Because You Love to Hate Me(49)
Yet she had eluded them this long—had suffered their taunts and curses, the burning and cutting, the stones hurled at her head. After years of abuse, she had turned on her persecutors, wanting vengeance and enjoying grim satisfaction in their deaths. She refused to remain a victim.
Morning light filtered through the broken lattice windows above, penetrated the eroded wood of the massive door panels. The temple door scraped open, and she flexed her hands. There had been rumors. Rumors whispered enough that they had even reached her ears during her solitary travels through the provinces. The mortals spoke of a great warrior, trained by the masters, said to be faster and more agile than any man, inhumanly strong with his bare hands and lethal with a weapon—a true hero. A hero who had been blessed by the gods. He would be the one to end Mei Du’s reign of terror.
Is this him? Has he finally come?
The rotten door slammed closed again, and dust swirled, glittering in the sunlight. The shape of a man emerged in the gloom, and she was reminded of Hai Xin, his powerful presence blotting out the light.
Mei Du lifted high on her coil, and the snakes on her head writhed with anticipation.
She was ready to meet her match.
Jia Mei Feng sat very still in the deep, curve-backed chair as the royal portraitist used brush and ink to capture her likeness. The artist had thoughtfully adjusted where she would sit in her family’s opulent main hall, pulling the carved chair away from the others. The Jia manor was the most extravagant in their town of Qin He, but despite the family’s high status as rich merchants, it was not every day that they received a visitor from the palace. Her mother had made certain of securing this one opportunity to present Mei Feng’s portrait to the emperor, for a young woman could not climb higher than becoming an imperial consort, one of over a thousand brides the emperor kept at the palace.
The artist had slid a door panel open, seeking the right amount of light, before he began. She saw him glance at the scrolled paintings adorning their walls—prized originals by masters long dead. Her mother, Lady Jia, flitted behind the man, her silk sleeves billowing with her nervous movements. Mei Feng wished her mother would stand still—she was making her anxious.
Lady Jia’s pacing was accompanied by a string of dialogue she seemed incapable of stopping. “You must paint so many beautiful women for the emperor, Master Yang,” she said. “It is such an important and honored task, to travel these provinces to find new brides for him. I mean, we rely on your skill to convey our daughter’s beauty. How can a man, even an emperor, not fall in love with such a perfect face?” Her mother swept a graceful arm toward Mei Feng, her dark brown eyes bright with pride.
Mei Feng winced inwardly. But she had been schooled too long in the art of being a proper young mistress to let it show in her features. Instead, she kept the same faint curve of a smile on her lips, letting her eyes gaze dreamily into an unseen distance.
“My daughter’s beauty is known throughout the province,” her mother prattled on. “But beyond that, she has been well taught in all the arts that will please our emperor: embroidering, singing, dancing, and playing the zither. Mei Feng can recite and write poetry, has been instructed on how to properly serve tea should the emperor desire it, and knows all the ways of pleasing him in the bedchamber.”
Mei Feng almost closed her eyes—but she had better control than that. Yet she couldn’t prevent the warm blush that spread from her face to her neck, until the tips of her ears felt on fire. Oh, how she wanted to leap from the chair and run back to her quarters, tear all the pins from her hair, carefully arranged in artful coils and plaits, laden with rubies and jade.
Horrifyingly, her mother did not stop. She did not even pause for breath.
“I personally taught her everything from The Book of Making myself.” Lady Jia dipped her chin coquettishly. “Mei Feng knows what she needs to do to quickly become with child—make healthy sons for the emperor.”
Mei Feng’s hands were folded in her lap, resting against her skirt, gorgeously paneled in pale green and pink silks, embroidered with delicate butterflies. Her fingers tightened, lacquered nails digging into the backs of her hands. How much longer?
“I am sure she is as fertile as a sow with nine pairs of teats—” Master Yang said.
Her mother drew a sharp intake of breath, covering her mouth with one sleeve.
Mei Feng blinked twice; she did not let the shock touch her composed face.
“But I do not choose the emperor’s imperial consorts for him,” the artist went on in a gruff voice. “What I do is try to paint the best representation that I can of the young women brought before me.” He flicked the ink from his brush with an annoyed turn of his wrist into a cerulean bowl filled with water. It rested on an enameled tea table that depicted pink peonies nestled within verdant leaves, one of Mei Feng’s favorite pieces in their grand main hall. “You are ruining my concentration, Lady Jia,” Master Yang went on. “If I make a mistake and blot the painting by accident, I will not be there to explain to His Majesty that the mark is not a giant wart or mole with a hair growing from it like a cat’s whisker.”
Lady Jia snapped her fan open, flapping it to give herself some air. She appeared ready to faint.
Mei Feng’s serene smile might have lifted a small fraction at the corners.
She loved her mother. She truly did. But Lady Jia could be a little willful and pushy when it came to arranging a betrothal for her youngest daughter.