Mustering my courage, I bow and give the proper condolences offered in these situations. I am very sorry for the loss of your father. May his spirit live in immortality.
Thank you, Li Wei responds, but he is clearly suspicious that there is more to come.
I make sure no one else is around before dropping the formalities: Are you still planning on leaving?
His face hardens. Yes. Why? Are you going to tell someone? Try to get them to stop me?
No. He regards me expectantly, and I take a deep breath, summoning my strength. I . . . I want to come with you.
The words fly from my hands before I can stop them. The idea has been brewing in the back of my mind all evening, but until I said it, I hadn’t consciously realized that’s what I was going to do. Zhang Jing’s plight has made me realize that things will never change . . . unless someone makes them change.
Li Wei stares incredulously at me and then lets out a laugh with a harsh edge to it.
You? Pampered, prized apprentice? You aren’t that bold little girl anymore. Stop wasting my time. I have things to do. He shakes his head and starts to walk away, but I catch his sleeve. Remembering the effect touching him had on me last time, I’m careful to promptly let go and keep a respectful distance.
What bold little girl? I ask, puzzled.
He hesitates. The one who climbed the rotten shed even though she knew it was dangerous. Just to prove she could. I thought you were so brave back then. Brave and bold and beautiful. I always believed that over the years until . . . well, you’ve changed.
My heart lurches at all the misunderstandings that have arisen between us. I haven’t, I say. Look, I thought about what you said, about how it isn’t enough to just keep getting by day after day as we are. I saw my sister . . . and she’s exactly like that. Not happy with her life but convinced there’s nothing more. I can’t let her go on like that, with nothing else to hope for. I want to help you. I want to talk to the keeper too and see if there’s a way to change things.
It all comes out in a jumble, not nearly as eloquent as I’d hoped. Li Wei studies me for several long moments. The earlier rain clouds have passed. With the sun down and the moon still rising, torches light the paths around the village, casting flickering light and shadows, but I can see well enough to know he’s trying to decide if I’m speaking the truth. Unless I’m mistaken, I even see a flash of hope in his eyes, as though he too wonders if there might be a way to repair our past.
At last, he shakes his head again. No. It’s too dangerous, Fei. You wouldn’t be able to handle it. I’m already going to have my work cut out for me keeping myself alive. I can’t allow myself to worry about you the whole time.
I won’t be a burden! I insist. I can help you.
Now he looks amused. How? Will you win the line keeper over by drawing him a picture?
I sigh in irritation. Clap your hands, I tell him.
He stares in understandable confusion. I gesture impatiently, and with a shrug, he claps three times. The sounds are short and loud.
Now do it again, I say, just before turning around. I wait and hear nothing. After several seconds pass, I look back and glare. You didn’t clap.
He looks a little surprised but shrugs. What’s the point?
Just do it, I insist. I turn my back to him, and this time he claps. I face him once more. You just clapped three times.
His face is understandably puzzled at this exercise, but he doesn’t yet seem to grasp that anything unusual is happening. So? That’s what I did before.
Then clap a different number of times, and I’ll tell you the amount. Seeing his baffled look, I add, Do it.
He claps four times, and I tell him the number. Then two. Then seven. The last time, he doesn’t clap at all, and when I turn around, his eyes are impossibly wide.
You didn’t clap that time, I say.
How are you doing this? he asks.