I was filled with terror the day I stood before the towering doors of the Main Hall. My palms were clammy, my breath shallow, and my mind painted images of shadows waiting to strike the moment I entered.
Looking back, perhaps I was being a little dramatic.
It has been three months since that day, and I can say with certainty now, the one waiting for me was not an assassin.
He was a monk.
A Sanskrit monk, to be exact. He had come all the way from Bharat to study Buddhism here in China, though to me, he seemed less like a scholar and more like a figure pulled straight from memory.
That day changed the rhythm of my life in ways I could never have expected.
---
My relationship with Lianyu had already deepened ever since she gifted me that hairpin. It was delicate, crafted with care, its design more elegant than anything I had ever dared to wear.
Discovering that she had searched for someone like Ariya—someone who could teach me her language—just so she could speak with me one day… it stirred something inside me I couldn't name.
Perhaps it was the strange warmth of being cherished, an affection I hadn't felt since my mother's embrace. Or maybe it was the quiet joy of belonging somewhere at last, of realizing I was worth the effort of someone else's care.
Whatever the feeling was, it settled deep into my chest and refused to leave.
---
At first, however, my instincts screamed caution. When I pushed open the doors of the Main Hall and found him there, a man waiting in silence, my mind raced toward darker possibilities. Could he be someone brought to harm me? The noble man had hired him?
I braced for betrayal.
Instead, he bowed.
His name was Ariya, and when I looked at him, it felt as though I had stumbled across a brother long lost to time.
His features were familiar, carrying echoes of home, and for the first time since stepping into this foreign land, I felt something sharp and aching inside me ease.
He wore a robe patched together from scraps of fabric, but the most vivid among them was orange, bright and warm, the color of an egg yolk before it touched the fire.
A strip of cloth draped loosely across one shoulder, leaving part of his chest exposed, and though the garment was plain, he wore it with dignity.
His smile was gentle. Too gentle, I thought, and I did not trust it. He was older, lines of age carved across his forehead, but when his gaze met mine, his eyes sparkled with a warmth I didn't know how to accept.
Kindness, from this foreign land, seemed to be fake.
---
Yet over the next three months, he did nothing but teach.
Day by day, hour by hour, I studied Chinese with him, the words unfamiliar and harsh on my tongue at first.
I don't know why I was so eager to learn—maybe because I wanted to finally speak with Lianyu and Yichen without fumbling, or maybe because I was tired of not understanding the whispers of the nobleman who sneered at me when he thought I couldn't comprehend.
Either way, I clung to the lessons like lifelines.
Now, I can carry conversations for a few minutes at a time. I speak with Lianyu daily, exchanging stories and secrets. I tease Yichen endlessly, just as I used to annoy my younger brother back in Bharat. The resemblance is uncanny; sometimes Yichen laughs so hard he wipes tears from his eyes, and I feel the ache of nostalgia press heavy against my ribs.
I never knew that something once tedious—study, repetition, memorization—could feel like an accomplishment.
What would once have been punishment became a gift.
---
It has been a full year now since I first met Ariya. I no longer fear him.
I understand the nobleman's sharp tongue, the bitterness in his tone when he insults my looks or mocks my broken Chinese. His words sting, yes, but they no longer feel like strikes in the dark.
And every time, Lianyu defended me.
That loyalty—I will never forget.
---
"Do you know what it means to give someone a hairpin?" Yichen asked one morning, his voice breaking through the quiet after I finished reciting with Ariya.
I blinked at him, caught off guard. "No. Why? How come you still haven't told me?"
He scratched the back of his neck. "Well, I don't really know how to explain it—"
"In China," Ariya interrupted calmly, "a woman gives a hairpin to someone she treasures. It means they are special to her, that she will always remain by their side."
The words struck me harder than I expected.
I didn't know what to say. Surely it was just a gift, wasn't it? A simple ornament, a kind gesture, nothing more.
But something deep inside me doubted that.
Could Lianyu truly have meant it as a symbol of our bond?
Nearly two years had passed since I came to live in this mansion.
In that time, Lianyu and I have eaten together, talked endlessly, and shared pieces of ourselves no one else would care to know.
She told me about her life before her marriage, how she danced with elegance, sang with devotion, and played chess with clever wit. I told her about mine in Bharat, how I braided my mother's hair, sparred with my brothers in the courtyard, and danced for the suitors my father paraded before me.
We were close. I knew that in my heart.
And yet, her life seemed unbearably lonely.
The maids avoided her. Her husband raised his voice in constant arguments, his anger often directed at me—and now, at the monk as well. She had only a few of us: me, Yichen, and perhaps Ariya, whom she spoke with often.
So perhaps the hairpin was more than a pretty ornament. Perhaps it was her way of saying I was not just another passing shadow in her life.
She was grace itself, even as a few gray hairs appeared—gray hairs her husband mocked cruelly. But when I looked at her, I saw only beauty, only strength, only the woman who had stood by me when no one else had.
"Ohh, she must really like you then!" Yichen blurted suddenly, dragging me from the storm of thoughts that had swept me away.
I blinked.
The Main Hall came back into focus. Ariya was still seated nearby, his calm eyes watching me with quiet curiosity, no doubt wondering why I had been staring off for so long.
And the weight of the hairpin in my hair felt heavier than ever.