Sweat ran down Qing-jao's face. Bent over as she was, the drops trickled along her cheeks, under her eyes, and down to the tip of her nose. From there her sweat dropped into the muddy water of the rice paddy, or onto the new rice plants that rose only slightly above the water's surface.

“Why don't you wipe your face, holy one?”

Qing-jao looked up to see who was near enough to speak to her. Usually the others on her righteous labor crew did not work close by– it made them too nervous, being with one of the godspoken.

It was a girl, younger than Qing-jao, perhaps fourteen, boyish in the body, with her hair cropped very short. She was looking at Qing-jao with frank curiosity. There was an openness about her, an utter lack of shyness, that Qing-jao found strange and a little displeasing. Her first thought was to ignore the girl.

But to ignore her would be arrogant; it would be the same as saying, Because I am godspoken, I do not need to answer when I am spoken to. No one would ever suppose that the reason she didn't answer was because she was so preoccupied with the impossible task she had been given by the great Han Fei-tzu that it was almost painful to think of anything else.

So she answered– but with a question. “Why should I wipe my face?”

“Doesn't it tickle? The sweat, dripping down? Doesn't it get in your eyes and sting?”

Qing-jao lowered her face to her work for a few moments, and this time deliberately noticed how it felt. It did tickle, and the sweat in her eyes did sting. In fact it was quite uncomfortable and annoying. Carefully, Qing-jao unbent herself to stand straight– and now she noticed the pain of it, the way her back protested against the change of posture. “Yes,” she said to the girl. “It tickles and stings.”

“Then wipe it,” the girl said. “With your sleeve.”

Qing-jao looked at her sleeve. It was already soaked with the sweat of her arms. “Does wiping help?” she asked.

Now it was the girl's turn to discover something she hadn't thought about. For a moment she looked thoughtful; then she wiped her forehead with her sleeve.

She grinned. “No, holy one. It doesn't help a bit.”

Qing-jao nodded gravely and bent down again to her work. Only now the tickling of the sweat, the stinging of her eyes, the pain in her back, it all bothered her very much. Her discomfort took her mind off her thoughts, instead of the other way around. This girl, whoever she was, had just added to her misery by pointing it out– and yet, ironically, by making Qing-jao aware of the misery of her body, she had freed her from the hammering of the questions in her mind.

Qing-jao began to laugh.

“Are you laughing at me, holy one?” asked the girl.

“I'm thanking you in my own way,” said Qing-jao. “You've lifted a great burden from my heart, even if only for a moment.”

“You're laughing at me for telling you to wipe your forehead even though it doesn't help.”

“I say that is not why I'm laughing,” said Qing-jao. She stood again and looked the girl in the eye. “I don't lie.”

The girl looked abashed– but not half so much as she should have. When the godspoken used the tone of voice Qing-jao had just used, others immediately bowed and showed respect. But this girl only listened, sized up Qingjao's words, and then nodded.

There was only one conclusion Qing-jao could reach. “Are you also godspoken?” she asked.

The girl's eyes went wide. “Me?” she said. “My parents are both very low people. My father spreads manure in the fields and my mother washes up in a restaurant.”

Of course that was no answer at all. Though the gods most often chose the children of the godspoken, they had been known to speak to some whose parents had never heard the voice of the gods. Yet it was a common belief that if your parents were of very low status, the gods would have no interest in you, and in fact it was very rare for the gods to speak to those whose parents were not well educated.

“What's your name?” asked Qing-jao.

“Si Wang-mu,” said the girl.

Qing-jao gasped and covered her mouth, to forbid herself from laughing. But Wang-mu did not look angry– she only grimaced and looked impatient.

“I'm sorry,” said Qing-jao, when she could speak. “But that is the name of–”

“The Royal Mother of the West,” said Wang-mu. “Can I help it that my parents chose such a name for me?”

“It's a noble name,” said Qing-jao. “My ancestor-of-the-heart was a great woman, but she was only mortal, a poet. Yours is one of the oldest of the gods.”

“What good is that?” asked Wang-mu. “My parents were too presumptuous, naming me for such a distinguished god. That's why the gods will never speak to me.”

It made Qing-jao sad, to hear Wang-mu speak with such bitterness. If only she knew how eagerly Qing-jao would trade places with her. To be free of the voice of the gods! Never to have to bow to the floor and trace the grain of the wood, never to wash her hands except when they got dirty…

Yet Qing-jao couldn't explain this to the girl. How could she understand? To Wang-mu, the godspoken were the privileged elite, infinitely wise and unapproachable. It would sound like a lie if Qing-jao explained that the burdens of the godspoken were far greater than the rewards.

Except that to Wang-mu, the godspoken had not been unapproachable– she had spoken to Qing-jao, hadn't she? So Qing-jao decided to say what was in her heart after all. “Si Wang-mu, I would gladly live the rest of my life blind, if only I could be free of the voice of the gods.”

Wang-mu's mouth opened in shock, her eyes widened.

It had been a mistake to speak. Qing-jao regretted it at once. “I was joking,” said Qing-jao.

“No,” said Wang-mu. “Now you're lying. Then you were telling the truth.” She came closer, slogging carelessly through the paddy, trampling rice plants as she came. “All my life I've seen the godspoken borne to the temple in their sedan chairs, wearing their bright silks, all people bowing to them, every computer open to them. When they speak their language is music. Who wouldn't want to be such a one?”

Qing-jao could not answer openly, could not say: Every day the gods humiliate me and make me do stupid, meaningless tasks to purify myself, and the next day it starts again. “You won't believe me, Wang-mu, but this life, out here in the fields, this is better.”

“No!” cried Wang-mu. “You have been taught everything. You know all that there is to know! You can speak many languages, you can read every kind of word, you can think of thoughts that are as far above mine as my thoughts are above the thoughts of a snail.”

“You speak very clearly and well,” said Qing-jao. “You must have been to school.”

“School!” said Wang-mu scornfully. “What do they care about school for children like me? We learned to read, but only enough to read prayers and street signs. We learned our numbers, but only enough to do the shopping. We memorized sayings of the wise, but only the ones that taught us to be content with our place in life and obey those who are wiser than we are.”