The next morning, after breakfast, Xiu Ying left for a lesson with her new tutor, pausing only to ruffle her brother's hair and wink at her mother. The boy, already sticky with red bean paste, protested, then returned to constructing a palace from lacquered chopsticks.

Bao Zhu and Tao Tao sat in the garden under a pavilion suffused with the memory of a hundred conversations between women.

"Be honest," Tao Tao said, fanning herself with a lazy wrist. "Is Sun Yiwen still good in bed, or has domestic tranquillity ruined him?"

Bao Zhu laughed so hard she nearly spilled her tea. "What would you know of tranquillity, (小迷魂;Little Soul-Enchanter)? You can't sit still long enough for the ink to dry on a love letter."

Tao Tao feigned outrage, then lowered her voice. "You're the real Xiǎo Míhún! And stop deflecting. I asked you a serious question."

Bao Zhu rolled her eyes. "He's attentive. And generous. If you want me to draw a diagram, I can do that too."

Tao Tao grinned, pleased; and they sipped their tea, content.

Late in the afternoon, a jewelry merchant passed through the street, singing the old, familiar pitch about everlasting love and the virtues of jade. The women of the house gathered to see his wares.

The trays were full of bangles, earrings, combs, and hairpins—but one bangle, a thick band of white-green stone, caught Bao Zhu's eye. She asked to see it. The merchant obliged, explaining that it had been recovered from the river, and that though it bore a small flaw—a fracture line, like a sitting fox—it was otherwise immaculate.

Bao Zhu turned it in her hand, her heart thudding. The crack was in exactly the same place as the bangle she had once bought for Lin, the one that never made it to her wrist, the one that Eric had lost in a river of his own. She remembered, in a rush, the face she had once wanted to see—the flicker of surprise, the impossible smile that would have split the world in two. It was a small thing, stupid even, but she had wanted to see it.

She bought the bangle and slipped it onto Tao Tao's arm. The stone was cold and smooth, and the flaw glinted when the sun hit it.

Tao Tao ran her thumb over the seam, then looked at Bao Zhu.

"What's this for?" she asked.

"For all the trouble," Bao Zhu said, voice soft. "And for being the best friend I ever had, in any life."

Tao Tao smiled, and it was the closest thing to Lin's smile that Bao Zhu had ever seen. They sat together, not talking, not needing to.

Bao Zhu thought of all the lives she had lived—man, woman, mother, monster, lover—and realized that none of it had been wasted. Everything, even the pain, was preserved in the woman she had become. The bangle, with its bright flaw, was a reminder that transformation and second chances were always possible. And that sometimes, if you were really lucky, you could even give a lost gift to the right person, in the right life.

* END *