***
After his bath in the river, Yi headed back to the mansion. Fire Foot was off hunting with Peisau and Lukai. Jasu was on the edge of the tea field with his kylin.
Yi veered toward the mansion, hoping to avoid his friend. Then he saw where Jasu stood and what he was doing.
The old veteran had unearthed the broken statue of Caifu from the altar rubble. The two halves of the jade statue leaned against one another, both partially sunk into the dirt for support. He bent down and placed a stick of incense at the god’s feet.
I should have trained Sei, Yi thought, staring at the statue of the fat god. I should have trained her the way the sky people train their women to fight. If she’d been armed with liquid steel, no shaman would have laid a finger on her or Jian.
Instead, he’d relied on a god.
Rage surged in his throat and warmed his cheeks. He stormed across the tea field. Jasu looked up at his approach.
“What are you doing?” Yi demanded.
“Making an offering to Caifu,” Jasu said, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world. “We are sorely in need of luck.”
Yi snatched the incense stick and flung it away. He kicked the statue over, letting it fall into its separate halves. That should tell Lord Caifu exactly what he thought of him.
Jasu squeezed his shoulder. “It gets better with time,” he said. “I swear by the gods, it does get better.”
“I don’t want it to get better,” Yi snapped, shaking off his friend’s hand. Jasu had lost two children to fevers, but at the moment Yi didn’t care. “I don’t deserve to forget what happened to them.”
“They would not want you to blame yourself.”
“The God of Good Fortune is not welcome on my estate.”
Jasu sighed. Yi clenched his fists, ready for a fight.
“Go back into your vault, Yi. We’ll come get you when dinner is ready.”
“Don’t touch any of this.” Yi waved at the rubble of the altar. “I don’t want you to touch any of it.”
“I won’t touch it. Go on, Yi.”
He spun on his heel and fled back to the vault.
True to his word, Jasu did not touch the altar again. But several days later, the old man erected a shrine for Caifu on a rock ledge above the mansion. Yi pretended not to notice, though he caught wafts of incense in the evening air.