Yù’chén turns his gaze from Méi’zi to me. Something hardens in his face. He grabs hold of my wrists and yanks my hands away from him. “No,” he says.
“I’m begging you—”
“You’ll do it.”
“I can’t!”
“I’ll teach you.” His grip softens as he leads me toward thebed. Fear rises in my chest as I kneel by my sister. She looks so small, so frail—in so much pain, and all I want is to end it quickly.
“Yù’chén,” I whisper. “Don’t play games with me. Not about this.”
“Àn’ying,” he replies, and his eyes flash red as he turns to look at me. “If I were playing games with you, I would be so much crueler. I would make you beg. I’m teaching you now so you don’t have to beg anyone ever again. Including me.”
I stare at him. Again, the strange feeling that we are dancing at the edge of something, that one wrong move and the walls between us will crumble.
Yù’chén takes my hand. I rein in my fear and focus on his voice, on the strokes of his fingers as he presses acupuncture points across Méi’zi’s body, guiding me to find the pools of her life energy, to identify the shadows that seep between them as the corruption of life energy: death energy.
There is so much of it. My thoughts jumble, and I think of asking Yù’chén to take over. I could never live with myself if my sister died at my hands.
“Focus, Àn’ying.” His voice wraps around me in the darkness. “Think of them as tangled threads. You are the guiding needle. Unravel them.”
Again, that metaphor—it works as no other. The world rearranges itself in my mind, the energies becoming live, interweaving threads. Sweat drips down my forehead, but I hold on to my consciousness of Méi’zi’s energies, drawing out the death energies from her blood and bones and guiding them up her throat. I am sewing, that’s what I’m doing: I’m sewing for my sister’s life.
At some point, I feel Yù’chén’s hands lift from mine. Hemust be watching me, but I am in a trance, the life and death energies running beneath my fingers like silks responding to my touch.
“Good.” Yù’chén’s voice startles me; his fingers wrap around mine, stopping me. I’m focused on her throat; the death energies have pooled there, lodging as bile. “Very good. Normally, one would puncture the place where the death energies have gathered and bleed them out. But in your sister’s state, she cannot stand to lose too much blood.”
I realize I’m shaking from exertion. “Then what do I do?”
His hands tighten momentarily around my fingers, then he shifts mine away and presses his own to her throat. “This part, I’ll do.”
I shift back, leaning against the bed. It’s all I can do to breathe, to still the fatigue that has settled deep into my bones. I’m drenched in sweat.
But I have learned to draw out sickness.
Yù’chén hunches over the bed, his body blocking my view of Méi’zi. I don’t know what he’s doing; I only feel his magic heating the small room, hear Méi’zi make little noises in her sickness. Finally, he rises and turns to me with a nod. I straighten.
“She’ll be fine,” Yù’chén says. His voice is low. “I’ve put her in a deep sleep. Her body needs to heal.”
I hurry forward. My little sister is asleep, but her coloring has changed and her breathing comes easily. I wipe the sweat from her face and smooth her hair. Her cheeks are flushed and her lips red, but it’s no longer the feverish hue I saw in the memory. I don’t understand how the death energies of her sickness could simply have vanished.
I glance at Yù’chén. He’s leaning against the doorframe,eyes shut, one hand gripping the wall as though it pains him to stand. I can’t tell whether it’s the colorless moonlight filtering through our shutters or he’s turned very pale. “What did you do?” I ask.
“I drew out the death energies of the illness and replenished her with some of my life energy.” He doesn’t wait for an answer before continuing: “I’ll wait for you outside.”
I clean the room and change the sheets and blankets. Then I wash Méi’zi’s hair and wipe her down with cool water from our well. When the room is aired out and filled with the crisp scent of night, I sit next to my little sister, smoothing out the fresh nightgown I’ve dressed her in. The enchanted sleep Yù’chén put her in is strong; she doesn’t stir.
I give myself another minute to sit in quiet contentment, stroking her face and combing her hair. I found the gloves I gifted her tucked beneath her pillows when I changed the covers; I lay them out by her side and press her fingers to the stitching. “Jie’jie was here,” I whisper, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll always be here.”
Then I force myself to rise, because I have my mother to take care of before I leave.
Yù’chén is not in the living room when I exit, but the front door is open a crack.
I find him sitting outside, leaning against the house, his eyes closed. A cold autumn wind stirs plum blossom petals from the tree, encircling him in a flurry of deep red and dancing shadows. As I draw closer, I make out dark circles under his eyes that I’ve never seen before, not even when he received the lashings back at the Temple of Dawn. His lips, normally flushed, are nearly white.
I drew out the death energies of the illness and replenished herwith some of my life energy.I suddenly wonder if this means he had to absorb them with his own body.
An ache forms deep in my throat, near my heart.
