Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Young Lord Wei Yu took the bait with ease.
Pearl and I exchanged identities. Dressed as my maid, she gave me a push so that, by the most perfect “accident,” I tumbled into Wei Yu’s arms during the autumn hunt.
He fumbled to help me up, a rosy flush spreading over his jade-pale skin.
I felt nothing. I only wanted to finish the performance and leave. The young lord released me, then called to my retreating back.
“I am Wei Yu! May I ask the young lady’s name?”
Pearl smirked and deliberately dropped an embroidered handkerchief.
Naturally, it bore only her nickname.
She did have some caution. Wei Yu might have known her formal name.
And so Wei Yu and “Pearl” began exchanging secret love letters.
The affair brought me one benefit: a chance to learn to read. Pearl always wrote the letters herself, but feared an illiterate like me would give us away at our next meeting with Wei Yu, so she hired a female teacher for me.
My lessons began with my name.
Tai. Moss.
From it, my teacher led me through poems about moss. In a poet’s eyes, she explained, moss possessed more than tenacious life. It bore an ease and dignity of its own. Though heaven and earth denied it light, it spread and flourished in darkness.
“It is a very good name,” my teacher told me.
Pleased, I said Mother had chosen it.
“Then your mother must have put great care into it,” she replied casually.
It was mere politeness, yet the remark stunned me.
Most girls in Sha County had ugly names: Ah Chou-Ugly-or any number of “Hope-for-a-Brother” and “Bring-a-Brother.” Some were simply called “Wretched Girl.”
Like me, none could read.
Then how had Mother known how to name me?
Gooseflesh swept over my body. I leaped up and ran out, then returned moments later under my teacher’s bewildered gaze.
I carried a stack of yellowed paper that I had carefully smoothed flat. “Are these… words?”
My teacher held the pages toward the light. What had always looked like crooked magic scrawls to me shone beneath her gaze like pearls wiped free of dust.
She narrowed her eyes, gave a soft exclamation, and pointed to the first page. “‘Mother herself taught me the Steps of the Void…’ A poem by Sikong Tu.”
The second page.
“Your name.”
The third was densely covered in marks.
My teacher froze.
One character had been written over and over.
Mother.
My mother might not have come from Sha County.
The thought kept me awake at night.
Where was her mother? Had she been simple-minded since childhood? What other torments had she suffered?
“Little Tai!”
I started back to myself. Pearl stood before me, glaring.
“What have you been thinking about lately? Tomorrow is my birthday, and Wei Yu’s letters are still evasive. Is he going to marry me or not?”
She paced anxiously around the room. “If it isn’t settled soon, Uncle and Mother will marry me to the Count of Pingyuan’s son. He is a brute! Shiftless and unbearable!”
Her pacing always frightened me. It meant she was about to invent another desperate scheme.
Sure enough, she stopped abruptly and regarded me with shadowed eyes. “We must force his hand…”
My brow tightened.
…
Pearl’s birthday celebration was lavish.
Her uncle-the commander of the Northern Pacification Office-spent extravagantly. He secured an imperial decree permitting a thousand sky lanterns to be released at Great Grace Temple that night to pray for his niece’s blessings.
The entire capital was astonished.
The last time so many lanterns had been released was at the birth of a princess.
Pearl was about to become the talk of the city, but she did not smile. Her hand gripping mine was slick with nervous sweat.
“Young Mistress,” I urged, “there is still time to turn back.”
“Turn back from what?” Pearl steadied herself and lifted her chin. “With my birth, naturally I must choose the finest husband. Only when the Wei Yu whom even princesses cannot have willingly begs to marry me will I have truly trampled them all beneath my feet.”
She ordered me to hurry and lure him there.
Her plan was this: I would deceive Wei Yu into entering the bamboo grove behind Great Grace Temple. Then Pearl would replace me and meet him. Commander Xia would just happen to pass by and witness them.
Who did not fear the Embroidered Uniform Guard?
Had Wei Yu known from the start that the woman corresponding with him was Commander Xia’s niece, he would never have dared toy with her.
But once they were discovered, he could not avoid marrying Pearl even if he wished to. Their exchanged letters were irrefutable evidence. If he tried to deny the relationship, the charge of “seducing and deceiving a young lady of the Xia family” would be enough to make prison very unpleasant indeed.
Pearl’s scheme was ruthless.
But Wei deserved it. His letters dripped with intimate endearments, always coaxing “Pearl” to meet him alone.
Whenever we met, he either stroked my hand or smelled my hair, turning my stomach. Yet in writing he remained vague and never proposed marriage. He plainly wanted pleasure without responsibility.
One heartless, the other faithless. They suited each other perfectly.