“Leave?”
Su Ying was puzzled. “There’s already a curfew. Where would I go?”
Pei Xiu was still clutching her hand. After a long silence, he asked, “Aren’t you leaving?”
The question was undeniably strange.
Even Su Ying, who had always been rather slow to notice such things, could now detect something unusual in his words.
She would leave.
In the autumn of the third year of Zhaoning, she would leave.
Su Ying had originally intended to answer him honestly, but when she looked into those damp eyes, the words seemed to knot themselves up, and she could not bring herself to say them.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Hearing how she had avoided answering directly, Pei Xiu’s expression dimmed, and he gently shook his head.
Su Ying rarely had the patience to think things through, but after pondering for a while, she asked, “Is it because I took you outside tonight?”
Pei Xiu pressed his lips together.
Su Ying understood. She said seriously, “Pei Xiu, I’ve lost my work at the noodle stall. I need to go to mountains farther away to gather medicinal herbs and sell them for money.
“The mountain roads are difficult, so I can’t take you with me. It’s hot, and cooked food won’t keep. All I can do is teach you the way out, so at least you can get something to eat every day. Do you understand?”
Su Ying rarely spoke so much in one go. Pei Xiu blinked his reddened eyes and slowly nodded.
“Besides, don’t you get bored staying in the courtyard all day? Once you can go outside, you’ll be able to help shoulder some of the burden.” Su Ying continued, “You’re no longer the Young Master of the Minister’s Residence. Though you can’t see, your hands and feet are perfectly sound. Now that you’ve settled in, you have to learn to support yourself.”
Only then could she leave without anything weighing on her mind.
Pei Xiu lowered his head even further, his face filled with shame. Hesitantly, he said, “I…I understand. I’ll do it.”
“You gave me quite a fright tonight. I was planning to sort all the herbs and take them to sell tomorrow.” Su Ying yawned. “But after all this fussing around with you, I’m tired.”
Pei Xiu turned toward the direction from which she had come. “Are they over there? I can do it. I’m not tired yet.”
Su Ying paused. “You can’t even see. How are you going to do it?”
“You can teach me,” Pei Xiu hurriedly said. “My sense of smell is very keen. I can distinguish the scents. As long as you teach me how, I really can do it.”
Su Ying regarded him skeptically, but remembering her original intention, she decided to leave the task to him.
At worst, she could redo it tomorrow.
She led him to the corner by the wall and roughly explained how to sort out the weeds and dried leaves. Then she let him smell each type of herb before returning to her room to sleep.
The next morning, just as the sky began to lighten, Su Ying woke up.
As usual, she lifted the curtain. Pei Xiu lay curled on his side, clutching the thin quilt to his chest. His forehead was damp with sweat from the heat, yet he slept deeply.
His features were relaxed, his long lashes lowered. He looked very—
Obedient.
That word suddenly surfaced in Su Ying’s mind.
She shook her head, dispelling the inexplicable thought.
After getting up and washing, she lit the fire and set a pot of thin porridge to cook, then prepared to go out and buy two baked flatbreads.
When she came out of the kitchen, she faced the pile of medicinal herbs in the corner.
They had been arranged into three piles, each stacked in perfect order.
Su Ying walked over and roughly sifted through them. To her surprise, he had made no mistakes. Even the weeds and dry mud scattered on the floor had been cleaned up.
Su Ying turned her head and looked through the slightly open window at the sleeping boy inside.
At that moment, her heart, which had always drifted uncertainly, suddenly settled.
Even without her, Pei Xiu could survive.
She only needed to find him a livelihood—something a blind man could do.
Su Ying bought the baked flatbreads and returned, but Pei Xiu still had not woken. She had no idea how late he had gone to sleep the previous night.
She ate breakfast by herself, left him a bowl of thin porridge with a baked flatbread beside it, then shouldered her bamboo basket of herbs and went out.
Dried herbs were very light. Even a bamboo basket filled to the brim was nearly weightless to Su Ying.
She usually went up the mountain and returned the same day. Since she could not venture deep into the mountains, she mostly gathered common medicinal herbs such as self-heal and dandelions. They were not worth much; even dried, they sold for only thirty copper coins per jin.
Now and then, if she was lucky, she might find one or two valuable herbs such as fo-ti or dendrobium hidden in cracks between the rocks. If they were of good quality, the fresh herbs could sell for two or three qian of silver.
