by Meg Xuemei X
Half an hour later, his whistle resumes and sounds hard and sharp. He must be wondering what is stopping me, for surely he can see that only my bedroom light is on, and that my parents must not be here.
This time, I relish his anxiety. Surely, he’s gotten my silent message. Fifteen minutes later, his whistle erupts in a mosaic of worry, bewilderment, and a tinge of anger.
Anger? You’re very lucky I’ve decided to take the high road rather than rain my wrath down on you, Mister! I wait for the whistle of Auld Lang Syne to eventually stop, but it never dies. And then I realize it’s coming my way. I bolt up in bed.
A knock raps on the door, and the whistle seems to want to blow my house down.
What is he doing?!
The rapping turns to banging. This notorious boy is stubborn.
Cursing under my breath, I swing my feet off the bed, looking for something to wear. I wish I could dress nice enough to impress him and make him regret what he’s missing, but all I have for the entire winter is a baggy gray coat and the same thing in dark green.
With a sigh, I shrug the gray coat on. Before I sprint to open the door, I quickly comb my hair with my fingers and check myself in the mirror. To my surprise, I see repressed delight pooling in my eyes. After all he’s done to me, I still can’t wait to see him? Where’s your backbone, Xirena? I should splash cold water in my face to give myself a wake-up call, but the urgent banging and loud whistling outside demand my immediate attention.
I draw in a sharp breath, reminding myself sternly before I pull the door open: I’m not pleased to see him. I’m just going to teach him a lesson on how to treat a lady. As soon as I turn the knob, the whistling stops.
Kai stands there, eyes fixed on me like torches. At the sight of me, the irritation in his face melts. A wide smile takes its place. There is no shadow of treachery in that smile.
A master deceiver! Despite the warning, my heart sings like a nightingale, more than willing to embrace his gorgeous smile. But my face remains cold and distant.
His skin seems darker, which could be the evidence of outdoor activities. The touch of the sun and the wind is never kind to women, but seems to leave attractive effects on men. The newly added edge makes him look volcano hot.
He wears a black wool sweater under his long, open denim trench coat. I think his pompous nature encourages him to show off his hard muscles. I restrain myself from jumping into his arms. It doesn’t help much when my eyes wander to his black pants and hunting boots. I swallow, dragging my eyes up to cast an icier look on his face, but then, they’re trapped inside the bronze specks in his eyes that light like golden fire.
“What are you doing here?” I manage to sound impatient and annoyed by his presence.
He wears a half smile as he studies my face. “You ignored me,” he says. Then his tone turns hard and demanding. “Why didn’t you come meet me at the Nest?”
How dare he! I glared at him. I’m not your back-up girl! I want to spit the words at his face. And more than that, I want to hit him. I want to thrust a broomstick into his face like my mother did to me. The broomstick would wipe that arrogant smile from his face and make it less captivating and save many young, innocent girls much trouble. “Why don’t you go ask your old girlfriend to meet you there?” I say.
“My old girlfriend?” He looks confused. “I’ve never had one. I have no other girl in my life but you!”
I let a mingled tone of haughtiness and disdain creep into my voice. “In fact, you don’t need to make her wait in the cold. She can just use the spare key to open your studio any time, and you two can snuggle on the soft, warm sofa and count each other’s heartbeats for fun.”
His eyes narrow as dark flames replace the golden ones. But the moment he catches a wisp of pain across my bleak face, the fury in his eyes extinguishes. “Did someone enter my studio?” he asks quietly.
“Like you don’t know,” I snort. Over his even more bewildered look, I wave a hand disparagingly, refreshing his memory. “Lean, tall, curly haired. She’s about your age, so you don’t need to worry about being a pervert?”
“That’d be even more perverted than being with you.” He looks at me reproachfully.
My mouth opens, seeking cruel words to punch back.
“The girl you described is my sister Lian, who is a year older than me. I have six older sisters. I’m the youngest and the only son in my family. I can bring pictures of all my sisters tomorrow, so you can see which one matches. My mom has a spare key to my place. But I have no idea what business Lian has in my studio,” he says.
