White Peony was just thirteen years old when she filled her clothes with cloth balls to catch men's eyes. It was not because she was sexually precocious. She was the same as all thirteen-year-old girls, and had a superficial understanding of sex. She did so because she had set herself an ambitious life goal at that time: to marry Lord Wang Tu, their landlord.
A thirteen-year-old girl tends to be all at sea when forced to think about significant issues in life. However, White Peony could make plans and arrangements with a calm and clear mind. In fact, she didn't show her talents and seemed as ordinary as her younger sister Red Apricot until an unprecedentedly serious outbreak of Yuqiu Disease (a disease with such symptoms as a swollen sore throat, causing difficulty in swallowing) struck the Flower River area. That year, people of all ages and both sexes, including landlords and tenant farmers on both sides of Flower River, suffered from Yuqiu Disease, which gave them stomachaches. The symptoms lasted for more than ten days and many people died. The parents of White Peony and Red Apricot, as well as White Peony's future mother-in-law, were among those.
As a person in the family of White Peony's future husband had passed away and White Peony was an orphan, the family wanted her to marry into them. The man was named Wang Chong. He was seven or eight years older than White Peony and had long been anxious to marry. However, White Peony said she wanted to stay with her younger sister until she grew up. In her eyes, both Wang Chong's family and her own were tenant farmers of Lord Wang Tu, so whether she married into the Wangs or not made no difference.
White Peony had to think carefully about the future of herself and her younger sister.
The autumn harvest was coming soon and everyone was busy harvesting maize and cutting paddy. White Peony took her sister to the fields to sell crops instead of harvesting. She found two people who were willing to buy her crops, and led them to the edge of a field. They discussed how much the maize in this plot was worth and how much the paddy in that plot was worth. The two people offered a fair price which White Peony accepted, so she would not be the one to harvest the crops.
White Peony sold all of her family's crops except some rations for her and her sister to keep body and soul together for half a month. She left no ground for retreat and her goal was to marry into the Wangs. A few days after the harvest, the Wangs sent someone to collect the rent. "We have nothing to hand in," White Peony said.
"Where are your crops?" the collector asked. "They were used to offset debt before being harvested. We don't have any crops." "Do you have money?" "We wouldn't have repaid the debt with crops if we had." "Then what can we do?" "Take back the fields. We can't cultivate them."
"Taking back the fields is one thing and this year's rent is another."
White Peony uttered no sound and wore a stubborn expression.
The person sent by the Wangs was Zhu Daxiu, a man who had been brought up by Wu Xianggui, the landlord's wife. Although the Wangs were a family of landlords, the property was not so large that a steward was necessary. Wang Tu didn't handle affairs. He was born to be fun-loving, and enjoyed walking dogs and playing chess. He had previously been sent to collect rent, but if a tenant proposed to offset the rent with a dog he would agree without thinking, and if a tenant knew how to play chess he would play chess with them to offset the rent. This was why Wu Xianggui stopped him from collecting rent after three months, and started to take Zhu Daxiu with her instead. Zhu Daxiu was Wu Xianggui's nephew and a smart, studious and trustworthy young man. It only took two or three quarters for Wu Xianggui to teach him how to collect rent. Zhu Daxiu was more merciless than Wu Xianggui. At first, she had taken Zhu Daxiu with her to collect rent. Now Zhu Daxiu took a dog with him to collect it. The dog was fierce and its fur stood on end from head to foot. Even the fur on its face stood on end like the fur on its body. The dog always had bloodshot eyes. It looked like a slovenly villain who drank strong liquor all day. The villain could read Zhu Daxiu's meaningful glances, and attacked whoever annoyed its master.
However, the dog didn't bite White Peony because Zhu Daxiu didn't show anger. He said, "If you can't pay the rent, you'll have to be a servant girl to pay the rent." White Peony made no reply. This was not because she was afraid of being a servant girl; she had to remain calm because Zhu Daxiu was falling into her trap, and she feared that any negligence would mess up her plan.
Zhu Daxiu said, "You can't solve the problem by keeping silent. You and your sister have to work for the Wangs to pay the rent you owe. You can't go home until it's paid off."
"Fine," White Peony said.
She took her nine-year-old sister Red Apricot and followed Zhu Daxiu. Red Apricot was crying but White Peony pulled her sleeve and whispered in her ear, "Don't cry. Be obedient and I promise you'll have a better life." Red Apricot stopped crying. She had no idea what the future would bring, and she didn't have enough experience to convince her sister that it would be no good working for the Wangs. All she knew was that her sister had a plan and it was proper to listen to her.
