We Play In Meadows, We Hop Over Dreams

By Melissa Ren

I found a star while playing hide and seek with Hua in the meadow on the palace grounds. It glowed beneath the pond like a paper lantern. At first, I thought it was a fish, but when I crouched to flick the water, it didn’t flinch. Instead, the star swam straight towards me, and leapt from the pond onto my lap. I gasped and landed on my bum.

The star burrowed into my robes, as if preparing for sleep. It made a hmmm sound, the same kind I usually made on my first mouthful of congee. My eyes rounded. I swept a hand over its soft wisps. The star brightened, sending a soothing warmth to my palm. I smiled; I wanted to keep it.

Panic rang through my body like the time I broke Ba’s star compass the day before he journeyed through the cosmos.

I tossed my robes over the star, shoving it in my armpit. It tickled, making that hmmm sound again. I threw a glance over my shoulder, left and right. The meadow was quiet, and Hua was off hiding somewhere.

I buried the star by the Yunnan tree and told no one of its existence. Not even Hua, and especially not my Ba.

“Do you want to be an astrologer?” Hua asked me this at least once a week to get a rise out of me while we practiced our penmanship in the palace garden. But I had come to terms with my future in my early teens when Ba stripped my schedule of electives: archery, opera and kickball. He’d said, Lixin, you’re a young man now. It’s time we focus on preparing you for your duties.

Instead, Hua’s question merely amused me, as it did her. The side of her mouth ticked up. She held her calligraphy brush in that delicate way when she postured innocence and charm.

I saw through her act. “Do you want to marry into a noble house, fluttering your water sleeves at your servants?”

She glared at me, streaking ink across her parchment. “You know I hate those things. They serve no purpose other than to showcase femininity. They’re not even feminine. It’s a waste of fabric. Why don’t men wear that? Instead, you get to walk around showing off your sashes.” She frowned at her ruined page. “Look what you made me do. Master Wu’s going to be pissed.”

I chuckled, careful not to smudge my work, and she slashed her brush across my parchment.

“Hua, what the f—”

“Now, he’ll be pissed at the both of us.” She sat back in her chair, smirking.

I huffed, though a part of me didn’t mind starting over. My penmanship was crap, according to Ba. Staying longer also meant spending more time with Hua. These days, we saw each other less, with me in astrology classes and her shadowing her Ma through the Imperial palace, drinking tea with the wives of the Emperor’s advisors.

“And to think, I brought you a gift.”

Hua gasped, as I knew she would. “You found it? Did your Ba suspect? Let me see.” She stretched out her arms; smudges of black ink blemished her fingers.

“You really should do something about those nails. Your Ba is having a hard enough time finding you a suitor.”

“Shut up and give it to me.”

I glanced around. Servants trickled through the paths, tending to the garden, but none entered the water gazebo where we sat. “Here?”

“No one will suspect a thing.”

She had a point. The only person who would question me was Ba, and he spent his days advising the Emperor on astrological formations, alongside Hua’s Ba, who was the treasurer.

I slid the scroll from my silk robes. “Are you going to tell me what this is for?” Marriage dates, I assumed. “It took me all night to copy it while Ba was sleeping.” Though it took Ba less than an hour to draft up. I still had a lot more to learn, apparently. My gut twisted at the thought.

Hua unfurled the scroll on the table, her mouth widening at the constellations.

“I’m still learning how to read the cosmos. See this cluster here? This formation means good health.”

Hua swiped my finger aside. “Which one is the Emperor star?”

I laughed. “Are you trying to marry into the Imperial family?”

“No,” she said, “I want to catch it.”

I snatched the scroll from her grip. “Star catching is illegal,” I hissed. “An act of treason. Are you that desperate for a suitor?” As totems of the cosmos, stars sold on the black market for one million yuan, a sizable dowry to secure any noble family in the Imperial Clan. “Your Ba will find someone suitable.”

“He already did,” she snapped.

My brows jumped. “He did? Who?”

She bit her lip, and I hoped it wasn’t someone I knew. “Tian,” she whispered.

The news speared my chest. As children of academics, Hua and I were not born of nobility. To secure our family name and place within the Imperial Clan, sons inherited their father’s positions, while daughters married into noble houses. I would be the Emperor’s astrologer, while Hua’s younger brother would act as his treasurer.

Hua and I could never marry each other, and that never bothered me before.

But Tian?

Tian was three years our senior, a good-looking guy, charming as hell, and heir apparent. Hua hit the betrothal money pot. She would one day be Empress. And I would serve her husband.

I guess all that tea drinking with her Ma, sucking up to other wives —as in the Empress— paid off.

I slumped back into my chair. “So, congratulations?”

She frowned, popping her dimples. I’d never known sadness to look so pretty.

“Hua, you’re going to have everything. Why do you need a star? Would you rather rot in a cell than marry Tian?” It was a rhetorical question, but I still hoped she’d say yes.

“No.” She flicked her gaze to the koi swirling beneath the water. “I heard you can befriend a star. They’ll do as you say.”

I squinted at her. “Dogs do that too. Those are legal.”

She smacked my arm. “I don’t need a pet. Stars can appeal to your wishes. Don’t you study stars? How do you not know this?”

“I study how to plot their precise location, badly at that. And how to read their formations and its significance. I don’t study their magical powers, which they don’t have.”

“How do you know?” she said with a pointed chin. “You’ve never touched a star.”

Heat crept up my neck. I hadn’t held my star since I was a child on the day I found it. As the son of the Emperor’s astrologer, getting caught with a star—tampering with fate— wasn’t a good look.

