World Kingdom Warrior (3 Kingdoms - Book 0.5) by Camille Picott

  ***

  A long time ago, Tulip saw her mother beaten with a cane.

  Tulip should have been in bed, but Peony was still making tofu for a man, so she slept beneath a table in the common room. It was so late that all the other flowers had already gone to sleep and all the lamps except one had been extinguished.

  When Peony finally came downstairs, she walked the man out and bolted the door behind him. As soon as she turned around, Mistress Wang jumped out of the shadows and slapped her. She slapped her so hard that Peony fell down.

  Tulip cried out and rushed toward her mother. Peony lifted her head off the floor and flung out one hand in a command for her to stop. Tulip froze on her hands and knees beneath a table.

  “I will not tolerate impudence in the House of Flowers, not even from you,” Mistress Wang said.

  “You promised not to whore her out until she was twelve,” Peony cried. “That man—”

  “That man was a paying customer.”

  “But he wanted Tulip!”

  “That did not give you the right to disrespect him.”

  “I only—” Peony’s protest cut off in a scream.

  In the near-darkness, Mistress Wang’s cane came down across Peony’s shoulders. The old lady only carried it on rainy days, when her hip bothered her.

  “I protect your bastard brat, don’t I?” she snarled. “You will remember your place. You are my whore, my property, and you will never, ever speak disrespectfully to any of my customers. Do you understand?”

  The cane came down again and again. Peony screamed and wept and begged for forgiveness. Tulip whimpered and hid her face, unable to watch.