"Xiangping!" A girl came up the path as he walked back with his basket. Round-faced, plain features — but her smile lit the whole meadow.
"Yunmei." Li Xiangping grinned and offered her the basket. "Look at my catch. Take a couple home and try them."
"I couldn't," Tian Yun said, ducking her head. She was eleven and already taller than him, a fact she was acutely aware of. In Lijing Village boys and girls married at fifteen or sixteen, and among all their peers these two fit best. In her heart, the matter was already settled.
"Take them!" He shoved two fish into her hands. He thought nothing of it — her father, Uncle Tian, was the kindest man in the village, and he liked him best, so of course he'd look after his daughter.
He said goodbye and hurried home, dropped the basket in the pond, and stopped. He fished the mirror out of his bundle, wiped it clean, and tucked it into his shirt. Then he grabbed three wooden boxes and headed for the fields.
His two older brothers were working with their father.
The Li family had four sons: Li Changhu, Li Tongya, Li Xiangping, and Li Chijing. In Lijing Village, no one spoke of those four without a thumbs-up. Whenever the subject came up, Tian Yun's father would sigh with envy: "Li Mutian is a lucky man!"
Lucky Li Mutian did not see it that way. As the only man in the village who had ever left home, he watched his sons labor in the mud and grieved.
"A strong boy should study and take up arms!" he snapped, jabbing a finger at Uncle Tian. "Plowing fields is for cowards!"
But that was life. The man who had seen the world suffered most. Li Mutian had served in the army, killed men, and at forty-something bought land with his soldier's pay to become a big householder — and he was the least satisfied of them all.
At the edge of the field, his eldest brother waited in the shade. Li Changhu, seventeen, already showed the shadow of a beard.
"Third brother, no rush," he said, ruffling Li Xiangping's hair with a gentle smile. "Uncle Tian says you had a big day."
"Too big!" Li Xiangping laughed. "We'll eat well tonight!"
"You, huh." Li Changhu wiped the sweat from his brother's brow and raised a wooden box, calling across the field: "Second brother — !"
"Coming!" Li Tongya shouldered his hoe and jogged over, nodding to the eldest before turning his smile on Xiangping.
"You two eat. I'm going home." Li Xiangping had been up since dawn and his stomach was singing. He hurried off.
---
Lu Jiangxian, still in the basket, felt it the moment the boy picked him up: a faint tugging, somewhere in the distance, drawing him toward the Li household. It grew stronger with every step.
They passed the old locust tree at the village gate. As they entered the village proper, the pull peaked. Lu Jiangxian's chest tightened. In the basket, the mirror trembled; a red light bled through its face.
*That's a piece of me,* he realized. *Or something I need more than anything.*
*And it's close.*