Chapter Twenty-Five: Prey

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

PREY

My head swivels and pulses in a hot haze of pain. I clutch it for a solid minute before I’m able to move again. Shivering, I sweep my gaze across the sprinkling showers and drifting steam, gauging if everyone else is as shocked as I am.

A child cries. Another laughs. I catch a few bewildered glances from the other women, but they flit away quickly. Hair gets rinsed with frantic movements. Towels get wrung. Showers get turned off. Glass toiletry bottles get thrown in baskets. Legs hurry to leave.

I can’t believe this.

I clank my stool onto its legs again and drag myself back up, pressing my palms to my eyes. They ache with the pressure of surging tears, which pool in my hands and leak down my wrists. I grit my teeth. My chest hitches and shudders.

Solid footsteps patter my way.

I whip around, tensing, thinking Qieluo is back for more, maybe with a harsher weapon.

But it’s a different woman.

“Are you all right?” She bends low, hair gathered into a bun at her neck, mostly dry but collecting beads of moisture. She’s got soft, creaseless eyes, a low nose bridge, and a broad face. She could not look more typically Han if she tried.

However, her feet are unbound as well.

I realize a second later that I’m ogling them, and I try to pass it off like I’m taking in all of her, but she flashes a dimpled, knowing smile, puts her palms together, and gives a little bow. “Ma Xiuying, yin pilot of the Black Tortoise.”

“Oh!” My brows fly up. “Of course!”

One of the other two Iron Princesses, not counting myself. I should’ve recognized her—the lack of makeup and hairstyling threw me off. Her plain appearance and upbringing are in astounding contrast to her rank. She was a farm girl who never gave a thought to becoming a concubine, or even a wife to a decent family, before a spirit pressure testing team caught her incredible value.

She chuckles. “Yes, they call me Big-Footed Ma.”

I hurry to return the bow. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the Ming province?”

“Yuanzhang and I transferred overnight. Central Command says there’s been some severe Hundun agitation here.”

That makes sense. The Black Tortoise is Water-type; those are the easiest units to maneuver across vast landscapes, thanks to their flexibility.

“Yeah, that would be partially my fault.” I massage around the hot, swelling bump on my head. “I’m glad they had the good sense to send you in. You’re definitely more pleasant than her.” I glare toward the foggy vinyl curtains sealing the doorway.

Xiuying laughs, covering her mouth with her hand. “To be honest, I came here to get a look at her too. Guess it was good that I missed the chance to start a conversation.”

I roll my eyes so hard it shoots another spike of pain through my skull. “I can’t believe her.”

“Well, you know how those Rongdi girls are. They’re firecrackers.” Xiuying leans closer, whispering giddily. She speaks with a heavy northern accent, emphasizing her r’s. “I heard she held her hunting knife to Prince-General Yang’s throat on the night of their Match Crowning and made him vow never to bed another woman. And that’s why he never took any concubines.”

I recoil a little at the way Xiuying is saying this, but I have heard that Han-Rongdi tensions are higher in the Ming province. “I actually have no problem with that, but blaming me because he might have thought about me briefly? That’s just ridiculous!”

Xiuying quirks a gently curved brow. “Sometimes, it’s the betrayal of the mind that hurts more. Way more than the betrayal of the body.”

“Okay, it is weird that I’m on his mind at all, but still…”

Xiuying shrugs. “It’s not a surprise that men find you intriguing. Especially pilots. If I looked hard during my battle link with Yuanzhang, I’d probably see traces of you too.”

“Seriously?”

“Men are always enticed by the fresh and new, even if they don’t admit it. Anyway, if you want to keep talking, shall we…?” She gestures to a wooden tub on the other side of the showers. Her two toddler sons are there, giggling and splashing each other.

