Gambled Away: A Historical Romance Anthology

by Rose Lerner

  “Oh, that. A lot of wine, loud talk. Same conversations.”

  He was too absorbed to see me frowning. Didn’t Huang know he couldn’t lie to me? We knew each other too well.

  Huang rubbed a hand over his temple, turning his attention once more to the papers before him. He seemed to have forgotten me completely, or just assumed that I’d gone on my way after exchanging courtesies. When he next looked up, he seemed genuinely surprised to see I was still there.

  “I apologize, Wei-wei.” He massaged the back of his neck, attacking the muscles. “How are you this morning? What do you have planned for your day?”

  Was this his best attempt at conversation? My days were an endless pattern of sameness. “I thought I’d visit the temple this morning. Then perhaps I’ll spend some time with your wife this afternoon. She seems to enjoy our lessons.”

  “That’s good. Yue-ying needs something to help her pass the time.”

  Our mother, in a fit of protectiveness and concern for her future grandchild, had confined Huang’s wife to her bed. She was forbidden to lift anything heavier than a tea cup.

  I would have gone mad, but Yue-ying tolerated it in good spirits. This wasn’t what I wanted to talk about, however.

  “What’s the matter, Huang?”

  I knew my brother had been out late last night, and I suspected I knew where he’d been. Gao had initially mistaken me for Huang, which would make sense if he’d been waiting for my brother all along.

  “It’s this new position, Wei-wei. There’s a lot of responsibility.”

  I let out a breath, disappointed that he continued to hide the truth. His job required that he copy and file imperial decrees in the records office. He complained daily of the menial nature of the work and how tiresome it was.

  I knew it was more than the records office that had him so agitated. “The imperial archive is just a starting point,” I replied dutifully.

  Huang knew he could confide in me, and I wanted to confide in him. The events of last night weighed heavily on me as well.

  I considered showing him the slip of paper I’d picked up, but doing so would reveal where I’d been. While Huang was allowed to go and do whatever he pleased, I was confined to the house in all but a few circumstances. If I told him about the market ward and meeting Gao, I could lose what little freedom I’d gained.

  “Is there anything else, Wei-wei?”

  I wanted to ask him the same question, but I shook my head. My brother actually seemed eager to get back to his paperwork. There was definitely something amiss there, but I left him to it and tried to put the disturbing incident in the dark streets behind me.

  * * *

  The temple of knowledge was more crowded than usual. There were visitors milling about the main courtyard and conversing on the steps. Perhaps all these young men were hoping for a seat in the Imperial Academy this season. They all had that look of scholarly aspiration about them.

  I’d come to pray for my younger brother’s acceptance into the academy as well. The school was located beside the temple grounds. It was one of the most prestigious in the capital and attendance was limited to highly ranked families.

  Chang-min was seventeen now and ready to pursue the lower level examinations. It was a process that would take him well into his twenties if not beyond.

  I ascended the steps and wove around the other worshipers to find my way to the altar. Unlike the Taoist or Buddhist temples, there were no statues to bow to here. The altar was dedicated to the teachings of Kongzi, the scholar-philosopher whose teachings had shaped the imperial exams for over a thousand years.

  Lighting three sticks of incense, I lowered my head to show my respect. This is where the Bai family worshiped. In the temples of culture and learning. If one wanted to pass the civil examinations, one had to treat Kongzi’s words as sacred. More sacred than any sutra.

  I prayed that my younger brother would continue to be diligent and never lose focus. And I thanked the spirits for my elder brother’s advancement. Huang had taken a hard path, failing the imperial exams twice before passing in a special seating our new emperor had held to recruit fresh talent.

  As I stood there, a sudden wave of loneliness swept over me. So many of my hopes rested on the achievements of my two brothers. My happiness was entwined with their happiness. It was the way things were supposed to be. Family before self.

