Chapter Four
i
Making Tofu
Early the next morning, Tulip stood in the stable yard with her broom. The cloud song she had felt last night was gone, which was good because it was easier to pretend it wasn’t there when it really wasn’t.
There were crinkled maple leaves everywhere and she was supposed to clean them up. After that she was supposed to scrub the privies, sweep the stairs, mop the floor, and polish Mistress Wang’s boots. She wouldn’t get any food until all her chores were done.
Tulip used the stiff bristles of her broom to ground several leaves into a fine powder. Maple trees were the stupidest trees she’d ever seen. They didn’t do anything useful, like provide fruit, and they were so messy.
A moan drifted through an open window. She looked up. From the second floor of the house, Peony moaned so loudly that it sounded like she was in pain. Even though her window faced the street, Tulip could still hear her in the side yard.
Peony gasped and shouted Yes! and Faster! and the man with her moaned too and it all sounded so loud and so awful that Tulip did not understand why men always wanted to make tofu. It required a whole lot of screaming and groaning, and in her experience, screaming and groaning weren’t all that fun.
Still, at that moment, anything seemed better than sweeping the yard. If she could learn how to make special tofu, maybe she wouldn’t have to clean everything all the time. None of the other flowers ever had to clean anything.
“Get back to work, little Tulip,” Master Su called. “Mistress Wang won’t like it if she sees you lazing about.”
She turned as the fat cook waddled into the yard. He cradled a pile of carrot stems in his apron, which he dumped into the slop barrel by the kitchen door.
“Master Su, I have a question.”
He paused to look up at her. “What did Mistress Wang say about questions?”
“She told me not to laze around and pester people with questions. She didn’t say I couldn’t work and ask questions at the same time. I can ask questions and clean, see?” She pushed the broom through the leaves.
“Unfortunately, yes. What is it you want, little Tulip?”
“I want to know how to make tofu.”
“You’ve seen me make tofu. I soak the soy beans, mash them into pulp—”
“Not that kind of tofu, Master Su. The other kind.”
Master Su narrowed his eyes in her direction. Her broom slowed and she straightened, thinking that maybe, just maybe, someone would—
“Go back to work, little Tulip.” The cook turned away.
“But—”
“Back to work!” Without another word, he went back into the kitchen.
Tulip marched through the leaves, kicking and whacking them with the broom. More maple leaves swirled down around her. There were so many of them that it would take her at least an hour to sweep them up. She was going to have to spend the next four years cleaning the stupid leaves, until she turned twelve and was old enough to make special tofu.
She paused to stare again at the open second-story window. Peony and the man were still making lots of noise. Peony was crying Yes! Yes! Yes! while the man kept wanting to know if she liked it, and by it Tulip could only assume he meant tofu.
Her stomach growled at the thought of tofu.
She didn’t want to be hungry anymore. She didn’t want to spend the next four years sweeping the yard, cleaning the privies, scrubbing the floor, emptying the fire pit, and polishing Mistress Wang’s boots.
She wanted to know how her mother made special tofu.
Her gaze landed on a drainpipe next to Master Su’s slop barrel. The pipe ran all the way up to the roof. It looked a bit like a ladder with the way the bracings fastened to the wall. Real roofers had come to the House of Flowers last spring and she had watched them use their real ladders. She knew just how they worked.
She tossed her broom to the ground and raced to the drainpipe. She scrambled onto the slop barrel. It rocked beneath her, sending up a swarm of flies. Tulip wrinkled her nose at the stench of rotting food and the buzzing cloud of flies.
She grabbed the pipe and climbed. Perched on the corner of the roof was a stone statue of Kuaile, Goddess of Pleasure, and behind her was a statue of Caifu, God of Good Fortune.
She wrapped a hand around the Goddess Kuaile and pulled. She swung one leg around and touched the edge of the roof. The statue wobbled. Tulip gasped and snatched at the statue of Caifu with her other hand. The plump god smiled and held her steady. Tulip scrambled the rest of the way up.
She paused on the edge of the roof, heart pounding from her near fall. She kowtowed quickly to Caifu.
“I’ll light incense for you tonight,” she promised, smiling at him in thanks. She loved the way the God of Good Fortune always grinned back.
Below her, Master Su waddled out with a handful of rotten bok choy leaves. The barrel still wobbled and the flies hadn’t yet settled. He glanced around. She ducked out of sight before he spotted her.
Brown tiles covered the rooftop. They were warm from the autumn sun, and the tile glaze was slick. She picked her way over them, careful to avoid the cracked ones because falling would be bad.
She imagined the shock of Peony and the other flowers when she learned how to make special tofu without their help. She imagined Mistress Wang buying her a pretty silk dress and letting her wear powder so her skin would sparkle.
She imagined Mistress Wang not beating her anymore—or at least not beating her as often as she did now. Mistress Wang didn’t beat any of the other flowers as much as she beat Tulip.
