Yao barked a laugh. “Two days with a scholar painter and you’re already speaking in riddles. So what, you got the painting but lost the girl? Was the young miss scared off by your condition?”
“My...condition?”
“You’re unnatural. Cursed.”
Shao Qing looked up. “You knew?”
“I know the look of those demon-touched,” Yao said, tapping his eye. “You have it all over you.”
“Why take me in then?”
“A good thief is a good thief. I don’t discriminate. And youdidsave my life,” he said with a shrug. “Although all those reckless behaviors you’ve been engaging in have been getting on my last nerve. Tell me. What happened to you?”
Shao Qing swallowed his nausea. The pink drapery and gaudy furniture of the pleasure house swam in his vision. In a low voice, he gave an abbreviated account of his bargain with the bamboo demon. Zhi Lan was the first person he’d told his story to in its entirety. She might be the last.
“You exchanged your soul to become fearless?” Yao asked incredulously. “How are you still alive?”
“It took my soul, not my life.”
“The only reason any of us are alive is because we fear death. Fear protects us. Only dead fools are fearless.”
“I did not think it was an unreasonable exchange,” Shao Qing said.
Yao shook his head at this. “Hm. So she left, then? I don’t see any woman tolerating you in this state.”
Shao Qing took another swig of wine, even as his throat burned in protest. “She wants to help me find my soul.”
Yao’s eyes nearly popped out of its sockets. “Really?”
“I don’t know if I want it back.”
“Of course you don’t want it back, you don’t even have the capacity to care!” Yao exclaimed. “She is right, however. It is not a matter of want, but need. A body is meant to have a soul, Brother Qing. It is the natural order of things.” He patted his stomach, which let out a loud gurgle. “Speaking of nature, I need to find a privy.”
Yao stood up and disappeared through a curtain, shooing off the courtesans that scampered after him.
Shao Qing returned to his drink, considering what Yao had said. He supposed it was true, but he still couldn’t bring himself to regret the bargain. He wondered if that was how things were going to be from now on. An ocean of passivity, with nothing and no one to break up the endless waters.
A courtesan in white approached the table. Shao Qing waved a dismissive hand.
“I don’t need your services.”
He was suddenly assaulted by a hard poke on the side of his head. He looked up, disoriented. When his vision refocused, he saw Zhi Lan standing over him with her hands on her hips.
“I didn’t know you worked here,” he slurred. “Or have you come to enjoy the women with me?” He was goading a reaction out of her, and was satisfied when she scowled.
She had come for him, like she said.
“You don’t enjoy anything, Shao Qing.” Zhi Lan sat beside him in a huff, more irate than usual. Her robe was crinkled at the shoulder, her collar slightly askew. A purplish bruise peeked out from above her collarbone.
Without thinking, Shao Qing grazed his fingertips over it. She startled, but didn’t move away. Her skin was soft like a flower petal. He would’ve dared to explore further if Zhi Lan didn’t finally shake him off.
“Just so you know, Idon’twork here,” she said gruffly, straightening her robe.
“Is that bruise recent?”
“I’m alive, that’s all that matters.”
Shao Qing drank her in, remembering what she had told him last night. It seemed almost...unreal that she cared so much.
