‘I went to Taining,’ he said. ‘What you said about Wang Shizhen being a tyrant might be true, but that doesn’t absolve you of guilt.’
A thief-catcher to the bone. She wriggled out of his grasp and Han let her go without a struggle. Once again, she had been fooled by the natural pull of yin and yang. They weren’t friends. They weren’t anything, though she was disturbed to find she missed the feel of his arms around her. Just a little.
‘What do
you
want, Hao Han? No thief-catcher works this hard to chase a warrant.’
‘To know the truth. I know your pendant wasn’t part of the heist.’
‘It was given to me.’
‘By whom?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she insisted.
But it did.
Don’t cry,
her mother had pleaded. Li Feng wouldn’t surrender the memory of their last moments together over to him. He was nothing but a man whom she had found intriguing two seconds ago.
Her irrational attraction to danger had got the best of her again. No matter how much she liked the look of him, she had to remember that Han was still a bastard thief-catcher and she couldn’t trust him. The momentary feeling of being close to someone, of feeling secure, was an illusion. She should know that after her disastrous affair with Bao Yang.
She straightened. Her sword was in quick reach if he made any movement towards her. ‘It seems our truce is over.’
‘One of the jade thieves was caught last week,’ he told her. ‘He was beheaded.’
She stopped cold. ‘Beheaded?’
Li Feng started away from him, but was only able to move as far as the other side of the bed. She wanted to believe that she was afraid of nothing, but it was far from true. Her pulse pounded and the urge to run took hold of her.
‘It was General Wang,’ he said.
She hadn’t stolen the jade out of greed or even out of necessity. None of them had. The theft was one act in a string of minor attacks against the warlord. The main goal was to disrupt Wang Shizhen’s activities to keep him from seizing more power within the province.
The danger hadn’t seemed real until that moment. At the time, the heist had seemed a grand challenge and that angry part inside of her had wanted to strike out at something to make up for all that had been taken from her.
At one time, she had believed deeply in the cause, but it was no longer her battle. Bao Yang, the leader of the rebels, had drawn her into his cause with his lethal charm. She regretted becoming so involved now.
Han watched her reaction. ‘There was someone else at the head of it, wasn’t there? If you were misguided or coerced—’
With every word and every action, he was testing her. She needed to understand where exactly they stood with one another.
‘Are you still pursuing me over the jade?’ she demanded.
‘I’m interested in much more than that, Miss Wen,’ he replied, keeping his eyes locked on hers.
She gave him an evil-eye at the double meaning. ‘Scoundrel.’
The corner of his mouth twitched.
They were interrupted by a booming voice in the front hall. Footsteps marched downstairs. Han moved to the door and opened it just a crack before returning to her.
‘Wang Shizhen’s men,’ he reported.
She glared at him. ‘You brought them here!’
‘I didn’t—’
She was at the window without another word. The street below was clear and Li Feng let herself drop down, landing with knees bent and rolling on to her shoulder to absorb the impact. A moment later, the thief-catcher landed with a thud beside her, not quite as softly. She waited until he straightened, then sent a throwing knife sailing past his ear.
Han flung himself aside as the blade embedded itself into the post behind him. He stared at it, then back at her.
‘She-demon!’
‘I spared your life, thief-catcher. You owe me,’ she said.
He frowned at her. ‘What sort of logic is that?’
Overhead, soldiers tore through the pavilion, searching for her.
‘Don’t follow me,’ she warned, backing away.
‘If General Wang catches you, he won’t be concerned about justice.’
‘Then I won’t get caught.’
There was no more time for talk. With a running start, she scaled the wall behind them and caught the edge with a hand to pull herself up on top of it. The manoeuvre was a little more difficult with the drag of the courtesan’s robe, but she managed it. She crouched at the top and glanced back down at Han.
Scaling a city wall was a punishable offence. A single shout and Han could have the night watchmen and Wang’s soldiers chasing after her. But he didn’t sound the alert. He stood his ground and watched her with a grim expression.