I laugh without humor. “You think I’m so stupid that I can’t tell Sha Sha from one of your sisters?”
“Lian is lean, tall, and curly-haired,” he says, and then he winces as if being scratched by a cat. “Did Ta Sha get into my studio?” Anger pools in his eyes.
I fold my arms across my chest, waiting for him to answer his own question.
“Why would she come to my room?” he thunders.
I remain unmoved. “I thought you knew better than anyone else.”
He stares at me without seeing me. His mind seems to be trapped in another zone, racing. When he snaps back, a dark light flickers in his eyes. “My mother!”
At the same time, it hits me. Kai’s mother and the twins must have been working together to drive a wedge between Kai and I. The twins have attempted to damage to my reputation, which I never had anyway, and Kai’s mother arranged for one of them to get into his studio while he was away. The act was to show me the family has chosen Sha Sha as the legitimate girl for Kai.
The neighbor girls’ latest loop of gossip swirls in my mind.
“His mother said, ‘Of all girls, my son has to pick the one from the ice land.’” I recognized the voice as Ming Zhu’s. Kai once used her portrait to test my degree of jealousy. After that, Kai relegated her to yesterday’s news. Is that why she joined the girls’ crusade?
“To be honest, I don’t see what he sees in that Cold One. I don’t think he’s really into her. He’s probably just taking pity on her. The way she throws herself at him is shocking. She marks her territory like a dog pees on a tree. No decent girl would do that. But you know how men are. They never refuse free milk,” said my neighbor, the dove-eyed girl.
But Kai has refused the offer of free milk from all of you, bitter snob. But I didn’t stir in the dark and continued to eavesdrop.
“Ta Sha calls the girl Little Witch,” said a new voice.
“He is into her,” Ming Zhu insisted. “His mother ordered him to break up with Xirena and choose any other girl if not Sha Sha, but he said he wanted only Xirena and no one else. Kai’s family had the biggest fight over her.” She seemed to root for me instead of for the twins, which surprised me.
“That’s madness,” another girl commented. “Either he’s mad or Xirena is a witch.”
“His mother will do anything in her power to stop their romance.”
“The ending won’t be pretty for the Cold One.”
* * *
Kai and I share a look of understanding. But I don’t think he realizes that the schemes run deeper than we expected.
The next best approach for my enemies would be to work the whole town up against Kai and me, since our relationship doesn’t fit the town’s traditional beliefs. Not just that I’m a minor, but that both our parents don’t approve of us dating each other. Disobeying parents is considered a cardinal sin.
I’m the main target. They’ll never really hurt Kai, the son of the Director of Women’s Affairs. After they tear us apart, they’ll forgive him.
“I’ll take the key back from my mother and tell Ta Sha never come to my studio again,” Kai says. “She’s banned forever!”
He said Ta Sha, not Sha Sha, so the angel stays in the big picture. He just won’t get rid of her.
“What if it was Sha Sha who entered your studio?” I say.
“Sha Sha would never do that to me,” he says.
“If she�
�s so angelic,” I say, “why don’t you just do everyone a huge favor and be with her?”
“You and I have discussed this.” His voice hardens and his face is closed. “I thought we agreed that matter is solved and sealed.”
“I don’t recall agreeing to anything,” I say.
We glare at each other. Whenever it involves Sha Sha, he becomes hard and unyielding. I’m thinking of slamming the door in his face. Maybe we should just end what’s between us right here, and I can spare myself from the knife that his mother and precious friends are going to throw in my direction. Why should I stick my neck out for him when he isn’t even on my side?
My chest heaves, and my position shifts. I’m about to withdraw into my apartment and shut the door.
“After I get my key back from my mom tomorrow, will you keep it?” he asks, no longer hard and angry. His eyes rove over my face with desire.
My anger dissipates. My blood burns, craving his touch. “I’m not a key-keeper!” I say, but my tone has lost its harsh edge.
