A few months after her rescue from the river, Cui Xi sat outside with her head bent over a book, propping a cheek on one of her hands. Pulling her cloak tightly against the cold, she frowned as she read the words again: 

All alone in a foreign land

I am twice as homesick on this day…*

Restlessly, she shifted her grip on the brush and then put it back down on the holder before she could drip ink on the roll of scraped sticks. Sighing, she mused that the poem that she was so diligently copying was just so wrong… She was sure that Yang Ming Xi had given her a Tang dynasty piece from her own time, but everything she was learning about Tiansheng confirmed that this was not the China of the Tang dynasty or even the Song…not by a long shot. She wasn’t even sure if this was the same universe. 

However, the feeling of yearning for home, of being out of place as expressed by the poem, were tremendously apt to her situation.

Oh my God…what I would do for coffee…

She sighed again, rubbing her temple, wondering what to do.

Cui Xi had been born as Casey Leung in the modern era on the North American continent. She had rejected the mother tongue of her parents and her first words were actually in English. In fact, she had rejected everything about herself until she reached the age of thirty-six and realized that the culture that she had resented for so long had wonderful qualities that only she could reclaim. 

And so, her long journey of rediscovery had started.

Her parents had been born in Hong Kong, so she was already at a disadvantage as she could only start with her almost non-existent Cantonese. China was a crazy foreign place for a banana. Without the tour guide she would have never been able to travel the country on her own. It was clear when people looked at her that she was a foreigner from North America. 

However, she was a little glad that her obsession with marathoning hundreds of hours of C-dramas had actually become useful in the current absurd situation.

There was now little doubt that Cui Xi had fallen in the river that night and washed up on the riverbank of a completely different reality…a place that just so happened to resemble feudal China.

This is the worst: I’m a helpless, ordinary person in a time of bandits, heroes, and kings…

Of course, she still expected to wake up from this lengthy dream, but so far it had not happened, so now she could only quell the memories of what she had left behind and try to make do with an uncertain future.

“A’Xi!” called Master Yang, breaking into her thoughts. He peaked around the fence and then pushed the gate open. 

“Yifu,” she greeted, calling him foster father. She waved, grinning at him as he came through the gate. Although she had initially felt a little awkward using this address, Master Yang and A’Yu had felt that it would be easier to explain why an orphaned girl had come to live with them if they said that she was a poor relative that they had brought back while on one of their herb picking journeys.

“Copying?” he asked, patting her on the shoulder. He put his walking stick aside and then set his basket down to wipe his forehead. She handed him a cloth from her sash, and he beamed at her, blotting his brow and then patting down both his thighs with his hands to get rid of the dust from the road. Shaking out his sleeves, he sat down to catch his breath.

“My characters are still very ugly…” she said, making a face.

“They are getting better,” he said kindly, peering at the roll of scraped sticks she had bound together to make a writing surface.

Yang Ming Xi was rather pleased.  The girl had made a great deal of progress over the last few months and indeed he could not have asked for a more diligent pupil. Even A’Yu was not quite such a voracious student. Her speech had become fluent and she now had only the slightest accent. Her writing was also improving at a rapid pace. From what he could tell, she had already had the basics of writing and speaking the language and so it had only been a matter of practice for her. 

Beyond that, he had also discovered that she had the oddest education – very little of it focused on feminine arts. As a result, she couldn’t even mend her own clothes but talked about things like the rights of citizens, politics, weaponry, crop rotation, irrigation, mathematics, chemical substances and their uses, even medicine…in short, she was a bizarre child. Yet, he found her very endearing for she was young and enthusiastic.

Putting the brush down, she stood and stretched. She’d been sitting too long, and her legs were cramped.

“Yifu, tea?” she called over her shoulder as she entered the house.

“Ennnn,” he nodded, still sitting on the bench allowing the breeze to cool him. 

What a good child!

In truth, it was interesting to have a third person living at the house. For so long Yang Ming Xi had been alone with his daughter and it was about time that A’Yu had friends her own age.

Cui Xi was a friendly girl and her easy nature made it so that they got along very well. Yet, Yang Ming Xi did notice that she hated conflict and actually had a terrible temper. She wanted so desperately to please that she would subvert her own feelings if she felt that this would allow everyone to continue to get along, but this caused her to have minor explosions. It was a strange contradiction for he knew that she was someone who knew their own mind and had their own opinions about things. She could be very decisive, but he felt that interpersonal relations were her weakness. He wondered if this was due to a sheltered upbringing. Although it was sometimes difficult, he found her awkwardness endearing.

However, he also worried that she tried too hard to accommodate without saying a word, a little like Xiao Yu. In the end, forcing herself…such a thing would eat at her soul. He would have to find ways to reassure her that she did not need to fear a disagreement or two and that being truthful about her feelings would be better for her….but his eyes automatically found the little mole at the top of her cheek, just under her eye, wondering what bitter destiny she would have.

He remained troubled about her existence in this world.

Cui Xi’s health was improving and the unexplained weakness in her lungs was slowly resolving. Again, it was not like other maladies that he had come across. It was as if she had been sealed somewhere for a long time and the lungs had forgotten to breathe, but it was fading so rapidly that soon there would be no trace of it.

Eventually, it would be time to retrieve her things from the riverbank. Although he was curious about the contents, there were actually other, more important, matters currently taking up his time.

While Cui Xi was still in the house, A’Yu came up the path.

“Father! A letter!” she smiled, waving it cheerfully.

He stood up from the bench and walked forward to take it from her, frowning slightly. Tucking it into his robe, he gave A’Yu a quick pat and went toward the house. It was unusual that a letter would be delivered directly to the mountain, but he decided he would have to read the news from the capital a bit later.

Cui Xi had been standing just behind the door, silently watching, but when she saw that father and daughter were about to enter, she very noisily moved forward with the tea tray.

She had seen the letter that A’Yu had passed into her father’s hands. It was a plain paper envelope with no writing on it. The letter made her curious as to what kind of person Yang Ming Xi really was.

Although he made himself out to be a country doctor, he was awfully well read, and seemed to enjoy poetry. He could also discuss topics as varied as the history of the kingdom, politics, even astronomy, and mathematics. Moreover, despite his occasional bouts of childish humour, his bearing was elegant and confident, as if he had once lived a life very different from this simple existence on the mountainside.

From what little she had seen, Cui Xi could tell that he was an extremely competent doctor, having accompanied him on some of his trips down the mountain, yet there were other curious signs that he was not all that he pretended to be. 

Who was delivering letters to him on fine paper? Who sent these letters that had no address, which somehow ended up in the hands of Xiao Yu or the doctor himself, letters that he would only read in his room and would burn after he read them. 

Who is Master Yang Ming Xi?

Cui Xi shivered a little as a ghostly finger stroked up her spine.

Although she felt that they would not harm her, she could not ignore that there was something concealed here that she did not understand. Dragging herself away from her speculations, she smoothed her expression.

“I brought tea, Yifu!” she said, smiling cheerfully, appearing in the door in front of them just as they were about to enter the house.

“Cui Xi! I came back!” Xiao Yu waved at her. 

There was nothing deceitful about the way they both grinned when they saw her, and Cui Xi tried to force her disquiet to the back of her mind.