Chapter 3

The government had given the young master thirty strokes. His back was injured, one leg dragged, his head was split, and his left wrist hung limp.

I carried him to Benevolent Heart Clinic and begged until my throat hurt, but they would not spare even half a dose of medicine.

I tore the peace pendant from his neck and took the brocade purse from his belt, then handed both to a pawnshop.

He clutched my shoulders, pounding and striking as he wept and shouted.

“Don’t pawn them! I forbid it! Do you hear me? That jade is the only thing my father left me! My mother sewed that purse herself!”

He had no strength. His blows did not hurt at all. So I hardened my heart, pawned everything, and carried him back to the clinic.

The physician pinched his nose as he examined the young master.

“The back and leg are flesh wounds. The scrape on his head is nothing. But this hand—without strong medicine now, he may lose it.”

“Then prescribe the medicine!” I cried.

The physician leisurely packed his case and chuckled. “The treatment matches the fee. Saving the hand costs extra.”

I wanted to knock his teeth out.

I carried the young master home and laid him on the heated brick bed. His face held not a trace of color. He looked dead already.

Thankfully, he still had a fever. He was still breathing.

I scrubbed my only handkerchief until its color faded before I dared use it to wipe his face and body.

The young master was so delicate. Water drawn from the well made him shiver violently. Afraid the cold would worsen his condition, I hurried to heat a basin and bathed him with a warm cloth. Then I took the rice I had begged that day and made him vegetable porridge.

“Young Master, have some porridge.”

He stared at me blankly for a long time before saying with a bitter smile, “You foolish beggar, you saved the wrong person. There is nothing to gain from me.”

“My family is dead. I have no coin to my name, and I am now the son of a condemned criminal. I can no longer study, sit the imperial examinations, or become an official.”

“The emperor killed my family. He is the true dragon, the Son of Heaven. I must watch the whole world worship him, and even if I spend my entire life seeking revenge, I can never touch him.”

“What use is there in living? I may as well die and be done with it.”

His despairing words stopped abruptly. He looked over my shoulder in horror.

I turned. It was only Pa.

Pa had no legs. He walked on his hands, a cripple missing half his body, shorter than a girl like me. But he was a sturdy man despite it. He cheerfully paid his respects to the young master, then told me, “One more mouth means one more share of food. Tofu, I’ll go beg for another bowl.”

The young master looked as though he had been slapped. He ate the porridge in silence, then asked, “How did your father…become like that?”

“Pa was stolen by traffickers as a child. Traffickers are rotten bastards. They gouged out the children’s eyes, sawed off their legs, and dragged them through the streets to perform for money.”

I laughed.

“Don’t underestimate my pa. He’s formidable. After two years earning money for those traffickers, he grew old enough to understand what they had done and burned down their house.”

“People died in the fire. Afraid the authorities would catch him, Pa heard that the capital was rich and started crawling this way. For the next twenty years, he traveled all the way from Xiangyang to the capital on those two hands alone. Impressive, isn’t he?”

Pa told that story to everyone. The whole street knew it.

Who could hear it without raising a thumb and saying, “Now that is a man!”

But the young master did not praise him.

He squeezed his eyes shut, and tears spilled instantly. Thinking his fever had muddled him, I hurried to steady him.

Instead, he began to murmur lines from an old song.

“The good suffer poverty and die before their time. The wicked enjoy wealth and live long lives.”

“Heaven and earth—afraid of the strong, cruel to the weak. So you too simply follow the current!”

“Beggar girl, do you know what the Ministry of Justice tortured my father to confess?”

“They asked why he had made the rice cakes so round. Ha! Why were the rice cakes so round?”

He laughed and sobbed at once, tearing at his hair and beating his chest in such agony that I could scarcely bear to look. I pushed him down onto the heated bed and pulled my ragged quilt over him from head to toe.