Page 7 of Forest of a Thousand Lanterns

Wei’s fingers ran down her cheek to her collarbone, and she felt him suddenly tense. He was staring at the crisscross wound above her heart, revealed by her tunic shifting. She tried to tug the cloth back over it, but he stopped her. His jaw tightened, eyes sparking as he took in the huge, angry red cut on her skin. In the light of day, the injury looked horrific, grotesque.

“Did Guma do this to you?” he asked, his voice low, taut.

“Wei...” Xifeng began desperately. She had always taken care to hide the beatings from him—a simple task, since Guma took care never to mar Xifeng’s face. But now he tugged the tunic from her shoulder, revealing countless bruises along her arm and side. He turned her roughly, fingers grazing the jagged scars on her back from Guma’s cane. When he looked into her eyes again, the tender lover she knew was gone, replaced by the man who had once beaten the life out of a thieving attacker with his bare hands.

“Why did you never tell me she hit you?” He trembled with fury. “She is dead! I’ll kill that witch in her sleep.”

“Wei,” Xifeng begged, but he shook her off.

“Better yet,” he said, with a ferocious smile, “I’ll break her good leg and we can watch her crawl away from me. She can live out the rest of her life on the cold, hard ground like she deserves.”

Xifeng couldn’t help recoiling, despite having fantasized about it often. Picturing Guma hurt and twisted on the floor was different from hearing it spoken in Wei’s ruthless voice. She didn’t want to imagine what would happen if her aunt survived, and what kind of revenge she might concoct in that room of spells and secrets.

She knew Wei never made idle threats. He wore conviction in the set of his jaw. So she said the only thing that could spare a life—either Guma’s or his own. “Take me away from here. I want to go with you.” There seemed, to Xifeng’s ears, to be an odd echo to the words, as though she had spoken in unison with another.Yes,a voice whispered,set us on the path to destiny...

Wei’s eyes refocused. “Do you mean it?”

“No more beatings,” she said decisively. “No more blaming and lecturing, no more nights without food and sleep.”And no more rare gestures of kindness,she added to herself, with quiet sorrow.No unexpected caresses, no hints of approval.

But the words could not be unsaid, and Wei had already accepted them.

He helped her to her feet. “Go home and pack a bag. We’ll meet here tonight,” he told her, his eyes blazing. “And if you are not here by sundown, if she tries to stop you, I will come. And I will destroy her.”

Xifeng went home after cleaning the grass stains from her legs as best she could, though Guma would still know; she always knew when Xifeng had been with Wei. But Xifeng reminded herself that this might be the last beating she would ever receive. She might have laughed if she hadn’t been so frightened.

“I am leaving,” she spoke aloud. “I am never coming back. I am free.”

The words felt dangerous, like skirting the edge of a cliff. But she had chosen to jump, to truly begin her new life—just as Guma wanted.If the Emperor won’t send for you, you must go yourself.And, if Xifeng did not go, Wei would follow through on his deadly promise and kill her aunt.

Upstairs, Guma and Ning sewed together in silence. It took Xifeng a moment to understand the girl’s fearful, cringing posture: she was afraid Xifeng would tell Guma that she had been on the field flirting with Wei.

“You look better.” Guma’s eyes cut to a spot above Xifeng’s ankle,which Xifeng felt sure she had scrubbed. “Ning tells me she saw you fainting when she was running errands for me.”

Ning hunched over her sewing like a cowering rabbit, but Xifeng felt no hint of her earlier anger; the girl was only a child, after all, who didn’t know better. “Yes, it happened in the market,” she lied, and Ning snagged her thread in surprise.

“Take care, you stupid thing,” Guma scolded. “Waste thread and you’ll have less to eat.”

Ning mumbled an apology, her face bright red as she shot a grateful look at Xifeng.

“The sun was too hot for me,” Xifeng added, turning her aunt’s attention back on herself. “With your permission, I’ll rest a bit before cooking supper.”

The woman’s nostrils quivered, sniffing for truth and reason. “Ning will cook,” she said at last. “Get the rest you need.”

Xifeng nodded obediently and padded away. It seemed unusual to return from meeting Wei and not be beaten, but she sat on her thin, worn pallet for a time and Guma did not come. So, as silently as she could, she lifted a corner of the pallet and dislodged the floorboard beneath it.

The rough cloth sack had been hidden there for five years, ever since Wei had first urged her to run away. It contained a thin rolled blanket, extra clothing, and a bronze box she had found many years ago in one of the abandoned rooms of the house. She liked to imagine the objects inside had once belonged to her mother: a jeweled dagger made for sharpening pens, and an amber wood hairpin adorned with a circle of jade as green as the forest.

She would smuggle a little food later, when Guma was asleep.

“I knew you were up to something.”

Xifeng whirled around to see her aunt, eyes flashing with rage as she limped into the room, each uneven step filled with menace. The bamboo cane dangled from her fingers. It had been scrubbed clean of blood from the last beating.

“I’m leaving,” Xifeng said as steadily as she could, her palms instantly damp at the sight of the cane. “I’m going to the palace like you want. I’ll do everything you want, but on my own.”

“Will you? How obedient. How dutiful.” Guma’s mouth stretched in a garish imitation of a smile. She stood over Xifeng, placing the tip of her cane on the ground. A stranger might believe she needed it to support her leg, but Xifeng knew too well that Guma’s muscles were poised to bring it down upon her. “I presume you won’t be going alone? You’ll take that lumbering ox Wei, to have something to rut with?”

“He loves me. And I...”

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