Chapter Text
When Shen Qingqiu walked inside the Red Rose Inn, he was met with chaos. He turned to leave, not wanting to get in the way when it was outside of the ladies’ usual working hours anyways. But someone spotted him and called out, “Master Shen! Master Shen, thank the gods you’re here!”
He turned to see Miss Zhou, the madame of the inn. He walked over quickly. “What happened?”
She looked quite upset, as did the other ladies. Considering how tough and thick-skinned these women were, he knew that it would take something big happening to have them this bothered. Miss Zhou wrung her hands together. “It’s- it’s A-Mei. When she realized she was pregnant, she quickly ate the usual herbs to take care of it. She got violently ill for a few days, but then recovered and we thought that that was the end of it. But now she’s started to grow, and her condition became impossible to hide in the past weeks. Master Cao came by last night after seeing that I paid for a doctor to come by multiple times, and immediately noticed her pregnancy. He punished her for not being careful enough, then said he knows of men who would pay extra for a pregnant woman. A-Mei took off in the night to avoid her contract being sold off. Now she’s out on the streets with nowhere to go, no money, still a debt to pay to Master Cao, and a babe on the way. Please, Master Shen, you’ve always been so good to us, and I know it’s asking a lot-”
“Do you know where she might have gone?” he interrupted. Shen Qingqiu knew A-Mei. She was one of the younger girls, and the most talented singer in the place. She always had a warm smile for Shen Qingqiu, even on the days when he found it hardest to contain his sharp tongue, and sometimes when it was very late and she thought Shen Qingqiu was asleep, she would whisper about her dreams for the future, which seemed to change day by day.
Miss Zhou shook her head. “The girls with debts are not allowed to leave the grounds without supervision, so A-Mei rarely went out. She has worked here since she was twelve, and I do not know where she lived before, or where she might go now. I only know that it is not safe out there, and I don’t know what to do.”
“This master will find her,” Shen Qingqiu said with absolute certainty. Miss Zhou reached into her sleeve to pull out a small pouch and pressed it into Shen Qingqiu’s hand. Then she gave him a tight smile. “What else?” he asked when she hesitated.
“It’s just… When you bring her back, Master Cao will most likely still want to sell her, or worse if he finds out she tried to run. But if you are unable to find her…” she trailed off and gave Shen Qingqiu a meaningful look.
He nodded firmly then turned to leave without another word. As he left to begin looking for A-Mei, Shen Qingqiu began thinking of what he would be able to do to help her. Since the pouch he’d been given belonged to A-Mei, Shen Qingqiu was able to attach a tracking talisman to it and start following the trail without having to pay too much attention to his surroundings, giving him plenty of time to think. A-Mei was in a difficult position, but Shen Qingqiu would do what he could to help; he only needed to figure out what would be best for her.
He ended up finding her huddled in a back alley, jacket pulled as tightly together in the front as she could get it. A-Mei startled at first, but when she saw who had found her, she just let out a resigned sigh and slumped back against the cold wall behind her. “Master Shen,” she greeted him listlessly. “Are you here to take me back?”
“Do you wish to go back?” he asked instead of answering.
She sighed again and pulled her knees up to her chest, unintentionally protecting the slight bump of her stomach. “What does it matter?”
Shen Qingqiu cautiously took a few steps closer to her, though he remained far enough back to leave her room to breathe. “Pretend for a moment that it matters. What would you like to do?”
A-Mei sniffled, then looked up at Shen Qingqiu with a very fragile hope in her eyes. “Master Shen…” And once more, she whispered to him her dreams of the future.
Shen Qingqiu nodded once, and reached out his hand to help pull her back to her feet. “Very well, then.” And with that, he led her far away from the Red Rose Inn, unaware that he had just set events into motion that would change the course of his destined fate.