chapter 4

The ice and snow melted. The endless cold rain stopped, and the Cold Food Festival drew near.

On the tea mountain, Mother and the other villagers picked the first flush of golden buds without pausing, each movement precise.

Father and the experienced elders thoroughly cleaned the large tea-processing house. With complete concentration, they fired the leaves in woks, baked them dry, and tended the flames. Then the most deft-handed girls in the village sorted them one by one.

Father had guessed correctly. The authorities wanted another ten jin of our finest Yunwu tea that year.

The freezing rain had still reduced the number of new buds. No one picking or processing tea dared joke now. They were afraid to overlook even a single shoot.

No one wanted to imagine what would have become of the village if we had not prepared the previous winter.

Sibao was sixteen now. Over the past few years, she had begun to act more and more like an elder sister. Every spring harvest, she patiently followed Father and learned how to process the leaves.

Warm sunlight returned to the earth. The spring wind scattered mist and rain, opened the azaleas, and sent a tide of flowers flowing down from the mountaintop. Red, pink, white, and yellow bloomed among the fresh green. The world brimmed with life.

After the second shipment of tribute tea was delivered, the village set off a string of firecrackers. At last, after more than a month of exhausting labor, our duty had been fulfilled.

From then until the end of the spring season, every child and adult would join the picking.

Mother divided the work carefully, preparing for one great push. She wanted to save a larger bride-price for Sibao and a dowry for me.

Sibao and Xiaopang were betrothed. In another two years, Xiaopang would marry into our household as a live-in son-in-law.

It was time to begin arranging a marriage for me as well.

One morning, the village was strangely quiet.

Sibao warmed breakfast, woke me, and sent me to call Father and Mother back from the tea fields.

The instant I stepped outside, a troop of soldiers and yamen runners surged up and surrounded our home.

Their captain was a man named Wang. He often drank at our family’s tea stall, and Mother never charged him.

Captain Wang remained civil. After asking where Father was, he went to arrest him.

The county yamen claimed there was something wrong with the premium Yunwu tea our village had presented as tribute.

A palace official from the Directorate of the Inner Court had personally brought the tea back to demand punishment.

Several days passed, but Father did not return. Then the runners came again and seized more villagers.

Panic spread. Women and children wept at home. No one went up the mountain to pick for days, and the tea shrubs began putting out wild new growth.

Mother waited at home for several days. Then she led the old, the young, and everyone else left in the village to the county yamen for the hearing.

On the day of the trial, a crowd packed the entrance.

Magistrate Feng glanced at the palace eunuch seated beside him, cleared his throat, and questioned Father below the bench.

“Lou Shi’an, how dare your people pass off old tea as this year’s harvest?”

“My lord, please see the truth! Officials supervised every step from the moment we began processing the leaves,” Father pleaded. He was frightened, but he kept his back straight and did his best to defend the village.

“Where is the tea inspector?” Magistrate Feng asked.

The clerk hurried forward. “My lord, he hanged himself at home the day before Palace Eunuch Jiang arrived.”

“Magistrate Feng,” a shrill voice interrupted, “I have no time to sit here while you drag out this trial.”

It was the eunuch from the palace. With a gesture to his men, he had two packets of tea torn open and flung across the hall.

Everyone stared at the leaves, bewildered. They did look like Yunwu tea.

The eunuch continued, “I have no patience for your excuses. You betrayed His Majesty’s grace. This wretched tea nearly damaged the peace negotiations with the Jin barbarians. Even cutting off every head in this village would not be punishment enough.”

Beneath the plaque proclaiming Bright Mirror Hung High, Magistrate Feng stood respectfully. He kept wiping sweat from his face with his sleeve. He did not dare object and could only nod over and over.

“Magistrate Feng, execute everyone who processed tea this year. Yunwu tea will no longer be required as tribute, in any case. Then I can return to the capital and report that the matter is settled.”

Magistrate Feng held the block of wood used to call the court to order. His hand shook too badly to strike it. Below him, cries of innocence and grief had already risen.

Father shuffled forward on his knees until he reached Eunuch Jiang. “My lord, I am the village head. If a head must fall, take mine alone. I oversaw the processing.”

A young eunuch beside Jiang kicked Father half a yard across the floor and shouted, “Insolence!”

