Chapter 1
The ruined temple was deathly still. Even the softest voice fell into that silence like a stone into a lake.
The elderly couple stared, speechless, as though they doubted their own ears.
Ke was only five, but he knew his manners.
He knelt obediently, tipped up his head, and called them Grandfather and Grandmother in his soft little voice.
The longer Lady Lu studied his face, the more excited she became.
“Those eyes, that face—he and Zheng could have come from the very same mold!
“Good boy, what is your name? How old are you?”
Ke glanced at me before answering with due formality.
“Grandmother, your grandson is called Lin Ke. I am five years old.”
The old marquis narrowed his eyes, inspecting Ke closely, then frowned.
“When and where did you meet my son? Why has he never mentioned you?”
A bitter ache rose in my heart.
He had never mentioned me, probably because Lu Zheng did not know who I was.
That night, the aphrodisiac had left him barely conscious. In the lamplight, he could not even make out my face.
The next day, when the army physician Lin Anping asked him about it, Lu Zheng thought he had merely had an intimate dream.
Tightening my hold on Ke’s hand, I said quietly,
“Over the years, I have saved enough to open a cooked-food shop in Wuxi County. It supports us and pays for Ke’s first lessons.
“If disaster had not struck your family, if his life were not hanging in the balance, I would not have brought Ke to trouble you.”
Ke sensed my distress and immediately put on a stern face.
“Don’t you bully my mother!”
Lady Lu gave her husband a small kick and scolded him.
“Our property has been seized and our family charged with a crime. She risks her head by coming to acknowledge us. What could she possibly hope to gain?
“Does Zheng know about the child?”
He did not.
I had never intended to tell him or his family.
The old marquis made up his mind.
“Quite right. These are troubled times, and with that temper of Zheng’s, he absolutely must not know.”
Lady Lu took my hand, her eyes full of concern.
“My dear, what do you intend to do now?”
Before coming to the capital, I had heard that the charges against Lu Zheng were grave. They would probably interrogate him for some time before beheading him.
Out of consideration for their age, the emperor had spared his parents exile. Their property was confiscated, and they were reduced to commoners.
I had closed my food-and-wine shop in Wuxi, rented the premises to someone else for a year, and hurried north with Ke. I had thought that collecting Lu Zheng’s body, then having Ke knock his forehead to the ground three times before his grave and call him Father, would be enough.
Finding no one at the Lu estate, I had searched the lanes and alleys without learning anything about him.
Instead, someone told me they had seen his parents buy two packets of arsenic, beg a bowl of gruel from a kind passerby, and hobble toward the ruined temple, leaning on each other.
In my desperation, I had told Ke to call them Grandfather and Grandmother, hoping to give them some reason to live.
For now, I wanted to spend a little silver to see if I could take Ke into the prison for a visit.
Then I would settle Lu Zheng’s parents somewhere safe. As for what came afterward, we would take it one step at a time.
In the carriage, Ke bit into a dried persimmon and looked up at me in bewilderment.
“Mother, is he a very bad-tempered man?”
For some reason, he was a little afraid of Lu Zheng.
The autumn wind was cold. I gathered Ke into my arms and stroked his head.
“He is not bad-tempered. He is a great hero.
“The best person in the whole world.”
Ke nodded, not quite understanding, and carefully tucked away the rest of his dried persimmons.
“Then I’ll take my favorite persimmons when we go to see him.”