In the dim lamplight, Lin Yiniang wore an expression of coy tenderness, all sweetness and softness, as she said in her gentle, drawn-out manner: “My Hong, today your concubine is truly happy too — first, that Eldest Miss has made such a fine match; and second, on account of our Molan. Today a number of ladies remarked on how dignified and pleasant Molan is, and how she makes a fine impression. It is only that… alas…” She heaved a long sigh, trailing off into a chain of mournful sorrow.

“If you are happy, why sigh?” Sheng Hong was drowsy and ready to sleep.

“Your concubine is thinking about whether Molan will be as fortunate as Eldest Miss in the future. It is true that, within the household now, all the young misses are treated alike — yet I fear that when the time comes to arrange her marriage, people may look down on her for not being born of the proper wife…” Lin Yiniang’s voice trailed lower and lower.

Sheng Hong thought back on the difficulties he had faced when going to the Wang family to ask for Wang Shi’s hand, and sighed as well: “There is, in the end, a distinction between legitimate and concubine-born. But as long as I am here, Molan will not be put at a disadvantage.”

Lin Yiniang said in a soft voice: “How much your concubine understands the care you show us three — I know it better than anyone. But the exchanges between official and noble ladies are beyond your reach to oversee, my lord. You would need to bring the young misses out to see the world, so that Molan will not be dragged down by having such a lowly birth mother as I am — buried away in the inner courtyard, unknown to anyone.” As she came to the end of her speech her voice was full of sad dejection.

Sheng Hong reflected for a moment, then said: “You make a fair point. I will speak to the household. From now on, when attending upon female guests outside, you must not bring only Rulan — Molan and Minglan are to come as well. If they have the temperament for it and the fortune, the Sheng family may gain two more advantageous marriages.”

Lin Yiniang gave him a coquettish look of tender adoration, leaning into his arms: “Truly my wonderful Hong!” In the very next breath, however, she became distressed again, brows gently knitting: “I heard from maids who went to watch outside that Eldest Miss had as many as eighteen or twenty-eight trays of dowry — with land and estates and many accompanying servants besides. What a magnificent arrangement that was. I wonder whether Molan will someday…”

Sheng Hong had been somewhat muddled, but having by now had his head washed twice by Nanny Kong, he was more guarded when it came to Lin Yiniang’s requests. He thought for a moment before saying: “Setting aside the question of what family she marries into, I treat all my daughters equally. But Eldest Miss contributed from her own dowry to increase her own trappings — calculated properly, Molan will not necessarily end up with as lavish a trousseau as Eldest Miss did.”

Lin Yiniang affected a pretty pout: “My Hong, you have such a good nature. Now that she has married in, her dowry is part of the Sheng household too. All the sons and daughters call her ‘Mother’ — surely she cannot be partial like that!”

Sheng Hong’s heart went cold. His mind began to clear. He said slowly and deliberately: “Partial or not is a separate matter. Only a man without self-respect spends his days pining after his wife’s dowry. My brother-in-law came from a family of some official standing, and precisely because he used up Wang Shi’s dowry, he can’t hold his head up in her presence to this day. When I first sought the Wang family’s hand in marriage I made my decision — not a single coin of my wife’s dowry would I touch. It will all be kept for Changbai. He is Sheng family’s grandson either way.”

Lin Yiniang was alarmed. She sat bolt upright from the bedding: “Then what of Changfeng and Molan? Can it be that my lord does not intend to provide for them? Are they to suffer in the future on account of having me, their concubine mother?”

With that, tears brimmed in her eyes.

Sheng Hong kept Nanny Kong’s instructions in mind and said slowly and evenly: “You had no substantial dowry — is that my fault?”

Lin Yiniang was struck speechless. She stared at Sheng Hong in disbelief, quite unable to fathom that he would speak to her in such a way.

Sheng Hong privately marveled at Nanny Kong’s uncanny foresight. In one of their casual conversations, Nanny Kong had identified with perfect clarity the recurring pattern in his dealings with Lin Yiniang: Lin Yiniang would begin by lamenting her own lowly and pitiable condition, which would cause him to feel sorry for her and attempt to comfort her. Lin Yiniang would then grow ever more wretched and fearful about her future, weeping without end, and then he would soften and promise her one thing or another.

At the time, Nanny Kong had said with a cold laugh: had Lin Yiniang possessed such family connections and such a dowry, would she have agreed to become his concubine?

