Shuli Go Stories Vol. 5: The Two Keepers

Part 8

The meal did not immediately help. They ate in silence and the Xue family stared at the ground. Occasionally the boy would look up and glare at Lian, sizing her up as his father had once done. Lian pretended not to notice and only made occasional glances at Quan, who seemed almost as transfixed by the food as Fen and her uncle.

Lian had prepared the food with a spice called Winter Husk that only grew its peppers in the Zhosian mountains during the warm summers, on thin vines that crumbled each autumn. The pepper had to be collected just after the vine withered, then stored in a dry, cool place over the winter. Once it was dried out it was crushed to dust and became a sweet additive that gave way to a pleasant burn after the sweetness had dissipated. In Daming it was worth almost a silver piece for each handful of the spice. Lian used exactly that much to ensure the large meal she prepared was pleasant. Unfortunately none of the Xue clan were focused on the food so much as the quiet that sat behind it.

Li Jie was the quietest. Except for the rise of the foodsticks to his mouth and the rote act of chewing, he was motionless. Lian could tell he was considering all the turns of events of the day: his niece under attack, the return of the woman who had incapacitated his brother, the presence of the bandits. But his silence gave her no indication of what the cumulative effect would be. She remembered the man from her abrupt exit four years earlier. Bumping over Fen, seeing the surprised, scared expression on Li Jie's face. The memory brought her back to the righteousness of her anger and the fear that she'd be caught. From a distance now she could see the regret already seedling in that moment, the knowledge that she'd gone too far. The one extra kick that had snapped his neck. The single blow from which he'd never recover. Germinating, slowly, until it had bloomed this morning at the crossroad, at the sight of Fen's horrified expression. Fen had recognized her right away. It wasn't the fear of bandits that had driven her away, not just that at least. Part of her, somewhere, had remembered her father's killer.

"My brother was not a good man," Li Jie said without prompting, looking forward though not at anyone in particular.

"Uncle Li!" Fen gasped, the foodsticks in her hand shaking.

"But," Li Jie continued, "he was not entirely a bad man either. When Fen was born he was the only one who could keep her from crying, so he rocked her to sleep every night. Then her mother would sing to her. Every night to put her to bed. When Tan was born and Kang's wife died, Kang didn't stop the singing. Every night, he put them both to sleep. He was patient with them. And he loved them more than anything."

Li Jie looked at Lian. "But Kang was also an asshole. My father told us that because we owned the land the peasants farmed, we were better than them. I never saw the evidence of that, but Kang never questioned my father about anything. And he took it to heart. He was cruel. One time a peasant from one of my father's farms passed us on the road. I'd never met him before. Neither had Kang. He was nobody, an older man, struggling just to carry his grain. Kang stopped him in the middle of the street. Made him take off his pants and hold his genitals in his hand, like they were on a platter. People were walking by. They watched him humiliate this man, and when they didn't laugh, Kang smashed the man's testicles with his fist. For no reason. He left the man there in the middle of the road screaming and sick. And he didn't think anything of it."

Fen and the young boy – Tan – looked to be on the verge of tears. Fen had known some of her father's cruelty, but Tan was too young to remember it clearly.

"Your boy there," Li Jie kept talking, "he's dressed like a Zhosian. So I assume he's Tiendu Shu. Well, if they're right, when my brother Kang is reincarnated, the best he can hope for is a fly that eats nothing but shit."

Lian couldn't help but chuckle, and Li Jie smiled.

"What you did to him was wrong. But it was going to happen. He was too big and too stupid to know it, but I knew it was going to happen. If it wasn't you it was going to be some officer who insulted him and then had his soldiers tear Kang apart limb from limb. Or someone who pulled a knife in the middle of a fist fight. Or just some peasant he mistreated badly enough to get poisoned or stabbed to death in his sleep."