The sneaking, the climbing, the running—all that for nothing! How was she supposed to face Master Dan now?
Zhi Lan broke into a sob at the thought of her poor master. He had spent three months on this masterpiece, yet the pond water had washed it all away in minutes. She’d always thought art was eternal in the way it was meticulously preserved, passing from teacher to student. Yet here was the truth before her—art was nothing more than ink on silk, fragile and transient.
Shao Qing stood at her periphery, wringing out his sleeves. She turned to him.
“What were you thinking?” Zhi Lan demanded shrilly, shaking the ruined painting in his face. He hardly blinked at the violent motion, instead stepping away to remove his outer robe and drape it on a nearby branch. “Couldn’t you have waited for me to put it somewhere safe?”
Still nothing. Zhi Lan watched, utterly appalled at the calm manner in which he removed the dragon painting he had stolen from a bag at his hip and unrolled it.
It was a small handheld scroll, on which an ink washed dragon curled across paper. The painting was dry.
Shao Qing studied it for a beat, tracing his finger over the lines. He held it to his chest.
Then in a sudden motion, he flung it hard enough that it splashed back into the water they had just come from.
“What. Did. You. Just. Do?” Zhi Lan hardly recognized her voice, dark and guttural with anger. Her muscles hurt. She felt hot and cold all at once. “You had a waterproof bag all this time, and you used it on a painting you didn’t even want?”
Shao Qing finally turned around. She expected him to defend himself, to be as jittery and angry as she was. But he looked as if he hadn’t felt the effects of anything. Not the swim, not the chase. Not her anger. Like a wooden puppet whose strings had been cut, Shao Qing collapsed on the debris covered ground, his legs splayed before him. His eyes were blank. So terribly blank.
Zhi Lan knelt before him and pushed his shoulder. “I asked you a question,” she said, her vision blurring with tears. “Answer me!”
Nothing.
There was something unnatural about him. He was like a still pond, but no matter how many rocks Zhi Lan threw at him, his surface did not break.
“Demon,” Zhi Lan whispered hoarsely. “There is something wrong with you.”
She wanted to shake herself for being so foolish. She should have never left Master Dan. Now, she was stuck in another city with a thief. They were both probably wanted criminals. Magistrate Li and his guards had seen their faces. She couldn’t go to anyone else for help without risking arrest.
Zhi Lan clenched her clammy hands, fighting the tears welling in her eyes. She had no idea where she was. She had no money. The clothes on her back were not fit to be seen. Her escort seemed to have stopped functioning entirely.
What was she going todo?
Panic clenched like a fist around her throat, but Zhi Lan clung desperately to the last shred of sense she had. Ma and Ba had taught her to keep her head in the most dire of situations. Like during the month they had starved. Like when Ma had lost the baby. If her family could rise resilient to such hardships, so could she.
Shao Qing, with all his oddities, had gotten her this far. Even if he were a demon, Zhi Lan refused to believe that he was without honor.
A red pouch stuck out from the folds of his inner robe. It was the sentimental ornament he held. Sentiment was human, as far as Zhi Lan knew. Without thinking, she grabbed it from him.
Shao Qing looked up sharply, as if the pouch were a magnet and he couldn’t help but be drawn to it. “What are you doing?”
Zhi Lan squeezed the pouch in her hand, pond water dribbling down her wrist. “Tell me about this.”
A crease appeared between his brows, and he looked away. “Why are you still here? We’ve finished our bargain, haven’t we?”
“You need to escort me back to Zhu City.”
If she were doomed, at the very least she should go back and be there for Master Dan.
Now, to shake some sense into her escort.
Shao Qing leaned forward and tucked his legs underneath him, his movements stiff, as if he had just regained control over his limbs. “You can go back without me.”
“I don’t know the way. If you don’t tell me what’s wrong with you, I’m going to throw this pouch into the pond.”
“Back with your threats?”
Zhi Lan couldn’t describe the relief she felt in this exchange. He was back to normal. Or at least as normal as he could be. The emptiness, though not completely gone, gave way to his usual cool detachedness that was more human than anything else about him.
