liu. I heard he just got an abacus that can calculate royalties."
At the mention of his sworn enemy, Boss Wang's Adam's apple twitched, his face flushed crimson, and he finally gritted his teeth and nodded, "Okay! 30% royalties, that's 30%! But the author's name..."
"Let's call her 'Jin Xin.'" I gazed at the falling sycamore leaves outside the window, remembering my biological mother holding me beneath the tree and telling me stories. She would always touch my forehead with her fingertips and say, "My daughter has a heart of gold and a mouth of embroidery." "Remember, if you dare reveal my identity—" I shook the wolf-hair brush in my hand, the tip still stained with wet ink, "this brush can not only write, but also paint people's faces."
Three days later, "The Story of a Concubine's Counterattack" was officially published. I was in the rouge shop's accounting office, calculating the cost of "Drunken Hibiscus," clutching the first royalty note from Boss Wang. The edge of the note still stained with Boss Wang's sweaty hands. Suddenly, the young marquis slammed open the carved wooden door. A storybook still hung from the wooden sword, and the tassel of the blade knocked over the abacus beads on the table. The beads tumbled to the ground like a string of black pearls. "Sister! The scene in the book where Concubine Liu exchanges Shen Weiwan's dowry for stones is exactly the same as when Madam Liu pawned your biological mother's jade bracelet last year! The rumors are all over the streets, saying you're..."
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