Chapter 2

When Su Yuling saw me come to her with tears in my eyes, her face went white with fright. Once she understood what had happened, she began to laugh.

“It’s your first monthly bleeding,” she said gently. “Our Sui’an is growing up.”

Before that night, I had rarely spent time with Su Yuling. Perhaps her voice sounded too much like Shen Ning’s just then, because I lost control and threw myself into her arms.

“Big Sister Su, I’m scared.”

She patted my back and soothed me, then ordered someone to bring hot water.

She taught me how to wash myself, how to count the days, and how to take care of my body.

Once I understood, I felt embarrassed, but I still did not want to leave.

I did not want to sleep alone.

It was all Shen Ning’s fault for spoiling me. Back home, I had always slept by myself.

Su Yuling did not turn me away. She tapped the tip of my nose. “What a pampered girl. You’re this big now, and still so clingy.”

The gauze curtains came down, their shadows blurring Su Yuling’s face.

“Big Sister…”

I called out without thinking, like some fickle man lying beside one woman while longing for another.

The thought made me laugh at myself.

Su Yuling’s bed was soft and fragrant, and I soon fell asleep.

I did not dream all night.

When we went to pay our respects to Shen Ning the next morning, Su Yuling teased me about what had happened.

“The little girl thought she had some terrible illness. She was so frightened she cried.”

Mist gathered in Shen Ning’s eyes. I knew her heart ached for me.

“Silly child. Does your belly still hurt?”

I shook my head. “Big Sister Su gave me brown-sugar water last night. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

Shen Ning nodded to Su Yuling. “Thank you for taking care of her.”

Su Yuling merely smiled and said nothing.

I was slow. I could not hear the polite distance in Shen Ning’s words, much less understand Su Yuling’s silence.

After Su Yuling left, Shen Ning seemed about to speak several times, but in the end, she only gave a long sigh.

Aunt Songxue laughed. “If you try to teach her, you say she is still too young. If you don’t, you worry a tiger will gobble her up.”

Shen Ning sighed helplessly. “Never mind. I am here to protect her. She needn’t learn all this so soon.”

I asked Zhui’er why grown-ups were always saying things I could not understand.

Zhui’er opened her eyes wide. She could not even understand my question, let alone answer it.

As Shen Ning’s belly grew, she could no longer be bothered to draw a bow, so she played weiqi with me instead.

I always lost. She never went easy on me, but would point to the lines of play and patiently teach me how to lay a trap and how to escape one.

Sadly, I had little talent for it. I could not follow her explanations and kept nodding off.

Shen Ning had Aunt Songxue brew tea to keep me awake. “The lines of play on this board are also paths to survival,” she said sternly. “If you cannot learn how to set a trap, so be it. You must at least learn how to escape one.”

But I still fell asleep to the whisper of snow beyond the window.