Chapter 23: What She Keeps

"No," Wanning said.

Yuxin's face did not move.

"I won't own anyone," Wanning said. "Not for three years, not for a day. Get up."

"Wanning, I..."

"Get up, Yuxin, and come with me."

She went down the steps and across the courtyard, and the kneeling servants parted for her without lifting their heads.

She did not look back to see whether Yuxin followed.

The woodshed was at the end of the kitchen yard, and it was smaller than she remembered.

The door still stuck.

She put her shoulder to it, and it gave with the same low groan.

The smell of cold pine and mice came out at her.

Her old pallet was still on the floor.

Somebody had put a candle stub beside it, and a primer with a cracked spine.

Yuxin stopped in the doorway.

"I came here every night for three years," she said. "I did not know you saw it as a cage."

"I saw it as the only warm place with a door."

"I'm sorry."

"I know." Wanning picked up the primer and turned it in her hands. "You taught me to read in this shed."

"It was only the first thousand characters."

"It was enough. I read my father's whole file with them."

She held the book out.

"That I keep. I'll always keep that."

Yuxin took it with both hands and held it against her chest.

"The rest," Wanning said, "you will earn."

"How?"

"Not by being sold. By showing up."

"Bring rice cakes in spring, and knock at the estate gate like a guest, and see if I'm in."