The Way of the Tigress 1-4

by Jade Lee - The Way of the Tigress 1-4

  "Except you." She bit her lip, wondering if what she suspected was true. It couldn't possibly be. Zou Tun was a gentle soul. And though he was trained in the fighting ways of the Shaolin, she had never seen him kill. Certainly he couldn't have caused the death of innocents; it simply wasn't his way.

  Unless, of course, the decision was taken out of his hands.

  "You were a spy, weren't you? You were sent there to root out and destroy the insurgents."

  He didn't deny it. He looked at his hands and they twitched—as if he were petrifying them by an act of will—and a single tear dropped between them.

  Joanna stared at the darkened circle on his pants, her breath catching in her throat. It stunned her to see him cry. She hadn't seen any man cry—ever. Not even her father when he was burying his wife and son.

  But Zou Tun cried. He sat in silent misery, tears slipping down his cheeks.

  Then she remembered his words. Monk's words, but true nonetheless: Embrace the feelings, for they are part of you. And then allow them to pass through.

  Except, of course, the misery wasn't passing through Zou Tun. It was engulfing him. He was drowning in it.

  "You didn't know about the attack, did you? You would never have destroyed an entire monastery."

  "They burned everything. The temple. The holy artifacts. I saved three scrolls. But no one was left alive."

  "Why didn't they take you? Why weren't you killed?"

  He looked up, and for the first time ever she saw hell. Not the Christian hell of fire and brimstone. What she saw in Zou Tun's eyes was more than misery. It was agony and remorse and a guilt so huge it threatened to swallow her. It had long since consumed him.

  "What happened, Zou Tun? You must tell me all."

  He shook his head, his mouth open as if he wanted to speak but couldn't. She wrapped her arms around him, drawing him down to the mattress. Resting his head on her breast, she whispered to him. She told him a secret she had not even admitted to herself. But she said it to him, because it was true. And because he needed to hear it.

  "I love you, Zou Tun. I will not abandon you now, no matter what happens. Or whatever has happened."

  She felt his entire body still. He didn't breathe. He didn't even look at her. He simply froze. His tears dried.

  "I know you think it's not possible," she continued. "After all, I'm a white barbarian. And a flighty one at that."

  "No," he whispered.

  "Why else would I have abandoned the Tigress compound? Why else would I have taken you here to my father's house and pretended we are married?" She lifted his face, turning it so he could see the truth in her eyes. "Because I love you." She tried to smile, but she knew the gesture was weak. "It doesn't make sense, I know. But I do."

  "But there is no future for us," he said, his voice anguished.

  "I know," she lied. "Because I'm a barbarian." She said the words, but inside her heart was breaking. In truth, she didn't know why it wasn't possible. Why couldn't an heir to the imperial throne marry a white woman? Why couldn't they find somewhere they could be happy together?

  "You are not a barbarian to me. But to others, Joanna, you are an invader. I am a Manchurian prince. There are those who would kill you—kill us both—for being together even once." He pushed up. "Do you not understand? Our peoples are at war!"

  "Not war," she defended. "We're—"

  "The whites come into our harbor with gunboats and demand reparations and territory. You pollute our people with opium and preach your religion. Even the Fists cry, 'Kill the barbarians,' as often as they cry for the end of the empire. Is that not a war?"

  She swallowed. Perhaps it was war. How easy it had been in the seclusion of their little bedroom to forget the vast differences between the Chinese and Americans, that he was part of a monarchy and she believed in a democracy. That this was his country, and her people were the ones who had come here with guns demanding open ports.

  "What do you feel, Zou Tun? What do you want?"

  He dropped his head wearily on the pillow, his gaze vague. "I want to forget."

  She kissed him—on the mouth, as she had never done before. She pressed her lips to his, but with no understanding of what to do. She only felt his mouth as hard flesh and teeth so hot as to sear her skin.

