Jade Man's Skin
Page 39
And how long was it since he’d tried to take his jade rings off?
And would that green subside now that the shirt was off, and what did it mean that steel could no longer pierce the emperor’s skin, and …?
AND Jiao came over to Yu Shan, and there was nothing he could do but leave all those questions lying and lead her back to where Siew Ren lay in her corner, in all her pain and damage.
They sat—shockingly—with their backs to the room, to the emperor, and he felt himself wrapped in his own sorrows like a quilt; and even so, the jade in his hearing still wouldn’t let him miss what Mei Feng said. What she muttered, rather, after the eunuch had been dragged away and most of the entourage had gone or been sent after him; after she and the emperor had retreated to a corner of their own, as much privacy as they could seize, just not quite private enough to escape one sharp-eared friend’s overhearing.
“CHIEN HUA?”
“Mei Feng?”
“I think … I think I might be pregnant.”
about the author
DANIEL FOX is a British writer who first went to Taiwan at the millennium and became obsessed, to the point of learning Mandarin and writing about the country in three different genres. Before this he had published a couple of dozen books and many hundreds of short stories, under a clutch of other names. He has also written poetry and plays. Some of this work has won awards.
Jade Man’s Skin is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Del Rey Trade Paperback Original
Copyright © 2010 by Daniel Fox
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51911-5
www.delreybooks.com
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books by this Author
Title Page
Dedication
Part One - Dragon’s Flight
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Part Two - Her Water’s Voice
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Part Three - Between the Wind and the Water
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Part Four - A Chain of Days
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Part Five - Stone and Water
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Part Six - A Dragon in the Wind
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
About the Author
Copyright