The Hidden Blade Read Online Free PDF

darkened when Amah put her to bed—it wasn’t as if Ying-ying were allowed to do anything else this evening. She kicked the silken sheet Amah had put over her, until her feet and calves were exposed. “Does the emperor have many uncles?”
    “Some, but not as many as you might imagine,” Amah answered. “K’ang-hsi Emperor and Chien-lung Emperor had dozens and dozens of sons, but lately the emperors have not been prolific. It’s a sign of the times.”
    So Da-ren wasn’t one of a swarm of uncles, but one of a few. The Han Chinese emperors never permitted their male siblings any political power. From her readings of history, Ying-ying knew that often the latter had to go out of their way to establish their disinclination toward the affairs of state. But the Manchus were less strict about it. Their princes were allowed as advisers in court.
    She sat up. “Is Da-ren the emperor’s favorite uncle?”
    Amah pushed her down gently. “I don’t know that. But the dowager empress seems to like him well enough.”
    “Do you think he’ll have us live with him if his wife dies?” Da-ren’s wife was a spoiled woman who did not allow her husband to keep concubines at home. Not that most men paid attention to the opinion of their wives, but when that wife was a favored cousin of the dowager empress—one she loved as a sister—it was quite a different matter.
    “No.” Amah firmly negated her fantasy. “He is Manchu; we are Han. Even if his wife passes away—and don’t talk like that—he’d still only take into his household Manchu concubines.”
    But Ying-ying kept on thinking of Da-ren, hoping he’d like her better as she grew older. He commanded so much respect, honor, and prestige. If only a little of it would rub off on her. If only…

    Unfortunately, even when she did fall asleep, it was no peaceful slumber. All the sour plum juice and all the soup in her stomach kept waking her up to use the chamber pot.
    The first two times she practically sleepwalked, finding the pot by sheer force of habit, stumbling back to bed to immediately start dreaming again. But after the third time she stayed awake.
    This nocturnal wakefulness happened to her from time to time. She hated lying alert in the middle of the night. Time advanced as if it had minuscule bound feet like Mother’s and could only totter along laboriously. She fiddled with the straw mat that covered her
kang
in summer. She adjusted a pillow and squeezed her eyes shut tight. She even tried to cover her head with her silk sheet, but that only suffocated her.
    She sat up. A thin, pale light came through the windows, casting latticework shadows on the floor. But it was the kind of light that only emphasized the impenetrable darkness of the further recesses of the room, and illuminated objects just enough to make them murky and sinister. Her washstand looked a half-size, skeletal monster, the washbasin atop it a bulbous, poisonous head. A breeze blew, the willow tree in the courtyard swayed; shadows of its limp branches crawled across the floor like the tentacles of some strange, lurking beast.
    She shrank and called out for Amah, who slept in the adjacent room, but no one answered. She called again, still no answer. Strange—Amah was a light sleeper who usually came to check on her at the least noise. Disgruntled, Ying-ying swung her legs over the side of the
kang
and went to wake her.
    But there was no one on Amah’s
kang
, no one beneath the neatly laid out blanket.
    She gasped, beginning to feel afraid. Then she remembered that on a different night a few months ago, when she had gotten up to use the chamber pot, she had looked out the window and seen Amah, fully dressed, returning from the next courtyard. Amah had told her that she had felt a gnawing hunger and had gone to the kitchen to eat something.
    Perhaps Amah was in the kitchen again. Too afraid to stay in her rooms alone, Ying-ying decided to go look for her. She put a blouse over her kerchief-front