[concluding chapter 3]
"You're lying," Yu said. "That's what people like you do. You lie and you cheat and you steal."
"Not from you, Yu!" You've got nothing worth stealing, and there'd be no more challenge in tricking you than in telling tales to a schoolboy. "I'm offering you a chance here! You could be your own boss, answer to no one!"
"That's no offer." Yu walked out the door. "I'd be scared all the time. I like knowing what I'm supposed to do. How things are supposed to be. I don't like you, Wen Xia. I'm scared of you all the time." Yu turned and grinned. "And not because you know how to fight. Trust you to use a coward's trick to get inside here. You scare me because you want to ruin everything."
"Oh, get out of here, you clod-kicking idiot. Go back to Chin Gwai; you two deserve each other." Wen waited until Yu had dashed off, no doubt to collect the general. Then he picked up one of the silver pieces and hefted it. It felt cool in his hand, and reassuring. A man could certainly make something of himself, were he to be allowed to take several of these to a place where magistrates and generals and princes and even bloody ancestors didn't register. That would be a nice thing indeed.
"That man is an idiot," Number One Grandfather said, "and even he is a better example of filial devotion than you have been."
"What? Because he refuses to think you would prefer him to me?" It's come to this, Wen thought: I'm arguing with my ancestors about whether or not a clodhopper is a better son than I am. "I thought you were going to put your energies into making my father better. Why are you wasting our time like this?"
"You obviously don't appreciate the seriousness of the situation," Number One Grandfather said.
"Your father my son is almost beyond our ability to help," Grandfather said, sounding sorrowful and defeated.
"Well, what can I do if you can't help him?"
"It's not about helping him, or any one of us. It's about all of us—the family."
"Oh, hell." About the ancestors he couldn't summon up even a shred of concern. Father was a different matter; it looked to Wen very much as if his northern adventure was going to have to wait awhile. At least now he'd be able to afford the sorts of doctors and medicines and adepts and spells that could keep even a sick man alive.
Wen picked up two of the silver bars. Tucking one into each sleeve of his tunic, he walked out of the commander's office—by now the man would be past needing it—and set out for the back wall of the fort. With any luck at all he'd be an hour up into the hills before Chin noticed he was missing. And there was always the chance he could sneak back in, later, and recover more of the silver before anyone arrived to investigate the fate of the garrison. I wanted to be a pirate, he thought. What sort of pirate spends all his time burning incense to ancestors? At least I can be a better son, if my father truly does need me.
As it turned out, Chin was waiting for him on the other side of the wall. He made sure to wait for Wen to get all sweaty and bruised climbing over and down, though, before pinning him with those massive arms. It was Yu—smiling Yu—who bound Wen's arms and legs, and who carried him down to the beach where the rest of the Jade Maiden's crew was waiting.
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