Sheng Hong, though he believed he and Lin Yiniang shared a genuine affection, still possessed enough self-awareness not to carry that into the realm of fantasy. So Nanny Kong had taught him that precise line — to serve as a sudden brake on Lin Yiniang’s various overreaching demands — and had even prepared the subsequent lines for him.

Sheng Hong sat up and put on his inner robe. His voice cooled: “When I was afraid you and your children might be mistreated, I went so far as to carve out a portion from the ancestral estate and set it aside for you and your children — which was already against the rules. Yet I did it, for your sake and for Changfeng’s and Molan’s. You already enjoy far better treatment than most concubines. Could it be that is still not enough? If you wished to stand on equal footing with the mistress of the household, you should never have agreed to be a concubine in the first place.”

Lin Yiniang nearly choked on her own breath. Her whole body trembled: “My lord, how can you say such things — my feelings for you are true and sincere. Even as a proper wife elsewhere I would not go — I was willing to be a concubine for you. How can you, how can you…”

Sheng Hong felt a measure of disquiet inwardly. He had to marvel again that Nanny Kong had even predicted what Lin Yiniang would say next — so he followed the script and met her move for move: “If you bear me such a true and sincere feeling, and were even willing to be a concubine for my sake — then why do you never cease to complain, and constantly ask me for this and for that? Is that what a sincere heart looks like?”

As he spoke, even Sheng Hong himself began to feel somewhat disgusted — and he found himself doubting somewhat whether he and Lin Yiniang truly had that “sincere, mutual feeling” between them.

Lin Yiniang had been silenced entirely — as though she had walked into a solid wall at full speed. She wept for a moment, organized her thoughts, then said in a choked and aggrieved tone: “Were it only for my own sake, I would not say a single word. But — but I must think of the children! I know I am lowly — but Changfeng and Molan are my lord’s own flesh and blood. I genuinely worry…”

Sheng Hong said coldly: “If Molan makes a match above her station, I will make an exception and supplement her dowry for the sake of the Sheng family’s face. But if the match is an ordinary one, surely I cannot give Molan a trousseau on par with Hualan, who has married into an earl’s family. And then there is Rulan, and Minglan — they too are my own flesh and blood! As for Changfeng — a man of true worth makes his own way in the world. He should study, sit the examinations, enter government service, and establish his own household. A man cannot simply rely on inherited privilege forever. My elder uncle squandered nearly the entire family fortune — much of my elder brother’s wealth today was earned by his own efforts. Though I am no great talent myself, I did not arrive at where I am today by riding purely on my father’s coattails!”

Lin Yiniang wiped her eyes, seething inwardly. Since Nanny Kong’s arrival, Sheng Hong had become far less indulgent and compliant toward her than before. She had been dutifully sweet and yielding, serving him with soft devotion. Tonight she had intended to take advantage of his good mood and persuade him to put more properties in her name — so that her son and daughter would not fall behind in the future. Yet to her shock, Sheng Hong had seemed fully prepared with a systematic counter to every point she raised, leaving not a single opening. She could not help but feel a creeping dread take hold inside her.

Sheng Hong saw Lin Yiniang’s expression falter — she looked frightened and pitiably forlorn. He softened his tone somewhat: “How could I not love Changfeng and Molan? But there are after all the rules of seniority and the distinction between legitimate and concubine-born. Were I to throw all that into disorder, I would not only be a laughingstock — it might well bring family disaster upon us.”

Then Sheng Hong felt he had gone soft again. Recalling Nanny Kong’s final words to him, he immediately applied them then and there. His voice turned sharp and stern: “And you must govern yourself as well. It is precisely because you fill your head with these kinds of thoughts all day that you stirred up Molan to compete and push herself forward against her sisters. If in the future Changfeng proves similarly without any sense of fraternal duty, I will deal with you immediately!”

With that he rose at once, put on his outer robe, got down from the bed, straightened his appearance, and regardless of Lin Yiniang’s cries behind him, walked straight out the door, saying only one last thing as he turned back: “Raise your children well — the good days for you will come. I have given you all that I can give. Stop pining after what I have not.”

Lin Yiniang was shaking with rage and shock. She had been so thoroughly pampered for so long that she could not bring herself to bend her pride and beg Sheng Hong to stay — she ground her back teeth until she could taste silver.

