Page 15 of The Scarlet Alchemist

“I know the royal alchemists,” the man said. “They would tell you the same thing.”

“They don’t know me,” I said. “And neither do you.”

“Do you want more money?” he said. “Two hundred thousand?”

“I am not a cow that you can purchase!” I said, raising my voice more than I probably should have on a quiet street at night, but the neighbors wouldn’t understand this dialect anyway. “Unless you intend to support my family for the rest of our lives, you cannot pay me to miss my alchemy exam!”

“Zilan, please—”

“Zilan?”I echoed, my eyes narrowing.

“Xiaojie,” he said quickly, “please—”

“When I pass my exams in two weeks’ time,” I said, my jaw clenched, “then, and only then, will I go to Chang’an. I will go there to be a royal alchemist, not as your purchase.”

His shoulders drooped. “I worry I may not have that long—”

“Then die in Guangzhou,” I said, “or find someone else.”

I grabbed the bucket, ignoring the twinge in my palm, and brushed past him down the street. He called out for me, but I did not turn back, locking the gate behind me.

CHAPTER SIX

I stuck my face in a bag of soap beans and scrubbed my palms to chase away the scent of corpse before dinner, but it was the kind of smell that you could never really wash out. Just the memory made my throat close up. By the time I came downstairs, the soup was no longer steaming, and I could tell from the water lines on the inside of the clay bowls that Auntie So had already given half her portion to me.

I sat down beside Yufei and put a mouthful of lukewarm ginger-and-sweet-potato broth in my mouth before Auntie or Uncle could ask why I was so late. Their faces looked brighter than last night, so luckily Auntie So hadn’t been lying again about feeling well enough to cook. Just yesterday, their skin had gone gray, fevered gazes darting about the room like trapped dragonflies, never settling on any one thing for too long. Their coughs scraped up their throats and shook the shelves, rattling the míngqì.

Last month, the local healer had shrugged and said the red rope demons killed the elderly in the summer, that there was nothing to be done. But my mother had died of a similar sickness, and she hadn’t been that old, so maybe the healer just didn’t know what to do.

Across the table, Wenshu stirred his soup like he would rather eat dirt, and I remembered that these were the potatoes I’d resurrected with “corpse hands.” Last year, the soup would have had pork, scallions, vinegar, soy paste, and rice. Now it was just hot ginger water and mushy potatoes. Still, it was more than some of our neighbors had, so none of us would complain.

The extra money we made from resurrections had helped us to at least buy vegetables now and then, but most of it went to the increasing rent, clay, firewood, our savings for Chang’an, and money for Auntie and Uncle to use after we left, since they couldn’t manage it on their own anymore. There was no telling how long the process of imperial exams would take, how many months the five of us would have to live without pay before we could send money home.

Yufei had already finished her soup but had left a few bits of potato at the bottom, pushing them around with a spoon so that Auntie So wouldn’t refill her bowl. Uncle Fan let out a hacking cough, sending ripples through the soup pot in the center of the table. He settled back in his spot in the corner, half asleep, pieces of potato on his face.

“You smell like old lamb,” Auntie So said to me. “Why are you late and stinky?”

Wenshu choked on a piece of potato, hacking it back into his bowl.

I didn’t know what kind of lamb meat Auntie So had been sniffing, but at least she didn’t recognize the smell of corpse.

“We went to the market to pay taxes today,” Yufei said, not even hesitating or looking up from her bowl. “The heat is baking the butcher’s cuts.”

“Did you look at it or bathe in it?” Auntie So said, narrowing her eyes. She finally noticed Yufei’s bowl and snatched up the ladle like a weapon, sloshing some of her own soup into Yufei’s bowl before she could protest.

“I’m full,” Yufei said.

“Liar,” Uncle Fan said, opening one eye, then closing it again.

“You would eat this table if it was well-salted enough,” Wenshu said.

“Andyouwill be shorter than your sisters for your whole life if you don’t eat your food,” Auntie So said.

“Yufei and I are the same height!” Wenshu said, his face red.

Auntie So scowled. “She’s a fifteen-year-old girl!”

“Liar,” Uncle Fan said.

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