  When Huang had been shut away in the examination hall, I had come here every day to pray. All my life, helping my brothers succeed had given me purpose, but on this day, it suddenly left a hollow feeling inside me. What could I pray for beside their well-being?

  I didn’t even know how to ask for something for myself. I could have moments of freedom, as long as I stayed within bounds. Over the years, I’d become a master at negotiating small liberties from my mother and father as well as the servants. Dutiful and studious Wei-wei, collecting threads of independence to weave gradually together.

  Young and pale-faced scholars passed by on either side of me, oblivious to my turmoil. I looked down at my hands to see the joss sticks enfolded in them had burned down nearly halfway. I moved forward to plant the incense into the urn that rested on the altar table. Hopefully, the sage spirits would understand I didn’t mean to only give half an offering.

  I placed a string of coins into the collection bowl before leaving.

  Outside, I took in a deep breath to try to clear away this sudden weight on my chest. Where had this feeling of despair come from? My memories of last night were all jumbled together, the freedom of being outside of myself, the horror of seeing a body lying on the cold ground.

  There was a pond at the center of the courtyard. I went to it, gripping the stone rail as I stared into the depths. Lotus leaves floated over the surface. The flowers were not yet in bloom.

  A shadow stretched over the still water from behind me. Startled, I turned to see Wu Kaifeng.

  “Constable Wu,” I managed.

  He looked at me blankly.

  “Forgive me. Mister Wu.” It didn’t feel right to address him in the more familiar terms of Brother or Uncle, even though we were now distantly family through marriage.

  “Lady Bai.”

  Though his tone was nothing but civil, I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck rising.

  Wu Kaifeng’s very presence disrupted the tranquility of the place. He always stood head and shoulders over any crowd, and his dark countenance couldn’t help but draw stares. Wu never fit into any surrounding.

  “What brings you here?” I asked.

  “Last night, you were at the corner where a man was stricken down. Do you recall what happened?”

  He certainly sounded like he was still constable.

  “When I came he was already lying on the ground. Is he alright?”

  I already knew the answer. Wu Kaifeng didn’t travel all this way for small talk.

  “The man is dead,” Wu confirmed.

  Even though I’d expected it, it was a shock to hear. I’d never encountered death so closely before.

  “And you’re trying to find who did it?” I was full of useless questions today.

  “Magistrate Li asked me to assist in any way I could. You look pale, Lady Bai.”

  I blinked up at him and the sun suddenly felt too bright. “Perhaps some shade?” I managed.

  He nodded, following behind me, but keeping his distance as we relocated to a cluster of fruit trees planted in the temple garden. Though it was illogical, part of me kept thinking that I’d broken the rules by sneaking out, and somehow this was the consequence.

  “Do you know who he was?” I began.

  “We have identified him.”

  Either Wu was being deliberately evasive or this was his usual manner, giving nothing away. I looked up at him, waiting for more. Apparently he was doing the same with me.

  “What were you doing in the market ward last night, Lady Bai?”

  My eyes widened. Did he suspect that I was somehow connecte
d to this incident?

  “The lady’s presence was unusual,” he prompted.

  “I came to see your tea house! I’d never been to one and—”

  And I knew of no other place to go. Before last night, my world was confined to our neighborhood, this temple, an occasional visit to the market.

  “It was supposed to be…a new experience,” I finished weakly.

  He stood over me, silent and unmoving, and I had visions of Wu putting me in chains and dragging me to the magistrate right then and there.

  “I believe your account,” he said finally. “But you do appear guilty, Lady Bai.”

  “I wasn’t supposed to be out,” I confessed.

  “Perhaps it is fortunate that you were. The watchman said you were the first to arrive on the scene. Tell me everything you remember.”

  I shook my head to clear it. The incident was both glaringly clear, yet at the same time murky in my memory, if that was possible.

