Page 16 of The Scarlet Alchemist

Auntie So sighed, turning to me, her new target.

She scooped out another spoonful and dumped it into my bowl. “I don’t like sweet potato,” she said before I could protest. “Eat it so it doesn’t go to waste.”

I eyed her bowl that had hardly been touched. “But you haven’t—”

“You want to waste food?” she said, raising the ladle as if to bludgeon me with it.

“Just eat it,” Wenshu said in the Northern dialect. “She’s not going to anyway.”

“You first.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Your undead potatoes taste like shoes.”

“Stop keeping secrets!” Auntie So said, banging the ladle on the table, rattling all the cups and bowls.

“We’re practicing for our test,” Yufei said. “It’s coming up in two weeks.” It was impressive how smoothly she lied.

“Those tests are for rich people,” Auntie So said. “People who go to school.”

Wenshu’s shoulders slumped. Of course we all knew that it would be hard to compete against people with teachers and tutors. But sitting here waiting to be married off was hard too. Being berated for charging more and more gold that would buy us less food each week was hard. Having to obey sleazy old men like Gou was hard. The chasm between the rich and poor was yawning wider and wider each day, and soon the distance to the other side would be too far to jump.

Uncle Fan sighed, patting Wenshu on the back. “She means that people train their whole lives for this exam, so don’t be disappointed,” Uncle Fan said.

“Why would we be disappointed?” Yufei said, glaring. “We’re going to pass.”

Auntie So grimaced but didn’t argue—there was little point in arguing with Yufei because not even her parents could make her do something she didn’t want. They’d learned that the hard way after trying to arrange a marriage without her consent. The man was young and objectively quite handsome and polite and probably didn’t deserve to be pelted with pig manure, but he’d understandably withdrawn his proposal after his first meeting with Yufei. Still, I didn’t know how she could speak so candidly to Auntie and Uncle without feeling ashamed.

Around Uncle and Auntie, I always wanted to be smaller, wishing I could fold up into a neat little cloth square, tuck myself away somewhere unobtrusive. I never wanted to give them a reason to resent me. I always saidyes, Mamaandokay, Babaand never complained in front of them. It wasn’t a question ofifthey loved me, but of how much. Because at the end of the day, they had never asked for me.

They’d already had a brilliant son and a beautiful daughter, then my mom had married a jellyfish man and had agwáimuigirl and then had the audacity to die, leaving Auntie So no choice but to take me in or be seen as heartless. A lot of poor families drowned their daughters in the ocean, so I should have been grateful that I was even alive. They fed me and gave me clothes and called me a Fan, but just saying something didn’t make it true. Part of me always thought I was one outburst or broken plate or uneaten vegetable away from being an orphan again.

I’d never worried about that with my own parents.You are my whole world, my mother had said to me. I could remember those words, even though I couldn’t see her face anymore. Back then, I’d thought that love was something endless and unbreakable, as constant as the beat of the tide on the shore. It wasn’t until my parents were gone that I realized nothing in life is a promise, that everything good can simply stop existing one day, that the sun might not rise and the tides might lay still and the sky will go cold and dark. The world owed me nothing, and everything that I thought was mine could always be taken back.

I finished my soup that somehow tasted like nothing at all, and my thoughts drifted back to the strange man by the well. Had he given up and returned to Chang’an to meet his death? It wasn’t my problem, but I couldn’t help but wonder.

The three of us cleaned up after the meal, sending Auntie and Uncle to bed. Technically, this was women’s work, but Wenshu always complained that we wouldn’t know whatcleanreally meant if it ran us over in the street. I brewed tea, and we went back to our room and studied our scrolls with only the dim light of a candle and the moon. Wenshu and Yufei fell asleep over their papers around dawn, but I stayed awake until the light through the window turned orange and the candle went out, thinking of our impending exams that would change absolutely everything, of a new life somewhere far away, and of the man who would die in Chang’an.

The last two weeks before our first exam spun by in a haze of midsummer heat and burning rain. Two people came by looking for resurrections, but I turned them away, knowing we needed every spare moment to study. We took turns yanking each other’s hair to keep awake when one of us fell asleep reading.

I studied my alchemy texts in the shop, pinching myself awake whenever my eyes began to close. I wasn’t like Wenshu, who could read with ease thanks to his years at school, or Yufei, who could recite texts back fluently after only a quick glance. For me, studying felt like painstakingly carving a tattoo into my brain the way Wenshu did to the spines of corpses. But I would do it if it meant being a better alchemist than my father.

Still, I heard his voice at times when I studied. Not the words, but the rhythm and warm cadence of a language I’d long forgotten. Whenever I heard that low rumble, it was easier to remember his notes, easier to recall the stones and all their properties. My fingertips warmed as if alchemy was sparking inside them, waiting to break free.

At least Wenshu and Yufei had an idea what their first exam would entail. They had to memorize all the Confucian classics, then write long essays explaining his ideas and how they applied to government. They’d be locked in cells, stripped of their clothing, handed a chamber pot and a wooden slab, and wouldn’t be allowed to leave until they finished or time ran out. If anyone died during the test, they would be rolled up in a reed mat and tossed over the compound wall, rather than let family into the sacred testing zone to claim the body. If they scored high enough, they could go to Chang’an for the next round. Wenshu had tried practicing by going without food or water from sunrise to sunset, but Yufei always managed to sneak snacks when he wasn’t watching.

Fewer people spoke of the alchemy exam, for it was an ever-changing practical test. Some said that alchemists were thrown in deep pits with live tigers and had to fight their way out with alchemy. Others said you were tied to anchors and dropped down a well with a handful of alchemy stones and had to climb your way to the top or drown. The worst rumor of all was that the judges didn’t bother actually holding an exam in the southern provinces and simply promoted anyone who could pay.

All I could do was focus on studying my texts until dawn and napping facedown on the counter in between customers. I practiced identifying my stones by touch alone, hiked down to Dongguan and sifted minerals from the sand to replenish my stock, and even dipped into my savings to buy some of the rarer stones at the market—jades for woodstones, ammonite for waterstones, ruby for firestones.

When the day of our exams finally arrived, our eyes burned from dryness and our faces had purple shadows from weeks of shallow sleep. My stomach wanted to gnaw itself open from nerves, but I shoveled down some porridge to quiet it and forced Yufei and Wenshu to take at least a few bites, since none of us would eat or drink again until nightfall. Yufei combed my hair and pinned it back and told me I couldn’t look like a farm girl with my usual sweaty ponytail. I thought it was pointless, because the type of women who didn’t sweat in a kiln all day used gold pins and ornaments in their hair, but Yufei only had copper scroll clips.

We walked to the city center just before sunrise, and Wenshu and Yufei hopped onto the back of a farmer’s wagon that was heading west to Foshan. I’d be going east to Huizhou, about three hours in the opposite direction, and needed to wait for my own passage.

The sight of the two of them on the carriage together—without me—only worsened the twisting in my stomach. They looked so perfectly like brother and sister—the same height, the same narrow faces and round black eyes. They looked like a family.

“We’ll meet back here tonight,” Yufei said, taking my hand, “after we’ve all passed.”

I nodded, not trusting myself with words.

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