Perhaps I would have spent my remaining time wandering around the house like a ghost, at turns terrifying myself with visions of King Fuchai—someone with teeth like fangs and brutal hands and a greedy, blood-soaked smile—and attempting to console myself with visions of a fallen Wu Kingdom, their flag trampled beneath the feet of our soldiers as they marched in to an unobstructed victory. Yet not long after my parents had retired to bed, a familiar voice called from outside—
“Xishi-jiejie! Xishi-jie, did he find you too?”
Zhengdan barged through the door without pausing, her robes fluttering in her wake. In her rush to get here, her black hair had started coming loose from its elaborate bun; she yanked out the wooden hairpins with an impatient hiss until it tumbled freely down her back. Two severe spots of color had risen to her cheeks,and her voice was urgent. It took me a second to understand what she had asked.
“Who? You don’t mean—the advisor?”
“I knew it,” she said, shaking her head. The expression on her face was a peculiar one, tragic and triumphant at once. “If he came here in search of a great beauty, of course he could not leave without meeting you.”
“Wait.” I sat down on the closest stool; or rather, my knees sank on their own accord, my shock pressing down on me like a physical weight. She remained standing, her hands on her hips. “You were the other girl he spoke of? Did you… You’ve agreed to go? As apalace lady?”
“What better choice do I have?” She scoffed. “My mother was going to marry me off to that old man Lidan—you know, the one who is already balding, and smells like fish all the time. I would rather be a palace lady than his wife.”
Not for the first time, I marveled at my friend’s nature. Everyone spoke of her loveliness—particularly her brows, which were slender and arched like willow leaves, and expressed all the emotion she did not say out loud—but they overlooked the smaller, more significant things. They forgot that it was she who had scared away the group of bandits that had once tried to steal from our village, injuring one so badly with a blunt cleaver that he’d limped away whimpering; that it was also she, and she alone, who had trained the village horses, and fixed the main road, and hunted down the fox that had broken through the fences and eaten half our hens. The first time I had ever witnessed her cry was when she’d snapped the animal’s neck.
“Have you already agreed to the advisor’s request?” she asked, those famous, delicate brows arching.
“No. Not yet.”
“Not yet,” she repeated. Then, with a startling fierceness, shecrouched low beside me and grabbed my hand. The pads of her fingers were thick with blisters old and new; not from cleaning and cooking, as one might have assumed, but from secretly training with a sword. “Think over it carefully, Xishi-jie. The mission is— It’s dangerous—”
“Yet you’re going anyway,” I said. “Aren’t you afraid?”
Her chin jutted forth. “Of course not.”
But I knew she was lying. Just as I knew that she was too proud to admit otherwise.
It was awfully familiar to me, that dark, steely look in her eyes. One early morning, during the height of war, I had spotted her with her father outside their house. She was engulfed in his old armor, lugging his sword behind her, her teeth clenched from the effort. The scene was almost comical, the helmet so large it kept sliding down over her eyes. Her father had laughed aloud, then gently lifted the helmet from her head with both hands.
Don’t go to the battlefield again, she’d begged, reaching up on her tiptoes and trying to grab it back from him. It was useless; she was only half his height.Let me fight in your stead.
This is my duty, he’d said.The heavens have something else planned for you, Zhengdan. I can feel it.
Her eyes had shone with ferocity, but in the end, she had watched him leave. Every morning after that, I’d find her standing outside, her spine rigid, her hopeful, anxious face turned to the horizon.
Two years later, in that very same spot, a grim-looking official had returned, holding only her father’s blood-splattered helmet.It was the highest honor a soldier could ask for, I’d overheard the officer say. His last fight was against the general of the Wu Kingdom himself. General Ma.
Now, gazing over at her, it was as if the past had rushed back to us. Or perhaps the past had never left.
“I’m coming with you,” I told her. The words rang clear in thecramped room, and I heard the conviction in my own voice. The air seemed to ripple against my skin, and the wind outside suddenly slammed against the window-paper, as if even the heavens knew of my decision. Was it the right one? I could not tell. Perhaps it did not matter. Either decision led to pain; I had merely chosen one kind over another.
Zhengdan had known me all her life. She made no further attempts to dissuade me. It would be futile, whatever she said. “If your mission is to seduce the king, then my mission will be to keep you safe.” She reached for my hand once more as she spoke, her eyes blazing in the dark.
“We’llbothbe safe,” I corrected. “We’ll come out of the palace together, alive and well.”
She gave me a faint smile but said nothing.
“Promise me,” I urged her.
“All right, I promise,” she said, laughing. It was like blowing cold air at a wound; it did not heal, but at least it soothed. I could have pretended then, with Zhengdan smiling next to me and the moonlight shining through the small holes in the window, that the world awaiting us was not so terrible. That it would only be a grand adventure, just like the ones we heard about in the stories.
But it was much harder once she had gone home, leaving me in the dim quiet.
I tiptoed into my parents’ room, watching their familiar, sleeping figures, the blanket stretched just over their stomachs. My mother was hugging Susu’s unwashed tunic, even though its scent had long faded, and the threads were starting to fray. She seemed to be having a nightmare. Every now and then, she would shiver and clutch at the air as if something were being taken away from her. I wanted to wake her from it, but also could not bear to. She slept too little as it was. And if she woke and saw my face, she would know right away what I was thinking.
A sharp spasm of pain tore through my chest again. I drew in a silent breath, tried to ignore it.
Now that my decision had been made, everything I had once taken for granted was repainted in shades of yellow nostalgia. Already I missed the warmth of my parents’ presence, the faded straw fan laid out by their bed, the wooden comb my mother used to brush my hair back every morning, the lingering scent of smoke from the stove. Gently, I undid the jade pendant around my neck, then set it on a wooden chest. It was the single most valuable thing I owned, a gift from my parents on my first birthday. They would see it tomorrow, when I was already gone, and know what it meant.
