Chapter 48

Lu Zheng had the driver take Ning Shu back to school.

The two of them sat in the back. His face was dark, and he said nothing.

Outside, the street lights were thinning out. Inside the car the air was heavy.

Ning Shu could even smell him: a little cologne, a little mint. Every sense she had was wide open, and the air around her was full of Lu Zheng. Each time he moved, her skin crawled.

"Young master, Mr Lu is very angry that you missed the annual meeting tonight." The butler, Lu Jian, chose his moment. "He was going to introduce you to the board."

Lu Zheng let out a breath through his nose. "You talk too much."

Now Ning Shu felt guilty. In the first life Lu Zheng had wanted power more than anything, and his father introducing him to the company was a chance that did not come twice.

"Thank you," she said, keeping her face still. "I've cost you something."

"Just remember it."

"I'll remember. If you ever need anything, come to me. I'd go through fire for you."

He grunted. "You know what I want."

What he wanted was her.

She did not answer that. Her eyes rested on the street lights going by.

He looked at her. The polish of the first life was not there yet; something plainer and more honest was in its place. He liked her better this way.

"Oh, right. How did you know where I was?" She turned, and he looked away quickly.

Another grudging grunt. "Your date rang me and told me to come and rescue you. I happened to be close."

He had been on his way to the annual meeting when Fu Nansheng rang and said Ning Shu might be in trouble.

"You shouldn't have gone charging in like that. Those men had knives, and they meant it."

"You don't get to tell me what I should and shouldn't do."

When she said nothing, he went on: "Now you know who's actually on your side. The character of that date of yours, I despise him."

"Fu Nansheng is just a good friend."

He looked at her. "Friend, fine. Lose the good."

He was jealous. She knew that.

"Fu Nansheng's luck is bad. If he can keep himself alive, he's doing well."

The car pulled up under her dormitory and she said goodbye.

"Wait."

As she got out, he caught her hand. "Could we be friends?"

"What?"

"Friends. Like Fu Nansheng."

She looked down and thought. "Lu Zheng, if this is some roundabout way of—"

"It isn't. Ning Shu, it isn't a roundabout way. I want to be your friend. Get to know you a bit at a time, and you get to know me. Like friends. We'd—"

He found the words. "Treat each other as equals."

The truth was, Ning Shu knew Lu Zheng had no intention of letting her go, and she had meant to say no. But she had to admit it: as equals got to her.

In the first life he had never once talked to her about equals, and she had known what they were, the man paying and the woman kept, her clinging to him like a vine on a tree.

And everything she was working for now was to stand on her own: to be independent in her money and independent in herself.

Now here was Lu Zheng holding her hand, those cold bright eyes taking her in, saying it. As equals.

"All right."

She agreed. "We can be friends. But you have to promise me a few things."

The corner of his mouth went up. "Anything. Whatever you want."

His life was hers, if she asked for it.

She thought. "One. Stop giving Gouwa things. He hasn't seen much and he doesn't see far, and he can't hold out against that kind of sugared bait."

Lu Zheng laughed. "I've no brothers. He calls me big brother, so I treat him as a little one."

"That's fine. Just stop buying him things."

"Done. What else?"

"If we're friends, act like it. No grabbing."

Reluctantly, he let go of her wrist. "All right."

He had agreed to both, and Ning Shu had nothing more to say.

Two days later Fu Nansheng came to the school. In a quiet corner of the garden, Ning Shu looked at the gauze wrapped round his head. "What happened to you?"

"Missed a step going downstairs yesterday. Fell."

"You know your luck is bad. You should be careful about everything. One foot wrong and it could be your life."

He smiled. "Duly noted."

She gave him the jade fish. He held it up to the sun and studied it a long while. "Why do I get the feeling this is one of a pair?"

Sure enough, the fish was only a half-moon of a circle. It needed its other half to close.

"The people following you the other day. They were after this?"

"I think so. They took my bag and didn't find it. I had it on me. If Lu Zheng had been a few minutes later, they'd have had it."

That reminded her. "And thank you for ringing him."

"You don't blame me for not coming myself?"

She laughed. "What would I blame you for?"

What was between them had never been a life-and-death kind of thing, so she thought the choice he had made was a normal one.

He pressed his lips together and changed the subject. "Leave the jade with me for now. I'll ask around the antique market. There may be a lead."

"Fang Ruoyun's father said he bought it off a dealer called Jin Dacheng."

He nodded. "Right. I'll let you know when I have something."

That night of being followed had taught Ning Shu something. In this trade it was not enough to know how to deal with gods and ghosts. She had been overlooking the most real thing of all, which was people. The demon-subduing staff was a weapon against evil things and spirits. Against a person...

It was the same as her grandmother's peachwood sword: sharp against ghosts, blunt against people.

She suspected that if she hit a man with the staff it would do less than a brick.

From now on she would learn more than how to put down spirits. She would learn some fighting too, to keep herself safe.

She had thought of signing up for a martial arts class, but a look at the training centres put her off. Most of the students were small children, and she had school; there was no fitting the hours in.

"If you really want to learn, I could introduce you to a teacher," Lu Zheng said. "He's my private tutor as well. An aikido master."

Ning Shu had heard of aikido, a Japanese art of winning by skill rather than force.

"Your teacher?"

"He's taught me for years."

She had known Lu Zheng could handle himself. So that was where it came from, a private tutor.

Rich families' children really did get taught everything.

"How could I afford your teacher?"

He smiled and said that since they were "friends," there could be a friendly rate.

He invited her to his house, a big villa with a proper training hall in it. She had not much wanted to go, until it came out that his parents did not live there. The place had been bought so he could be near school, and most of the time he lived in it alone.

A whole villa, to be nearer school. The lives of the rich really could not be measured by an ordinary person's yardstick.

The aikido master was Japanese, about fifty, in wide white robes with a staff in his hand. He looked the part.

Lu Zheng came over, changed into a loose white uniform of his own.

He went through a set with the master first, to show her.

The trick of aikido is to get into an opponent's blind spot and break his balance, with joint locks and throws doing most of the work. You do not attack with brute strength. You steer the other person's force somewhere harmless, or even take it in and turn it back on him.

Watching Lu Zheng, he had clearly been at it for years. The movements ran smooth.

Since her heavenly eye had opened, Ning Shu's ability to learn and understand was no longer anything like an ordinary person's, and her stamina was well past her age. She picked things up very fast. Even the aikido master said she was the most gifted and quickest student he had ever taught.

In a bare month she could fight Lu Zheng to a draw.

Which Lu Zheng would not accept. Would not, would not accept. Every time Ning Shu pinned him, he roared.

She patted his sweat-soaked head, still catching her breath. "No use sulking. A draw with me is doing well."

He bellowed, kicked himself up off the floor, and went a few more exchanges with her, and this time he finally threw her and came down on top. "Little thing."

He sat on her, one hard arm pinned across her.

"Give up?"

She fought him a few times, but he took the strength out of every try and she could not get loose.

"Lu Zheng, get off."

His forearm was pressing on her and it hurt, and he did not seem to notice.

"Get off, you're hurting me."

"I'm not even pushing. Stop acting."

"I mean it. You're crushing me."

He moved his arm, but he did not get up. He stayed where he was and patted her flushed face. "What cheat are you running, to learn this fast?"

She would not look at him. "I told you. I'm a practitioner. The heavenly eye's open and I learn everything fast. You ordinary mortals—" She shoved at him. "Would you get off."

He got off. Ning Shu lay on the mat a while longer, getting her breath back, and thought that "no grabbing" was going to need a wider definition.