Taking advantage of my lull in hostilities, he saunters into my apartment. “Nothing is easy with you, Xirena. I have to constantly fight to bring you back to our mutual ground of trust.” He steps closer. “I did recall we agreed to trust each other.”
“I—” I try to push my hair away from my face, but find there is no hair straying there. I look up at him with a docile expression, waiting for him to pull me into his arms.
He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his pants instead. Suddenly, I remember how other girls bat their eyes, which has proven to be an effective tool in disarming their male opponents. I drop my gaze in repentance, then raise my long, lush eyelashes lazily and look at him through them.
Kai appears stupefied for several seconds but soon recovers. A light of amusement twinkles in his eyes. He has much more experience with girls than I with boys.
I move toward him, eliminating the space between us. “I’ve missed you.” It’s hard to admit that, but I’ve said it. Going on my tiptoes, I throw my arms around his neck. My burning face buries in his firm chest. The rhythm of his heart feels like a safe net to me. I have him back. I almost purr like a cat.
“Are you counting my heartbeats for fun?” he asks, his chest vibrating with a chuckle.
I’m quick to release my arms from his neck and shy away from his chest, but his iron-like arms have wrapped around the small of my back, crushing me against him. “Not so fast. I like you there,” he says.
When I settle down cozily in his arms, he starts teasing me again. “Do you know in old times a man could have as many wives as he could afford?”
My nostrils flare. “The two thousand years of Chinese history is the history of men oppressing women and then legitimizing it. The so-called great traditional values have done more than their share to kill individuality and rob us of our free will. Their stench exceeds the mass of decayed corpses.” Jerking away from him, I speak with savagery. “I thought modern men should be more evolved. If you fancy treating women like property and sex objects like those sexist pigs, you should stay the hell away from me, or I’ll make you!”
“Wow, wow!” he says. “Where is all this fire coming from?”
“If you don’t like it, try not to ignite it.”
“First, I don’t share the bad values any more than you do,” he says. “I have only one girl. That’s you. And second, you do understand we live in a special time?”
“A lame excuse?” Residual anger twists my face before it makes an exit.
“Be fair. We still wander in the twilight of the old and new world. Men are products of their environment. It takes time to evolve. It might take a whole new generation to adapt to the new world.”
He speaks reason. My face softens.
“And I understand that you’re the jealous type and that you don’t share well,” he adds. “I respect that, but—”
A jealous type? That’s an outrageous statement! “You don’t get it, Kai! This isn’t about my possessiveness. It’s about a woman’s dignity and her individual identity . . .”
“You’re not a woman yet,” he says. “I don’t know why I still have to carry other bastards’ sins after I’ve explained—”
“Don’t you know, in the end, our sins always catch up with us?” I say, irritated again.
“I didn’t come here to fight, Xirena,” he says. “Other girls would just laugh if I say men could have many concubines, but you have to give me a piece of your independent mind. Although I appreciate your speech and would love to stay and hear more, I—” He looks at a watch on his left wrist.
The temperature of my burning face drops to zero. My heart contracts with ache. Now I’ve done it. Now I’ve turned him off by giving him that piece of mind. The way he looks at his watch indicates he can’t wait to get away from me.
My jaw set, I cover my sick sense of disappointment and the pain of losing him again with a remote look while I wait for him to take off. My hand grabs the doorframe, ready to close the door, and to support my weight and stop myself from begging him to stay.
“We don’t have a minute to lose.” He removes his gaze from his watch and turns back to me. “Why don’t you continue lecturing me on how to be a more evolved man around a bonfire? I think my martial arts masters would appreciate some enlightenment too after a long week’s hunting.”
My mouth agape, I look stupefied.
The corner of his mouth twitches into a crooked smile.
“But—” I say.
“We don’t have time for buts,” he says. “We gotta leave before your parents get home.”
