是你自己挑的，谁也没逼你

Come, come, come, sweetheart, come over here. Come and sit on Matron's lap.

Nanny, I'm sleepy. I want to go to sleep.

Sleep — I'll let you go to sleep in a moment.

First help Matron finish one little task, then off to bed, all right?

Look at this box.

Every child in our home comes to this room, and eats a piece of candy like this.

Eat it, and only then will you have food.

Here — choose a colour yourself.

I like the pink one.

Good.

Remember, you chose it yourself. Nobody forced you.

These sweets in their different colours stand for different parts of your body.

You chose it yourself, so it counts as given willingly.

Pink is one leg.

My leg? Nanny, I don't want pink, can I change it?

Once it's chosen, it can't be changed.

Matron will let you find out right now what it tastes like to eat your fill with a leg gone.

This place really is just as it was.

Just as it was, not changed at all. It's you who've changed, Miss Fang — a great lady now.

Down at the foot of the back wall — is there still a dog hole?

In those days that's where I crawled out.

That's ancient history. You'll have no use for it now.

I'll have no use for it. Those children inside still will.

Take me to Nanny Sun.

Who's there? You... you're... it can't be, you died long ago!

Nanny.

The dead come for my life! A vengeful ghost come for my life!

Feel my hand. I'm warm. Since when is a vengeful ghost warm?

You... you're alive. What great luck. You've become a great lady now.

I'm alive. But do you still remember Xiaolan?

Xiao... Xiaolan...

You can't remember. Of course — with that much blood on your hands, how would you keep one straight?

The records of every orphan, year by year, should be right here.

Why are you here?

She isn't dead yet.

What?

When I came in, she was still breathing. You didn't know?

Your hand was too soft. The Huo men are downstairs, they'll be up any moment. What do you plan to do?

You think I came unprepared?

Oh, good heavens — raining this hard, this late, and you're not upstairs in bed. What are you doing down here?

We're practising singing.

All right, I'm just doing a round, I'll be off in a moment.

Sir, would you listen to us?

In the daytime Matron said we don't sing well enough, said the great gentlemen don't like it, and told us to practise more.

Does sir think we sing badly too?

...I didn't mean that.

Then sir, let us sing you one.

We learned this Polish specially. Matron said the great gentlemen would be sure to like it.

I didn't expect this lot to be so quick-witted.

They sang it through, and through again. The two upstairs gained that time over and over.

All right, that's enough singing for today. All of you upstairs to bed.

Do you all sleep on the second floor?

Ren Susu.

There is no such person in Beicheng.

You still mean to go about under the name of my elder brother's betrothed, getting up to these things?

Tonight — neither of us has clean hands.

I'd think neither of us has any reason to let it out and burn ourselves.

Finished?

No. Back at the orphanage — if that old woman had crawled out and called for help, and you were trapped inside, what then?

That's still not yours to worry about.

There's an iron threshold at the door. She couldn't get over it.

It was raining outside — cold and blood loss. Nobody needed to lift a hand again.

Even granting everything — I am your elder brother's betrothed.

Whatever I do, only he has the standing to question me.

You don't have the standing.

Whether I have it or not is not yours to decide.

In those days she was still called Susu.

Susu, drink some water first. Slowly, don't choke.

Xiaolan, I can't eat.

One more bite. If you don't eat, how will the fever break? Don't finish it all at once, keep some back.

That was the place they grew up in — until the Huo family came to the door.

Still lying there? Get up.

Nanny, she's ill! She's really ill!

Let me tell you — so long as she isn't dead, she comes with me. The Huo family have chosen you. It's your good fortune.

She really can't get up!

If she doesn't go, who goes? Who earns the money?

I'll go. Nanny, I'll go.

You?

I can sing, and I can dance. Let me go.

What pipe dream are you having?

Nanny, I'll go.

Susu burned with fever for three days.

When she woke, it was Xiaoqing who told her: Xiaolan went to the Huo house in your place.

From then on, Xiaolan never came back.

Nanny Sun is dead. The Beicheng papers are full of nothing else.

That's exactly what I wanted.

Making this much noise — what's the point?

The whole city is looking for Nanny Sun.

The police station is watching, and so is the press.

Would the Huo family dare touch those children now?

They'll have to hold those children up like treasures instead.

You've thought it through as always. And after this?

After this, it's time to send the Huo family on their way.

What the Huo family trades in has always been open only to the powerful and the rich. Start with those people and you won't go wrong.

Where is the ledger?

Master, the ledger is gone as well.

That aeroplane at the opening ceremony — I was the one meant to be on it.

The flying school explains it away as some mechanical fault. I call it someone's hand.

And now the matron has vanished too.

Put those two things together and I'm afraid someone means to come for the Huo family.

I'll send men to the orphanage at once to find out who was there last night.

Wait. Don't only question that crowd of grown-ups. Sometimes the children know more.

If you've nothing on, come to the opera with me.

I'm going back. I'm to try the wedding clothes with Qingyu.

Qingyu... and Murong Qingyi? Is your heart for revenge truly as firm as rock, never once shaken?

My business. There's no need to drag him into it.

And if he walks in of his own accord?

He keeps his mouth shut, and that's the best state for him. You know me — I settle old accounts, I don't walk back down old roads.

You've been out of temper all day. If you've something to say, say it.

Weren't you going with Fang Mulan to try the wedding clothes? Still here?

A couple of days ago you'd call her sister-in-law now and then. These few days you don't call her anything.

Mulan I'm easy about. It's you — quarrel if you must, but don't lose all sense of proportion.

What did I do to her? Tore into me head and face. As if she were any better.

Headmaster, there's trouble.

Teacher Ye took the children from the sponsored school out, and tabloid reporters have them surrounded, asking about the opening ceremony. It's turned into a row.

I'll go.

Qingyi, Fang Mulan is still waiting to try the wedding clothes.

Tell your sister-in-law for me — I've urgent business today, I'll go with her another day.

Miss Fang, please wait a little longer. Mr Qingyu must have been held up.

Don't trouble yourself over it.

No need to wait any longer. My brother is tied up with urgent business today, so the clothes can't be fitted.

Second young master, it's only that these come in several fabrics, all shipped from France.

If it isn't settled today, I'm afraid there won't be time.

I see the second young master is barely different in build from the headmaster — might I trouble you to try them in his place?

What does my sister-in-law think?

Then I'll trouble the second young master.

But I'm not the groom. I don't want to try them.

The wedding is close.

Even if the second young master won't grant me this much, surely he doesn't want our wedding held up by so small a thing?

Miss Fang can't be bothered with me as a rule. How is it she needs me today, and still so high and mighty?

Then let me put it another way. What you spend at the Xianledu this month — your sister-in-law will reimburse it.

Miss Fang is generous after all.

Since Miss Fang needs me, I'll be sure to try these wedding clothes properly today.

Second young master, this set the headmaster chose himself.

Miss Fang is a Nanyang shipping king's daughter. This one is far too conservative. It doesn't look good.

I want that one.

She watched him from beginning to end, and never said a word.