  “I heard a shout and I ran toward it.” Recounting it now and knowing what had happened, I saw how rash my actions were. I had run blindly through the alleyways, with Gao trailing behind me. What if I had encountered the killer? I hadn’t thought of it then. All I’d heard was someone in need.

  The killer. Wu Kaifeng had never mentioned an attacker, only that the man was dead.

  “He must have been alive when I first heard him,” I realized. “When I came out of the alleyway, he was on the ground.”

  And the killer must have still been close. A shudder ran down my spine.

  “How did he die?” I asked, feeling sick to my stomach.

  Wu seemed to deliberate before responding. “He was stabbed. Twice.”

  That was how quick and close death was. Alive one moment, just a few footsteps later, dead.

  “It happened shortly after I left your tea house. Less than half an hour, I think.”

  “I was told you were not alone,” Wu said.

  I was taken aback by the abruptness of the question. “I was accompanied by Zhou Dan, our house servant.”

  From the way Wu’s eyes narrowed, I knew that wasn’t the answer he was looking for.

  “There was someone else. He went by the name of Gao.”

  A look of recognition flickered across Wu Kaifeng’s face. He wasn’t as impassive as he first appeared. His reactions were just very slight. One had to watch closely.

  “He seemed to know you,” I ventured, eager to learn more about the mysterious Gao.

  Wu’s expression showed no change. “Are you acquainted with him?”

  “I’d never seen him before last night.”

  Wu absorbed the information before continuing. “When you first saw Gao, how did he appear to you?”

  When I frowned, Wu went on. “Did he appear calm?”

  “He was well mannered. Civil.”

  Charming, actually. And he’d mistaken me for my brother.

  Wu scrutinized the uncertainty on my face. “Did you see his hands?”

  “His hands…?”

  “Were they clean?” He regarded me unblinking and his meaning finally dawned on me. Wu was asking whether there was blood on Gao’s hands. To Wu Kaifeng, everyone was a suspect.

  “He was unarmed,” I said quickly. “Gao found me when I was lost and he stayed by my side the entire time.”

  I didn’t mention that Gao knew my brother or that I suspected Huang was also in the area that night. That would have just confused things.

  “Magistrate Li must consider this case very important if he asked for your help,” I said.

  “The magistrate would do the same whether the man was a beggar or a prince.”

  Maybe that was the way a lawman like Wu Kaifeng saw the world, but it wasn’t true.

  “The incident happened last night,” I pointed out. “It’s only a few hours since sunrise and yet you already know quite a bit. You must have worked every hour until dawn.”

  Wu considered my statement for a long time before replying. “His name was Chen Xi Hao and he was an imperial scholar. He was jinshi.”

  My breath caught in my throat. Jinshi was the highest rank attainable in the imperial exam system. My brother had been awarded that rank just recently.

  “When did Chen Xi Hao earn the degree?” I asked.

  Wu raised his eyebrows. “How would that matter?”

  I bit my tongue. Only a small select group attained the rank of jinshi in each examination period. There were only twenty degrees awarded in my brother’s cohort. If scholar Chen happened to be in the same class and Huang happened to be in the same area last night—

  My heart pounded. Coincidence. It meant nothing.

  “ I will look for that information, if it’s important,” Wu was saying. “Lady Bai, you look distracted.”

  The former constable was watching me like a hawk sighting a mouse.

  Wu could sense that I was hiding something and I needed to give him something to deflect his scrutiny. My theories were so far-fetched, they’d only distract him.

  “I found this in this street nearby,” I said, reaching into my sash.

  I handed the paper I’d found to him. Keeping his eyes on me, Wu unfolded the slip and glanced down once. Without a word, he refolded it and tucked it into the pocket of his robe.

  “Thank you,” he said simply.

  I wanted to ask what it was, but Wu was done with me. I decided it was best if I didn’t try to prolong our discussion any further—in case I said something I would come to regret.

  Chapter 3

  * * *

  I spent the afternoon with Yue-ying in her bed chamber. My sister-in-law had been relegated here until she gave birth to her first child. Any day now, the midwife said.

