Chapter 2

I was squatting on the ground, poking an ants’ nest and thinking about all this, when a figure came over the wall.

Qi Yao landed and clapped the dust from his hands twice.

He looked at me, his brows drawn into a knot.

“Time to take our territory back. That Wu brat’s taken two whole streets. Didn’t we say we’d knock him flat on his shell today and make him get on his knees and call us Grandpa?”

He reached to pull me up.

I drew my arm away. “Qi Yao, I’m not going,” I said earnestly.

“I’m staying home to grow bones.”

He blinked. “Grow bugs? Why would you keep those poisonous things? Creepy. If you want bugs, keep cicadas. At least you can roast them.”

I shook my head. “Not bugs. My sister’s and my brother’s bones.”

I told him everything I’d overheard.

He scratched his head, then scratched it again. At last he said, “Never heard of anything like that… Aren’t they using you like a field to grow crops in? It’s probably a trick.”

I stayed squatting there without a word.

He leaned closer. “What about you? Did you ask what sort of beast you’ll be after you turn eighteen?”

I gave it some serious thought. “I’ve decided. A dog. A mastiff, preferably. Big and fierce. Anyone bullies me, I’ll bite them to death.”

Qi Yao waved his hands. “No, no, dogs don’t live long enough. Be a turtle. They live ages. You could even see me into my grave.”

I glared at him. “Turtles are ugly! No way. I’ll be a bird. An eagle! Then I can fly over Wu Nanfeng and shit all over his head!”

He doubled over laughing, and I laughed along.

Then, in the middle of laughing, I suddenly fell quiet. Something inside me felt hollow for no reason I could name.

I tugged his sleeve and asked softly, “Qi Yao, whatever beast I turn into, will you know me straightaway? When it happens… will you keep me?”

He puffed out his chest. “Little Fence! Whatever you turn into, I’ll know you at a glance! And if I don’t… just bite me as hard as you can. All right?”

I nodded hard. “All right!”

I didn’t yet know that what sort of beast I became was never mine to choose.

After Qi Yao left, Mother brought me a bowl of red-bean porridge.

She had cooked it herself. It was soft and sweet and fragrant.

I bent over the bowl and ate every last bit. When I looked up, Mother’s eyes were red. She gave me a little smile.

I slept very deeply that night.

In my dream, someone cut through my skin and flesh and pushed two burning-hot pieces of bone inside.

I tried to scream with the pain, but no sound came. I could only watch the cut close without leaving so much as a scar.

When I opened my eyes again, there was something new inside my chest.

My sister really did begin to recover. She stopped coughing blood, and color slowly returned to her face.

My brother no longer snapped and cracked at the slightest thing.

He could run and jump. For the first time, he lifted me above his head and spun me round three times.

My parents held each other and cried. Before their tears had dried, they turned to me, and a grief that would not lift spread through their eyes.

At first, that grief was almost suffocating.

Whenever I skipped past, their smiles froze, as though they had suddenly forgotten how to face me.

In time, it faded.

A year, two years, and all that remained was an occasional distracted look.

My sister’s literary gifts became known. Poetry gatherings and banquets came one after another, and every young man in the capital wanted to be near her.

My brother’s head for business emerged too. He praised a pot of peonies to the skies, held an auction, and sold it for an outrageous sum. Then he gave me half the money.

As he pressed the banknotes into my hand, his eyes curved with his smile. “Jiang Li, whatever I earn from now on, there’ll always be a share for you.”

Only I had few chances to spend it.

I couldn’t go out anymore.

My parents confined me to the house. They locked the courtyard gate and fitted iron spikes along all four walls.

Maids and serving women took turns watching me. Someone even followed me to the privy.

At first I fought them. I smashed things, rammed the door, and banged my head against the wall until my forehead was bloody. They wept as they tried to stop me. Father rushed in and held me, his arms shaking terribly.

Later I stopped, because whenever I made a scene, my sister coughed blood and my brother fell and broke an arm.

Those two bones in my chest seemed to have eyes.

When I hurt, they hurt too.

Father said it was unsafe outside. Even young sons of noble families could disappear without a trace if they went out alone.

He called it soul-stealing: a kidnapper had only to tap you, and your soul would follow.

I knew he was trying to frighten me. Still, I nodded and sat obediently in my courtyard, watching the sky, the trees, and the ants moving house.

Wu Nanfeng’s little brother went missing. He had no time to fight Qi Yao for territory anymore. Every day he led his followers all over the city searching.

Qi Yao helped too.

Later, behind a ruined temple, they found part of an arm.

It bore an old scar, just where Wu Nanfeng’s brother had been scalded as a child.

Wu Nanfeng cried until he fainted on the spot.

When Qi Yao climbed over the wall to see me, his face was white and his lips were still trembling.

“Little Fence, it’s horrible out there… Wu Nanfeng’s brother got eaten by stray dogs. You mustn’t turn into a dog.”

I shuddered in fright. “Then I won’t be a dog,” I said quickly.

A few days later, a group of beggars were beheaded at the market crossroads. People said they had gone mad.

But everyone knew they weren’t beggars. They were refugees who had slipped into the city.

Wu Nanfeng’s father went too. He took their bodies away and fed them to his dogs.

When the dogs had finished, he killed every one of them as well.

The story spread through half the capital. Everyone said Lord Wu had gone mad.