Shao Qing stood frozen. His feet were rooted to the ground as the gang of boys beat his little sister like a sack of flour. Like she wasn’t a child precious to him.
Su Su,Shao Qing tried to shout, but no sound came out.I’m coming!
The red pouch never left Su Su’s grasp. She curled her small body around it, protecting it instead of herself because Shao Qing had told her to. Even when she had stopped crying, stopped moving, the boys had to wrestle it from her stiff fingers. They emptied the pouch, laughing as copper coins fell into their awaiting hands.
Shao Qing collapsed to his knees, a wrenching pain in his chest. Then, he was filled with terrible numbness.
His first thought had been to turn back, to protect himself. Not to save his sister. After all this time, he was still a coward.
I’m sorry, Su Su.I’m sorry.
Shudders racked Shao Qing’s body. He was dimly aware of wetness streaking his temples. His eyes felt hot and swollen.
“Hush. You’ll be alright,” came a sleepy murmur. Someone curled against his back and wrapped an arm around his waist. A small hand pressed over the ache in his chest.
Shao Qing inhaled slowly, opening his eyes to darkness. His lashes were wet. He wascrying.He hadn’t cried in six years.
Slowly, his anguish dissipated to a dull ache. Eventually, that dissipated too until there was nothing. He felt like himself again—numb and disoriented.
The faint scent of jasmine soap and pu’er tea curled around him. Shao Qing came to his senses. He was in a room in a tea house with Zhi Lan. It washerhand against his chest.Herbody tucked around his in an intimate, protective way.
It felt...comforting.
***
WATERY MORNING LIGHTstreamed in through the small window, illuminating the dingy beige room. Shao Qing studied the girl on the other side of the pillow.
Zhi Lan was still asleep, far closer than she had been when they went to bed. Her hair was halfway undone, her slender limbs tangled in the sheets. Her delicate features were at rest, not pulled into a face like she was in the habit of doing when awake.
Shao Qing was not unused to the sight of a woman in bed with him. He had spent a night in the arms of a courtesan once, though he heard from the following morning gossip that she found him unsettling.
“Unresponsive, like a boulder,” the courtesan had said, and the entire pleasure house had exploded into giggles.
Other men described pleasures of the flesh like reaching a mountain peak—of morning clouds and evening rain. Shao Qing found it awkward at best and messy at worst. It had been a night of overwhelming perfume and a stranger’s intimate touch. He had decided that it was not to his taste. It didn’t make his blood rush like petty crime did, though he couldn’t imagine why.
He and Zhi Lan had no such exchange, yet she had held him like a lover. Nothing in their previous interactions had suggested she desired him in that way. Or he had completely missed the signs.
Slowly, Shao Qing twisted a strand of her ink black hair between his fingers and tugged at it gently.
Zhi Lan’s eyes fluttered open.
“Good morning,” Shao Qing said.
“What are youdoing?” she shrieked, sitting up. She patted the front of her clothing, as if making sure they were still there.
Shao Qing stared. An unexpected reaction. “Are you in love with me?”
“Excuse me?” Zhi Lan sputtered. “I barely know you!”
Shao Qing propped himself up on his elbows. “Then you desire my body.”
Zhi Lan yanked the pillow from under him and threw it at his head.
He batted it away. “A simple no would suffice.”
“Since when do men take no for an answer?” Zhi Lan said darkly, climbing over his legs to reach the edge of the bed.
“Then were you cold?” Shao Qing asked.