“But I—”
“My martial arts masters aren’t like the small town folks. You’ll like them, and they won’t say anything about us.” He traces his calloused thumb across my cheek, and I start breathing unevenly. “I’m dying to show you to some of my true friends. I hate all this sneaking around!” He removes his hand from me and commands. “Go get dressed.” He pulls out the leather outfit from his backpack and hands me the attire. The image of Sha Sha wearing the same suit the other night flashes by me. But I decide not to make a fuss over it. I choose to believe that Kai has nothing to do with that.
“I’ll wait for you at the end of the alley.” He pulls me into his arms with a tight embrace before he releases me and leaves.
At the end of the alley, a red pickup truck is waiting on the shoulder of the narrow street that is lined with shady, old houses. They’re so crammed together that they block out any moonlight. The street smells of a mixture of damp dirt, jasmine, and leek dumplings. Kai stands beside the passenger door of the truck, talking to a driver, who wears a broad brim hat.
As soon as Kai sees me, he marches to me. “My kind of girl,” he says, his eyes drinking me in. “I should get you another set and a hat soon.”
“You’re not spending any money on me again,” I say, “especially not the money for your school. And I mean it!”
“I still have some spare money,” he says. “Come.” He takes my hand and leads me toward the truck.
“I haven’t finished my speech yet,” I say quietly beside him. “You must understand that all girls value being chosen above all. We want to be unique among the millions, not just a face in the crowd.”
He lifts my hand and brushes his lips against my palm. “Oh, I understand. You’re my Xirena, my only chosen one. But hold on to your speech. You’ll want to have more of audience, so no man will misbehave again.” With a chuckle, he opens the door on the passenger side of the truck, and lifts me up to three-person seat. And then, in one smooth motion, he steps up and takes a place beside me.
The driver nods at me with a grin when Kai introduces us. His name is Juie. He must have overheard some of the conversation between Kai and me.
Juie pulls the truck into gear and it roars and runs over the rough asphalt street. I tuck my hand into Kai’s strong one. Cars are rare in town. Our major modes of transportation are bicycles and rickshaws. Mostly people just wa
lk to school or to work.
I stare ahead, enjoying riding in a car with Kai.
“Despite a grain of truth in your former statement,” Kai forms a new argument, “I’ll have to remind you that you forget that Chinese art has remained uncorrupted during thousands of years of savage and tyranny. No one can deny the unmatchable and timeless beauty of Chinese paintings and classical poetry and architecture . . .”
“They’re the only nice things the two thousand years left for us,” I say.
“And for that heritage, can all be forgiven?” he asks.
“Like letting men have concubines?” I narrow my eyes on him with a sharp look.
He laughs again. “My hothead Xire.” He then turns to Juie and says something to him.
Three hunters are sitting around the bonfire when Juie, Kai, and I enter from the edge of the untamed forest. Kai filled me in on who they are on our way over. The tall, reverent looking man is Rac, Kai’s martial arts master. Rac has Zen manner. “Rac used to have nice, long hair down to his shoulders, but he had it cut because he didn’t want to spend too much time shampooing it.” Kai provides me with more details.
Do I really need to know Rac’s hygiene habits? I decide to tolerate this insignificant information because, as a Chinese idiom says, “When you’re fond of one, your affection extends to whom he loves.”
Sitting beside Rac is Alekes, a female martial arts master with a strong jaw and gray eyes. I’ve never met a female warrior before, so my eyes fix on her.
They all look too good to be living in this town. Over my suspicious look, Kai laughs. “When it’s winter, they come here to hunt.”
“Are they really as good at fighting as they claim?” I ask.
“They haven’t claimed anything,” Kai says. “But Rac and Alekes once took down a group of six armed thugs.”
“Seven.” Juie grins.
“Nice. They can just beat whoever gets in their way,” I say with a tone of envy and viciousness.
“Beating people isn’t what martial arts is about.” Kai shoots me a disapproving look. “To practice martial arts is to master the mind. Once you’ve learned that, you overcome yourself and the world around you. I got into many fights when I was a kid just to show other kids I could beat them up. It took my masters years to show me the way.”