Chapter 13 - Paper Daughters and Steel Sons

The Silk of Fate

Chapter 13 – Paper Daughters and Steel Sons

In the Yuan court, obedience began at the breakfast table.

Three seats were always filled: Lianhua, her Aunt Meixiu, and her older brother, General Bai Jun.

The fourth seat—her father’s—remained empty. No one spoke of him. Not anymore. Some said he had died on the western frontier; others whispered that he’d displeased the court and was “reassigned.” Either way, his absence had left its mark on the room—like a ghost sitting politely, saying nothing, always listening.

Aunt Meixiu sipped tea with two fingers raised, spine like a reed, every movement polished through decades of performance.

“You’ll wear the blue robes today,” she said without looking up. “They flatter your poise better than peach.”

“I like peach,” Lianhua replied, gently.

“The court likes poise.”

It wasn’t a rebuke. It was a fact. Aunt Meixiu didn’t believe in emotion. Only structure.

General Bai Jun sat at the end of the table, already in uniform. Black lacquered armor, a sword resting against his knee, his face calm in that way soldiers mastered: the stillness that disguised a readiness to strike.

“You’ve been reading foreign texts again,” he said, tone casual but precise.

“I’ve also been rereading the Analects,” Lianhua said. “Would that please you more?”

He smirked. “Only if you believe them.”

“I believe some of it.”

“Which parts?”

“The parts that say a ruler must be virtuous before demanding obedience.”

His eyes didn’t flicker, but his fingers did—tapping twice against the table before falling still.

Aunt Meixiu interjected, folding her napkin.

“You are clever, Lianhua. But cleverness has limits. Especially in women. The court does not reward you for being interesting.”

“I know,” Lianhua said.

“You must choose: do you wish to be safe, or do you wish to be right?”

“I wish,” Lianhua said softly, “to be honest.”

That silence again. The kind that filled too quickly, like water rising in a sealed room.

After breakfast, her brother walked her toward the scholar’s pavilion, their steps echoing on the stone path.

“You know I protect you, in my way,” Bai Jun said.

“I know.”

“But even I can’t protect someone who insists on reminding men they’re wrong.”

She looked up at him.

“I don’t write to shame them.”

“No,” he said. “You write to change them. That’s more dangerous.”

Yet he did not stop her.

Never once had he reported her writings.

Never once had he truly stood in her way.

And sometimes—only sometimes—she thought he admired her for it.

That evening, after everyone had retired, Lianhua took out a folded letter from a foreign scribe she had once met at a diplomatic banquet. A minor figure, half-forgotten. But his words lingered.

There is a prince among your southern neighbors—curious, quiet, rarely seen but often wondered about. Some say he studies law. Others say he studies silence.

She stared at the words long after the candle had burned low.

And for a moment, she wondered:

What would such a man say if he sat at our table?

Would he bow? Would he play the game?

Or would he ask—like her—what lies beyond the edges of the script?