Chapter 14 — Something Deeply Wrong

It was evening on Xiaohe’s fourth night spent aboard the Phoenix. After the evening meal (which consisted of just more dry, crusty bread), the pain in her torso was becoming too much to bear, so she snuck away from the crew and headed back down to the gunpowder closet. After Xiaohe had been made to sort through and inventory what ammunition the pirates had left, she was becoming more and more familiar with the cramped little space. 

Once inside, she lit a candle and placed it somewhere it could cast its light but wouldn’t be in danger of lighting anything explosive. She lifted the worn, cotton shirt over her head and then slowly began to unravel the linen cloth binding her chest. Xiaohe winced a bit at the movement. Having had no proper free time at all in the past several days, Xiaohe didn’t get a chance to adjust it for optimal comfort. The result: the skin near the bottom of her rib cage was starting to bruise. When she touched it, it was sore and tender. Xiaohe groaned at the thought of having to put it back on later.

But she had an even bigger problem on her hands. 

Earlier that afternoon, she had realized that it if she counted correctly, it would be halfway through the fifth month of the year now, meaning that she should be beginning a moon cycle any day now. A trip to the washroom confirmed her suspicion. 

There was a soft knock at the door.

“Everything alright?” Yixing asked from the other side of the door. Xiaohe had grabbed the prince and asked him to stand guard outside the gunpowder closet, for added security. Xiaohe sighed, pressing a hand to the sore flesh just beneath her bone. 

“Everything is fine,” Xiaohe said. “How does it look out there?”

Yixing looked around himself, but the corridor leading to the gunpowder closet was quiet. The men were all on deck. Kyungsoo had produced a lute and was singing a male-key rendition of a sleazy brothel song about a water sprite and her lover while the others were playing a game with dice and shouting requests for different songs. 

“It’s quiet,” Yixing reported. He tightened his grip on Captain Huang’s sword, which Xiaohe had given to him to hold while she adjusted her bindings. The prince had almost forgotten that Xiaohe had bound her chest for the cause, and it hadn’t occurred to him before that the bindings must be horridly uncomfortable. 

From the other side of the door, all he could hear was her slight shuffling, some footsteps, and a sigh here and there. It felt strange standing on one side of a door, knowing that there was a woman disrobing just on the other side of it. Yixing tried to distract himself, remind himself that if he really were a prince and a gentleman, he’d keep his imagination in check. 

Inside the gunpowder closet, Xiaohe was trying to come up with a plan. The cotton shirt she wore was baggy; she was sure that alone would be enough to minimize the appearance of s without the need for binding. Leaving the linen cloth free to be torn up and turned into rags to catch her blood during the next few days. Xiaohe grabbed one end of the linen cloth, tore off a piece just large enough to be used as a rag,. She then secured it between her legs. When that was finished, she put her clothes back on and tried to look down at her body. 

It isn’t too obvious, is it? she asked herself, wishing there were a mirror or some other reflective surface she could use to examine her appearance, just to make sure her chest still looked sufficiently flat enough. Once she was satisfied, she turned back to the door. 

“Still quiet?” she asked.

“As the grave,” Yixing answered. “Are you done?”

“Just about,” Xiaohe said. She opened the door slowly and Yixing pushed himself off when he felt it giving away under his weight. When Yixing turned around to greet her, their gazes met, but Xiaohe’s quick eyes did not miss the prince’s subtle downward glance nor the pink that rushed to his cheeks. She reached out and struck his shoulder. 

“Ow!” Yixing yelped, dropping the sword as his hand flew to his shoulder. “What was that for?” he demanded. Xiaohe gave no response. She just groaned as she fled back into the gunpowder closet and closed the door.

Xiaohe grabbed the remainder of the linen cloth and sighed. So, they were still noticeable, even through the shirt. There would be no escape from binding after all. She took her shirt off once again, but before starting to wrap the cloth around her torso, she took a few more deep breaths. To relish the feeling of her ribs cage expanding freely. 

But the prince was not the only one who noticed something strange on that night. Unknown to both Yixing and Xiaohe was that Quarter Master Zhou was on the Main Deck just above the gunpowder closet. And as he crouched down to inspect the swab work that the crew had done that day, he noticed the flicker of candlelight through a gap in the wood. He was concerned that it might be a candle, lit and carelessly left in a small camped place full of gunpowder. At first, he saw just shadows, but just as he was about to move on and inspect another area, he saw the silhouette of a person momentarily illuminated by weak light. He narrowed his eyes, peered carefully through the gap in the deck and noticed something strange about Eunuch Jun. 

—

“The wind hasn’t been favorable lately,” the Sailing Master, Wang, said as he looked down at the map and adjusted the