“No,” Fanli said, voice flat. “I meant it is incredible how your impertinence grows by the day.”
I looked between the two of them.
“Why… were you searching the mountains?” I asked.
“Oh, security measures,” Luyi said, waving a dismissive hand. “Seeing as both the great military advisor of Yue and future tributes to the Wu king are all gathered here in one place, Fanli wanted to ensure there were no assassins of sorts lurking around these mountains. Because, as you can imagine, that would be rather inconvenient.”
Assassins.My blood beat faster within me. The word conjured up visions of blood and blades, men masked in black, the stuff of folklore. They barely seemed real. “Did you find anything?”
Luyi shook his head and offered me a wide smile that was perhaps meant to reassure. “Good news: Nobody wishes to kill you.”
“How wonderful,” I murmured.
“Yet,” Fanli added, his eyes sharp as knifepoints on me. “It’s no reason to let your guard down. Have you not heard that the loveliest flowers are usually the first to be plucked? Your beauty is dangerous—to others, but also to yourself.”
“You’re scaring her,” Luyi said, jabbing a thumb at my face. I flushed, remembering again what Fanli had told me about my expressions showing. Were they trulythatobvious? “Look.”
“Yes, I can see quite plainly. It is another problem we must contend with.” Fanli turned back to Luyi. “You may go now.”
He pouted. “But I was hoping to watch—”
“If you truly have nothing better to do, then you can search the mountains again.”
“Just joking,” Luyi said hastily, backing away with impressive speed. The next moment, he was gone.
Fanli rolled his eyes at the wall around which Luyi had disappeared, then adjusted his position behind the instrument and gestured to it. “Do you know what this is?”
The word rose clumsily to my lips. I had only ever heard it spoken by others. “A guqin.”
“Correct. And do you know how to play it?”
I lifted a tentative hand to the strings. Though I’d thought them to resemble silk, they were in fact so sharp to the touch I wondered how anyone could strum them without splitting open skin. Slowly, I shook my head. Such instruments were the pastimes of fancy noblewomen, girls born into royal blood.
“Let me show you.” He leaned forward, swept his sleeves back in a great swishing motion, pressed down the string on one end, and plucked it on the other. A low, melancholic note reverberatedthrough the air. It was so beautiful, so pure, I felt a stirring in my blood. The breath swelled in my lungs. Then he strummed the instrument in earnest, his fingers moving too fast for me to make out. Without pausing, he looked up and asked, “What does this remind you of?”
I closed my eyes. A breeze kissed my skin, and the music rose around me, like heat. “It reminds me of… a river running south. Water on rocks.” I had no idea if this was anywhere close to the right answer, if there could even be a right answer to whatever test this was.
Fanli was quiet for a long moment.
“And now?” The melody changed, slowed down. There was a dark tone to it, something sad and terrible and slightly ominous.
“A fallen city. The aftermath of a war. Two lovers separated over two shores.”
“Now?”
“Wisps of clouds moving over a full moon. The silence of solitude. An empty room, dust motes floating in a slant of pale sunlight. Regret for something you cannot take back. Happiness for somebody you cannot have.”
The music stopped completely, and when my eyes fluttered open, Fanli was looking at me in a new way. Almost perplexed. As though a calculation he’d been certain of had suddenly rearranged itself, and he wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“Yes,” he said at last, that look falling away.
“Yes… what?”
But he did not elaborate. He just motioned for me to sit down before him. I did so, and was quickly made aware of his presence. We were so close I could feel the soft exhale of his breath against the back of my bare neck. Though we were barely even touching, his arms encircled my body, and his hands hovered over mine, guiding them to the strings. I was glad, then, that he could not seemy face from his angle, for my expression surely would’ve betrayed everything I was thinking.
“Try to play it,” he told me, demonstrating a few times and explaining all the different playing techniques and pitch positions until my head swam with unfamiliar terms.
I plucked the string just as he had, but the sound it made was dull, grating to the ears. Disappointment curled in my belly alongside a pinch of panic. What if I proved awful at everything Fanli attempted to show me? What if I was like all the villagers said: beautiful to look at, but little more than that? The entire mission suddenly seemed overwhelming, absurd. Impossible. I would never be ready, let alone within the mere eight weeks we had remaining.
