Chapter 23
I veered into my father’s room, nearly crashing into Anshi.
I didn’t pause to question why the governor’s assistant was there.
Instead, I peered past her tall frame and registered Baba’s unconscious form lying on the bed, his blanket twisted around his waist. Ren was bending down to fix the sheet, tugging it up to my father’s chin.
Anshi grabbed my arm. “Where did your sister go?”
“To find the doctor.” I shook her off and surveyed the room, glimpsing open books and manuscripts scattered in an arc across the floor. Baba must’ve been reading when he fainted. Guilt wrung my stomach. Had he overworked himself to help me?
“What happened?” I demanded, crossing to Ren’s side.
I stared helplessly at Baba’s pale face, marred by a grimace even in sleep.
Sweat filmed his forehead, his breathing labored.
Old blood stained the cracks of his lips.
I reached out, hand shaking, but I was too afraid to touch him, to risk shattering him.
“I’d just bid my brother good night,” Ren said. “I was coming to find you. But then your sister appeared, begging for help. Anshi and I followed her here, where we found your father on the floor.”
Anshi nodded from the doorway. “We carried him to the bed, and your sister went to call you.”
My pulse thundered in my ears. It felt like I was back at Xinzhong River, fighting against a current intent on swallowing me whole.
Unable to do anything while awaiting Lilan’s return, I poured water into the washbasin and patted my father’s face with a damp towel.
I could feel Ren’s and Anshi’s concerned eyes watching my every movement, but they wisely stayed back and said nothing.
When Lilan finally arrived, trailing behind a red-eyed Doctor Chen, everyone crowded against the far wall to give the physician space. He needed only to glance at me to know I wouldn’t be sent outside. As the village doctor, he’d taken care of my father for years and knew our family well.
I clasped Lilan’s equally clammy hand as we observed the physician work. Lilan wiped her eyes with her sleeves, but I refused to break. I couldn’t. It was my duty to pick up the pieces of others’ fractured parts.
After an agonizing wait, Doctor Chen turned and met my stare.
I stepped forward to meet him. “Is it the fainting fever?”
“No.” His brow furrowed in confusion. “What did your father eat today?”
“Eat?” I echoed, surprised by the question.
Lilan spoke up, her hands crushing the front of her skirt. “He had congee with steamed fish for breakfast. Rice and vegetables for lunch. And then chicken soup with ginger and dumplings for dinner.”
“Did you eat the same meals as well?” asked the doctor.
Lilan nodded.
“What about drinks?”
She bit her lip, thinking. “Just water and tea throughout the day. I gave him some jujube tea with honey before he left to read in his room.”
“That was the last thing he drank?”
“Yes—”
“No.”
Everyone turned at the sound of Ren’s voice. Doctor Chen visibly startled at the Fu talisman on his head. The physician had arrived in such a hurry, he must not have noticed it until now.
Averting his eyes, he murmured to me, “Is he … a jiangshi?”
“No.” I shook my head. “He’s alive like you and me.” I didn’t bother telling him that the boy before him was one of the princes of Sian. It was much too long a story to explain. Instead, I turned back to Ren and said, “What do you mean? Did my father drink something else?”
Ren rubbed the back of his neck, uncomfortable with the attention. “Master Kang came to the study as I was finishing my conversation with my brother. He wished to greet me personally. My brother left first, and I offered your father tea.”
I frowned, remembering the oolong tea my sister had prepared in the kitchen.
“Did you drink the same tea?” Doctor Chen inquired, having recovered from his shock.
“No,” Ren admitted. “As there were only two cups, and I hadn’t yet drunk any, I gave Master Kang my untouched cup.”
“Could I examine this cup? Do you still have it?”
I cut off whatever response Ren was about to give, forcing the physician to look at me. “Why are you asking this? What does this have to do with my father’s ailment?”
“I share your confusion, Mistress Kang.” He glanced over at Baba. “Because from what I can tell, Master Kang is showing symptoms of poisoning. If we don’t find an antidote soon, he’ll die within the hour.”