Li Feng leapt from the wall, her feet landing deftly on the packed dirt of the alleyway. She continued through the city, slipping through spaces, finding handholds and footholds in hidden corners. Her movement was like water, shifting around and over obstacles, finding a path where others saw none. The ancient texts spoke
qing gong,
lightness training, but it had less to do with being as light as air than a sure-footedness that came from strength, balance and endless practice.
The silk of her robe rustled around her as she ran. There was freedom here, in the constant flow of motion. More freedom than she’d ever found in the open, quiet landscape of the mountains. She was walking on walls and flying over eaves, putting more distance between her and Han.
Thief-catchers were notoriously a corrupt lot, easy to deflect with bribes. Zheng Hao Han may be one of those rare men of honour and conviction, but she still couldn’t trust him. He spoke of justice and truth, but for her, justice could only be found through the edge of a blade.
Chapter Six
M
emories were fragile and fickle things. There were minute details she remembered very clearly, insignificant as they were. Her hair had been tied in two little pigtails. The thread in her sleeve had come loose. It unravelled into a ragged edge that grew damp from all the times she’d wiped her nose across it. She remembered tripping and scraping her knee against rock in the dirt path. She remembered Mother having to pick her up and carry her.
Other details were hazy, as if seen through a veil of smoke. There were trees, hills, the sky was grey. She could sense that Mother was afraid, so she was afraid too. She couldn’t remember if she’d ever seen the men who were chasing them. Perhaps she’d just recreated them in her own mind, making them more awful and fearsome in the years to come.
Wen
shifu
had told her about the mountain path he’d been travelling when he found her. When Li Feng had first returned to the province, she had gone to a place that seemed to fit both her fragmented memories and his description. There were trees, there were hills. The sky that day was blue, not grey.
She had even found an opening in the hillside, too high up for a small child to reach on her own. The crevice looked small and desolate and dark, but just large enough for a little girl to crawl inside and curl herself up into a ball while she waited for her mother to return. Li Feng had reached her hand inside the rock and closed her eyes. She wanted to believe that it was the place and by somehow coming back there, she could connect herself with what had happened in the past and, through it, what had happened afterwards.
When she opened her eyes, there were no answers for her. So she’d left the hillside to continue her search. She felt the same way now, her hand grasping for the past to have it disappear like smoke. She would listen to names of people and places and hope that one of them would contain the answers she longed for.
She was standing on the riverbank now, at a tiny river crossing waiting for a ferry. After escaping the brothel, she’d remained close to the river, navigating downstream according to the directions the courtesan Lotus had provided.
When Li Feng had arrived at the Singing Nightingale, Lotus poured tea for her and was eager for her story. The courtesan had a way of putting her at ease and Li Feng spoke of the jade pendant and her search for her parents as if they were long-lost sisters. Lotus had also been taken away from her parents at a young age.
‘The family was poor. They needed the money,’ she explained, though Li Feng caught the pang of wistfulness that crossed the courtesan’s otherwise tranquil face.
Lotus went on to tell Li Feng of a man named Cai Yun who was the owner of the jade. Li Feng repeated the name to herself as a sampan boat floated across the river towards her. Had this man known her mother?
‘Is there a settlement on the other side?’ she asked the
ferryman when the boat came to shore.
‘There is a village up in the hills near the salt works.’
Li Feng thanked the man and handed him a copper coin before stepping into the sampan. The vessel had a long flat keel that sat low in the water. There was one other passenger on board who sat hunched at the back. His robe was dark in colour and a wide conical straw hat shielded his face from the sun. She went to stand before him.
‘I don’t need to see your face to recognise you,’ she said drily.
The man lifted his head, two fingers pushing back the brim of the hat to reveal the rough square cut of his jaw. The sight of his familiar face made her heart skip. She was starting to expect these meetings between them, even to the point of looking forward to them. She had no sense, no sense at all, and deserved to be caught.
‘It seems we are currently on the same path,’ Han said as his gaze moved over her from head to toe. ‘No longer wearing silk?’
Li Feng swallowed. Did she detect a hint of disappointment? She was dressed once again in her shortened tunic and leggings, her hair pinned in a simple knot. The grey, peasant colour allowed her to disappear in a crowd and the loose fit and shorter length allowed her to move quickly should she need to flee. She considered whether she should flee now.
