Maybe there would be no more reason to hide by the time he returned. Wang Shizhen would be lying cold in his grave and Yang could leave his days of plotting behind. Or the outcome could be the exact opposite with him being the one left dead. Yang had been fully prepared to accept failure—until now.
‘I won’t be away long,’ he promised, which was a lie. The slight curl in Jin-mei’s lip told him it wasn’t a good lie either.
They arrived at the guest villa which had been decorated with red banners. Once again, they were swept up in the festivities. They lit incense and bowed to an altar set up for his ancestors this time. Then they drank honeyed wine from two cups joined by a red ribbon before Jin-mei was ushered away by her female attendants. Meanwhile Yang was surrounded by wedding guests intent on pouring more wine down his throat.
* * *
The next hour was a blur. Though the guests were all strangers to him, apparently Magistrate Tan had many friends. The official was the happiest man at the banquet, refilling Yang’s cup time and time again and drinking to his health, his happiness and many grandchildren.
Repeatedly, Yang tried to escape to the bridal chamber between the ribald taunting and innuendo that was required of any wedding. Each time he was dragged back and plied with more wine until he was in a state that he rarely allowed himself to be in. Yang was drunk.
‘Get him to his wife while he can still perform his husbandly duties!’
Yang had no idea who said that, but he raised his cup in thanks and drank. A firm hand clamped over his shoulder, startling him. It was Tan, now his father-in-law, who regarded him with an intense look. The magistrate’s face was flushed red from the wine, but his gaze was still sharp.
The grip tightened on Yang’s shoulder. ‘Jin-mei is my daughter,’ Tan said, serious once more. ‘My treasure.’
‘I’ll take care of her,’ Yang vowed.
The magistrate nodded, unsmiling.
A swarm of young men grabbed hold of Yang then, laughing as they escorted him down the hallway to the wedding chamber. Tossing him inside, they shut the door behind him before retreating.
He expected to see his bride there waiting, but the room was empty. The bed was a magnificent one, fashioned out of dark wood with a large canopy overhead. The servants had taken the care to drape the bed in red silk and scatter flower petals and seeds upon it. For fertility.
‘Jin-mei?’ he called softly.
He crouched to search beneath the bed, in case she was hiding coyly there. That was when he realised how drunk he must be. He fought a wave of dizziness as he straightened.
Perhaps she was away for some womanly preparation he wasn’t aware of. He’d certainly never been married before to know.
There was a flask of wine set up on the table beside the bed. He filled both cups and waited beside the bed, thinking of, among other things, performing his ‘duties.’ When his bride had still not arrived in the next few minutes, he started getting impatient.
Though the event had been unplanned, it was still his wedding. The banquet had lightened the weight from his shoulders for a few hours, and Jin-mei had looked rather tempting while she scolded him in the sedan chair. She also had looked quite charming the first time he’d seen her that evening; so nervous.
He’d never been with a virgin before. He needed to take things slowly. Kiss her hair, her mouth, her throat. Lead her into desire step by step—where was she? Had she become frightened? Maybe her amah and stepmother were providing some final instruction on matters of yin and yang. Funny, Jin-mei didn’t seem the shy sort.
By now, Yang was getting very impatient. Watching the door, he picked up the wine cup and took a sip, rolling the wine on his tongue out of habit. The drink had been sweetened with honey and steeped in spices. A faint trace of bitterness only came in right as he was about to swallow.
He spat it out, staring at the wine flask and the remaining cup. Poison?
The fog of drunkenness lifted from his mind as his survival instinct came alive. Opening the front of his robe, he closed his hand around the knife he’d hidden beneath his clothes. With the sort of illegal and insurgent activities he was involved with, it was wise to always be armed. It was always wise to taste anything he wasn’t sure of very carefully for poison.
His first thought was to find Jin-mei. Someone had taken her.
Yang was nearly to the door when he stopped himself, his head swimming in circles, but still able to function. He recalled how Tan Li Kuo had refilled his wine cup over and over at the banquet. This was the magistrate’s private villa. His servants had set up the chamber and all of the guests were his friends.
That two-headed snake.
The wily magistrate had found a way to both preserve his daughter’s reputation and exact revenge on Yang all at once. After all, being widowed was a perfectly honourable state for his daughter to be in.
But if Tan wanted him dead, drugging his wine in the wedding chamber was a clumsy way to go about it. There were no guarantees with poison. The magistrate had to have something else planned as well. Someone tasked with making sure the job was completed.
A scraping sound came from the wall. No, it came from behind the wall. With one hand, he felt along the wooden panels. His other hand gripped his knife. It wasn’t hard to find the edge of the hidden door and he swung it open, preparing to strike.
A man dressed in a red wedding robe stared out at him from a small compartment.
‘That scheming bastard!’ Yang seethed.
His mirror image attempted to step out from the hiding space, but Yang stopped him with a menacing shake of his knife. ‘What were you going to do? Strangle me? Stab me?’
‘No, of course not!’ the man cried, staring at the blade. He had gone pale. ‘I was just supposed to run from this room screaming.’
‘That’s nonsense.’
‘It’s true. I was paid to do it.’
‘And that’s it?’
The impostor nodded, shaking.
Yang struggled to clear his head enough to piece the magistrate’s plan together. It was possible Tan had been planning his death all along. They were accomplices in a failed assassination plot, after all. He alone could implicate Tan in the conspiracy.
He’d been swindled. If this man wasn’t the one hired to cut his throat, then an assassin was certainly nearby, closing in for the kill as they spoke.
Yang grabbed the impostor by the robe to drag him out of the compartment. ‘It’s time to do what you were hired for, my friend. Start running.’
There was trouble outside.
Jin-mei sat in the bridal chamber while Lady Yi tried to give her final words of advice, telling her ‘not to worry if it’s not like what you expect the first time’ when Jin-mei had no idea what to expect. Suddenly the hum of noise from the banquet turned into shouting.
She started for the door, but it swung open before she could reach it. Father stood before her with a group of men gathered behind him. She saw one of them holding a club.
‘Stay here,’ Father told her. ‘It’s not safe outside.’
‘Why? What’s happened?’
She might as well have not spoken. Father pulled the door