SU TANG (素醣)

  Day 26, 4th Month of the Lunar Calendar, 6000th Year of the Yun Dynasty, Taishan Province, Tian’an Sect

  Carrying every blasted bucket of milk from the stores to her private bath felt like one of those never-ending torturous exercises that people only had nightmares of.

  Thirty minutes per one-way trip.

  And after what felt like a lifetime of hauling, the liquid line in her bath barely reached knee level.

  Naturally. Because heaven forbid Her Ladyship bathe in anything less.

  I swung the empty buckets over my shoulders and stepped out into the blizzard, winter wind whipping at my face like a woman’s scorn. My lungs screamed in the cold. My throat cracked with each breath. My tongue felt like sandpaper rubbing against my chattering teeth. And my eyes were locked in some cruel cycle of watering and freezing, like little icy waterfalls glued to my face.

  One more trip. Just one more.

  I’d told myself many lies. Lies like ‘this will get easier,’ or ‘your fingers won’t fall off,’ or ‘she’ll eventually get bored and forget about you.’ But there was never a lie I wanted to believe more than this one. One more trip. Just one more. And then, maybe, I’d be allowed to crawl into some dark corner and collapse.

  The bamboo carrying pole pressed into my shoulder like a blade. I imagined it cutting right through my skin, and even that sounded less painful than this ache. I forced myself to keep walking.

  Left foot. This is for Xiao Wu.

  Right foot. This is for Chun Li.

  Left foot. This is for Lao Zhe’s tears.

  Right foot. This is for me. I think.

  At long last, I reached the bath again. My arms trembled as I hoisted the buckets, the milky contents sloshing pathetically as I poured. The sound of liquid spluttering into porcelain might’ve been soothing, if not for the dull roar in my ears and the thousand needles stabbing every joint in my body. I closed my eyes and breathed in the sour-sweet scent of fermented milk. Then tried not to faint.

  “My little dog, how are you going?”

  Hold your tongue. Hold it fast. Don’t speak.

  Zhao Lili glided toward me, arms crossed, her silhouette glowing in the lamplight like some malevolent deity. She was dressed in the most unnecessary collection of silks, each one probably dyed with phoenix tears, and her hair was weighed down with so many glittering pins she could double as a chandelier.

  She leaned over the edge of the tub and peered into it like a disapproving goddess surveying her underwhelming offering.

  “Do you like being here so much that you’re taking your time?”

  I set the buckets down and forced myself to curtsy. “No, Your Ladyship. I apologise for my tardiness.”

  She scoffed. “You’re no fun at all.” And then, without warning, she shoved my shoulder.

  I stumbled backward, slipping and landing hard atop the empty buckets. The impact knocked the breath from my lungs.

  “Have you lost your bark?”

  I looked up at her. Her smugness was practically steaming from her skin. My face burned. My heart pounded. My tongue itched with every insult I wanted to hurl. But I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing she hurt me.

  Then came the slap. One clean, cold smack. Her hand met my cheek with all the grace and cruelty of a whip. My head turned with the force of it, my jaw snapping shut. Before I could recover, she was circling me again, the hem of her robe brushing the floor like a lion’s tail.

  I tried to rise, reaching out with my left hand to steady myself.

  But she saw the all too easy chance.

  Her heel came down on my hand.

  I could feel the bones crack.

  I could hear the bones crack

  A wet, sickening sound. Like a branch snapping underfoot. The pain came a second later.

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  Tears surged forward. No permission asked. I clenched my teeth, desperate not to let her hear even a whisper of my pain.

  “I nearly lost everything because of you,” she hissed. With each word, her heel ground into the bones of my hand. “This is for daring to compete with me. You’re a dog. That’s all you are.”

  I stared at the floor. Tried to keep my mind above the surface of this nightmare. Don’t drown. Not now. Not here.

  What had I even done to her? My memories were clothed in pain and wrapped in fog. Locked away somewhere even I couldn’t reach.

  “I have offended many people, Your Ladyship,” I said hoarsely. “If I have offended you, I apologise.”

  It wasn’t even grovelling anymore. I wasn’t pretending to be weak. I was weak.

  She muttered something under her breath. Then, without warning, her foot slammed into my jaw.

  My vision blinked out. Just for a second. Just long enough for the room to disappear into black silence. When I came back to myself, I was sprawled across the floor, the side of my face pressed against her plush rug, my eyes fixed on the half-open doors where a sliver of icy wind snaked into the warm, perfumed room.

