She Who Became the Sun Sneak Peek by Shelley Parker-Chan

Author:Shelley Parker-Chan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

3

1347, SECOND MONTH

Zhu and Xu Da were perched astride the roof of the Dharma Hall, replacing the winter-damaged tiles. It was a dreamy place to be, suspended between the mackerel sky and a sea of glittering green roofs, their golden finials upcurling like waves. Past the tumble of courtyards, past even the valley, they could see a sliver of the shining Huai plain. All like things being connected, the shape of the clouds told them what that distant land looked like. There where the clouds resembled fish scales were lakes and rivers; there, where the clouds had the shape of shrubs, were the hills. And there beneath the slow-rising blooms of yellow dust: armies.

The sunshine was warm, and Xu Da had taken off his shirt and both robes to work half-naked in his trousers. At sixteen, the hard labor had already given him a man’s body. Zhu said a little tartly, “You’re asking to die, running around like that.” Prefect Fang never hesitated to wield his bamboo on novices who violated the rules of dignified monkly attire. Twelve-year-old Zhu, who felt an existential chill whenever she was forced to acknowledge the fact of her boyish but undeniably not-male body, appreciated Prefect Fang’s strictness more than anyone realized. “You think you’re that good-looking everyone wants to see you?”

“Those girls did,” Xu Da said with a smirk, meaning the village girls who had come, giggling, to make their offerings.

“Girls, always girls.” Zhu rolled her eyes. Being younger and not yet hostage to the compulsions of puberty, she found Xu Da’s obsession tedious. In her best imitation of the Dharma Master, she said, “Desire is the cause of all suffering.”

“Are you trying to convince me you’d be happy joining those dried-up papayas who spend their lives in the meditation hall?” Xu Da gave her a knowing grin. “They don’t desire. But you, I don’t believe it for a moment. Maybe it’s not girls yet, but anyone who remembers you coming to the monastery knows you know what it is to want.”

Startled, Zhu remembered the desperate, animal need to survive that had driven her to claim Zhu Chongba’s life. Even now she could feel it inside her. She had never before connected it to the desire that was the subject of the Dharma Master’s lectures. For a moment she felt the burn of that old coal of resentment. It didn’t seem fair that while others earned their suffering for pleasure, she should earn hers for nothing more than wanting to live.

Beneath them there was a sudden torrent of noise and light and color. Dozens of soldiers were streaming into the main courtyard, the standard-bearers lofting sky-blue pennants. The soldiers’ armor shone, scattering light like water. Zhu had a flash of memory: that dark, sparkling river flowing over the dusty Zhongli hillside, a lifetime ago. The Abbot, distinctive in his red robe, had appeared on the steps of the Great Shrine Hall and was waiting with his hands clasped placidly before him.

“The Prince of Henan

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