The noise coming from Peony’s room grew louder. Tulip reached the front of the building, which overlooked the street. She crouched above her mother’s open window and dropped to her stomach. Peeking over the edge, she froze.
Below her stood Mistress Wang, madam of the House of Flowers. She wore a dark blue silk robe embroidered with gold thread that depicted cranes and bamboo. A long time ago, when Tulip had been really little, she thought Mistress Wang must be nice because her clothes were nice.
She didn’t trust nice clothes anymore.
Mistress Wang supervised two men as they pulled out browning chrysanthemums and pruned peonies and roses for the start of winter. She always told everyone she had the best flower garden in Chong-chi.
“Careful,” she snapped at the men. “Watch your feet. Those peonies are older than you are. Watch it!”
Tulip hesitated. If Mistress Wang saw her, she would get a beating. But the old lady’s attention was on the ground and the sweating men. This might be Tulip’s only chance to finally learn how to make special tofu. Then maybe she would get to spend her days eating tofu instead of cleaning leaves.
She inched forward, letting her head hang over the eve. The edge of her mother’s black-lacquered dressing screen was visible, but nothing else. The screams and moans gained in pitch and now the man was the one shouting Yes! Yes! Yes!
Straining to see into the room, she slid forward another few inches.
Without warning, a wave of cloud song blasted through her. Something bright flashed in the corner of her eye.
She raised her head and caught a glimpse of a glowing, four-legged beast covered in red-gold scales. Then she lost her grip on the tiles and slipped. She scrambled, trying to regain her balance, but it was too late.
Tulip tumbled over the edge of the roof and fell straight toward Mistress Wang’s flowerbed.
ii
The House of Flowers
Fire Foot frisked through the morning streets of Chong-chi. He still glowed from his lightning charge, though Yi had managed to keep him from bolting mindlessly through the city. He stuck to the narrower passageways and kept his eyes on the sky. He had not seen the shaman again, but that did not mean he wasn’t still out there.
It was early yet and few people were out. Yi guided Fire Foot out of an alley that emptied onto a wide boulevard. Before him sat a long, two-story buildin
g. A sign named it the House of Flowers. The front was painted with a lavish mural of exquisitely dressed women among a field of flowers. He didn’t recall ever visiting this particular brothel in his youth, though he’d heard of it.
The madam of the house delivered shrill instructions to gardeners who cleaned the bed in front of her establishment. She was an old woman who tried to look young by wearing an elaborate dress and too much face paint.
He hunched over Fire Foot and urged the beast to the next alleyway. Luckily the madam had her back to him; had she seen him, she’d no doubt have tried to coax him inside.
Just before they reached the alley, Yi saw her: a small child perched on the roof of the house. Had he not been scanning the sky for the shaman, he would have missed her entirely.
She wore a ratty, pale blue dress and trousers that were too big on her slight frame. Her long black hair was tucked behind her ears. The sun, shining bright, illuminated the delicate features of her face.
The sight of her made him reel. Jian? Heart pounding, he leaned forward, staring at the child. He gripped Fire Foot’s mane, feeling as though a gong reverberated in his skull.
The angle of her cheekbones, the tilt of her eyes, and the small fineness of her nose—everything about her sang of his lost daughter.
The child screamed. He sucked in a breath as she slipped off the roof, a tiny figure tumbling through sunlight. Her hair streamed upward. Air pushed her baggy clothing taut against her torso, revealing protruding ribs and a too-thin body. Her piercing cry manifested as physical pain in his chest.
Even though he hadn’t moved, Yi felt like he was the one falling.
Without thinking, he leaped off Fire Foot.
iii
Sold
Tulip landed hard on her back, breath rushing out of her lungs. She lay motionless, stunned, the cloudless blue sky filling her vision. The nubs of the pruned peonies dug through her shirt and poked her.
A shadow fell across her face. A boot connected with her ribcage. She yelped and rolled onto her knees just as Mistress Wang grabbed a handful of her hair.
“Little ingrate,” the old woman hissed. “I give you food and shelter, and this is how you repay me? You sneak around on my roof like a thief?”
“I’m not a thief!” Tulip cried. Mistress Wang always called her a thief, even though she never stole anything—except food sometimes when Master Su wasn’t looking, but that was only when she was really, really hungry.
Mistress Wang dragged her out of the flowerbed by her hair. She pulled so hard some of the strands tore free. Tears sprang to Tulip’s eyes.
“Let me go!” She twisted, but Mistress Wang did not let go.
“Bastard child,” the madam said. “I should have drowned you the day you were born.”
The old lady shoved her hard. Tulip fell and skidded across the cobblestones. The shoulder of her shirt tore and stones scraped her skin. Tulip scrambled to her feet in time to see Mistress Wang snatch a rake from one of the gardeners. Slapping the length of hard wood into her open palm, she marched toward Tulip.
World Kingdom Warrior (3 Kingdoms - Book 0.5) Page 11
