The Poppy War (The Poppy War #1) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,7

Classics; she could hardly be expected to glean their meaning on her own. And because she didn’t have the time or the training to delve deep into the texts—and since she could think of no useful mnemonics, no shortcuts to learning the Classics—she simply had to learn them word by word and hope that would be enough.

She walked everywhere with a book. She studied as she ate. When she tired, she conjured up images for herself, telling herself the story of the worst possible future.

You walk up the aisle in a dress that doesn’t fit you. You’re trembling. He’s waiting at the other end. He looks at you like you’re a juicy, fattened pig, a marbled slab of meat for his purchase. He spreads saliva over his dry lips. He doesn’t look away from you throughout the entire banquet. When it’s over, he carries you to his bedroom. He pushes you onto the sheets.

She shuddered. Squeezed her eyes shut. Reopened them and found her place on the page.

By Rin’s fifteenth birthday she held a vast quantity of ancient Nikara literature in her head, and could recite the majority of it. But she was still making mistakes: missing words, switching up complex clauses, mixing up the order of the stanzas.

This was good enough, she knew, to test into a teacher’s college or a medical academy. She suspected she might even test into the scholars’ institute at Yuelu Mountain, where the most brilliant minds in Nikan produced stunning works of literature and pondered the mysteries of the natural world.

But she could not afford any of those academies. She had to test into Sinegard. She had to test into the highest-scoring percentage of students not just in the village, but in the entire country. Otherwise, her two years of study would be wasted.

She had to make her memory perfect.

She stopped sleeping.

Her eyes became bloodshot, swollen. Her head swam from days of cramming. When she visited Tutor Feyrik at his home one night to pick up a new set of books, her gaze was desperate, unfocused. She stared past him as he spoke. His words drifted over her head like clouds; she barely registered his presence.

“Rin. Look at me.”

She inhaled sharply and willed her eyes to focus on his fuzzy form.

“How are you holding up?” he asked.

“I can’t do it,” she whispered. “I only have two more months, and I can’t do it. Everything is spilling out of my head as quickly as I put it in, and—” Her chest rose and fell very quickly.

“Oh, Rin.”

Words spilled from her mouth. She spoke without thinking. “What happens if I don’t pass? What if I get married after all? I guess I could kill him. Smother him in his sleep, you know? Would I inherit his fortune? That would be fine, wouldn’t it?” She began to laugh hysterically. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “It’s easier than doping him up. No one would ever know.”

Tutor Feyrik rose quickly and pulled out a stool. “Sit down, child.”

Rin trembled. “I can’t. I still have to get through Fuzi’s Analects before tomorrow.”

“Runin. Sit.”

She sank onto the stool.

Tutor Feyrik sat down opposite her and took her hands in his. “I’ll tell you a story,” he said. “Once, not too long ago, there lived a scholar from a very poor family. He was too weak to work long hours in the fields, and his only chance of providing for his parents in their old age was to win a government position so that he might receive a robust stipend. To do this, he had to matriculate at an academy. With the last of his earnings, the scholar bought a set of textbooks and registered for the Keju. He was very tired, because he toiled in the fields all day and could only study at night.”

Rin’s eyes fluttered shut. Her shoulders heaved, and she suppressed a yawn.

Tutor Feyrik snapped his fingers in front of her eyes. “The scholar had to find a way to stay awake. So he pinned the end of his braid to the ceiling, so that every time he drooped forward, his hair would yank at his scalp and the pain would awaken him.” Tutor Feyrik smiled sympathetically. “You’re almost there, Rin. Just a little further. Please do not commit spousal homicide.”

But she had stopped listening.

“The pain made him focus,” she said.

“That’s not really what I was trying to—”

“The pain made him focus,” she repeated.

Pain could make her focus.

So Rin kept a candle by her books, dripping hot wax on