Not wanting to be rude, I force out a smile and wobble over with my stool and basket. But I can’t shake the knowledge that Zhu Yuanzhang’s concubines filled in for Xiuying during the late stages of her pregnancies. Deaths happened when they didn’t need to. I don’t understand why she had children at all in such a high-risk environment. She’s twenty-three, pushing the limits of pilot longevity. Zhu Yuanzhang is even older, at twenty-four. In about a year, the army just might tribute them.

Though maybe the children were the army’s idea to begin with, and I shouldn’t be so quick to judge. When a woman gets pregnant, her body is suddenly everybody’s business. Endless restrictions could be clamped onto her “for the good of the baby.” There’s no better tool of control.

If Li Shimin and I live through these two weeks, I can see them forcing him to impregnate me.

My stomach ices over at the thought. I grasp my gut, my womb, thoughts tearing in a hundred dreadful directions. I blink hard to squeeze the images away.

“Biao’er, Di’er, say hi to Big Sister Wu!” Xiuying strides much more steadily than me on her natural feet. Her black spinal brace slithers down her back like a dark snake. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that two out of the three Iron Princesses have unbound feet. But when it comes to motherhood, I doubt she had a choice.

“Wu-jiejie hao,” the boys mumble, suddenly shy.

I nod at them, ignoring the gaping doom in my chest, and turn on the shower beside Xiuying’s. After a rusty squeak, hot water splinters out, washing away the film of slime on me from hitting the floor.

By now, every other woman has hurried out. Xiuying sits down on a stool and scrubs her children with a towel, but raises her head, expression more somber than before.

“So, listen,” she says. “I know I might be stepping out of line, but if there’s ever anything you want to talk to someone about, I’m here. I know you’re new and must not have access to much. I can lend you anything you need. Such as…cover powder. Do you have any of your own?”

“Cover powder?” I tilt my head.

“You know, for your…” She points around her cheek, then her neck.

My hand sails near my bruises. “Oh, these? Thanks, but I won’t bother. I’ve got no one to please.”

“Just know that I understand.” Light dances in her sad eyes. “I know men can get carried away. Especially a Rongdi like Pilot Li.”

My lashes stutter as if they’re glitching. “Oh. Oh, no—these aren’t from—Li Shimin didn’t do this! Skies, I’d literally kill him if he did!”

“Oh. My apologies. I just assumed—”

“Why do you have cover powder on hand?” I scan her on abrupt alert, though I don’t see any bruises, which the water would’ve revealed.

Her gaze hardens again. “For the girls who need it, of course.”

“Why cover any of that up? The men who do these things should be judged and killed, not endured!”

Her mouth parts in surprise, then closes into a weak smile. “I can see why they call you the Iron Widow now.”

“I just see no point in tolerating stuff like that.” I face the wall, fists curling. Shower water runs in sheets over my vision. Big Sister’s ghost smiles in my mind. Smiling and smiling and smiling, because skies forbid she be anything but the perfect, obedient daughter. “You endure and endure, and for what? As long as you keep appeasing them, keep letting them get their way, why would they ever get better? Violence gets them everything they want. And then what is there in the end but death?”

“But you have to realize that most concubine pilots can’t just make a scene,” Xiuying says, weary and hollow. “The safety and livelihood of their families are on the line. The best we can do is to support each other. Promise me you’ll contact me if you need to talk anything out, okay?”

Something wound tight inside me slowly gives out. She’s right. I should try harder to understand. Everyone’s in a different situation.

“Okay. Thank you,” I say, because she’s just looking out for me, and it’s honestly nice after what Qieluo did.

In hindsight, I was such a fool to have assumed Qieluo would stand by me just because she’s also female.

It was my grandmother who crushed my feet in half.

It was my mother who encouraged me and Big Sister to offer ourselves up as concubines so our brother could afford a future bride.

It was always the village aunties who’d sit around gossiping about which girl hadn’t been married off yet, despite complaining nonstop about their own husbands. And then they’d congratulate new mothers for being “blessed” to have a boy, despite being female themselves.

