CHAPTER 2
In General Teng's Mansion, Sixi's residence was located behind the main house. She had obnoxious brothers who resided in the western wings of the mansion. I heard music and saw figures dancing behind silkscreens as I returned from the slave market. Even the steps leading up to their quarters reeked of rice wine.
Standing there, with my newly purchased slave, I contemplated punishing those loathsome rich boys by causing their toenails to grow inwards and afflicting them with a bad bout of gout. It wasn't that I didn't like merrymakers, I just didn't like these two particular drunken fools. Sixi's brothers were idiots who squandered away their father's fortune at whore houses and playing ma diao. On second thought — I decided not to push my luck. The last thing I needed was an annoying medicine man being invited into the shiheyuan to burn herbs and rid of the place of evil spirits.
What can I say? I'm the worst spirit of them all.
"It's not worth it," Alix whispered to me. No, not whispered — he mouthed it to me. My handmaiden and bodyguards didn't notice our slave had the gall to speak to me without being spoken to.
Was it my imagination?
Alix's meaning was clear.
It wasn't worth the trouble to punish those stupid hedonistic boys who my pretend-father had gifted the better wing of our mansion. Alix's gentle brown eyes seemed to flash with a dim yellow light in the light of the pale winter's moon.
I decided not to argue. My entourage would think that I heard voices in my head. Why would I be staring into the eyes of a slave anyway? Or looking at his thick, sensual lips? No, better pretend everything was all right in the world.
I turned around and walked to my quarters in the back of the courtyard; the night seemed strangely quiet all of a sudden. I felt the cold night air enter my lungs and emerge from my lips in little puffs of white. The heavy white-jade yupei with its red tassels hanging from my waist banged against my knee as I walked. Even heavier still, was the weight of the knowledge settling in my mind.
Alix could sense that I had unnatural powers. It made sense; after all, I could sense his powers as well. We were two snakes in the grass among these mortals. I wondered if Alix would try to give me away. If he did, that would make this entire disguise of being General Teng's daughter that much more complicated.
As much as I had my powers, I didn't need the full force of the Imperial Army chasing me down.
As we came to the entrance of my quarters, located in a wing of the mansion that wasn't even attached to the main building with any fancy walkways as my pretend-brothers had. It was isolated. I was the poor little unwed daughter, after all.
It was good that it was isolated. The last thing I needed was some well-meaning grandparents or nephews to be wandering about.
"They say you are a ferocious warrior," I said to Alix with a high-pitched voice. "I want to see you show off your skills for me. Let's go to the back of the garden, and you can wield my brother's spears for me."
"Lady Teng," Lan-ru whined. "Are you serious? It's dark and cold outside. Can't we do this in the morning?"
"No! I'm bored!" I snapped and shoved Alix toward the stone walkway. My bodyguards gave each other exasperated looks. They all wanted to go home to their warm beds instead of giving into the General's least important child's silly whims. Good, let them stay where they were.
I forced Alix into a darkened corner of the garden next to a jagged gonshi rock in the shape of a dragon. I decided I would pummel his brains out with the auspicious stone if he dared to defy me.
"How dare you tell me what to do!" I hissed at Alix and shoved him against a nearby tree trunk. "Are you tired of having your head attached to your neck?"
His lip curled up, and he smiled smugly despite the cut on his lip. Also, Alix's smile looked funny because his cheek was swollen and bruised. Yet, I understood his meaning; he wasn't giving up without a fight.
"You're not who you say you are," he muttered back in a mocking tone.
"Neither are you," I spat back in response. I grabbed a handful of Alix's wounded flesh on his left side and twisted. Alix flinched but didn't beg for mercy. Oh, he was a tough guy. I liked those best. They were more fun to break.
"You're. . . not . . .one. . .of . . .them," Alix replied between clenched teeth. I drew back my hand and wiped the bloody mess on my orange-colored waist sash. I had better hold back my violent intentions. It was going to be hard to explain these stains to my servants.