  Or at least so he felt. She knew it was the strength of his qi that burned. The heat from his yang fire had built up so strongly in him. But still, she did not expect it, and so she drew back on a gasp.

  He pursued her. He pressed his body forward, following her down. And then there was nowhere for her to go. His mouth descended toward her, but did not quite close the distance. Instead she felt his tongue tease the edges of her lips, then slip into the small opening between them.

  And all the while she felt his yang heat. She felt it build within him, surrounding her, until her yin began to answer the call. She felt her breasts begin to tingle, her legs begin to weaken.

  And still he had done no more than tickle the inside of her lips.

  Finally she could stand it no more. "Kiss me," she breathed.

  He did. His mouth descended onto hers, his tongue shooting forward, opening her wider as it began to thrust and dance inside her.

  It was a marvelous feeling; exciting, erotic, and amazing. She recognized the rising yin tide in her blood, the hunger that made her own tongue dart and duel with his. How easy it would be to join him in this forgetfulness. How tempting to simply let their yin and yang merge as they would, and leave the rest to the outside world.

  How easy it would be.

  But she shouldn't. They shouldn't. And most especially, he couldn't.

  She pushed him away. It took a great deal of her strength, but in the end he pulled back, his expression dazed and confused.

  "Do you remember my dream, Zou Tun? The one about your qi leaking out of you? How if you didn't stop it, you would die?"

  He frowned and tried to return to her mouth, but she pushed him away.

  "Do you remember, Zou Tun?" Eventually understanding came to his eyes. They narrowed and focused before closing completely on his sigh. "Joanna—"

  "Tell me all of it, Zou Tun. For your own sake, tell me what happened."

  "They captured me."

  29July, 1896

  Dearest Brother,

  Father will delay no longer. My wedding will occur at the first moon. You must return home by then. All in Heaven and on Earth wish to see you then. Indeed, I fear for Father's health if you do not return soon.

  In prayer,

  Wen Ji

  ~

  Decoded translation:

  Dear Son,

  Our situation grows most tenuous and I must show the emperor progress. I will attack at the next full moon. You must show yourself as a loyal and devoted son. If you do not, I cannot guarantee your survival.

  In anger,

  General Kang

  The best way to govern is through non-action—allowing people to follow their natures and live in their own way. When everything is accomplished without people even knowing anything was attempted, that is when we can say it was naturally so.

  ~Lao Tzu

  Chapter 15

  Zou Tun tried not to wince as he spoke. The pain was growing. His throat was parched and scratchy. But Joanna was relentless in her questions. She deserved much, this fiery woman, but he did not owe her this story, this explanation.

  And yet, despite the needles in his throat, the words pushed to be released. Like dark pus from a festering wound, these words would come out one way or another. He only harmed himself by holding back.

  But still it was hard. So very, very hard.

  "It was at night."

  "Were you sleeping?" Her words were a soft caress, a whisper that warmed his chilled skin. He closed his eyes, trying to isolate the feeling of her breath across his cheek. He succeeded but only partially, and the sensation was a welcome distraction.

  "I was meditating. The sounds didn't reach me until too late. Much too l
ate."

  She reached out her long, slender fingers and caressed his neck. She was trying to take the sting out of her question, but he flinched nonetheless.

  "Did you know? You were a spy there, right? So you must have known."

  He shook his head, trying to deny it. "I wrote to my father. I told him not to come." But he had known the attack was imminent. When had his father ever changed his mind? So Zou Tun had gone to the abbot, tried to get him to put up a guard or some defenses. But Abbot Tseng was a good and holy man. He had no understanding of how politics could interfere with the search for enlightenment.

  Abbot Tseng had not been raised in Peking.

  "Your father? What did he do?" Joanne pressed.

  "My father is General Kang." He lifted his gaze to look at her. "The one who is chasing me."

  He felt the shock of his words in her. Their bodies were pressed so intimately together that he felt the muscles of her stomach tense, could see the shift of her shoulders as she flinched.