As Sheng Hong walked away and sighed, he reflected that Nanny Kong, having spent so many years embedded in the inner courts of great families, knew the innermost workings of such households better than anyone. Every noble and earl’s family she had mentioned that had fallen and lost their titles — he knew all of them, some personally. Household disasters invariably began with degenerate descendants, and degenerate descendants invariably arose from corrupt upbringings. A phoenix fallen from grace is worse than a chicken — the sight of those ruined families eating watery porridge in abject poverty had left a vivid impression on him from his days in the capital. He had also witnessed firsthand how his own great-uncle had favored his concubine and pushed aside his legitimate wife, nearly squandering the entire family estate — if not for his own mother’s steadfast support and Sheng Wei’s hard work building things back up, that branch of the family would have long since come to ruin. Taken all together, front and back, Sheng Hong shuddered every time he thought of it.

The cold wind outside cleared his head. He told himself he had perhaps been overthinking — after all, Changbai and Changfeng were both diligent in their studies. How could one compare them to those useless idlers who spent their days in cockfights, dog-racing, birds, and flowers? When Sheng Hong had been taken by his late father’s old friends and patrons to make the rounds of introductions among the great families, he had deeply envied those clans of generations of distinguished scholars and officials — their family code was strict, their descendants accomplished, and they flourished across the decades. Even titled families dared not look down on them. He wondered whether the Sheng family could ever hope for such a fate.

Sheng Hong exhaled a long sigh. Was it easy being an official with ideals and aspirations?

When Hualan married, Wang Shi gave not only a substantial dowry but also selected a number of diligent and reliable maids and matrons from the household to accompany her as her personal attendants. The Old Mistress had long wished to reorganize the household, and took advantage of this opportunity to redistribute the serving staff. Wang Shi was initially quite resistant to this reshuffling — but the moment she heard that Lin Cottage was to have its staff reduced, she immediately agreed with both hands raised.

According to the rules of feudal hierarchy, a concubine’s maids and matrons ought to be fewer than a legitimate wife’s. Previously, Sheng Hong’s favoritism had created an imbalance. But now that Sheng Hong had returned to the proper path, Lin Cottage was to have its roster trimmed. Lin Yiniang was not without protest — she argued that the servants were there to wait upon Changfeng and Molan. Wang Shi immediately retorted: “And what of Changbai and Rulan?”

The formula resolved as follows: Wang Shi plus Changbai plus Rulan equals Lin Yiniang plus Changfeng plus Molan. However, since Wang Shi ought to outrank Lin Yiniang, this meant: Changbai plus Rulan ought to be less than Changfeng plus Molan. The Old Mistress then said most displeasedly: the greatest absurdity under heaven — how could this possibly stand?

Lin Yiniang watched as the staff she had cultivated and positioned over the years was cut back significantly. Her heart burned with fury, yet she dared not resist. Before the Old Mistress, she could not win on logic. Before Sheng Hong, she could no longer move him with her “genuine feeling.” Before Wang Shi, she was outranked. In the end, she could only shut herself in her own courtyard, glowering with a dark expression, and smash an entire set of tea things.

The same restructuring that affected Lin Yiniang also affected the Sixth Young Miss Minglan in the form of an addition of new staff. Faced with the good news of being assigned more servants, the Sixth Young Miss proved most unappreciative. Upon hearing that more people were to be assigned to her, her first response was: “What do we need more people for? Nanny Cui, Danju, and Xiaotao — three of them serving just me — I have more than enough. And there are others for everything else.”

Minglan’s reasoning was perfectly natural, given where she had come from — a world in the grip of an economic crisis, where companies worldwide were slashing jobs; where women were worked like men and men were worked like draft animals; where if something could be done with two people, two and a half were absolutely not employed. The Old Mistress fixed Minglan with an expression of profound exasperation for the length of time it took to drink an entire cup of tea — then heaved a long sigh, went to her Buddhist prayer room, and recited two rounds of a calming sutra to stop herself from strangling her beloved little granddaughter. Nanny Fang, with great tact, proceeded to enlighten the Sixth Young Miss.

Back when the Old Mistress was a young miss at the Yongyi Marquis’s household, she had not only her own separate courtyard but also three senior managing matrons in her personal staff, five first-rank maids, eight second-rank maids, three third-rank maids, five or six errand-running junior pages, and an unspecified number of matrons for needlework, laundry, and cleaning — where “unspecified” amounted to roughly ten.

