At 11:30 AM, half an hour before Guild Master Xue’s hundred executioners were scheduled to march into the South Ward, the dining hall of Willow-Breeze Courtyard smelled like a warm piece of heaven.
In the center of the round elm-wood dining table sat a deep, bubbling earthenware casserole of Slow-Braised Huaiyang Lion’s Head Meatballs—six fist-sized, tender spheres of hand-minced spirit-pork belly, crunchy water chestnuts. Sweet winter cabbage hearts simmering in a glossy amber soy-and-rock-sugar glaze.
Beside the casserole sat a steaming porcelain platter of Eight-Treasure Sweet Sticky Rice studded with red dates, candied lotus seeds, pine nuts. Golden osmanthus honey, accompanied by a soup tureen of clear chicken-and-mushroom consommé.
Around the table sat the whole household: Grandpa Fu, Auntie Qin, Grandpa Yao’s [Rank 3 Jade-Turtle Plush Doll] (perched on its own little silk cushion beside the spice saucers). Nine-year-old Gu Nian, seven-year-old Su Nuannuan, and ten-year-old Ye Xiao.
Even though Ye Xiao was wearing his clean blue scholar’s robe and his silver-rimmed [Clear-Sky Scholarly Glasses]. The ten-year-old boy sat with his hands folded tightly on his knees, hesitating to pick up his ivory chopsticks.
All morning, while helping Gu Nian and Su Nuannuan draw geometry grids for their arithmetic homework, a quiet, ingrained fear had lingered at the back of Ye Xiao’s mind.