“This doesn’t look like Yunwu tea,” Sibao murmured, picking up a few leaves.

I hurried to her side. “Are you certain?”

She examined them again and nodded, but her expression remained grim. “It could fool almost anyone. No one is going to believe us.”

Those clothed from head to toe in silk were not the people who raised the silkworms.

Even in the village that produced Yunwu tea, few people had ever drunk it. Every year, we merely followed the craft handed down by our ancestors, step after painstaking step, then surrendered the finished tea to the Directorate for inspection.

Father’s testimony was dismissed, and the tea inspector was dead.

How many people in the entire realm could truly tell the genuine tea from a counterfeit?

Father had been kicked to the floor by that villain. Blood came from his mouth, yet he was still begging Magistrate Feng to save the villagers.

Mother had not slept properly in nights. Her cheeks had hollowed, and deep shadows darkened her eyes.

The villagers looked stricken. Weeping and desperate pleas filled the court.

I bit my lip, drew a deep breath, grabbed a handful of leaves from the floor, and ran outside.

At a wonton stall, I asked for a bowl and borrowed some hot water. I brewed the tea, studied the color of the liquor, and leaned close to smell it.

The confidence I had carried at eight parts out of ten became absolute.

“My lords, this is an injustice. That is not Yunwu tea!”

I walked straight into the court with the bowl, cleared my throat, and cast aside the deliberately sweet, childish voice I usually wore.

My words cut through the chaos.

“Who said that?” Magistrate Feng demanded.

I did not answer him. I straightened my spine as Father had and carefully placed the bowl on the magistrate’s bench.

“What nerve!” Eunuch Jiang’s voice climbed higher as he pointed at me. “You expect us to accept it merely because you say so?”

“The liquor of Yunwu tea is bright and clear. By the second sip, a clean sweetness rises on the tongue. Its final firing uses a special technique, so the tea is less cooling in nature and leaves a mellow finish. If you smell closely, you will find the fragrance of orchids.

“More remarkably, although aged Yunwu loses flavor, its orchid fragrance grows stronger.

“These leaves may look like Yunwu, and their liquor is fairly clear, but it is too yellow. The taste is thin, and there is not the faintest trace of orchid fragrance. This cannot possibly be aged Yunwu tea.”

My words stunned everyone. Only Mother squeezed Sibao’s hand, tears shining in her eyes.

Father took the tea, tasted it, and studied the leaves. Controlling his breath despite the pain, he carried the bowl to Eunuch Jiang and tried to prove I was right.

The eunuch cut him off.

“And what are you supposed to be?”

He knocked the bowl from Father’s hands.

“How could peasants like you know anything about Yunwu tea?”

The hope that had just kindled in everyone’s eyes went dark again.

“What am I?”

I lowered my gaze and laughed softly. Then I raised my head and swept my eyes over the court.

Sunlight poured down outside the yamen, dazzlingly bright. I let each word fall with perfect clarity.

“I am the eldest princess of Great Zhao, the present Emperor’s only elder sister.”

I helped Father to his feet and wiped the spilled tea from his sleeve. Only then did I draw a white jade token from inside my robe and fix the arrogant eunuch with an imperious gaze.

“My imperial mother, the late Empress, especially loved the scent of orchids. She often kept aged Yunwu tea and brewed it as incense.”

Shock flooded Eunuch Jiang’s eyes when he saw the token. He studied my face. Perhaps he noticed that I resembled the Emperor by seven or eight parts. At once he lowered his head and began whispering with his men.

Could this truly be the eldest princess who had disappeared among the Jin barbarians?

His Majesty had sent people everywhere to search for her. He had even ordered her story recorded and circulated.

The token was one of only two pieces of cold jade offered as tribute from the western lands when the Crown Prince and Princess were born.

The young eunuch beside Jiang reminded him in a whisper, “Finding the eldest princess would be a tremendous achievement.”

Their eyes rolled twice. Then they dropped to their knees and kowtowed.

Everyone around them followed.

Only Sibao and Qiantao remained standing, staring at me in a daze.

I turned back to my family and curved my lips into a smile.

In my heart, I felt more wretched than if I had wept.

My paradise beyond the world had been nothing but a dream after all.