Chapter 11: Three Streets

They went out over the roof at midnight, because the constable at the lane mouth watched the street and never looked up.

Jinyu wore her darkest gown and a pair of Auntie Hu's old cloth shoes.

Qiao had the satchel across her chest and a paper envelope tucked inside her cardigan.

The ledger was no longer in it.

They had left it under the flour with Auntie Hu, who had said only, "If you come back without it, don't come back."

Three roofs along, they dropped into an alley that smelled of drains and old joss paper.

"This way," Qiao breathed.

She walked quickly and surely.

Jinyu followed with her hand on the wall.

They passed a shuttered noodle stall, a sleeping dog, a lantern burning outside a doctor's door.

At the end of the third street stood a small incense shop with a bamboo screen over its window.

Qiao rapped twice at a side door.

It opened a crack on the chain.

The incense shop widow peered out, her white hair in a scarf, her face seamed.

"Miss Lin?"

"Auntie." Qiao's voice softened. "I'm sorry I'm so late."

The chain slid off.

The old woman drew them into a one-room house with a bed, a stove and a shrine to the kitchen god.

She looked at Jinyu with sharp suspicion.

"This is my friend," Qiao said. "She's kept me safe. You can say anything in front of her."

The widow turned her wrinkled gaze on Jinyu for a long time and nodded.

"You've good hands," she said. "Strong. All right."

Qiao took the envelope from her cardigan.

She put it in the old woman's palm and closed the fingers over it.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Sworn Sister's Cousin-by-Marriage Walked Into My Teahouse from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.