  "Your father wants to kill you?" He could tell that she did not understand such a thing. The worst her own father would do—had done—was abandon her.

  "My father is a general fighting a losing war against invaders from beyond our borders and insurgents within. There is no room in his army for a disobedient soldier."

  "But—"

  He cut off her objection. "And no place in his heart for a bu xiao son."

  She frowned at the strange words, and he marveled again how these foreigners could imagine they understood the Chinese when they did not even comprehend the most basic concepts. "Unfilial. Disobedient," he explained. "The Chinese have no use for a man who disregards the duty of a son to his father, a man to his emperor. That is the correct order of things, and the only way a civilized society can survive."

  "But you didn't follow it? You told your father not to attack the monastery?"

  "I told him I would not go home."

  He didn't dare open his eyes. He didn't dare look to see her reaction to a man who would abandon father and country to hide in a monastery. Except he hadn't been hiding. He had been studying. Learning. He had... "All I have ever wanted was to study the sacred texts. To learn and understand the Tao as taught by Lao Tzu, as championed by scholars and monks for thousands of years." He felt tears grow behind his eyelids, the weakness of a man who had no wish for warfare. "He knew. My father knew, and so he came and destroyed it all."

  "My God," Joanna whispered. "He would destroy an entire monastery just because—"

  "He thought they were insurgents!" Zou Tun hissed.

  "He thought you were abandoning him." Her voice was cold and hard, crueler than he had ever heard.

  "No. You don't understand."

  She sighed, pressing her lips to his forehead. "Yes, Zou Tun, I do understand. Even we white barbarians have a hierarchy. A daughter obeys her father." Her gaze grew abstract as she looked away. "You cannot know the anger, the ugliness from my father whenever I disobeyed him."

  "He would never kill you."

  She shook her head. "No, I don't suppose he would. But then, your father didn't kill you."

  "My father wasn't there." Indeed, he almost wished his father had been. That the general had killed him and ended the war between them. But that wasn't what happened.

  "But if your father didn't spare you, who did?"

  He shook his head. "You don't understand the Chinese. When a temple is destroyed, when a group of revolutionaries is discovered, they are all killed except one."

  "You?"

  He nodded.

  But he hadn't been spared the ultimate betrayal. They'd pulled a beaten and bloodied abbot before him, dragged the last and the best of the Shaolin, too. They'd made Zou Tun confess that he had been the one to do this, to call the soldiers, to destroy everything the good Abbot Tseng had built.

  "They showed him my letters, Joanna," he whispered. "They told him I had done this to him. Then they sliced open his belly. I held him as he died. As he whispered his sister's name." That was how he'd known to take anything that survived to Shi Po. That was why he had come to Shanghai.

  She had no words to comfort him. Indeed, there were none to give. He had caused it all.

  "It's not your fault, Zou Tun."

  "But—"

  She pressed her hand to his lips. "It is not your fault."

  He kissed her fingers. Kissed them in thanks and in blessing. And then he sighed. "There is more."

  She pulled her fingers away, setting her hand lightly upon his chest. He felt it there, a warm, soothing presence. It helped once again to distract him from the words he was saying.

  "They left me alive to tell the others, to spread the word to any other temples who think to train warriors against the empire. That is how it is done in China. One is left alive to tell the tale."

  "They didn't know who you were?"

  He shrugged. "I do not know. But they treated me as only the last and weakest, the one left standing to spread the tale." His shame burned through him, leaving him weak and helpless. Weak until she kissed him. Helpless until she spoke.

  "But you didn't go to another temple. You went to..."

  "The Tigress's home. Yes."

  "But—" She cut off her words, clearly afraid of what he might have done.

  "She is in no danger. The general will not believe that women could be powerful enough to threaten the government. And Shi Po is smart enough to appear weak and subservient." He sighed. "Besides, the general is interested only in me now." Then his heart froze as he looked at her. "And in any distraction I may have from my duty."

