Xiao Xiao - Chapter One

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen – The Dream of the Dragon Princess

She found herself swimming through green and blue water, breathing easily as if it was air. Sea creatures, strange and oddly beautiful, appeared. Glowing transparent silk with long waving strings. Fish with scales that flashed in many colors. Crustaceans she normally saw on plates scurrying on the sea floor.

Lifting her hands, she saw the flash of silver scales along her arms. She was Ming Zhu in this dream, clothed in a sea-green hanfu, not her usual pao.

The undersea gates shimmered like mother-of-pearl and opened when she flowed through it. Spiky lobster and crab guardsmen saluted with their claws and coral spears. They looked fierce with their armor.

In the dream, she felt anger. Rage. Centering in her heart and spreading through her body and her limbs. She had enough. She had seen too much to keep her mouth shut. She didn’t want to remain silent anymore.

Almost every day she saw them. Tiny cloth bags, small burdens and sometimes, even nothing at all to hide the indignity – tossed into streams, lakes, rivers and the sea like throwing unwanted food or rubbish. Tiny girl babies, just born, many still with their birth cords joined to them. Almost every day. The first time she saw a baby girl sunk to the bottom of the Yang Tze river, she cried and cried. She was a young dragon, her rage couldn’t raise a storm or a typhoon.

She had enough.

She found fu wang in his coral bonsai garden, strolling through his prized corals and stopping to remove dead bits like a devoted gardener.

He was getting old. And when dragons grew old, they became more ponderous, like unmovable rock or sedentary silt. They also became irascible, like her old uncle who, in his anger, had wreaked havoc along the Fujian coast and toppled mountains. Father refused to talk to his brother for generations. He felt that her uncle had lost his pride and hence, lost his younger brother’s respect.

She bowed politely when she approached him. He had a bright smile for her. He had been her pearl of joy ever since Mother left for the Celestial Court to guard the Jade Emperor.

“Fu Wang,” she said formally. “Can I talk to you?”

His beard swayed as his smile widened. His scales had darkened, almost a deep heart-red. His robes were heavy, glittering with undersea gems. “Anything for my daughter!”

She swallowed a hot lump down her throat, inhaled and chose her words very carefully.

“Father,” she said. “Father, I would like your help. I want you to stop the mortal humans killing their girl babies. I want to stop them throwing away girl babies.”

Her father became very still. He stroked his flowing beard, his lips moving, his mood contemplatively.

“My dear daughter,” he answered finally. “It is the way of the human world.”

That was it? That was the answer? The same throbbing hot anger flowered in her chest.

“Are you saying,” she said slowly, “that you are not going to do anything about this?”

Her father’s face darkened, like an approaching typhoon. “You dare question me, dear daughter?”

“Are you just going to sit there and do nothing? Are daughters nothing?” Her voice had risen a little. She didn’t care.

“Do not raise your voice at me,” he rumbled, the dragon stirring. His tail had overturned the Ming ships, destroyed coastal lines and caused earthquakes to split the land in half.

“I am disappointed, Fu Wang,” she said steadily. She turned away.

“Ming Zhu!” Her father’s voice resonated. The corals trembled.

She walked on. She was going to do it her way.

“Ming Zhu!”

She kicked away from the sea floor, flowing into her natural form. She heard her father’s voice in the distance and hardened her heart, like an oyster protecting its soft parts.

Between her talons, she formed a green pearl, formed of her saliva and of the purest sea water. This would be the gift she would bestow on the baby girl she had planned to protect.

~*~

Xiao Xiao opened her eyes. Cold sunlight was filtering through the window.

It was the third day of the Spring Festival.