Shuli Go Stories Vol. 6: Liars and Cheats

Part 8

Jingyi woke in fits and starts. Her eyes eased open, then shut just as quickly, her arms twitched and a low, agonized moan escaped again and again. She was wrapped in the mother's second set of clothes: torn and mended threads already well past the end of their lives. She had a slight fever throughout, which the grandmother of the home tended with a wet cloth pressed to the young woman's forehead.

The mother sat huddled with her children in the corner of the room, cursing her husband and prophesizing her own doom at the hands of the local lord when he inevitably found his daughter ill and unconscious in her home. Lian had tried to assuage her fears, but the woman had lived under Lord Baodung long enough to know the man was not an understanding or forgiving man; Lian admitted she had every right to be afraid.

The fever broke suddenly, and within minutes Jingyi woke properly. She propped herself up on one arm and let out a long, pained sigh. When she opened her eyes fully, Lian was standing in front of her, smiling.

"How are you feeling?"

Jingyi looked at Lian but conscious thought was still a few moments away. She glanced around the room then refocused on the Shuli Go, examined her and her weapon for a moment, then tried to move again. She winced and her other hand went to the bruise on her side. She looked at Lian.

"It's a stupid question actually," Lian chided. "I know the answer. You feel like crap right now. But you'll be fine. Rather quick, actually. In a few hours it will be like you just woke up from a nice long nap."

Jingyi swallowed and asked through a parched throat, "What happened?"

The grandmother limped up next to Jingyi and presented her with a small clay cup of tea. Jingyi smelled it and took it, drinking greedily. While she did Lian started to explain.

"I'm afraid you've been poisoned lady Jingyi."

The girl stopped drinking enough to repeat the information as a question. "Poisoned?"

"I'm afraid so. For some time now. It's ok though. I've cured you."

"Who are you?"

"My name is Zhao Lian. I'm a Shuli Go."

Jingyi finished drinking the tea and slowly nodded.

"Your father hired me to help you. Can you tell me the last thing you remember?"

"The last thing?" Jingyi repeated again, this time through the added fog of memory. "Well, my father, he..." she stopped herself, but not fast enough to elude Lian's study. A small flush and an uncomfortable wiggle under the thin clothes. It was almost confirmation enough for Lian. "Where am I?" Jingyi tried to change the topic.

"Close to home," Lian reassured her. "You wandered off into a cave after you'd been dosed. I found you and brought you here."

"Where's that? Why did you not just bring me home?" She asked, her voice starting to fluster.

"You need to rest," Lian explained. "And I'd like to talk to you first."

"I don't want to talk to you," Jingyi's face quickly transformed into that of her father's. A stream of rage burbled underneath it, and Lian watched it rise to the surface, hot and angry and fast. "I want to go home. I demand you take me home."

The grandmother reached out to pat the girl's face with the damp cloth again, but Jingyi shoved the woman's arm away, then threw the clay cup at the old woman. The mother squealed in fear and held her children closer. Despite her age and immobility, the grandmother instantly fell into a prostrate bow, begging for mercy. She was a peasant, beaten down enough times to know when mercy was the only hope. Lian, however, was not in the same sitaution.