The Terracotta Bride Read Online Free Page A

Yonghua
when he included Siew Tsin. When he called Yonghua to him now he usually asked
his second wife to come along, and they spent the evenings together, talking,
reading and listening to Cantonese opera on the gramophone. He also seemed to
enjoy the pretence of being a family.
    Siew Tsin and Yonghua rarely spoke to each other on these
occasions. Yonghua because she was the perfect wife and all her attention was
on Junsheng. Siew Tsin because nobody could know of their friendship. Nobody
could know how much Siew Tsin liked Yonghua.
    This was their unspoken understanding. It was a shock when
Yonghua breached it. She shook off Junsheng's hand, sat up and said directly to
Siew Tsin:
    "You must leave now. They're coming."
    Siew Tsin stared.
    "What?" said Junsheng.
    But Yonghua was already on her feet. She put her shoulder
against an armoire and pushed it in front of the door while Siew Tsin and
Junsheng goggled.
    "That will slow them down," she said.
    She turned to Siew Tsin, picked her up by the waist,
and—moving so quickly Siew Tsin barely had the chance to gasp—threw
her out of the open window. Siew Tsin splashed into the ornamental koi pond
just as the terracotta soldiers kicked the door in.
    "Run!" called Yonghua. She slammed the window
shut.
    There were three attackers, Siew Tsin learned later. It was
easy enough to find a terracotta warrior willing to be a mercenary—it was
one of the few jobs they deigned to do, preferring most of the time to obtain
their gold by force—but they didn't take orders at a low price. They were
expensive.
    It was a rare assignation that could task the abilities of
even a lone warrior. Terracotta warriors were made for fighting. They were
inhumanly strong, nearly indestructible, and subject to none of the restraints
that governed the behaviour of humans or hell officials. They were built to
protect the dead. Nothing frightened them.
    Three terracotta warriors to murder or collect one rich man
was overkill. But of course their employers had known about Yonghua. They had
taken her into consideration.
    Unfortunately for them, they had miscalculated.
    It felt like an eternity to Siew Tsin before she managed to
climb out of the pond, but it couldn't have been more than a few minutes.
Coughing, tears running from her eyes, she crawled to the window and pushed the
shutters open. In her hurry, Yonghua had omitted to lock them.
    A red clay face loomed out of the window. Siew Tsin almost
screamed, but choked it down. She balled her hand in a fist, raised
it—and realised that a large crack ran along the terracotta warrior's
forehead. She pushed at the head and the body slumped sideways, lifeless.
    Inside the room Junsheng was lying on the floor, his eyes
closed. He must have been hit on the head—or thought it wise feign
unconsciousness. And Yonghua—
    Yonghua was a blaze of colour, a many-layered swirl of
fabric, her preternatural silence a heart of stillness in a fluid world of
movement. She slammed the heel of her palm into a warrior's jaw, grabbed his
arm and threw him. He crashed into the wall with the sound of a vase smashing
to pieces.
    Yonghua turned around, blocked the descending arm of the
other remaining warrior, drew a hair stick from her head and drove its sharp
point into his neck.
    The warrior staggered back, groaning. It was a strange
noise, like the grinding of rocks. Even stranger were the words that could be
distinguished amidst the groans.
    "Sister," the warrior said. "Sister, have
mercy—"
    Yonghua put her fist through his chest.
    When she dusted off her hands, Siew Tsin saw that her
knuckles were bleeding. She clambered through the window, stepping daintily to
avoid the shards of terracotta warrior scattered around the room.
    "You're hurt," she said.
      Yonghua barely glanced at her bleeding hands.
     "It's just liquid," she said. "See to
Junsheng. Is he hurt?"
     But he was stirring. He opened his eyes and gave
Yonghua a pallid, pathetic look. She knelt by him, slipping