Chapter 7
# Chapter 7
Ye Chan was the first girl at Lanyi Academy to collapse.
Her father sent a letter saying that if she failed to earn Grade B, he would marry her to the fifty-year-old Salt Commissioner of Hedong.
The man had already buried two wives.
The letter was short, but every stroke pressed heavily into the paper.
Ye Chan tucked it into her sleeve and went to the stilling-the-heart lesson as usual. Halfway through the hour, she fainted.
The room erupted in confusion. Court Lady Song frowned and said Ye Chan lacked steadiness of character.
I rushed to catch her, but Matron Qi reached her first and lifted her into her arms.
“Matron Qi,” Court Lady Song said coldly, “the lesson is not over.”
Matron Qi looked up. “She has fainted. We save her first.”
“Lanyi Academy is not an infirmary.”
“Nor is it a graveyard.”
Everyone stared.
It was the first time I had ever heard Matron Qi defy a superior.
Ye Chan was carried back to our room. I went to brew ginger soup. Qi Tang stood outside, her eyes red.
“I want to hit someone.”
“Get in line.”
Qin Zhaomian came too, holding a medicine bottle.
I looked at her.
“My mother gave it to me,” she said.
“Thank you.”
She did not enter. She remained in the doorway, looking at Ye Chan’s bloodless face.
“Xu Man, don’t put my name in your ledger.”
“You’ve already written plenty.”
“That was when I was willing.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m not.”
Her fists were clenched.
“Court Lady Song asked me today whether I knew of anyone forming a secret faction inside the academy.”
“What did you say?”
“That I knew nothing.” She raised her eyes. “But sooner or later, she will know.”
I understood.
Qin Zhaomian wanted out.
It was not cowardice. She simply had too much at stake: her brother’s appointment, her mother’s life in the Qin household, her own marriage-all of it rested upon that single Grade A.
“All right,” I said.
She seemed relieved and more miserable at once.
“I envy you, Xu Man.”
“You envy my eight-hundred-tael debt?”
Her smile was faint. “I envy your ability to say no.”
I thought about it. “It isn’t that I can say no. It’s that saying yes has never earned me anything.”
Qin Zhaomian said no more.
The next day, Court Lady Song searched our rooms.
Her people found my ledger.
I was not surprised.
Qin Zhaomian stood behind the other girls with her head lowered. I did not know whether she had betrayed us, but she could not look at me.
Court Lady Song threw the ledger onto the table.
“What did you intend to do with this, Miss Xu?”
“Practice my handwriting.”
She laughed coldly. “A book full of slander, written to set your classmates against the academy. Guards, confine Miss Xu in the side courtyard. She is not to leave before the final examination.”
Qi Tang stepped forward. “On what grounds?”
Court Lady Song turned. “Would Miss Qi like to share her punishment?”
Qi Tang opened her mouth, but I shook my head.
“Don’t.”
Her eyes reddened further.
They took me to the side courtyard. When I passed Qin Zhaomian, her fingers twitched.
I did not stop.
The side courtyard was cold that night.
Jiang Yanbai came and stood outside the locked door.
“The ledger is gone.”
“Oh.”
“You won’t ask who informed on you?”
“Knowing won’t stop tomorrow from coming.”
He fell silent.
I sat inside with aching knees. “Tutor, am I stupid?”
“No.”
“But the ledger was seized and I’m locked up.”
“A ledger is only paper.”
I raised my head.
Jiang Yanbai slipped a sheet through the crack beneath the door. It listed the contents of my ledger, with small annotations after every entry.
The notes were in more than one hand: Qi Tang’s, Ye Chan’s, even Matron Qi’s.
The last line was written by Qin Zhaomian.
Song already suspects us. The original cannot remain. Destroy one copy; preserve ten.
I read it for a long time without speaking.
“You are not the only one who wants a refund, Xu Man,” Jiang Yanbai said softly.
I folded the page.
“Tutor.”
“Yes?”
“Do you have any money?”
He paused.
“I’m hungry.”
Silence lasted for one breath. Then he pushed a packet of cakes beneath the door.
“Put it on my account.”
I laughed. “You’re learning bad habits.”