RUYI

1 - Mother's Poison

How can you lose something you never have?

I was born without love. My mother had been a lowly tea maid who schemed her way into the Marquess' bed. Through one union, she had me and became a lady maid. A greedy woman by nature, my mother continues to scheme for a higher status. I was simply the collateral to her schemes.

When your own mother poisons you to gain pity from others, how should you feel?

I was seven when my mother sprinkled white powder into my morning porridge. Like an experiment, she started with small dosages, testing to see the limits of my small body. In the beginning, there had only been stomach pains. The more I ate her porridge, the sicker I would get, until I'm bedridden for days. By the time I was ten, my mother upped the dose of the poison because she realized my body had grown accustom to it.

She needed me forever frail and weak in order to gain pity from the household – from my father.

No one cared enough to find the source to my illness. Instead, everyone stayed further away – not wanting to catch the disease they believed I have.

My mother is the disease I have.

Mother stopped poisoning me when she finally had what she wanted – a son. With a son, she finally got the status as the fifth concubine of Marquess Li. At fifteen, I found peace. Everyone has forgotten my existence, while my mother was too busy protecting her son to remember me. Everyone else focus were on the new baby boy to realize that I no longer sick.

I became a ghost that no one sees.

But it no longer matters as I continue to live in my small courtyard, reading to pass the each day peacefully.