She worked at the noodle stall from early morning until late at night, yet earned only three qian of silver a month.
But the mountains were full of venomous snakes and wild beasts, and the places where valuable herbs grew were usually cliffs and precipitous slopes. Every bit of money was earned by risking one’s life.
Su Ying had learned how to identify medicinal herbs from her grandfather when she was young.
Unfortunately, before he had taught her for long, he was bitten by a bamboo pit viper. He endured the excruciating pain at home for several days, but in the end, he could not hold on and passed away.
When he died, his lips and tongue had turned bluish-purple and black. His usually kind and gentle appearance had become terrifying.
Because of that, Su Ying’s parents forbade her from going into the mountains again.
It was not until several months ago, when she had to make a living while looking after Xiaoxiazi, that she picked up the skill again.
Su Ying processed her herbs very cleanly and dried them thoroughly. The proprietor of Qin’s Pharmacy, not far from the mouth of the alley, liked her work very much and paid her three to five copper coins more than the other pharmacies.
“I haven’t seen you for days. I thought you’d moved away.”
Qin Xuelan chatted with Su Ying while examining the herbs.
She was the proprietor of the pharmacy, a woman around thirty with fair, beautiful features. Three parts of springlike allure seemed to linger naturally in her smiling, almond-shaped eyes.
It was said that she had become a widow before ever entering her husband’s household at the age of seventeen. She had never remarried, instead making a living by guarding the pharmacy her father had left behind.
Su Ying was not good at making conversation. The only reason she knew so much was that Qin Xuelan had told her everything herself.
Qin Xuelan did not mind Su Ying’s reserved, taciturn nature. She could chatter on by herself for quite some time, and only after she had said her fill would she pay Su Ying.
“There’s been a lot of rain lately, so the herbs wouldn’t dry,” Su Ying said.
“I buy fresh herbs too.” Qin Xuelan shot her an annoyed look. “Don’t tell me you didn’t want to listen to me and took your herbs to another pharmacy?”
Su Ying shook her head. “You pay more than the other pharmacies. Why would I switch?”
Qin Xuelan’s face immediately broke into a delighted smile. From behind the counter, she produced a pomegranate nearly as large as her palm and stuffed it into Su Ying’s arms.
“It grew in my own courtyard. Take it home and eat it.” She glanced at the boy cutting herbs nearby, then lowered her voice. “It’s the biggest one. Jin Ping has been wanting it for ages, but I couldn’t bear to give it to him.”
Jin Ping still heard her. He ground his teeth in anger. “You’re so biased!”
Qin Xuelan leisurely weighed the herbs. “If you were even half as sensible as Sister Ying, I’d be biased in your favor too.”
The siblings were always bickering like this, and Su Ying was used to it.
She carefully counted the copper coins Qin Xuelan had given her: one hundred seventy wen.
“That’s too much.” Su Ying pushed seven coins back.
Qin Xuelan glanced at them but did not take them. “You sorted this batch much more neatly than before. It must have taken quite a bit of effort, right? Keep it. I’ll deduct it from Jin Ping’s monthly allowance. Either way, he’s the one getting the better deal.”
“Sis! Am I really your own brother?” Jin Ping wailed.
Qin Xuelan smiled. “Perhaps our parents picked you up somewhere. Who can say?”
Su Ying silently put away the copper coins and walked outside.
At the market, she bought potatoes and salted meat. For no particular reason, she suddenly felt like eating the dish her mother used to make.
Diced potatoes and diced salted meat, stir-fried until cooked, then simmered together with rice.
It was savory, fragrant, and rich with oil. In the past, they could only eat it once during the New Year or other festivals, and each person received only half a bowl.
When Su Ying returned to the courtyard, she did not see Pei Xiu, who usually liked to sit beneath the covered corridor. She put down her bamboo basket and went inside.
He was still lying on the bed, exactly as he had been when Su Ying left, curled up with the quilt clutched to his chest.
But unlike before, the bluish-purple color had not yet faded from his face, which now carried an unnatural flush. Sweat dampened his temples and neck, and his forehead was frighteningly hot.
“Pei Xiu.” Su Ying pushed his shoulder.
His eyes remained tightly shut. He had completely lost consciousness.