"I'm not," I said as Alix doubled over, clutching the open wound on his side. I saw blood leaking through the space between his fingers. It was a bad wound, one that would have killed a mortal. Alix was no mortal. I knew this; maybe he knew this too. This wound would not kill him.
With some rest and maybe a bath, Alix would heal eventually. But it was still fun to hurt him while he was at my mercy. "What else do you know, slave? Tell me the truth, or I'll have my servants pour molten silver into that bloody opening in your belly."
He smirked at me, wider this time. Alix had surprisingly good teeth for an impoverished orphan boy.
"You know what I am," he whispered. "How?"
"Your eyes shone yellow for a second in the moonlight," I said and flicked some of his disgusting blood off my nails. "If you keep walking around making eye contact with everyone you see, you won't last long here. The emperor will surely have you drawn and quartered if he knew that you were one of them — the Lángrén."
"I'm not one of them!" Alix snapped, lunging at me with his chest heaving. He seemed to come to his senses and backed down at the last minute. The looked on his face spoke of sheepishness. He was worried he had frightened me with his show of emotion. I merely smiled in response. I liked them feisty. "I mean, my lady, I'm human, just like you. I can do things, sometimes that I can't explain. But, I'm not an animal."
"That's what all the Lángrén say, I bet," I replied with a yawn. "Seriously, did you think I would believe a Lángrén who goes around saying 'trust me, I'm just like you'?"
"I guess that's true," Alix replied. "If I'm so dangerous, why did you go out of your way to buy me?"
"I heard eating the liver of a Lángrén will make my skin appear ten years younger," I said and eyed the wound on his left side. "Looks like I won't even need a knife to slice you open. One less step for me."
"Ten years younger?" Alix asked with a pained laugh. "How old are you? Eighteen? Why would you need such a thing?"
"Flattery will get you nowhere," I replied with a hard edge to my voice. I didn't like men who tried to flatter me. The last one who tried that . . . well, let's just say if I ever encountered that bastard bandit Julong Tian again, I will cut him into a thousand pieces. He was the reason I was in that village the day the Ashe Mountain outlaws took me away. Men, they're all full of flattery until the moment they abandon you.
"That's not your body, is it?" Alix asked, timidly. I didn't sense fear in him. He was trying to approach the matter delicately, in case I was ugly.
He was well-mannered for a boy who was probably —literally—raised by wolves. Alix was wrong. I wasn't ugly. I liked my real body much better than this young, soft, and — not to mention plump — girl's body. I was no eighteen-year-old girl; I was a woman of twenty-eight years of age. The peach-fuzz bloom of my cheek had long since faded to be replaced by the features of a woman who had been forced to carve her own way in the world. I doubted that this naive, dirty boy here before me, could appreciate my real form. "No, it isn't."
"Your real form is taller," Alix noted. "You're constantly trying to crane your neck up; it's as though you're used to seeing the world in a different way."
I had to chuckle at that and rubbed my aching neck. "You're pretty smart for an animal."
"I know what that's like," Alix said with a nervous smile that he quickly hid. He looked down at his feet as though he only shared that fact with me by accident. "I know what it's like to be taller and bigger too. I-I have another form too."
"Yes," I said. "You do. Except you were born with both bodies. I wasn't born with this one."
He chuckled at that. Okay, now we were sharing a moment together. I didn't like it. It was what some would call a bonding moment. I was a witch, a fox spirit, with a heart as cold as the snow that was starting to fall around us. I saw droplets of blood dribble down Alix's side and splatter on the white ground around us. He grimaced and resettled himself against the tree so that he could slow the bleeding.
"Come, let's go back inside, slave," I told him. "I'll keep your secret if you keep mine."
"What secret?" Alix asked coyly as he stumbled along behind me, his hand still firmly clenched at his side. "I impressed you with my skills with the spear. That's all that I remember happening just now."
"Oh, stop it, everyone knows you stumbled and nearly poked your eye out. That's what I'm telling the handmaidens. And if you try to spin yarns in order to sleep with any of them, I'll sell you to the Imperial Palace as a eunuch."