  Her maid returned, placing a bowl near my face. I recoiled. It stank like fish guts fermented in vinegar and forgotten in the sun.

  Zhao Lili didn’t hesitate. She seized my hand—if you could call that macerated and blotchy blob of flesh a hand—and plunged it into the chamberlain. I gasped.

  It was warm.

  How ironic that the most comfortable thing in her place was found in the contents of her chamberlain.

  My mind was slow to catch up.

  She gripped tighter and dunked my other hand in.

  This time, it burned.

  First a sting. Then a simmer. Then…flames. Tiny knives dancing beneath my skin. My hands writhed but I couldn’t move them. She held them in place with those deceptively delicate fingers.

  “You remember this pot?” she said, eyes glinting. “One of your dog friends splashed me with this very bowl.” Her voice dropped. “It was all your fault. If you hadn’t tricked me into wearing those lotus shoes, I wouldn’t have been expelled. Yun Rongxian would have loved me. He wouldn’t hate me like he does now.”

  He hates you? I thought, dazed. Does he really? That almost makes me like him.

  I turned my head to look at her. My face throbbed. My jaw barely worked. But my eyes, those useless things, were just workable. And I used them to memorise her face. Not just the obvious: the delicate bone structure, the soft rouge brushed over her cheeks, the lips curled into a sneer. No, I studied her. Every line, every shadow.

  One day, I would look back on this. And I would remember exactly what she looked like.

  Exactly what she did.

  ***

  Eventually, once she had her fill of fun, she left me at the foot of her basin. I stumbled out of her quarters, legs wobbling like bad scaffolding, vision smeared in a soft haze of agony and humiliation.

  The wind greeted me like a hurricane. It yanked my skirts in every direction as if trying to find something still intact. My sleeves had long given up on covering my arms, and now the cold sliced through me without resistance. But given the pain that zigzagged through my limbs, the cold was nothing more than flick on the wrist.

  I didn’t know where I was going. Maybe to hell. Maybe to heaven. Maybe just two steps to the left. My feet dragged me forward whilst my brain lagged behind. I clutched my bruised, shredded hand to my chest. The blood had dried in streaks across my robes, marking me like a crude compass needle. North: Pain. South: The urge to throw myself into an early grave.

  Then my legs gave out.

  I collapsed, face-first, into the snow. Of course. Because when your life is falling apart, the ground will always rise up to greet you. Snowflakes hissed on contact with my skin. It didn’t even sting. Not compared to her. My muscles locked up, and I curled inward like a bad scroll. A crumpled piece of nothing on the palace grounds.

  I pressed my face against the freezing ground.

  Xiao Wu, is this what death feels like? Please tell me.

  But no. I was still here. Unfortunately.

  Pull yourself together, Su Tang.

  I’d said it before. Whispered it like a mantra. Sung it like a lullaby. Barked it like a curse.

  Pull yourself together, Su Tang.

  But I don’t want to.

  I wanted to cry.

  I wanted to escape.

  I wanted to run. I wanted to rewind. I wanted to go back to a time when I didn’t know the precise shape of grief. When I still thought dying was an abstract idea, not an option on the table. When it wasn’t just me and my guilt and the world, which had gone suddenly very, very small.

  The crown of my head butted against something cold and hard.

  Not just snow. Stone.

  I blinked blearily, and there it was.

  Xiao Wu’s monument.

  Of course. Of course. My subconscious had delivered me right to his grave. How poetic. How absurdly on the nose.

  What would you say if you saw me now, Xiao Wu? Saw your pathetic sister curled up like some rotten vegetable. Saw how useless and stupid and ignorant—

  His mirage—his crooked smile, his annoying habit of offering food as a cure for everything—filled my mind.

  He wouldn’t call me pathetic. Not once. Even when I deserved it. Especially when I deserved it.

  He’d just smile like I still had a chance.

  Xiao Wu would want me to make it. To finally beat her.

  I sat up like a disjointed marionette trying to remember how bones worked. I pulled my knees in, facing his monument. My head throbbed. My limbs throbbed harder. But my heart, at least, was steady now. Or pretending to be.

  I looked down at my hands.

  One was just a blistered parody of a hand. The other? Calloused, dirt-caked, trembling. But alive. Both were still mine.

  Xiao Wu would want me to make it. To finally beat her.

  And now, I knew how.