Chapter 32
Meilin
After dinner, Captain Bai asked to speak to Meilin alone. No one objected, least of all Meilin.
When Captain Bai first returned a month ago, she tried to restrain herself from being alone with him because she didn’t want to make her desire to marry him too obvious.
She’d made that mistake with Wei Luobi and hurt her whole family because of it.
In light of Ailin’s heartbreak with Enze, she also felt guilty about her own undeserved luck in love.
But when Ailin told her she’d sent a letter to Enze, Meilin began allowing herself to return Captain Bai’s attention more openly.
The man was a marvel. Besides courageously driving away hordes of Wōkòu and being hailed as one of the heroes of Suzhou, he’d come home as kind and considerate as he had always been, perhaps even more so.
Meilin remembered their earlier arguments, but now she recognized he had always meant well, even when he expressed himself too bluntly.
Through everything they had been through, she now understood that he was a man she could depend on at all times.
He was the kind of man she wanted to share her heart with until their hair grew white: bái sho?u tóng xīn.
As Meilin led the way to a secluded garden not far from the dining room, Captain Bai followed, carrying a mysterious oblong sack under his arm. They sat down on a bench beneath a purple crape myrtle tree. A warm sunset illuminated the garden.
Captain Bai set the sack on his other side, obscuring it from Meilin’s view. Sitting next to him, Meilin took a moment to enjoy his presence. Today, he was dressed in casual robes the color of cinnamon, and he smelled like soapberry and sandalwood.
He knitted his fingers like a tent and kept his eyes forward. His dark brows were angled down, as if he had something momentous to say and was worried about how to say it. Seeing him nervous was unusual, but also oddly endearing.
“I have something for you,” Captain Bai said, finally breaking the silence.
“For me?” she asked brightly.
Captain Bai lifted the sack and pushed it toward her. “I hope you’ll like it.”
Meilin peeled back the cloth covering, and her jaw dropped open.
The gift was a zither—her zither. From its paulownia wood soundboard to its mother-of-pearl huī dots to its seven silk strings, it was the same instrument she had dropped to help Ailin dodge Wōkòu arrows.
Never in a thousand years did she think Captain Bai could surprise her like this.
“I saw this zither shatter with my own eyes. How is it intact?”
Captain Bai answered matter-of-factly. “When I was reviewing the goods my soldiers recaptured near the Grand Canal, I found a zither that I recognized as yours. It was in bad shape, so I hired a craftsman to repair it. I wasn’t sure how much of the original material could be saved, but I told him to preserve the original design as much as possible.
Do you think the repair job is all right? ”
Meilin trembled as she set the zither on her lap. Her left arm ached, but the instrument’s fit was familiar. She played a simple chord, savoring the deep timbre of the zither. Fond memories and cherished hopes flooded back to her. Even though she couldn’t play like she used to, she felt whole.
“I love it.”
The captain released a sigh as if he had been holding his breath.
Meilin’s anticipation increased. “Why did you go through all that trouble to give me such a precious gift?”
Captain Bai’s expression was intense. “I like you, Meilin. I’ve admired you ever since I heard you play ‘Three Stanzas on Plum Blossoms’ the first night I met you, and my feelings only deepened as I grew more acquainted with you.”
Meilin clutched the zither closer to her chest, wondering if he could hear her heart pounding. She stared at him, waiting for more. When he hesitated, she leaned in playfully, not caring that she was being too forward. He’d already admitted he liked her.
“Is there anything else?”
“I wish I could marry you . . .” Meilin felt a surge of elation before she saw a shadow fall across his face. “But there’s something important I haven’t told you yet. It’s about Sandy.”
Meilin’s stomach dropped. He was referencing the rumor about Sandy being his illegitimate daughter; she was sure of it.
Since the day he had saved her life, she had put the rumor out of her mind.
She told herself it didn’t matter because Sandy was a sweet child and Captain Bai was a great guardian.
If he had made any mistakes in his youth, he was past it now.
Except he’s obviously not.
Whatever secrets he held still bothered him enough to prevent him from proposing marriage. Meilin set her zither to the side of the bench. She didn’t want Captain Bai to hide any part of himself from her. She would love him regardless of his secret, and she wanted him to know it.
“You can trust me, I promise.”
He looked down. “I know I need to be honest with you if I want to marry you, but I’m afraid this story will make you think less of me.”
She grabbed his hands. They were rough from military training. She held them tight. She wouldn’t turn away from him no matter what. “I am here to listen.”
Captain Bai peered into her eyes for a long moment. After taking a deep breath, he began.
“When I was a young boy, my family took in an orphan girl who loved to play the zither.
Her name was Yi Lisha. She grew up with my older brother and me, so I thought of her like an older sister.
In my family, one man from every generation needs to serve in the military, so when I turned seventeen, it was decided that I would go to Beijing and eventually take the military service exams while my brother stayed home to marry Lisha and take care of our parents.
