Chapter 1

After handing Yihe the letter, the messenger lingered with one hand on the courtyard gate, reluctant to leave.

Yihe gave him a sweet smile and unfolded the letter in front of him.

“Mother says she’s safe!”

Beaming, she put it away. “Thank you for coming all this way! Have you eaten? Would you like to stay for a simple meal?”

The man studied her for a while. Her innocent delight seemed entirely genuine. He waved away her offer and left.

Yihe tucked the letter inside her clothes and spent some time working in the yard, humming as she fed the chickens and ducks. Then she gathered some firewood and headed for the kitchen.

The moment she stepped inside, her face darkened.

Every word of the letter claimed that all was well. But Yihe knew her mother was asking for help.

Because she had mentioned a mirror.

Before leaving, her mother had agreed with her that “mirror” would be their code word.

Whichever of them received it must find an opportunity to perform the art of mirror-listening.

Yihe’s thoughts churned, but her hands never stopped. She fed the wood briskly into the stove.

When the messenger saw cooking smoke rising from her house, he released a carrier pigeon.

Mirror-listening was a form of divination performed at the end or beginning of the year.

The practitioner stood beside a road holding a bronze mirror, listening to passersby’s words to divine good fortune or ill.

By her mother’s time, the art had advanced far beyond that. It could be performed at any time, and questions could be put to spirits.

But Yihe had only learned all this later.

When she was little, her parents had been utterly ordinary villagers.

Her father was good at slaughtering pigs and working the fields. Her mother could plant her hands on her hips and trade insults with the old women at the village entrance without ever losing.

Yet as Yihe grew older and began her lessons, her parents changed.

They were no longer illiterates who could not recognize a single character. Instead, they taught better than the finest tutors for miles around.

Her father laughed at himself. “So much for the simple country bumpkin I’ve worked so hard to be.”

Her mother consoled him. “Are we supposed to raise a fool just to keep our secrets from our own daughter? Shut the gate and fool the neighbors. That’s enough. Sooner or later, she’ll have to face the dangers of the world on her own. As her parents, we ought to understand the value of teaching her to fish.”

Yihe had not wasted their efforts. She was exceedingly quick-witted.

She had noticed the messenger’s upright bearing, his sharp gaze, and the thick calluses between his thumbs and forefingers. He did not look like a tradesman hired to run an errand. He looked like someone who had served in the army.

When the water boiled, Yihe put the blanched ribs into the pot. Soon the smell of cooking meat rose from it.

Her mother was in danger, Yihe reasoned, yet she had been allowed to send a letter saying she was safe. That meant she was useful to those people. They would grant at least some of her requests.

And children seeking their parents was only natural. However indifferent Yihe appeared, those people would never stop suspecting her. They would not let her live, either.

Yet her mother could never have meant to invite wolves into their home and endanger her.

The ribs were done.

Yihe ate her meal properly. As usual, she washed the pot and bowls, then rounded up the chickens running about the yard and shut them in their coop.

She worked until evening before her day’s labor was finished.

Even in her room, she did not rest. She took up her sewing.

By the time she blew out the candle, it was late at night and the neighbors were all asleep.

The man who had spent a long time crouching beside the wall tied a cloth over his face. Silently, he climbed into the yard and crept to her bedroom door.