Of Jade and Dragons by Amber Chen

Author:Amber Chen [Chen, Amber]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2024-06-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Ying followed Ye-yang beyond the translucent white drapes of the canopy and found herself in a small private space where a bamboo table and a few chairs had been set up, with a fresh pot of tea brewing on top of its burner. Tie guan yin—with the fragrance of orchids that she had come to associate with the fourth beile.

“Sit,” Ye-yang said. He lifted the teapot and poured two cups, pushing one to the empty seat across from him.

Ying sank down onto her prescribed chair. She could hear Nergui barking snappish instructions to the boatman, and the boat jerked into motion. Through the gaps in the curtains lifted by the occasional breeze, she saw them drifting away from the resplendent pagoda—and the last fragments of anxiety that had riddled her heart moments ago dissipated with the wind.

“Who is he? The man with the scar,” Ye-yang asked.

Ying’s fingers tensed around the porcelain teacup.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I just thought you looked…frightened, back there. If there’s anything I can do to help, you only need to ask,” the beile added.

She looked up, hesitating for a long moment. Then, she said, “Nobody important. Just someone I knew from Huarin, that’s all.”

“Oh.” A slight crease appeared across Ye-yang’s forehead. “I see.”

The subtle disappointment in his expression gave her the urge to retract her lie and tell him the truth, but eventually she chose to avert her gaze and hold her silence. She wasn’t ready. The fact that she had even deigned to suspect that Ye-yang was in contact with her father’s killer showed that she didn’t yet trust him enough.

Ying glanced down at the tea swirling in her cup, a few curled leaves slowly unfurling in the amber pool. Tea—not warm goat’s milk that her e-niye used to make for her, and then Nian after their mother’s passing. If her mother were still around, perhaps she would not be so lost and confused about the way forward. Her mother had always been the calming, reassuring voice behind her and her father’s more impetuous nature—the lighthouse that never failed to guide them home.

But she had to rely on herself now. Even Nian and her other siblings were too far away to help her.

If she had learned one thing from tonight’s case of mistaken identity, it was that she was unprepared. That was the crux of the problem. If she wanted to make the culprit pay for what he had done, she needed to stop being the one on the defensive, sitting around waiting for him to catch her. She had to learn how to protect herself better. She had to expedite her investigation to find out who he was—and who he worked for—so that she could be one step ahead.

Reaching into his sleeve, Ye-yang retrieved the folded fan that had been hidden within. He put it on the table in front of Ying. She flinched, abruptly snatched away from her own thoughts.

“I’ll be leaving Fei in two days’ time, and I might not be back within a month or two.

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