“Unfortunately, while I was in Beijing, our parents passed away, and our family fell into dire financial straits. When I went home to see my brother three years later, he was on his deathbed. He had drunk his body into the ground, and he owed so much money from gambling that he sold my sister-in-law to pay his debts.”
“That’s awful!” Meilin had committed not to judge, but she couldn’t help but feel repulsed. “How could your brother have done such a thing?”
Captain Bai pulled his hands away as if in shame.
Clenching his fists in his lap, he gazed up at the crape myrtle branches, frustrated and helpless.
“You’re right, of course. The sale wasn’t even legal.
But once it happened, Lisha was trapped as a brothel performer.
I was eventually able to find her in Yangzhou, but it was too late to save her.
She had given birth to a child and was very weak.
She barely survived long enough to tell me who her baby’s father was and how to find him.
She said he planned to come back to marry her and raise their child after making his fortune elsewhere. ”
“Did you end up finding him?” Meilin braced herself for the answer.
Captain Bai closed his eyes. “I did. His old landlady in Yang-zhou, Madame Guo, was a woman who happened to be a former concubine of the late Master Jiang, and through her I learned that the man was in Suzhou and was renting a house from Grand-mother Jiang.
Suzhou happened to be where my next post was, so I brought Sandy with me and took up lodgings with the intention of reuniting her with her father.
I observed him while trying to figure out how to approach him.
“While following him in secret, however, I found him with a courtesan at a theater, making the same kinds of promises that Lisha had said he once made to her. That’s when I realized I couldn’t turn Sandy over to him, even though that was what Lisha wanted.
I lied and told everyone Sandy was my niece so that I could raise her instead. ”
“And her father?” Meilin asked.
“He was a playwright called Wei Luobi, and he still doesn’t know that Sandy is his daughter.”
Meilin was speechless. When Captain Bai told her he had a secret, this was not what she had expected. Sandy was not the secret child of Captain Bai but of Wei Luobi.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before? Does anyone else know?”
Captain Bai buried his head in his hands.
“I haven’t told anyone but you. I was too scared.
Lisha suffered so much, and I wanted Sandy to have a better life than she did.
I was afraid of giving her up to a man who wouldn’t care for her as she deserved.
I know this makes me sound like an arrogant, twisted monster. ”
“Don’t say that.” Meilin set her hand gently on his back. She felt like her heart was breaking. Separating a child from their biological parent was a grave matter—it was unfilial and unnatural—but she could also understand why Captain Bai had done it.
With Wei Luobi’s history of abandoning women, it was impossible to know how much he could care for anyone, especially a child.
Society’s protections for daughters were weak.
Meilin could not imagine Sandy living with Wei Luobi, even more so now that he was married to Magistrate Gao’s daughter.
The Gao family did not seem like the type to be kind to a son-in-law’s child from outside relationships.
“Do you know if he ever went back to look for her?” Meilin asked, half scared for the answer.
Captain Bai shook his head. “Not that I know of. I didn’t tell Madame Guo about Sandy, but I asked her to notify me if she ever saw Wei Luobi in Yangzhou again. It’s been five years, and she hasn’t said anything. I also never saw him leaving Suzhou until this year, when he returned to Hangzhou.”
Meilin felt both angry and relieved. Five years was plenty of opportunity. Not even trying to look for Lisha or Sandy during all that time confirmed that Wei Luobi had abandoned them. He was heartless, but his heartlessness meant that Sandy was safe from him. As long as they didn’t meet again . . .
“What are your plans for the future?” Meilin asked.
Captain Bai looked up at her. “What do you mean?”
“Do you want to keep this a secret from Sandy forever? Will I need to keep this a secret too?”
Meilin hated secrets. In principle, she believed that honesty and honor were synonymous.
Looking back on the past year, however, she realized that wasn’t always the case.
Ailin often kept her feelings hidden to avoid hurting others.
Captain Bai also hid Sandy’s parentage to protect her.
Could Meilin say they were categorically wrong?
“I’m willing to do that, if that’s what you want,” she said quietly.
Captain Bai sighed. “I don’t know about the future, but until Sandy grows up, I can’t tell her the full truth. Would you be willing to marry me, even knowing all this? You don’t have to accept me just because I asked.”
Meilin considered his question carefully.
This was no small matter. The situation was complicated, and she didn’t know if they were doing the right thing.
Choosing to marry him meant taking on all the secrets and responsibilities he shouldered as well.
Circumstances in the future could change too.
What other thorns and brambles could fall into their path?
In her gut, however, she intuited an answer.
“I trust you,” she whispered, so low she could barely hear herself.
“What did you say?” Captain Bai leaned in closer.
The more Meilin looked into his eyes, the surer she became.
He cocked his head in confusion. “What is it?”
When she asked her heart, she was absolutely certain. In this lifetime, he was the one for her. She would embrace all of him. Reaching behind his neck, she brought her lips to his ear. “I said I trust you, Bai Yun. And I want to marry you.”