Archive of Our Own ^beta

Lin Fan sees her for the first time when she makes her usual journey into town, the vegetables from her family’s garden balanced across her shoulders. This girl has a kind of sharp, icy beauty about her, and she’s tall.

“Liu Lingzi,” she says by way of introduction at the market stall. Lin Fan’s choppy bangs flutter around her face as she looks up. Lingzi only has a few coins, but Lin Fan gives her the biggest cabbage, anyway.

In return, she gets a smile. Lin Fan watches the thick plait of Lingzi’s hair swish against her back as she turns away. She’s not married, but she probably will be soon. Lingzi’s jacket has been cleverly patched at the seams, many times over, but when Lin Fan looks closely she can see the brocade.

–

On the narrow cot, Lingzi spoons her from behind, wraps her long arms around Lin Fan’s waist. Lin Fan had rubbed salve carefully into the calluses on Lingzi’s palms, blowing on today’s new burns to keep them cool. Now her hands reek of the sharp scent as they press into Lin Fan’s belly.

Lin Fan loves those hands, though Lingzi mourns, with a subtle smile on her lips, the days when they were soft and white. Lin Fan knows that she’s joking. Independence is a sweet fruit indeed. And Lingzi’s fingers are as careful as ever, whether they’re plucking cocoons from their leaves or untangling silk thread from the loom or wiping the tears from Lin Fan’s cheeks.

“You’ll sleep here, won’t you?” asks Lingzi. Lin Fan’s answer is always the same.

The room is filled with the low hum of girls’ chatter. The door is propped open so that cold air ruffles through the room. Lin Fan doesn’t spend her days before vats of boiling water, but she can still appreciate it. When she’s with Lingzi she runs hot, always has.

–

The yellow melon seems to glow when Lingzi takes it into her hands. “By all means I should be paying more,” she says, shaking her head. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

“Have you married?” blurts Lin Fan. The melons she’d brought to town today are for Qixi – the flowers, too. Lingzi’s hair is up now, and while Lin Fan’s family has never been one for the traditional customs, she knows that something’s changed.

“I’m working in the silk factory,” Lingzi says. When she looks at Lin Fan, there’s something like a challenge in her eyes.

Lin Fan only nods. “Good for you.”

–

There’s a statue of Guanyin inside the dormitory where the silk workers sleep. There’s one, too, in the corner shrine of Lin Fan’s house, her robes loose around her chest.

“In some stories Guanyin was a man,” frowns her mother. She never says more than that. She and Lin Fan are outside in the garden, breaking up the ground. They’ll plant soybeans this season, to return the richness to the brittle mountain soil.

Lin Fan knows it’s her mother’s way of making sense of her close-cropped hair, her way of squatting in the dirt as she plants, legs spread wide. During the day she’s her family’s son, the midday sun turning her neck and hands brown. At night she gets to be her mother’s daughter, drifting off to softly crooned lullabyes in the bed they both share.

There isn’t a day when Lin Fan doesn’t feel lucky.

“Maybe that’s why your heart is so big,” says Lingzi, the next time Lin Fan stays the night. She kneels down to place a precious bowl of rice before the altar. Lin Fan wants to complain, though Lingzi has always been skinny.

“She brought me to you,” Lingzi shushes Lin Fan with a finger on her open lips. Between them, Guanyin smiles in her infinite wisdom.

–

After her stall has sold out, Lin Fan hefts her empty pole over her shoulders. In the late heat of summer, cicadas are buzzing. On the edge of the meadow, Lingzi is waiting.

“I don’t think I’ll ever marry,” she explains, and her hair tumbles out of its bun and down her back, a river of shining black. She hands the comb to Lin Fan, who dutifully begins to part the fine strands. She’s beginning to realize.

“You put your hair up yourself,” says Lin Fan. A vow of celibacy.

Lingzi nods. “Eight strokes of the comb, and I was free. My family couldn’t argue, either. Better money if I’m working, than married to a husband who might never return from the Nanyang.” She reaches behind her back to gather her hair up, and Lin Fan hands her the pins, one by one. Lingzi’s long neck is slender and straight. However much money the Liu family had lost over the past twenty years, they certainly hadn’t lost their pride.

“I don’t think I’ll marry, either,” says Lin Fan. “I have a feeling no one will be proposing.”

“I should hope not.”

Some girls bring intricately carved fruit to the temple each summer, hoping that Zhinü will smile upon them and bring them the men of their dreams. Lin Fan knows now that Lingzi has no need for such blessings. So it feels right when Lingzi slices the melon open wide instead, revealing the sweet white flesh within.