Chapter 9: The Locked Door

In the morning there was a tray outside Liyan's door.

On it stood a bowl of soup, a pair of chopsticks, and a folded square of paper.

The soup had gone cold.

The note was written in a hand Liyan did not recognize at first, because every line shook.

*I made this. It is probably too salty. I will wait. M.*

Liyan stood in the passage for a long time with the paper in his fingers.

The dragon had copied eleven hundred years of flood records in a hand like printed type.

He remembered the way Mingjue's fingers had trembled over a sleeve.

The soup was far too salty.

He drank all of it.

Then he washed his face and put on his patched blue robe instead of the teal silk.

He went to find the water at the foot of the stair.

"I need to go home for the day," he told Mingjue.

The dragon sat by the lotus pool, pretending to read.

"I promised the headman I would come in daylight."

Mingjue rose at once.

"I will come."

"I'd rather go alone. If you're there, they'll only be afraid."

A muscle moved in the pale jaw.

"As you wish," he said, quiet. "The water will carry you. It will carry you back, too, whenever you call."

"I know."

"Liyan. If you do not wish to come back..."

"I'll be back by dark," Liyan said, and walked away before he could see the rest of that face.

Lower Ferry was loud at midmorning.

A crowd had gathered at the dock around a table.

At the table sat Ma Dechang with a cashbox, a brush, and a ledger of his own.

A line of farmers stretched down the bank.

They handed over strings of coin one by one, and the headman wrote each in his book with a satisfied flourish.

Behind him, in the mud, stood a new gate of red lacquer with brass fittings.

A week ago there had been a plain wooden fence.

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