‘We are both looking for the same man. A man known as Cai Yun,’ he continued.
‘Why are you interested in him?’
‘Because you are.’
She shot him a curious look.
‘I sense there is some underhanded dealing here. If there’s any corruption involved, I intend to uncover it.’
‘You’re no longer intent on bringing me before a tribunal?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
At least he wasn’t trying to clamp irons on to her at the moment. If she knew nothing else about Han, she was certain he wouldn’t resort to trickery to ensnare her, unlike some of her former acquaintances.
The ferryman dipped his pole into the river and Li Feng seated herself beside him, though maintaining a cautious distance. The sampan slowly floated away from the bank and into the current. The sun was at its highest point and reflected off the dark water.
‘Why are you helping me?’ she asked, lifting a hand to her eyes to shield them from the brightness.
‘I’m not helping you,’ he insisted. ‘I just figured it might benefit both of us to combine our efforts…for now.’
Han untied the cord at his neck and took off the hat, holding it out to her. She stared at his outstretched hand. It was a kind gesture, done without any second thought. The man before her was very different from the Thief-catcher Han she had battled with several weeks ago. Not that Han had ever treated her with any cruelty. The connection between them had just changed so subtly. And there was no denying that they were connected, whether she wanted them to be or not.
‘Thank you,’ she mumbled, taking the hat from him.
‘My father always insisted that one should not aim to prove the guilt or innocence of the accused,’ he said. ‘Rather one should strive to seek the truth.’
‘Was your father a thief-catcher as well?’ she asked.
‘No.’ He was taken aback by her assumption. ‘He was a county magistrate—at one time.’
A magistrate? As far as she knew, sons of magistrates didn’t become thief-catchers. It was a lowly, dangerous and somewhat unsavoury profession.
The wide brim provided shade, but it also allowed her to take a long, hard look at him without seeming so forward. The sunlight washed directly over him. His skin was bronze in tone, darkened from many days out in the sun. Scholars and aristocrats tended towards paleness, but Han had the complexion and demeanour of a rugged and world-toughened individual, someone who had braved the elements and much, much worse.
The revelation did explain some oddities about Han. He’d always seemed overly dedicated to justice for a thief-catcher. The way he carried himself also set him apart from the other people of the street and now she knew the reason was his cultured upbringing. Along with training how to fight, he must have also studied. A combination of action and thought would make a formidable opponent.
‘I still don’t know how you were able to get Lotus to help you,’ he said.
She shrugged. ‘Men always talk about brotherhood among fighting men—why wouldn’t there be sisterhood among women? Lotus saw that I was alone in the world and wanted to help. She has no particular loyalty to Cai Yun…or to you.’
Han stopped to consider it. ‘Who is this Cai Yun to you?’ he asked finally.
She stared at the patterns dancing over the water. The motion of the waves were disordered and chaotic. ‘If I only knew myself.’
Han had proposed that they combine their efforts. Regardless of her training, it was dangerous out on the road alone. She was constantly seeking out shelter and finding fellow travellers, whether they were merchants or pilgrims or migrant labourers, to share the journey with. Out in the wilderness, she could hide away from danger, but she would be venturing into a salt farm and a village without knowing whether she would meet up with friend or foe. Han’s strength and his skill with weapons seemed very desirable.
Perhaps desirable was not quite how she wanted to describe him.
She had no doubt he would drag her to the magistrate once he determined her guilt, but for now she needed an ally.
‘I need to find out what happened to my mother,’ she told him, never looking away despite how difficult it was for her to share this part of her. ‘She was taken away by men with swords. The jade pendant is the one thing I have that belonged to her. I never saw her again.’
Han grew quiet, giving her admission its proper respect.
‘How old were you?’ he asked finally.
‘Three.’ She had asked herself the same question many times. ‘Maybe four.’
She looked to the furthest shore. They were at a point in the middle of the river where it seemed they weren’t moving at all, just drifting along without any progress in any direction.
‘Wen
shifu
found me and took me to the foothills of Mount Wudang. It was a quiet, open place. He was a recluse, one of those Taoist masters intent on seeking immortality through meditation. Every day, he would commune with nature and reflect on the mysteries of heaven and earth, but all I could think about was those final moments with Mother.’