Something splintered in my mind.
“Poison?” I whispered. “Why would anyone want to poison my father? He’s a ganshi priest, utterly harmless. There’s no reason—”
I froze, my eyes finding Ren’s stunned ones. A horrifying thought seemed to cross our minds at the same time. In a dread-stained voice, I asked, “Where’s your brother, Ren?”
“I-in the guest room,” he stammered. “He must be.”
He stumbled from the room in search of the eldest prince. Anshi raced after him. In their absence, Doctor Chen motioned for Lilan to guide him to the study, where the teacups in question had been left behind.
The once-crowded room was suddenly quiet and cold.
And yet the walls felt closer than ever as I stood rooted to the floor. I couldn’t bear to leave my father, but neither was I able to turn to see his sickly face.
This was my fault. I hadn’t been careful enough, clever enough, knowledgeable enough. I hadn’t chased Liqin out of my home, even though I’d known—had felt suspicion buried in my bones like a vicious venom—that he couldn’t be trusted. And now my father would pay for my failures.
I dropped into a crouch, cradling my forehead between my knees and reminding myself to breathe. Doctor Chen would recognize the poison and know the cure. He’d save Baba. He must.
But my father had already been weakened by the fainting fever. Would he truly be able to survive the battering of another poison?
I swallowed the rising panic in my throat. Stop thinking. Stop thinking. Stop—
I was saved from my own mind by Ren’s return. His hand slapped against the doorframe for balance, his tired breaths breaking the silence. Rainwater soaked his shoes and the legs of his trousers. If I weren’t already threaded through with fear, I would’ve been alarmed by his condition.
I shot back into a standing position, speaking tightly. “What is it?”
“My brother,” he gasped. “We can’t find him anywhere on the premises. He’s vanished.”
“What?”
“There’s something else,” he continued, the words tumbling frantically from his lips. “The seal—I hid it in the guest room at the bottom of the bamboo basket. But when I checked it earlier, it was no longer there. I think … I think Liqin found it.”
His last words sounded like the fatal verdict of a condemned man.
But I didn’t have the capacity to worry about Liqin or the royal seal. My father was dying, having drunk the poison intended for another, and there was nothing I could do.
“Jie!”
Lilan and Doctor Chen joined Ren at the door.
“Well?” I searched the doctor’s face. “Did you identify the poison?”
“Yes, Mistress Kang.” He looked over at my father, then back to me. “But…”
But.
The floor tilted beneath me. The heavy pattering of the rain became muted, as if I were trapped underwater.
I felt hands grasp my elbow, steadying me.
Someone wailed in the distance, the sound reminiscent of my mother’s screams. I stared at the gray sky through the open door, somehow feeling each needle of rain puncturing my skin.
Doctor Chen’s voice finally reached my ears.
“I’m sorry, Mistress Kang. There’s no cure.”
After the doctor left, Lilan and I sat beside Baba’s bed, trying to make him as comfortable as possible.
Anshi never returned, likely gone off to track the first prince. Ren was elsewhere in the residence, giving us our privacy. I didn’t know what was going through his mind—whether he felt guilty or hurt or angry. I didn’t want to know, didn’t want to care.
Lilan wiped Baba’s face and neck with the damp cloth, failing to hide her weeping. I held his hand beneath the blanket and prayed to my mother’s spirit for a miracle.
Please don’t take him, Mama. Not yet.
The minutes burned down too quickly, my father’s breaths growing shallower and shallower. At one point, however, he managed to open his eyes and take in the sight of us mourning over his bed.
“Good evening,” he rasped, smiling weakly. “What happened? Did I accidentally fall asleep again?”
“I’m so sorry, Baba,” I said, my voice just as quiet. “I failed to protect you.”
“Why is that your failure?” He reached up to brush away Lilan’s tears. “It’s the parent’s duty to protect his children, not the other way around.”
“Baba,” Lilan sobbed. “You can’t leave us. You must stay. Please, I beg of you.”