Zhu Daxiu brought White Peony and Red Apricot back, but Wu Xianggui was unhappy. "They have sharp tongues and they'll stay here for a long time," she said to Zhu Daxiu, "but they're no good at work. Do you think this is cost-efficient?" Hearing this, Wang Tu who was standing aside cracked a joke: "How can you make a horse run without feeding it?" He winked and cast a glance at White Peony and Red Apricot as though they were a team. Wu Xianggui detested Wang Tu's whimsical attitude. She gave him a dirty look and walked away. Zhu Daxiu followed her quickly. He was very worried about her unhappiness. As Wu Xianggui was angry, he had to shut his mouth and follow her.
Zhu Daxiu came back again and shouted domineeringly at them, "Come to the central room with me right now." White Peony and Red Apricot followed him to the central room, where they saw Wu Xianggui sitting in an armchair smoking a long tobacco pipe. As tall as a man, the long pipe had been left by Wang Tu's father and it represented the authority of the Wangs.
Besides Wu Xianggui and Zhu Daxiu, the maidservant Aunt Pear Flower also stood in the central room and seemed to have just been reprimanded. Her grievance twisted her face like crumpled paper and she seemed on the verge of tears. White Peony and Red Apricot stoked her anger as they walked in. "These two little bitches? I should have known it would be such ..." she began, but Wu Xianggui stopped her with a simple "Ahem". Aunt Pear Flower had to hold her tongue, but this didn't mean she had no complaint. She had been fired by Wu Xianggui when White Peony and Red Apricot arrived. She had worked for the Wangs for three years. She had been there since the day Wu Xianggui gave birth to her baby son, and it was she who had raised him for three years.
Although it was Wu Xianggui who fired her, she shifted her resentment to White Peony and Red Apricot. As Wu Xianggui didn't allow her to curse, she intended to pounce on White Peony and beat her. She couldn't vent her hatred until she had torn White Peony into pieces and swallowed her. Of course, she couldn't actually do this. Now that White Peony and Red Apricot were members of the Wangs, how could she beat them at will? Zhu Daxiu pulled her away easily.
Wu Xianggui turned to White Peony and Red Apricot and said, "Listen, little girls. Aunt Pear Flower has to go home if you stay. You'll be taking the bread out of her mouth."
"You asked us to pay the rent by labor. We'll leave now if you don't want us to stay," White Peony replied.
Wu Xianggui cast a hateful glance at her. She didn't like servants answering back, let alone a little girl. She took a deep puff on the pipe, blew the smoke out with a rush and said, "Of course you need to stay. Otherwise how can you pay the rent? But since you're here, Aunt Pear Flower has to go home, so you should pay this year's salary to her ..."
"This isn't right. Aunt Pear Flower works for you, not for us!" White Peony interrupted.
Unexpectedly, Wu Xianggui heard White Peony out patiently this time. She suddenly found it interesting to let White Peony answer back. She was extremely curious about what she would do next. She leaned over to White Peony and said in a soft voice, "Aunt Pear Flower wouldn't have to go home if you weren't here. You two should take the blame. Even if the Wangs don't ask you to pay the salary, Aunt Pear Flower will." She stared at White Peony, wondering what she would say. White Peony was silent for a moment under her gaze, and then said, "Whatever you want." Wu Xianggui hadn't expected that she would give in so soon. Dissatisfaction and disappointment showed in her face. Aunt Pear Flower suddenly shouted, "Then I'm in distress!"
"The Wangs won't underpay you," Wu Xianggui said, "but these girls should be responsible, which means they should pay your salary."
"That means I get nothing. These little girls couldn't pay my salary even if they walked the streets!"
"The Wangs are fair, so how about this? Let them pay your salary from their two years of labor. I'll pay your salary after they've worked for two years." She then turned to White Peony and said, "As for your debt, it should be paid in labor within two years."
Aunt Pear Flower shouted again, "This is not right!"
Wu Xianggui said, "I have the final say. This is right."
This plan brought Wu Xianggui great joy, but White Peony was scornful of it. That night, lying in bed, she said to Red Apricot, "That scheming witch doesn't know that we want to work for the Wangs in the long term."
"I don't want to," Red Apricot replied.
"No, but we have to."
"I don't want to anyway."
"Don't be good-for-nothing. Be obedient."
She continued, "In fact, the witch didn't ask Aunt Pear Flower to go home because we're here. It's because the youngest son of the witch died, and it's useless for Aunt Pear Flower to stay here. I didn't expose the witch for fear of displeasing her. Remember, try not to provoke the witch."
Now White Peony had finished the first step of her life goal, and she could breathe a sigh of relief.