Duty to one’s parents was a law that transcended both the world of rivers and lakes and the cities. Her entire purpose in life revolved around this one memory.
Li Feng had held on to the jade pendant. At the time, the carving had filled both her hands. Her mother had told her not to cry, but she did cry. Silently, as she waited for Mother to return for her.
‘I have made up so many different stories of how she and I came to that hillside. I’ve learned that this jade is quite valuable and we weren’t rich. There was a reason men were chasing after us… Perhaps she stole it.’ Her mouth tightened with a forced smile. ‘A tiger mother begets a tiger daughter, after all.’
It was an ill attempt at humour. There was no judgement in Han’s expression as he regarded her, but he was very good at masking his emotions.
She breathed deeply and met his gaze without wavering. ‘I know the story may not end well, but I need to know. But more than fifteen years has passed. There may be nothing left to find.’
‘Everything we do, all that we touch, leaves a trace,’ he said, sounding more like a philosopher than a hardened thief-catcher. ‘We have knowledge that has survived from the first dynasty, over a thousand years ago. Fifteen years is not so long a time.’
* * *
They disembarked at the other side of the river and followed the dirt path that wound up through surrounding hills.
‘The workers likely use this to transport the salt to the river to be loaded on to boats,’ Han said.
Li Feng walked beside him. Even in the heat and on uneven ground, her step was light. It was the first time they moved together towards the same destination as opposed to one of them chasing the other.
The woods thickened around them as they travelled further away from the water. Soon the river was no longer in sight and they were surrounded by a dense growth of trees that blocked the sun, providing relief from the afternoon heat. Li Feng slowed as a bamboo wall appeared at the top of a hill.
‘Soldiers,’ she announced, slipping off the path.
Han followed her as she wove through the trees. Though it was unknown territory, she still moved with a confidence that enchanted him. He might have chosen to approach the gate directly if he was alone, but in this instance he was willing to follow Li Feng’s instinct and remain hidden.
She stopped beneath a tree and looked up through the branches. The old roots crawled along the ground, twining up and over themselves like a nest of snakes. Apparently Li Feng saw what she was looking for because she ran a few steps up the trunk and grabbed on to the lowest branch. She swung herself on to it, stood and reached for the next one with the deftness of a golden monkey. In no time at all she was perched high above the ground.
He began his climb, which progressed much slower. Li Feng seated herself among the branches to watch him. She offered him her hand as he came near, but he had his pride. That, and he wasn’t quite ready to release his grip on the tree.
‘You never climbed trees as a child,’ she observed.
‘We grew up in the city.’ He pressed his boot against a sturdy-looking branch and tested his weight against it before lowering himself down.
Li Feng had her legs straddled on either side of the branch. Her posture was relaxed, as if she didn’t have any bones to break should she drop to the ground. He leaned back against the trunk and kept a hand on a branch overhead to keep steady.
‘We?’ she asked, completely casual and conversational. ‘You have brothers and sisters?’
‘One younger brother.’
The question, though simple, was quite personal. He rarely spoke of his family to anyone. Somehow he knew not to ask her the same as she nodded and turned back towards the view of the salt works.
There was an entire encampment inside the confines of the fence. Several towering rigs of bamboo had been constructed around the wells. A counterweight mechanism was used to pound a drill deep within the well, forcing brine water up to the surface where it was drained and collected in vats to be boiled down. The resulting sludge was spread out in shallow flats to be dried out by the sun. They could see workers collecting the white salt into buckets.
‘A lot of guards at the gate,’ Li Feng commented. He wondered if she was counting the guards and measuring the height of the bamboo wall.
‘Local militia. Smuggling is a constant problem at these outposts.’ He had been assigned to similar watches in his youth. ‘The guards are also needed to keep the work lines in order. Many of the labourers are convicted criminals sentenced to servitude.’
‘As I might be…if the judge is merciful.’ She glanced sideways at him. Her smile was syrupy sweet and sharp at the edges.
He should let her go. They would go their separate ways. As certain as he was of her guilt, he was also certain she hadn’t stolen for greed or gain. That didn’t negate the crime, but there were more dangerous criminals to capture.