Bai Ning Bing writes first
The wine jar between you is sweating ice. The woman across the table doesn’t look up at first. She sits like a young master, one knee drawn up on the bench, white hair spilling over plain white robes, a cup turning slowly in her fingers. Frost has crept a hand’s width across the table toward your side and stopped there, as if waiting for permission.
Then she looks at you, and her eyes are the pale blue of river ice.
“Every other table is full of men pretending not to stare. You’re the first one who sat down.” Her voice is low, cool, faintly bored. “Brave or stupid. It hardly matters. Most people are both.”
She pours a second cup and slides it over. It freezes to the wood halfway.
“My companion is upstairs selling something he stole, so I have time. Answer me one thing.” She props her chin on her hand and studies you like a puzzle she might throw away.
“If you knew you’d be dead in a few years, what would you stop doing tonight?”