Minglan counted on her fingers, her mouth falling open wider and wider: “That — that — that’s not over ten people all waiting on Grandmother alone?”

Nanny Fang smoothed the half-new chestnut-colored small stand-collar cross-front jacket she wore — its fine cotton-lined silk, engraved with six medallion flowers in delicate embroidery — and said with great pride: “Of course. The late Marquis had only this one daughter, so naturally no expense was spared in treating her like precious gold and fine jade. The Old Mistress was also counted among the finest young ladies in all of the capital at the time.”

Minglan thought for a moment and immediately asked: “Is the Yongyi Marquis’s household the same today? I have heard Grandmother mention that the current generation of the Yongyi Marquis’s household has a young miss.”

Nanny Fang’s aged face faltered slightly. She hedged: “…That is rather different. The current Yongyi Marquis… is not quite the same as the one before.” She thought to herself with a quiet sigh: this Sixth Young Miss always manages to put her finger on exactly the right point.

Minglan smiled pleasantly: “Nanny, please don’t look so troubled. Grandmother was the only daughter then — now the Marquis’s household has several young misses, so naturally the same grand arrangements cannot apply.”

“Quite right, young miss — that is exactly so.” Nanny Fang’s aged face recovered some of its composure, breaking into a warm, wrinkled smile as she said: “Our Master currently holds the sixth rank, the rank of Prefect — naturally we cannot keep the same scale of arrangements as a marquis’s household. There is nothing classified as first-rank or second-rank here. But the young misses of the household ought to have a retinue befitting their station. Before, when you were still very small, having just Danju and Xiaotao at your side was still passable. Now that you are growing older day by day, you cannot go on being as sparse as a modest small family — that would invite ridicule from outsiders. Besides, the Fourth Young Miss and the Fifth Young Miss each have their own. Of course, we must not exceed what is appropriate either — overstepping would give the censors cause to impeach us for extravagance and waste, and that would be its own trouble.”

Nanny Fang went on at considerable length, and Minglan nodded along like a pestle grinding grain. The next day, the supervising matrons brought over about ten small girls to the Hall of Longevity and Tranquility — of varying heights and builds. Wang Shi sat to one side with a smile, taking Minglan by the hand: “Look them over yourself — whichever you like, pick her out.”

Minglan turned to look. Her gaze met briefly with the girls’ eyes — those small girls immediately looked away, as shy as rabbits. A few of the bolder ones smiled at Minglan in an attempt to please her. Minglan felt a subtle discomfort, rather as though she were choosing items from a market stall — as though these small girls were not independent people at all, but small novelties, like little goldfish or little turtles.

Whatever the look in their eyes — bold or timid — every one of those girls wore an expression of longing. After Nanny Fang’s instruction, Minglan understood that for them, to be chosen meant immediate entry into the inner household, escaping a life of rough labor and plain cloth clothes. And for those who were fortunate, there might even be the chance to rise further in time. Minglan asked herself honestly: between a comfortable and easy life, and the dignity and freedom of personhood — which mattered more?

Minglan was deep in contemplation of this profound question of human existence when the Old Mistress gave her a glance. Nanny Fang saw it and turned to Wang Shi: “Sixth Young Miss is still young and has seen so few people — how can she be expected to choose well? Better to let the Old Mistress decide.”

The Old Mistress nodded her agreement.

The Old Mistress was clearly an old hand at selecting servants. She questioned the supervising matron in careful detail: which girls had been purchased from outside, which were house-born? Where had each one worked before? Where were their mothers? What special skills did they have? The girls brought in had already been screened to eliminate those with blemishes or poor health. In the end, the Old Mistress selected four girls.

Wang Shi quickly said: “That is so few — surely Sixth Miss will be quite under-provided-for. Old Mistress, please select a few more. If these four prove unsatisfactory, we can always purchase more.” Minglan lowered her head, thinking privately that Rulan’s maids were already well over quota.

The Old Mistress glanced at Wang Shi and said: “One must not wear a hat bigger than one’s head. The Master did not find his position easily — economizing on silver is well and good, economizing on the talk of outsiders is well and good too. We women of the inner household must all the more learn to be considerate of the man of the family.”

Wang Shi’s expression became awkward, and she replied with a submissive murmur. In her heart, she resolved to go and “be considerate” of Molan’s side of things as well — by having her maids reduced at the same time.