Chapter 23: The Ginkgo

The tea stall at nine was shuttered on three sides and open on the fourth.

Granny Bai had put out three stools.

Jiang Lü sat on one with her hands knotted in her sleeves, looking at the ground.

She had come in the same robe, with her hair brushed by Tang Yu.

She had not said a word on the whole walk down the lane.

Her ears, Tang Yu noticed, had gone faintly pink.

"I'll start," said Granny Bai. "Since you won't."

"Granny," Jiang Lü said, in a small voice.

"You're nine hundred years old, and you cannot ask a question."

"It is a very large question."

"Then I'll ask it for you, and you can say if I got it wrong."

The old woman set a small white cup on the counter.

It was the cup from the courtyard table, with the same plain glaze.

The steam that rose from it smelled of a green hill and a yellow leaf.

"Ginkgo tea," she said. "From the leaves of Qinghe's tree."

"I make it once a century if somebody needs it."

"I made it twice in the Song, and once for a man who didn't deserve it."

"What does it do?" Tang Yu asked.

"It lets a mortal share a fox's years."

Tang Yu looked at the cup.

"All of them?"

"As many as the fox is willing to share. It's her gift, not mine. It's up to her how long."

"What does it cost?"

"Nothing."

"There's always a cost."

"Not this time," said Granny Bai.

"I checked, because I'm old and suspicious."

"It costs the giver nothing and the taker nothing."

"It's the one free thing I know."

"That's a terrible business model," Tang Yu said faintly.

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