Zhi Lan rolled onto her back and crossed her arms. The only time he could’ve taken the coins was when he’d stolen her pouch. He hadn’t touched her at all since he assisted her over the wall, and she was sure he couldn’t have managed any slight of hand without making contact. Then the urchins had come and...
Zhi Lan’s question died on her lips when she recalled the sound of clinking as Shao Qing had pushed the urchin child away.
And suddenly her opinion of him leaned more favorably.
8 – Shao Qing
Shao Qing dreamed again. It began the same as all his others. He was a dragon. He was trapped. He was surrounded by darkness.
But suddenly, he was back in the outer wards of Zhu City. The sky was hazy, an evening pink. He was thirteen again, a scrappy errand boy for Master Cai’s herbalist shop. A paper parcel in hand, he trotted through the crowded streets of the city, each building and stall familiar. To his left was a stand of spun sugar figures on sticks. To his right, a vendor sold fans and ladies’ hairpins.
As he turned into an alleyway, a sense of dread weighed like a pit in his stomach. This moment was ominously familiar. He’d been in the middle of a delivery. He was passing by the alley where he was living with...
Shadows fell over the scene.
No, turn back!he shouted at himself.
But he couldn’t. The alleyway grew and warped around him like the dark wings of a bat. There was no escape. Shao Qing turned his head. A group of rough boys surrounded a scrawny little girl clutching a red silken pouch embroidered with a peach.
Shao Qing grew cold.
The older boy grabbed the girl by the collar, lifting her clean off the ground.
“Hand it over. And tell your brother that all he earns will belong to me, or I’ll make both of your lives miserable.”
“No!” The little girl kicked and squirmed. She gripped the pouch in her hand, her small, dirt-streaked knuckles turning white.
“What did you say?” the boy demanded.
“I said no! This is our money. Go make your own!”
The boy smirked. “I am.” He slammed the girl into the wall.
She cried out and crumpled to the ground, tears welling in her eyes. “M-my brother will g-get you for this,” she stammered.
“Will he? Oh, but where is he?” The boy made a show of looking around and his cronies laughed. He kicked her in the ribs. Then again.