“Ah.” He looked between us. “So I’m dying, is that it? Well, I can’t say I wasn’t expecting it. Although I do love surprises.”
“How can you joke?” Lilan cried.
“Baba.” I squeezed his hand. “There must be a way to save you. Tell me there is.”
He held my gaze, peering through my eyes as if to discover the pain, sorrow, and fury I kept so carefully locked inside my mind.
If my emotions troubled him, he didn’t show it.
But his silence lasted long enough that I felt hope flicker in my chest. He would’ve already said no if that were his answer. I gripped his hand tighter, waiting.
Finally, he spoke, his speech slow and ragged. “Perhaps … there’s one way. But I’ll need the prince.”
I paused, nervous. “Ren? Why?”
“There isn’t time to explain.” As if to prove it, he let out a shaky breath, the air catching in his throat and making him cough. He wiped the blood from his lips, then continued, “Just bring him here, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
I nodded and crossed the room to the door. I anticipated having to find Ren in the guest room or prayer hall. But the moment I stepped over the threshold, I caught sight of him sitting just a few feet away, his legs hanging over the veranda’s edge.
He looked up at the sound of the door opening.
“My father wants to see you,” I said before he could speak.
He scrambled to his feet. “Why?”
His hand lifted toward mine, but I drew back.
“I don’t know,” I said, unable to meet his eye. A chasm still hung between us, filled with the debris of all the things we’d yet to piece together. But I couldn’t speak of them yet. Not until my father was well. “Please come in.”
Ren didn’t question me further, following me into the room. The moment he walked in, my father motioned to me and Lilan. “Leave us,” he said, “and close the door behind you.”
I began to protest. “But, Baba—”
“Please,” he said, nudging Lilan to move away from his side. “It’ll only take a moment.”
Ren shot me a quizzical look, but I shook my head. I had no choice but to leave the bedroom with my sister, Baba’s words to Ren muffled by the rainstorm outside.
I leaned against a pillar, eyeing the shut door with apprehension.
Lilan paced along the corridor, pausing every so often to face me.
But whatever she wanted to say never managed to leave her lips, and I didn’t have the will to draw it out.
I wouldn’t know what to tell her anyway.
How could I comfort my sister when our suffering was my fault?
Not ten minutes had passed before I heard a chair crashing to the floor. I exchanged a frightened look with Lilan, and we both lunged forward at the same time to fling open the door of Baba’s room.
I tried to comprehend what I was seeing.
Lying sideways across the floor was the stool I’d occupied just minutes ago. Ren leaned over my father, who now lay horizontally on the bed as if he’d been sitting on the edge before he fainted. Ren clutched him by the shoulders, trying to shake him awake.
I stumbled toward the bed. “What happened?”
Ren stared at me, eyes wide. I vaguely noted the talisman missing from his forehead.
“I—I don’t know,” he stammered, glancing between me and my father’s still form. “He told me he needed my help, so I said yes. Then he took my hands and started talking about you, your sister, and your mother—just unrelated ramblings. I didn’t realize what he was doing until—until…”
His words faltered, and he buried his fingers in his hair, muttering a low curse. I instinctively reached for his arm.
“Jie.” Lilan’s voice jerked my attention away from Ren. She was holding Baba’s wrist, the blood drained from her face. “Baba isn’t breathing. He has no pulse.”
I focused on a crack in the wall behind Lilan’s head.
He has no pulse.
He isn’t breathing.
The words whirled wildly through my mind, gradually shoving themselves into rows that made more sense. And yet the order brought little comfort, the truth far from sensical.
I looked at my father’s unmoving chest, then lifted my eyes to Ren, whose cheeks were flushed with anxiety. Guilt.
Life.
Understanding flooded from my brain to my heart, where it froze into spikes. I stared at the fifty-four mala beads around Ren’s neck, certain how they’d feel against my skin.
Baba hadn’t taken anything from Ren. Instead, he’d saved Ren by giving him his own qi.
And he’d given him all of it.