Jeannie Lin - A Dance with Danger

His mirror image attempted to step out from the hiding space, but Yang stopped him with a menacing shake of his knife. ‘What were you going to do? Strangle me? Stab me?’

‘No, of course not!’ the man cried, staring at the blade. He had gone pale. ‘I was just supposed to run from this room screaming.’

‘That’s nonsense.’

‘It’s true. I was paid to do it.’

‘And that’s it?’

The impostor nodded, shaking.

Yang struggled to clear his head enough to piece the magistrate’s plan together. It was possible Tan had been planning his death all along. They were accomplices in a failed assassination plot, after all. He alone could implicate Tan in the conspiracy.

He’d been swindled. If this man wasn’t the one hired to cut his throat, then an assassin was certainly nearby, closing in for the kill as they spoke.

Yang grabbed the impostor by the robe to drag him out of the compartment. ‘It’s time to do what you were hired for, my friend. Start running.’

Chapter Four

There was trouble outside.

Jin-mei sat in the bridal chamber while Lady Yi tried to give her final words of advice, telling her ‘not to worry if it’s not like what you expect the first time’ when Jin-mei had no idea what to expect. Suddenly the hum of noise from the banquet turned into shouting.

She started for the door, but it swung open before she could reach it. Father stood before her with a group of men gathered behind him. She saw one of them holding a club.

‘Stay here,’ Father told her. ‘It’s not safe outside.’

‘Why? What’s happened?’

She might as well have not spoken. Father pulled the door shut, and she heard him giving orders on the other side. ‘Search the house. Search the woods.’

Search the woods for what?

Lady Yi stayed with her, and they huddled together on the bed. The cover had been sprinkled with lotus seeds and flower petals for good luck, but the symbols were meaningless now. What had happened to disrupt her wedding? And where was Bao Yang...?

Every so often, Lady Yi would say, ‘Everything will be all right.’ Then a little later she’d repeat it. ‘Everything will be all right.’

With each repetition, Jin-mei’s heart sank. More time had passed, another empty assurance given and still there was no news. She had started drifting off to sleep on the bed when the doors opened.

Again, it was Father. His face was sunken, defeated. ‘Jin-mei—’

‘Where’s Bao Yang?’

‘Jin-mei,’ he said again, gently this time. Too gently, and she knew.

She started trembling so hard she had to sit down. ‘What happened, Father?’

Lady Yi wrapped her arms around Jin-mei as her father told the entire story. A madman had come to the villa wielding a knife. The guests had seen a man chasing Yang into the woods, but then both of them had disappeared.

‘That’s impossible.’ A wave of dizziness passed over her. She reached out to brace herself against the enclosure over the bed.

‘I summoned every constable to search the woods. It’s possible they fell into the ravine. The river is high from the plum rains and with the rocks down below—’

Jin-mei couldn’t listen to any more. She wanted to go to the river herself that very moment, but that was impossible. It was too dark. There was possibly a madman on the loose.

The next morning, Jin-mei did accompany Head Constable Han and his search party as they scoured the ravine. With her heart in her throat, she searched the rocks below for a sign of Yang’s red wedding robe, but there was nothing but the waters of the Min River rushing by.

It was improper for her to be out there in the sun, among so many strangers, but she was no longer a sheltered young girl to be hidden away. A married woman was granted more freedom. The thought made her want to weep.

But Jin-mei didn’t weep. Everything had happened all too suddenly for her to know what to feel. Drained and exhausted from lack of sleep, she finally turned away from the search and found herself unable to mourn properly for her husband of only a few hours. All she could do was think of the few fleeting moments they’d shared together, and the kiss beneath a bridge she’d only imagined. A kiss that would now never come to be.

* * *

For the first seven days, Jin-mei remained shut away, dressed in pale sackcloth and lighting incense for a husband she had barely known. When she finally ventured outside, it was only at her father’s insistence. She had replaced her white mourning robe with a sombre grey one and dutifully set one foot in front of the other as she accompanied the constable’s wife through the city. All she wanted was to return to bed and wake up in a month when the wound wasn’t so new and raw.

Constable Han’s wife was close to Jin-mei in age and it was said that she had once been a dancer who had travelled throughout the province. Li Feng was long-limbed, poised and moved with a confidence that Jin-mei envied. Along with being graceful, the other woman was also full of energy and life. Even her eyes were animated, catching the light as she spoke. In contrast, Jin-mei felt as grey and lifeless as her robe.

Their morning consisted of a visit to the temple to light incense and pray for the spirits of the deceased. Afterwards, Li Feng had suggested a walk through the park, but Jin-mei refused. It was too soon. Not even two weeks had passed since she had met Bao Yang there. Only two weeks to become a wife and a widow.

‘Along the market, then,’ Li Feng replied, refusing to let her mope. ‘I’ll take you to my favourite tea house.’

Jin-mei trudged along, a poor companion in every way. It was her first time out in public since Yang’s death and she was at a loss. With Yang gone, she had no new family to go to, no wifely duties, no future.

Her life was no different than it had been before. She had returned to her father’s house to live and no one spoke of what had happened that night. It was nothing but a dream. Her hopes and fears before the wedding were nothing but clouds that had been blown away with the breeze.

‘How long have you been married to Constable Han?’ Jin-mei asked, attempting conversation.

‘Not long. Only a little over a month now.’

‘A month?’ Jin-mei’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment. ‘I should have sent you a gift.’

She hadn’t even known there had been another wedding so recently. A magistrate and his constable were so far apart in status that Jin-mei and Li Feng had little reason to socialise. Even this short outing felt awkward and forced.

‘There’s no need to apologise. My husband has been so busy with his duties as the new constable, sometimes I wonder if we’re married after all.’

Jin-mei attempted a smile at the jest, but once again her thoughts returned to Yang. In one part, it was due to grief, but another part was the strange circumstances of how he’d disappeared.

‘I apologise for being so forward, but has Constable Han made any progress on the investigation?’

‘Han hasn’t said much about it, but don’t you worry. My husband will find out who is responsible. He was relentless as a thief-catcher.’

‘It’s so hard to believe that no one was found; not my husband or his attacker. If I could at least see him—if we were able to lay his body in the ground—maybe I wouldn’t feel so empty, as if things were unfinished.’ Jin-mei knew she was being morbid to dwell on it, but she had so few memories of Yang. The details of his disappearance loomed large in her mind. ‘There are moments when I forget that my husband is dead and I have to remind myself that he really is gone.’

Li Feng touched her sleeve sympathetically. ‘Do you want to cry? I can find a private place for us and you can cry as much as you like. I won’t think less of you for it.’