Mei made it four more days without having to confront anyone about her relationship with Lian, including Lian herself. Each night she told Lian exactly when she would arrive at her work and Lian arrived minutes later and joined her in the room. After the night was over she simply left instead of going to the basement of the Golden Slumbers to deposit her earnings. Lian asked if she would like to share a day together instead, but Mei always demurred, saying that it would be simpler to keep their time together to the nights, so Mei wouldn't have to spend them with anyone else. Each of the four mornings she saw the growing desire on Lian's face to force the issue and confront Mei with her intentions, but each time she swallowed that desire and respected Mei's wishes. And each time it hurt Mei more to reject the woman. But in the broader canvas of Mei's pain, her denial of Lian was a single brushstroke in a portrait made of tens of thousands of marks of all shapes and colors: it was easy to ignore.
Before she agreed to anything Lian wanted, she needed to know more. The first day she returned home and scanned through The Shuli Go Training Guide in a feverish daze. She found what she thought was the right passage, but it didn't have the answer she wanted, so she started reading the entire book from cover to cover. It took her two of the days. She still didn't find what she wanted to know, but she had to be sure so she read it again over the next two days. In the end it was the description of the ancient order in the opening pages that still gave her hope:
The Shuli Go were created by Empress Shi VI to protect the Central Empire against threats of the supernatural and magical variety. The battling of evil spirits, protection against forces from beyond the Earth, and the lifting of curses from the innocent and pure, were all the expected duties of the Shuli Go. As the Earth moves further away from the intersection between Heaven and Hell, these mystical duties have reverted to a secondary purpose of the Shuli Go, though all members are still trained in the arcane arts.
Mei's eyes hovered over the characters again and again, always drawn back by the inertia of her desire for them to be true. "The lifting of curses…" she mumbled to herself, her heart soaring as she said the words aloud, as if they alone could save her. Never mind that the section of the book dedicated to training for such curses indicated just how much the Shuli Go had lapsed from their original purpose. The book dedicated three brief paragraphs to the topic, all in terms so general Mei had no idea what Lian had actually been taught, or what she'd retained.
But still the hope remained, for her and Lian both, she knew. Their nights were equal parts discussions of their pasts and hints at a possible future. Mei knew exactly where Lian's head was when her descriptions of faraway places wandered from "You would love it there," to "You will love it there," almost subtly enough for neither of them to notice. But they both did. And Mei had let the hope fester there – not because she was stringing the poor woman along as she had the other clients who had fallen for her – but because she too wanted to imagine a future somewhere beyond the walls of the Golden Slumbers. Lian was also different enough to be interesting, in a sad, strange way. She had lived a life unlike most of her clients, though by that time in her career Mei had seen them all.
There had been a male Shuli Go who had also come into some money years earlier. He hadn't fallen in love with Mei the way Lian had, but his story had the same balance of loneliness and world-weariness as Lian's. Mei remembered the male Shuli Go had been distraught at the fact that he couldn't have children. He told Mei all about how he was going to adopt ten orphans – five boys and five girls – and buy a vineyard and raise his grandchildren and great-grandchildren on that vineyard just like he was a regular man who hadn't been robbed of his ability to do his own procreating. He'd fucked like an animal, as if reverting to a beast could turn his rutting into something productive for a change. Mei couldn't blame him, she'd tried that too for a while. How many children could she have had by now? She couldn't even count. Yet for all the men she'd laid with and all the seeds planted within her, she'd never been able to feel the one novelty sex had left for her: a child, swimming inside her, tied and bound to her forever and ever to continue her life long after she'd died. Just like Quan had once lodged inside Lian.
Quan. A coincidence perhaps that Lian's child had the same name as her brother. Her brother who had also been sold to the Golden Slumbers, but Mei still found some of her Shei school teachings floating around in her head, denying the existence of coincidences. "Coincidences are the Gods way of teaching us something," she'd been taught. Lian, for her part, had taught Mei about childbearing, but her description was nothing like the way Mei had always imagined it. Lian talked about the pain and discomfort of her pregnancy more than anything else. She'd admitted to a few moments of true awe, like when he'd kicked her belly for the first time, or when she held him and nursed him those first few months in Zhosian. But she was too afraid to appreciate the miracle that was her Quan. Quan who was still alive and real and out there somewhere, waiting for his mother to come see him. Mei's Quan had not been strong enough to survive life in the Golden Slumbers, and had killed himself after a few years. Ever since then Mei had been mostly alone, floating from night to night, waiting for that one day a week when she could go out into the city and feel like she was a part of something that would continue after she was dead.
On the eighth morning Duan was waiting outside her door when she opened it to leave. Lian had already left for the day, only after staring at Mei for so long Mei almost grew self-conscious. But Mei had shooed her out playfully, promising that ninth night would be even better than the eighth. As soon as she saw Duan she wished she'd kept Lian around.
"Mei," Duan pushed his way into her room and pulled her with him. "We have a problem we have to discuss." He shut the door behind him with his foot and threw her, stumbling, into the middle of the room.
"Money, right?" Mei asked sarcastically. Money was the only problem Duan ever had with her. "I haven't paid you for a few days, is that it? Well I'll pay you back."
Duan smiled. Duan's smile was an inversion of any normal person's smile. When he smiled he hated what he was experiencing. And Duan hated Mei right then.
"Yes, you will." He said in a cool monotone. "But that's not what I'm here to discuss with you." He took a step towards her, looming over her and smiling wider than ever. "I'm here to discuss her."
Mei felt threatened, but she knew Duan would not hurt her. At least not there in the brothel. Carting out broken or murdered prostitutes was bad for business. But he could hurt her the moment she left. The moment she never returned. "I told you, I've had repeat customers before."
"Yes, but never ones you don't charge. And never a Shuli Go."
"I like her, ok. She's nice to me and she listens to me, and she doesn't ask for much back in return."
"I have no problem with a whore who falls in love with a client, but when that whore and I have a contract, I expect it to be fulfilled."
Mei retreated slightly, but spat out her response, defiant in spite of the meaning of her words. "I'm not going anywhere."
"No, Mei. You're not. And she is not coming back here."
Panic flew up in Mei's throat. She didn't love Lian, but she did need to see her again. When she spoke her voice revealed all her panic, like she was a little child bargaining with a parent. "I already told her to come back tonight."
"She'll be politely turned away at the door."
"She's a Shuli Go. You can't just turn her away. She could kill every guard you post in a few minutes."
"And wind up hanging for murder? She doesn't seem that stupid."
"She'll wait outside then until I leave."
"I can wait longer. And so can you."
"Please," Mei begged, then felt a sharp stab of hurt at the act of begging. "Just let me say goodbye to her."
Duan's smile faded. Mei couldn't tell if a final goodbye was more emotionally simple, or more financially simple for Duan to accept. She later assumed the finances of paying for extra security to keep Lian out were what finally swayed him.
"Fine. One more night. And then you do not see her again."
"Fine," Mei agreed. "Can I go now?"
Duan moved out of her way and Mei rushed past him, almost crying.
"Mei," Duan said, his quiet, sinister voice seeping into her ears like venom. She stopped to listen. "I'll know if you see her again."
Mei ran out, her body trembling with rage and agony, and she ran the whole way home so she could read the paragraphs again and again, hoping they spelled out the tiny sliver of hope she kept inside of herself.