Jeannie Lin - A Dance with Danger

‘I know,’ he replied with a sad smile. ‘It was the same way with your mother.’

Father looked away and her heart went out to him. It was as Lady Yi had said, Mother was the love of his life and she always would be. Slowly he returned to his desk and made an attempt to organise his case records to compose himself.

A moment earlier she had been so certain Yang was alive, but Father had cast doubt over everything she’d seen. If Yang had survived the fall, why hadn’t he returned to her? She knew of cases where people hit their heads and forgot all their memories. The fall from the ravine could have caused such an injury, but if her husband was indeed wandering through the city in confusion, certainly he would have been found by one of her father’s constables.

‘I was thinking for a while that it might be good for you to spend some time away,’ Father went on. ‘Perhaps a trip to the mountains with Lady Yi.’

‘During the mourning period? That would be disrespectful—’

Jin-mei caught herself. Once again, she was talking about Yang as if he were indeed dead.

‘After the proper mourning period, of course. In the meantime, take comfort that your husband’s spirit is with you. He hasn’t forgotten you.’

She nodded and took her leave, feeling confused and numb. Father was obviously very busy and she was barely making sense. She had so many questions to ask, but she didn’t know where to start. As Jin-mei made the long walk back to the living quarters, she tried to arrange all the pieces. Father’s explanation was indeed the rational one, but some instinct inside her refused to let go.

When she was young, she hadn’t listened to whimsical folk tales. Her father had entertained her instead with famous case accounts. The stories always featured clever officials who knew a lie immediately. They never accepted the obvious solution and were unsatisfied when the pieces of a puzzle didn’t fit together just right.

Jin-mei was unsatisfied.

Once she was back in the familiar surroundings of their house, she realised what was bothering her. Father had returned to his office with Constable Han. The constable’s wife had mentioned that Han was in the drinking house—could that mean her father had been there as well? At the very same time she had seen Yang in the street just outside.

It was possibly all coincidence, but Father was acting strange. Constable Han was acting strange. His wife as well. Perhaps heaven and earth had switched places and Jin-mei was the only one who found any of it odd.

Amah was out in the garden, watching over Jin-mei’s two brothers, which meant the old nursemaid was sitting beneath the shade of pavilion as the boys fought over a wooden boat.

She passed them by with a nod to Amah and went to her father’s study. The room was cool and dark with the shutters drawn. A sanctuary.

She had never, never been in Father’s study without his permission. Her hand trembled as she opened the drawer. A seed of an idea had been planted inside her. If she didn’t rid herself of this suspicion immediately, it would continue to take root and fester.

There were letters in the drawer. She looked quickly through them, finding nothing of any significance. Beneath the letters lay a thin book with a blue cover. She lifted it and saw a folded paper tucked away at the very bottom of the drawer.

Jin-mei opened up the paper to find that it was a note for five thousand taels of silver. Five thousand? It was an extraordinary amount of money. The red seal at the bottom of the note contained the character for ‘Bao.’ The Bao family chop, perhaps.

If this was meant to be a wedding gift, it was an extravagant one. Bao Yang came from a line of successful merchants, but she hadn’t realised how wealthy he was until now. How wealthy he had been...

Slowly, she folded the bank note and put it back beneath the book. There were officials who were corrupt and took bribes, but she’d always been confident that her father wasn’t one of them. He’d never shown any interest in money. When he spoke, it was of honesty, of moral behaviour, of law and order.

She could just ask her father why he had so much of Bao Yang’s money. They had always been able to say anything to one another. She’d always trusted him. She knew him.

Yet Jin-mei’s instincts told her Father had been hiding something for a while now. Ever since Bao Yang had come back into their lives.

Suddenly the details of her wedding night came back to her, not as a personal memory steeped in emotion, but as fragmented pieces. The pieces had always seemed oddly familiar to her, but she couldn’t place exactly why. A wedding banquet. A groom chased into the woods. The story had the mark of a classic tragedy.

Jin-mei went to her father’s shelves and began to look through the books. There were volumes of history and poetry, but the books she’d always enjoyed most were the extraordinary case records. Stories of scheming criminals bested by clever officials. Once she could read, she had borrowed the books from her father and read them herself. He’d always found her fascination for these tales amusing.

When she finally found the account, her heart stopped. There was a wedding. And a murder.

Clutching the book to her chest, she went to her room. Once the door was shut, she opened the book once more. A woman and her lover schemed to rob her wealthy neighbour by seducing him into marriage. On their wedding night, with guests all around, the groom was seen running from the bridal chamber, his hair in disarray. Mad.

The similarities were too much of a coincidence. Had the entire night been staged? But why? She wanted to run back to the tribunal to demand an answer from her father, but she already knew what would happen. He would deflect her suspicions. He would weave together colourful lies and she would believe him because she wanted to be convinced.

With shaking hands, Jin-mei collected her wedding money and a few belongings into a satchel. She didn’t need to read the case record to remember the rest of the details. The groom had thrown himself into the river while the guests looked on in horror. They knew it was him because of his ceremonial wedding robe. Though the river was searched, his body was never found.

Jin-mei had to know what had happened to Bao Yang. Even more than a sense of justice, her father had impressed upon her the importance of finding the truth.

Calmly, Jin-mei informed her amah that she was going to visit the constable’s wife, but instead hired a carriage to take her outside of the city walls to her father’s villa. Being wed and then widowed within a day must have emboldened her.

Her thoughts buzzed in her head like a nest of wasps. When she’d told Father she’d seen Yang alive, he hadn’t argued with her. Instead, her father had nodded sympathetically. He’d listened without judgement, and even agreed with her that she was not mistaken in what she’d seen. Most particularly, he’d brought up her mother. They rarely spoke of Mother, but Father had done so, confiding in Jin-mei and telling her a story that made her heart ache. He’d cast all her doubts aside and effectively quieted her.

Because as a magistrate, he knew how to detect falsehoods and how to create them. Father was a master of lies.

* * *

The villa was no longer draped in red and lit with lanterns. It had been locked down, with only a lone groundskeeper and his family assigned to watch over it. The groundskeeper was a middle-aged man whose hair was thinning slightly on top. He was surprised to see her, but let her in without protest.

‘You and your family attended to my husband while he stayed here, did you not?’ she asked as she wandered from room to room.

‘Yes, Lady Tan—my apologies. I meant, Bao Furen .’