But if Hua was right, could I have altered my life long ago? My mind swirled with possibilities. I could have trained as an archer, the next Hou Yi. Or an opera performer. Hua always said she liked my voice. Maybe an athlete was in my cards, though Ba insisted I lacked the coordination for it. But would skill matter if I wished the star for it? Likely not.

“Where did you hear this thing about magical stars?” I asked.

She lowered her gaze, her cheeks coloured pink. “Tian.”

I pounced forward. The bamboo table cut into my gut. “You’ve met with him?” Oh my Gods, this union was further along than she let on. If they met, that meant they’d set a date. A wedding announcement would follow any day now. Hua could marry as soon as next week.

Not once did she utter a word of this to me. Did she not want to marry him? Or was it because she did?

The air thickened around me, staggering my breath. I rubbed my chest and focused on Hua’s revelation about magical stars. If Tian touted a star’s ability, then it must be true. No fool would feed the Emperor or his heir false information. Only one person was qualified in the cosmos.

The Emperor’s astrologer. Ba.

Where had he learned this? As a pupil of the stars, shouldn't I have known this, too? Yet, no mention of magical stars existed in my books. He must have learned this from his Ba. And he never shared his insider’s knowledge with me. Did he doubt my competence?

But why did Hua need the Emperor star? “Do all stars have magic? Why the Emperor star?”

“According to Tian, all stars do. I figured if I got caught, I’d barter the star for my freedom. He’d save the Emperor star.” Of course he would. That star represented the Imperial bloodline. If it disappeared from the cosmos, so would their reign.

She’d thought this through. I couldn’t help but smile.

“And what will you ask for if you catch it?” I asked, but I already knew the answer.

She met me with a determined look. “The same thing you’d ask for.”

A different life.

I picked at my dumplings over dinner. My noodles remained untouched while the side of snow pea leaves grew cold and limp.

Ba sighed. “I suppose you heard about Hua’s betrothal to Tian?”

I snapped my head up to meet his stare. He knew and never told me. Just like the stars. “Why didn’t you tell me that stars possessed magic?”

He took his time chewing the dumpling in his mouth, not at all surprised by my question. “For the same reason I didn’t tell you about Hua.”

I gaped at him. What the hell did that mean?

“If I had told you about Hua, you would have stopped the wedding somehow, not once admitting your feelings to yourself. If I told you about the star, you would have spent your class time researching star catching rather than learning how to read them.”

I bit back my scoff. Would I have reacted that way? Hell if I know.

Ba always lived in the space of what ifs, and maybe it was because his job required that skill, but this wasn’t the cosmos, and I wasn’t a goddamn constellation for him to predict.

I scowled at my meal, refusing to meet his eyes. My mind wandered to the star I’d buried as a child by the Yunnan tree.

Silence ate the minutes; a quiet battle of wills until Ba set down his bowl and chopsticks. “Lixin, you are not a little boy anymore where you can lose yourself in meadows hiding from the world, seeking whatever fulfills your heart. If you had wanted to use the star, you should have used it then, not now. You’ve outgrown the time to dream.”

I choked on my noodles, pounding a fist to my chest. He knew about the star. “I told no one. How did you know?”

“Who do you think put it there?” He tilted his head. “Stars do not simply fall from the sky.”

My jaw dropped. “Holy shit, did you catch that star?”

He glared at me for my language.

“Sorry, but Ba,” I lowered my voice, despite us being alone. “You’re a thief.”

Ba was the epitome of duty and honour. Our family had served Emperors for generations. He lived up to our surname, Shi, meaning stone. The Emperor’s rock.

Yet, here he sat, a treasonous criminal.

Not even I had the balls to do that.

“What was I to do, Lixin? You cared little for your studies, gave minimal effort to understand your duties. Even now, if I were to ask you which formation promised prosperity, could you say?”

My mouth dried up.

“At this age, you should be discerning weather charts and detecting enemy threats. Instead, you’re still learning to map constellations.”

His words hit below the belt. “I’m trying Ba.”

“I know you are, son. I’m not upset with you.”

“Aren’t you?”

He removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes with his palms. As he adjusted his glasses on his nose, a hint of moisture tinted his eyes.

“I was young once, too.” His voice cracked.

I lowered my gaze to stare at my cold food, unable to bear the look in his eye. I assumed this life was one he wanted. He never discussed with me his sacrifices or forgotten dreams.

“Lixin, I had hoped with the star you’d seek the beauty in our work. You’d ask for silly things, and, once fulfilled, discard of it. Instead, you hid the star and never came to understand its splendour.”

His words sank into me like a tree planting its roots. He knew of magical stars because he had experienced its power before. And yet, he returned to his duties. I thought I’d known my father, but as I sat here across from him, I realized I only knew the astrologer.

“One day, Lixin, you will sail through the cosmos, as I do, and you will come to understand that it was all worth it.”

Ba had once described his adventures as journeying through darkness with a thousand possibilities. Light is everywhere.

I assumed he commented on the cosmos’ beauty, but I understood now he spoke about his life. He never wanted to be an astrologer either, but in time, he grew to appreciate it.

The back of my throat itched. Ba and I were more alike than I thought.

The moonlight peeked through the canopy of foliage, highlighting the trunk of the Yunnan tree. When we sat at its base, Hua rolled up her silk sleeves and rubbed her palms together.

I took her hands in mine; the softness of her touch heated my face. She smiled, eyes bright and hopeful.

She glanced down at our joined hands. “You’re trembling. Are you nervous?”

I took a shaky breath. “Hua,” I began, and she nodded. “We can’t escape who we are or responsibilities. You will marry Tian. And I will be your husband’s most trusted advisor. I will never stop being your friend.”

She pulled back, and I reached for her hands once more. “But we can still dream.”

I revealed the hand shovel hidden beneath my robes and began to dig.