Free The Concubine's Daughter by null Page B

so many times, the girl selected one of them and handed it to the superintendent, who took it in her outstretched hand without a glance.
    Li-Xia felt no fear of this woman, who resembled, her heart said now, a fat, shiny black beetle with the powdered face of a festival clown.
    “So you are the ungrateful one who disobeys her father and runs away whenever she can.”
    The tip of the long willow jabbed Li-Xia hard in the ribs. “Is it true that you dare to think above your station?” The willow whacked loudly across the deskop. “Look at me when I am speaking to you.”
    Ah-Jeh frowned with grim displeasure when this failed to make the farm girl flinch.
    “You are the one who refuses the golden lotus slipper, who breaks her father’s promise to the most honorable prefect Ming-Chou, great benefactor of us all and savior of our souls.”
    Accustomed to seeing threatening faces, Li-Xia did not blink an eye as the superintendent wielded the thin wand menacingly, slashing it through the air till it whistled like a tin flute.
    “She will not run away from me. You have treated her too well, sir.” The superintendent slipped from the high stool to walk around the farm girl. “We have a way to make those who run away wish they had no feet at all to run with.”
    Yik-Munn looked helpless, raising his hands in a humble gesture of defeat.
    As quickly as a conjuror, Ah-Jeh brought the wand down with a solid thwack across the back of Li-Xia’s legs, which made her scream inside, but she only blinked her eyes.
    “Bow before your superintendent, or feel this across your back,” Ah-Jeh hissed, as Li-Xia felt her father’s fingers jab hard into her back.
    “Bow when you are told. Where are the manners I have taught you?”
    You have taught me nothing but how to endure pain and that all promises are meant to be broken, her heart said, sure that her mother heard these words and approved of them. And this woman with the face of a clown does not deserve my respect. She bowed deeply, three times, comforted by the secret words of her heart. I will bow because I must, but you will never know what I am thinking and you will never make me cry.
    “I am told your name is Li-Xia, the Beautiful One.” The stocky woman sneered. “Well, you are not beautiful to me. You are one of the mui-mui —little sisters—and you are one among many others. You will have no other name until you are given one; your only value is in how many cocoons you can gather and how quickly you can fill your baskets.”
    She mounted the stool again and looked directly at Yik-Munn, whose hands were clasped before him like a man at prayer, his thin lips drawn back in the mask of a smile that showed his teeth in all their glory. “Come forward and sign the sung-tip ,” she said, indicating the contract that would make Li-Xia the property of Ming-Chou for the rest of her life. “Be sure of what you sign, for if it is false she will be back on your doorstep and the name of Yik-Munn will be mud along the river.”
    She rolled a finely pointed brush on the ink block. “Do you assure me that this girl is a virgin?”
    Yik-Munn nodded his head gravely, pressing his folded hands against his heart.
    Ah-Jeh scowled uncertainly. “You swear that she is strong as she looks, that she has no illness of any kind, and can carry a load and bend her back? That she has brains enough to care for herself? Do you assure me of these things written in the sung-tip and put your name to them … or do you lie to me as you lied about her lotus feet?”
    Yik-Munn shook his head emphatically. “She has worked my fields aswell as any boy, but”—he grabbed his daughter’s hands, one in each of his, as he had done in the rice shed—“see, Honorable Sister, she has hummingbird hands.” He offered them for her inspection.
    Ah-Jeh sniffed with scarcely a glance. “They are the hands of a duck herder. Do not think you can gain another single coin with such trickery.”
    Yik-Munn dropped her