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“That’s it?” Qiming taunted, holding Junyi’s book higher and letting it dangle between two fingers, the pages flapping loudly. “Where are your manners?”

He swallowed. Gritted the back of his teeth. It wouldn’t hurt him to say it. He wouldn’t lose anything. Just say it. “Please.”

Qiming grinned, wide as a scythe, and dropped the book on the floor. “How obedient,” he said. “You’d make an excellent servant.”

Back at home, Junyi acted like everything was fine.

When his mother asked, he told her that school was good, the other children were nice, and the teacher was wise. That he was enjoying the material. That it was challenging, but that only meant he was learning. He knew he ought to be grateful. When his father complained about him slacking off on the house chores, about how he walked around everywhere like he thought himself so much more cultured than they, it was his mother who defended him. It was his mother who believed in him. The only way to repay her was by studying hard and succeeding.

Then, one early morning, his mother went out to buy fresh plums. “I know they’re your favorite,” she said, ruffling his hair before she left. “You’ve looked so thin and worn out recently from all that studying. The least I can do is keep you well-fed.” She smiled. “Remember to boil the tea before I come back.”

She never returned.

After a day of searching, they found her body trampled beneath a horse carriage. The plums had been squashed as well, left to spoil on the side of the road, the stench of rotten fruit mixing with the sharp rust of blood.

His father recovered quickly. He had been seeing someone from a noble family for a while now, and she had money, connections, a handsome cottage. He would be moving in with her. She didn’t know about Junyi’s existence, so he wasn’t allowed to follow. He was old enough to care for himself, anyhow.

Junyi would be turning thirteen in a week.

Luck in the midst of misfortune, Junyi tried to remember as he stared around the empty, abandoned house, hugging his knees to his chest. At least he had a place to stay. At least he was still alive. At least, at least—

The first time Junyi failed the exams, he had gone home and cried.

He lay on the bed and squeezed his eyes shut and let his tears leak down the sides of his face, into his ears, until it felt like his heartbeat was blocking his eardrums. He shouldn’t have expected to pass. Even when he was reading through the questions, his stomach sinking lower and lower, his brush shaking madly in his hands, he had predicted the ending. But there was a difference between suspecting that he had done terribly, knowing the odds were against him, and finding his name missing from the list of successful candidates. Seeing his deepest insecurities confirmed. He had given everything. He had studied harder than his body allowed, pushing through the pain pulsing behind his temples and the stiffness of his muscles. The very idea that he would have to do it all over again—that he would have to do it, and still risk failing—filled him with an exhaustion heavier than death.

The third time Junyi failed his exams, he didn’t have the energy for tears.

He had stumbled home, starving, and discovered that he’d run out of grain. That was the problem with living alone. If he was not actively searching for food, collecting a few measly coins in exchange for an odd chore here and there—helping the farmers unload their fruit, carrying satchels of rice for a generous noblewoman, catching rats for the owners of the local teahouse—then nobody would help him. The past two days, he’d gone without his meals because he was too anxious about the results to eat; even thinking about food made his gut roil and bile rise to his mouth. At present, he regretted it deeply. All that waiting around, and now he had no placement secured, no signs the future would improve, not even a bowl of dinner. It was laughable.

He was feeling lightheaded when he headed out again, back into the cold, brutal evening. His pockets were as empty as his stomach. He didn’t know where he was going, what he could possibly do—until he dragged himself past a restaurant and saw that someone had dropped two uneaten buns on the ground.

His mouth watered. Under the glow of the lanterns, the steamed dough looked so white, so fluffy. Nobody else was looking. What a waste of food it would be, to leave the buns discarded here . . .

He wondered if they were still warm.

His hand reached out as if it belonged to somebody else. Before he had made up his mind, it seemed, his body had already decided for him. He crouched down on the side of the street and tore into the bun with his teeth, chewing so fast he almost choked on the first few bites. He would look for water later. Flavor exploded on his tongue—scallions and oil and meat, the richness of salt, the freshness of shrimp. The dough was as soft as it looked, melting instantly in his mouth. He finished the bun within seconds and found himself more famished than ever, as if the pit in his stomach had expanded. It was like the discovery of a bruise on the body—feeling the pain in one place only made you aware of everywhere else it hurt. Coughing hard, he grabbed the other bun, wiping the dirt from the bottom with his sleeve—

The restaurant doors swung open.

Laughter reached his ears, followed by the clink of wine jugs, the thud of heavy boots. Shadows fell forward, blotting out the light. He didn’t glance up, not until he heard a familiar voice.

“Junyi?”

He lifted his head, then froze in place, the bun falling from his limp fingers. His pupils shrank as he took in the figures looming over him. A high-pitched ringing noise reverberated through his skull.

Qiming stood with three other boys from their class. They were all dripping in finery, their robes swishing with silver tassels, their hair pinned back with gold filigree. Alcohol shone on their lips and suffused their skin with vivid red color. Of course. It must have been a celebratory night for them—Qiming had passed the first level of the civil service exams immediately, and now his friends had as well. Everything had worked out as they’d planned, as perfectly as if their paths in life were predetermined.

Was this fate? The bleak thought drifted down to Junyi like early snow. He could still feel the tiny grains of dirt sticking to his fingers. His hunger had not abated, but his stomach heaved, and bile seeped through the spaces between his teeth. Fate and karma. When he was younger, he had not believed in the former and believed in the latter. But the world—or his understanding of it—had reversed itself. Had he been fooling himself this whole time, thinking that he could change his circumstances through a matter of will and hard work? Yet look where he was now. Look where the others were.

Silence stretched between them, distinct from the cheerful clamor of the restaurant, as if a new space had been carved out into the air purely to accommodate the strained quiet.

Junyi fantasized about digging a grave with his bare hands and burying himself inside it. The skin on his neck and cheeks crawled with thousands of invisible ants.

“What . . . are you doing?” Qiming asked at last, his brows scrunching.

Junyi had expected Qiming to mock him without hesitation, to jeer at his misfortune, to make some remark about how Junyi had always belonged on the ground. But this was so much worse. Qiming was staring at him with something awfully close to pity.

“I was hungry,” Junyi replied. It struck him as a hilarious thing to say. So simple and matter-of-fact, both answering the question and not answering it at all. What are you doing squatting down and eating discarded food on the street, Junyi? Well, you see, I was a bit hungry. Hysteria welled up inside him and pushed through his clenched jaw. He tried to muffle his laughter, but he couldn’t help it. His shoulders shook. His breaths came out in quick, sharp huffs.