  “Has my brother been acting strange lately?” I asked.

  Yue-ying looked up from the writing desk positioned beside her bed. A dramatic red birth mark curved over her left cheek, framing her face. Otherwise, she shared many of the same features as Mingyu. Porcelain skin and a fine-boned beauty.

  “Perhaps all men act anxious and insufferable when waiting for the arrival of their first child,” she said.

  She did have a point. Huang had a lot on his mind lately.

  “Insufferable, you say?” I asked.

  “Completely insufferable,” Yue-ying said, her eyes shining. “This morning, he came before the sun rose and just wanted to lie there, holding my hand. He told me our son would be a better man than he. Your mother has everyone convinced we’ll have a son.”

  My heart ached imagining the tenderness between them. I wanted so much for them to be happy.

  “My brother seems to be working a lot lately. He’s been staying up all night in his study.”

  “It’s a habit from living in the North Hamlet while he was studying for the exams. The lanterns burn all night there and music plays until the cock crows in the morning.”

  Usually I loved hearing stories about the pleasure quarter. Scholars often composed poems romanticizing their time as candidates frequenting the tea houses, but today I couldn’t help think of the cautionary tales that also came from the quarter. The night life of the capital was full of sinister temptations, the stories warned.

  My brother had been led astray once. Or rather, he’d led himself astray. We didn’t speak of it, but I remembered those times. Father had threatened to disown Huang and Mother had cried. I had cried.

  But Huang had come back to himself and to us. It was frightening to know I’d come so close to losing my brother.

  Yue-ying returned to her letter, shifting awkwardly to account for her rounded figure. “I hope this baby comes soon. I’m getting tired of seeing nothing but this room. The physician says it will be any day now.”

  The entire household hummed with anticipation of this new addition, the first of the new generation.

  I was excited too. I would soon be an auntie. If the child was a son, I’d read him poems and teach him his first characters.

  If it turned out to be a daugh
ter, I’d do the same.

  “So, did you do it?” Yue-ying asked with a conspiratorial glimmer in her eye.

  I tried to hide my smile, but failed. “I did.”

  “How was it?”

  “Like soaring through the clouds.”

  Yue-ying made a face at that. “So dramatic.”

  She had lived and worked among the courtesans and patrons of the Lotus Palace, enjoying a sense of freedom I could only imagine. The pass I’d forged was copied from one Huang had written up when we’d needed to fetch a physician late one night for Yue-ying.

  “How is my sister?”

  “She’s well. It looks as if business is flourishing.”

  “And her husband?”

  I hesitated before answering and Yue-ying looked at me questioningly.

  “Wu Kaifeng is Wu Kaifeng,” I replied finally.

  How could I explain that he was investigating a murder and that I was involved?

  “Do you ever miss the life you had?” I asked her.

  Yue-ying looked at me, surprised. “No. Why would I ever miss it?”

  “What I mean is do you ever miss the freedom of being out in the city?”

  “It wasn’t freedom,” she replied quietly.

  Heat rose to my cheeks. “I know that. It’s just that when I first met you and your sister, the two of you were able to go wherever you pleased.”

  “I was a servant, Wei-wei. In every way.”

  I fell silent, embarrassed at my inability to explain this feeling inside of me. I knew Yue-ying wouldn’t trade this life for her old one. I wouldn’t either. I had never been hungry or truly afraid, yet Yue-ying had experienced life in a way I never had. She’d been free enough to meet my brother and fall in love. And her sister Mingyu spoke to men, to important men without reprimand. They admired her.

  The two of them had been able to become something more, something different from where fate had put them.

  Not that life was bad for me. I shouldn’t have wanted for anything, yet I wanted. I stared down at my hands, noting how soft and empty they were. I didn’t even know what I wanted.

  “I don’t think I’ll go out to the tea house again,” I confessed.