  "You mean me."

  He nodded, unable to deny it. "I must leave you, Joanna. I must leave you here and never return. You are not safe until—"

  She stopped his words again. This time she used her lips, not her fingers. Her kiss was strong and abrupt but no less stirring for its aggressiveness. But when he would have continued, she pulled away.

  "I will not abandon you," she said.

  "Joanna—"

  "Tell me the rest, Zou Tun. There is more. I know it."

  He stared at her, marveling. How could she know him so well?

  "Zou Tun—"

  "I went to the Tigress, Joanna, not to any of the other temples. Not to the ones they meant me to go to."

  "But—"

  "I will not tell the tale, Joanna. No one knows. No one but you. And the Tigress, because the abbot was her brother."

  She looked at him, her brow creasing as she struggled to understand. She couldn't, of course. As intelligent as she was, there were things in China no foreigner could understand.

  "Non-action," she whispered. "To rule without appearing to rule. You—"

  He gasped, lifting up off the bed as he stared at her. How could she know?

  "I have always loved philosophy, Zou Tun. And the works of Lao Tzu are famous throughout China."

  "But how could you have studied?"

  She shrugged. "I have lived here many years. A bored rich girl can buy many things. Even Chinese tutors."

  She did understand. She knew that he had joined the rebellion in his own way. That he had indeed become one of the people who waited in silence for the corrupt empire to fall. And yet he did not. He could not.

  How could he wish for the end of everything he held dear? His family? His country? His emperor?

  Abruptly he sat up, pushing her aside with the coverlet. "I must leave, Joanna. It is not safe here."

  "What?" She scrambled to her knees, her mouth open.

  "I must go."

  "Why?"

  "Because—"

  "Don't tell me it's dangerous. You're perfectly safe here. At least for the moment."

  He shook his head. "My father—"

  "—cannot come stomping through the foreign concessions. It would upset too many people. You know that."

  He did. But how to explain the pounding need to move, to leave? To stop thinking.

  "You're running away again. You're
running from your father. From your temple. From me—"

  "You make me think too much!" The words exploded out of him without thought. They were loud and painful in his throat, and made his eyes sting. Any other woman would have shrunk from his anger. She would have turned aside and made herself pleasing. But not Joanna. She was made of much sterner stuff.

  She simply looked at him, her expression patient—and sad. "What do I make you think?"

  He shook his head. "Do you know what it is to be without a name? Without a country?"

  She almost laughed. He could see the humor sparkling in her eyes, but her voice remained deadly serious. "I have not lived in America for ten years. I have read all their papers that I could find. I have written letters until my hands were black with ink. And I try, Zou Tun, I try to remember what it was like there. But I cannot."

  He saw the pain in her eyes and knew she understood in part. But not fully. "For a Chinese man family is everything. It is who we are."

  "But you are not Chinese. You're Manchurian."

  He sighed. "In this, we are one and the same."

  "Except maybe more," she mused, her expression inscrutable. "After all, you are heir to the throne."

  "No!" he gasped. Then he said it again more firmly. "No. I am only one cousin of many. Others could take the throne if the emperor dies. And I do not want the imperial throne."

  "But your father wants it, doesn't he? Or he wants you on it?"

  Zou Tun shook his head. "My father wants whatever he can get. If that is the throne, all the better."

  She touched his cheeks, soothing him with a single stroke of her delicate fingers. "What do you want, Zou Tun?"

  He shook his head. "In China, a man's wishes are less important than his family's needs and his country's requirements. How else can we hold back the barbarian tide?"

  "With guns? A modern army? Or, here's a thought: Why not take Lao Tzu's advice? Rule through non-action. Do nothing. Let the countries fall where they may."

  "And if it means the destruction of China?"

  She sighed. "Then it means the destruction of China."

  He flinched at her bald statement, but she didn't stop there. She leaned forward, her eyes piercing in their intensity.