Shuli Go Stories Vol. 4: A Week's Bliss

Part 10

When Lian arrived at the Golden Slumbers for the eighth night that week, she was determined to find out once and for all why Mei could not simply leave her job. She didn't want to upset the other woman, but she also had to start preparing to head to Zhosian for the upcoming summer: it was usually a month and a half long ride from somewhere as far north as Yiwu, and she had several other stops to make along the way. If she didn't leave Yiwu soon, she'd miss her chance to finally tell Quan she was ready to bring him down into the Central Empire.

Lian had spent all day preparing herself for Mei to scream and wail and decline to answer, and Lian had even steeled her resolve accept this final rejection. She wouldn't let herself be strung along forever. Even if Mei wasn't taking her money anymore, Lian wanted something more from the woman, and if Mei couldn't offer it, Lian would take her leave. She'd be heartbroken, she knew, but she had commitments she had to keep, especially to Quan. If Mei wasn't ready to leave, Lian would respect that, but she at least needed an answer to why their leaving together was an impossibility.

So she was rather surprised when she walked in to Mei's room and found Mei sitting on the bed, her face wrinkled in worry, and Mei said, "I need to tell you something."

Mei looked like she was about to cry, a sight Lian had not seen even a shred of in their time together. Lian sat beside her on the bed and fought the urge to embrace her in a hug so tight Mei would never be able to leave it. She settled for taking Mei's hand in her own.

"And I need you to help me." Mei said, before she did start to cry. Lian, in preparing for a night of tears, had half expected Mei's beauty to be somehow augmented by tears, but it wasn't. Mei crying was just as disfiguring and painful to watch as anyone else.

Lian squeezed Mei's hand and replied. "Of course. You know I will. Just tell me."

Mei fought back sobs for a moment or two, then breathed deeply and stared at her hand connected with Lian's.

"I...I'm cursed, Lian."

It took Lian a second to understand what Mei had said. But understanding the word didn't mean she understood the meaning. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm cursed. I had a curse put on me."

"You mean, a real curse? A magic curse?"

Mei nodded, fresh tears forming in her eyes and her face still focused on their interlocked hands.

Lian took a moment to collect herself. This had not been what she expected at all.

"What kind of curse?"

"It binds me, to this place," she motioned with her head to the room. "I... I have to come here. I have to work here. If I don't, I'll die."

"Is this the contract you were talking about?"

"Yes. My parents... my parents agreed to it, to pay off their debt. They owed some people a lot of money, so they sold me to this place. But that wasn't enough for the owners of this place."

"Duan?" Lian asked.

Mei paused a moment. "Yes, yes, Duan, and his family. They had to make sure I could never leave. My parents owed so much money I would have to work here until I died to make it up. At least that's what they said. The only way to make sure that happened was to curse me. They tied me to this place."

"What do you mean? What happens if you try to leave?"

"I'll die."

Lian's vision shook, her entire body trembling with rage and fear, all the way down to the hand she shared with Mei. She would kill Duan. She could picture it, how easy it would be to decapitate him in a dark alley on his way home. No witnesses, no problems. Lian had to admit that was often how she dealt with her feelings: picturing a particularly clean murder, even if her experience with murder had never been particularly clean. In this case though, it wouldn't help anything, she realized. She needed to lift the curse first, then kill Duan.