How do you take the fight out of half the population and render them willing slaves? You tell them they’re meant to do nothing but serve from the minute they’re born. You tell them they’re weak. You tell them they’re prey.

You tell them over and over, until it’s the only truth they’re capable of living.

I should be sleeping, according to our new nocturnal schedule. Hunduns attack more often at night, so it’s better to be awake then and prepared to deal with An Lushan, in case another battle happens before we’re recharged.

Yet how could I rest? I might’ve gained an ally in Xiuying, but she can’t help with our most urgent problems when she has no connections in Sui-Tang. Her words, and Qieluo’s, keep cycling through my head.

“It’s not a surprise that men find you intriguing.”

“Let me tell you something, fox girl. I know your type.”

My type? What exact type is that?

Do I come off as some boy-playing, life-ruining vixen that much?

I think of the comments Yizhi has shown me, from people trying to figure out what I am, discussing if the army should use me or execute me. I can imagine why Yang Jian was thinking of me. The freaky new girl who even he, a Prince-General, wouldn’t survive. I shudder to think about what Qieluo really saw in his mind, but she shouldn’t have felt threatened. I doubt it was fueled by anything close to love or respect.

But maybe this magnet for attention is a power I’m not tapping into.

My blood pumps faster through my veins. I lean closer to the mirror, examining my bruised features. My eyes are haunted, bloodshot, ringed by dark circles. My lips are cracked. My complexion is deathly. But the base is still there; I’ve got good bone structure.

I watch myself pull back from the mirror, a dark fire igniting in my eyes. People love to ogle pretty girls, but they love to hate them even more. There’s no one the masses are more obsessed with railing at than the women who dare to stray from the docile ideal of wives and mothers. Too vain, people like my father curse at those women. Too self-obsessed. Too devious, getting everything they want by draining men dry.

This is the type of girl Qieluo thinks I am. And by virtue of what I’ve done and how I’ve acted, nothing I say or do can distance me from it.

But there is money to be made in being hated this much, and being a source of money means power and protection. Media traffic doesn’t care about right or wrong. Every click on a scandalous headline brings profit; every view of a condemning picture generates revenue. If you’re a big enough cash cow, the media companies will lobby and bribe every government connection they have to keep from losing you. I know this because Pan Jinlian, a close friend of Yizhi’s family, is constantly in the headlines for being frivolous and outrageous. By all means, the Sages should’ve banned her from the media long ago for “corrupting social values,” but as long as people can’t stop talking about her, the media companies will always support her from the shadows. Yizhi says she knows exactly what she’s doing. She laughs at the hateful comments while watching her fortune tick higher and higher.

I could go the same route. If I sign a true exclusive contract with a media company, I would make them a lot richer, thus compelling them to support me.

I could compel Yizhi’s father to support me.

A restless momentum spirals to the top of my skull. My hands curl on the sink counter. I’ve overlooked Gao Qiu all this time because I have no faith in his capacity to be moved by Yizhi’s love for me, and I’ve heard too many stories about his shady business tactics. But the influence of media companies is the only thing I’ve seen that has changed a pilot’s fate. The biggest example is Sun Wukong, ex-pilot of the Monkey King. He helped a distinguished monk cross the Hundun wilds and complete a legendary mission to retrieve academic manuscripts and tech diagrams from another human stronghold, Indu, which Huaxia lost communication with after losing Zhou. After his Journey to the Western Stronghold memoir and its adaptations, he exploded to such popularity that his media engagements saved him from going into serious battle for the rest of his Chrysalis-capable years. He then retired to become an actor and comedian, and is still super popular. My brother watches his videos daily.

Gao Enterprises is the company that manages him.

This means Gao Qiu is capable of stopping a pilot from being tributed. If I start making him an absurd amount of money, I bet he has all sorts of ways to force the Sui-Tang strategists to change their positions.

I hurry out of the lavatory. This time, when I seek out Yizhi, it is not to kiss him.