Where is she?

Wang had run back through the house to the Athenaeum when his father had finally summoned him back. The call he had received to confirm that he knew what the trial would entail had worried him. It was not the question so much as the tone of his father's voice when the call had ended. Entering the room he looked around and a bad feeling formed in the pit of his stomach.

"Where is she?" he asked trying to keep the wild mix emotions he felt out of his voice.

"Come on in and sit down Wang," Joseph said pleasantly.

"Where is she?" Wang demanded.

"You need to think about who you are talking to," Joseph growled at his son. "Now sit down before I knock you down."

Wang sat reluctantly and stared at his father becoming angry with his refusal to answer his simple question. "Where is she?" Wang asked through gritted teeth.

"Do you honestly have any doubt about the answer to that question?" he asked his son.

"I was so sure she would understand. It never occurred to me that she might leave. I need to go and find her," he began to stand. "I need to explain."

"Sit down Wang! Or should I start calling you WahWah again?" Joseph was enjoying his son's reaction. If he had any concerns that the relationship had happened too fast or that it was lust over love they were squashed now. He noticed Wang's jaw working as he ground his teeth. "If you were so sure she would accept the trial why are you worried now?" he asked reasonably.

"Papa, where is Changying?" Wang said slowly and calmly.

"She has gone with your mother to help with the Christmas baskets," Joseph said with a shrug, "Perhaps if you had come and sat down as I asked in the first place you could have saved yourself the worry. If you were sure, why would you think she would leave now?"

"There was always a chance she would leave. She hadn't known what to expect here. I believed she would stay, though," he said regaining his confidence in the love he had for Changying and, more importantly, she for him.

"I think she had some ideas, more perhaps than the girl who ran from here and your brother. You prepared her well with the work on these books," he tapped the leather bound volumes still at his side, "and introducing her to your siblings. She is intelligent and asks questions. It was quite a refreshing change from the women who seek us out for employment."

"You seemed unhappy with her questions," Wang frowned at his father.

"Not at all, I believe she will make a good wife who is loyal and seeks to understand not just accept. She will be an asset to you and the family," Joseph said noting the look of surprise on his son's face. Joseph gave praise sparingly so when he did compliment someone it was true.

"She has agreed to return and start the contract on the first?" Wang asked with both pleasure and dread. He would miss her terribly and not enjoy the restrictions her contract would place on their relationship.

"I have started her contract as of today," he smiled and held up his hand as Wang began to protest. "I will not interfere with your time together during the holidays, and she will return home to speak to her mother and prepare some items I would like her to bring with her when she returns. These are concessions I have made in return for her service."

"You do not make concessions easily," Wang sat back and considered his father.

"This is not a woman looking for employment, nor is this a woman who has links to the family and knows what is expected. It is reasonable for her to ask for what she needs because she doesn't know another way. She may love and trust you, she does not, however, know me as a man. She respects me as your father, but she does not yet trust that I have her welfare at heart. The concessions I have made will go a long way to building trust between us and make her time here easier."

"Thank you, Papa," Wang said having considered his father's words and the wisdom of his actions.

"I would like her work on this," he tapped the books she had given him, "to continue while she is here. I will have your cousin, CJ, prepare a new laptop for our network and have it delivered to you. She will have any reference materials from your brother's repository that she will need sent here to me. I will be overseeing her trial personally. We have not had an instance of a true outsider joining our family in my memory. It will be important for her to understand the power of my authority and that of the other twelve chairs."