chapter 1

The realm had descended into chaos, and the Jin barbarians had carried off both the Crown Prince and the Princess.

The Emperor and Empress died one after the other. Grand Preceptor Su, old as he was, personally led troops to negotiate and brought the Crown Prince home.

But the Princess was lost.

The tea pickers traded gossip from below the mountain as their hands moved among the leaves.

I shut it all out and kept my head down, picking without pause. All ten of my fingertips had been stained blue-black, with no trace of what they once looked like.

A new emperor had taken the throne, and this year’s tea levy had gone up another twenty percent. I had to make my hands move faster.

My home was Yunhuai Village, halfway up Yunwu Mountain outside Liu’an City. We produced a tribute tea known as Yunwu.

There was an enormous bat cave near the village. Perhaps the bats brought us luck. Our tea sprouted earlier than anywhere else’s, and the special method for processing Yunwu tea had been passed down only from one village head to the next.

Strictly speaking, the name Yunwu belonged only to the finest buds picked before the Qingming Festival. Those were reserved for the imperial household.

Tea picked in the month after Qingming was second grade and called Sunbreak Peak. It resembled the first flush from other tea villages, but nearly all of it was surrendered to the authorities as well.

Only after the tribute tea was finished, in the weeks before the spring picking season ended, did the leaves belong to the villagers who picked them. Even then, no one kept them to drink. We carried them to town and sold them. As long as a tea merchant would pay, we did not care how he processed the leaves or what name he gave them.

When even the merchants stopped buying, the farmers finally picked a few broad leaves, roasted them over a fierce fire, and saved them for their own pots.

Only when the cicadas grew loud and summer heat rose from the earth did the tea harvest come to an end.

“You mustn’t pick tea in summer,” my father, Lou Shi’an, always said. “It hurts the plants.”

He was the head of Yunhuai Village and the only man for miles around who had ever passed the county-level scholar’s examination. Like everyone else in the village, I thought he was the most remarkable man alive.

Everyone except my mother, Xu Yan, who often snapped at him, “You and that soft heart of yours!”

Every time, Father would sidle up and let her smack him twice to vent her anger, then massage her shoulders, thump her back, and wait on her with tea and water.

Mother had a fierce tongue. She often scolded Father and my sister until they fled in all directions. But Father always knew he was in the wrong and humbled himself until he coaxed her out of her temper.

As village head, he was forever helping widows, orphans, the old, and the young. The land had been troubled for years, and every coin he earned teaching, copying books, or writing letters flowed straight back out to help our neighbors.

Mother spoke harshly but had a tender heart, and she was proud enough to work herself to the bone. She picked tea, dug medicinal herbs, and even dared to catch snakes to sell. In the slack season, she took my sister down to a crossroads near town, put up a little awning, and sold bowls of tea.

The money she earned made up for Father’s generosity. Everyone said she was the most admirable wife in the village.

And I was one of the people kept alive by their kindness.

My name was Lou Guanqi, the younger daughter of the Lou family.

My elder sister, Lou Sibao, had been shirking her work and sleeping among the tea bushes when the barking of her dog, Xiaofu, woke her.

Afraid Mother would hear, she scrambled up to scold him. But Xiaofu’s barking led her to me instead, my face covered in blood.

Without stopping to think, she hoisted me onto her back and carried me home.

No matter what she or Father asked, I refused to speak.

When Mother came back, I tilted my head and studied her closely. She stared at me for a moment. Then the suspicion left her face, and mist gathered in her eyes.

Only then did I rush into her arms. She held me so tightly I could hardly breathe.

With red-rimmed eyes, Mother asked Father, “Can we keep her?”

Father had never been able to resist her when she spoke softly. He agreed without a second thought.

And so I became the Lou family’s younger daughter.

They began discussing what to call me.

Sibao eagerly offered suggestions from the side. “She’s so skinny and tiny. She must be my little sister, right? Why not give her a name like mine?”

Father and Mother nodded, but every name she rattled off – Wubao, Chunxing, Wanfu – was mercilessly rejected.

Because I would not speak, they assumed I was mute.

After some thought, Father chose a more scholarly name for me.

That evening, curled against Mother’s chest, I repeated the name silently to myself.

Lou Guanqi. What a beautiful name.

Sibao murmured it a few times beside us. The more she thought about it, the more unfair it seemed. At last she dropped onto the floor and began to howl.

“Why does she get such a pretty name when I’m stuck with Sibao?”

“Because your grandfather hired a Daoist priest to choose yours especially,” Mother said, directing Father to haul her upright. “You little debt collector. You’re wearing a hole through your clothes. Get up!”

Xiaofu bounced happily around us, convinced we were playing with him.

Dusk slowly settled beyond the window. I held a cup of last year’s tea and sipped it carefully.

The pain in my body faded. My vision cleared.

Mother still had one arm around me while Father set dinner on the table. Sibao was still making a show of wailing, but she could not resist coming over to poke my cheek.

“Call me Big Sister!”

Big Sister, I repeated in my heart.

Xu Yan was wonderful. She had truly given me an elder sister.