"Caw, caw…"
In the mass burial ground, crows circled overhead with their coarse, rasping cries. A woman covered in blood murmured to herself, trembling as she stitched up the corpse before her.
Chen Shiyi realized she was running out of thread. She loosened her own hair bun, plucked a few strands of hair, and continued sewing.
After finishing, she wiped Nanzhi's cheeks with a white cloth, tidied her hair bun, and tucked the rose-patterned handkerchief back into her palm.
She found a wider tree trunk nearby and began digging into the soil bit by bit, slowly scraping out a large pit.
Her palms were already red and swollen, but she gritted her teeth against the searing pain, thinking only that Nanzhi would have more space to lie inside.
By the time the pit was large enough, the sun was already setting in the west.
"Nanzhi, let's wait for him for half an hour, to see him one last time, okay?"
She smiled to herself.
"Nanzhi, you still don't know my name, do you? I'm Chen Shiyi. Our acquaintance was so brief, yet our bond runs so deep. I don't know what else to say. Eleven hopes that in your next life, you'll be reborn into a good family, enjoy worldly riches, and never have to suffer like this again."
Half an hour passed. Chen Shiyi looked around for a long time but still saw no sign of anyone.
"Nanzhi, let me send you off alone, okay?"
She covered Nanzhi with the white cloth, lifted her body into the pit, and buried her, handful by handful of soil.
She kowtowed three times before Nanzhi's grave, then turned and left.
She returned home in a daze. The house was unusually quiet; at this time, dinner should have been ready.
"Shiyi, what… what happened to you? Why are you covered in blood?"
Wen Zhirou looked at her timidly, extremely frightened.
Madam Wen and the second young mistress also came out of their rooms and were startled by Chen Shiyi's wretched appearance.
Chen Shiyi's eyes were unfocused as she asked softly, "Is dinner ready?"
Madam Wen quickly explained, "We couldn't fetch water without the bucket, so we didn't cook."
The second young mistress added, "I was going to fetch water to wash clothes, but the bucket was too heavy to lift. It drifted away with the stream."
Chen Shiyi murmured woodenly, "The clothes weren't washed either?"
Seeing her state, no one dared to speak, not even Rui'er, who usually clung to Chen Shiyi.
A profound sense of helplessness suddenly washed over Chen Shiyi, as despairing sorrow and fear coiled tightly around her.
So tired!
She crouched down, burying her head in her arms, overwhelmed by a weary exhaustion that left her at a loss.
She didn't know how to vent the anguish and grief in her heart.
Footsteps sounded again in the courtyard.
Wen Zhiheng saw the fear on the faces of the others and the pained, distressed Chen Shiyi crouched on the ground. His heart ached with a sour, uncomfortable feeling.
"What's wrong? What happened?"
Madam Wen glanced at Wen Zhiheng and said gently, "This morning, Shiyi told us to cook for ourselves, but we lost the bucket, so we couldn't."
Wen Zhiheng breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, I'll do it. I'll go cook right away."
Seeing this, Wen Zhiyuan immediately left the courtyard. "I'll fetch water."
Wen Zhiheng set the clay pot on the stove. Chen Shiyi had already entered the kitchen and was preparing to chop vegetables and cook.
A fire was lit in the hearth. Wen Zhiheng crouched by the stove opening, adding firewood piece by piece.
This was one of the tasks he had become most skilled at since being exiled to Fangling.
He waited in the kitchen, always looking for a chance to speak with Shiyi, but she had no intention of engaging with him.
She was always busy.
In the mornings, by the time he woke up, she was already gone, leaving only warm breakfast behind. When he returned in the evenings, she had already eaten in the kitchen and would head straight to tend the vegetable patch with a hoe on her back. If he tried to help, she would toss the hoe to him and go back to sleep herself.
Now, she was dressed in blood-stained clothes, her sallow face tinged with a sickly pallor. Her almond-shaped eyes were filled with fear and panic, yet she forcibly suppressed it all.
He wanted to ask her what had happened, even if she refused to speak to him.
On the bamboo cutting board lay neatly arranged fresh shepherd's purse. Usually, she would chop everything with precision, but now she hacked away with one hand, making the board rattle violently on the counter. It seemed as though if anyone dared speak to her now, that sharp knife would swing toward their head in the next moment.
Wen Zhiheng flinched several times at the sound of the chopping, burying his head low by the stove, not daring to make a sound.
No one spoke during the meal—whether out of propriety or because of Chen Shiyi’s expression, no one wanted to provoke her at a time like this.
After everyone finished eating, Chen Shiyi silently began clearing the dishes from the table.
This dining table was one Wen Zhiyuan had clumsily put together after returning from the mines—a makeshift table that barely served its purpose.
"Let me do it."
Wen Zhiheng quickly stood up to help clear, but upon seeing this, Chen Shiyi simply dropped the bowls in her hands, picked up the clothes from the basket beside the woodshed, and walked out of the courtyard to wash them.
Wen Zhiheng let out a sigh. Again, it was like this.
Chen Shiyi crouched by the stream, beating the clothes against the rocks, while Wen Zhiheng followed and knelt beside her.
"Shiyi, let's talk."
Without looking up, Chen Shiyi replied, "I don't want to."
"But—"
"If there’s something I haven’t done well as a maid, just tell me. If it’s anything else, there’s nothing for us to discuss. Please, Young Master, don’t block my light."
Her resolute expression and softly spoken words twisted his heart painfully.
He knew today was not a good time for conversation.
He fell silent, quietly taking the clothes from the basket and mimicking Chen Shiyi’s movements as he washed them.
Back in the courtyard, after hanging the clothes on the bamboo pole, the door to the side room opened, and Wen Zhirou called out to her.
In her hands, she held a set of new gray clothes, which she handed to Chen Shiyi.
"Change out of those blood-stained clothes."
"Thank you."
Chen Shiyi took the clothes and placed them on the bed in the woodshed.
Yes, she was still wearing the clothes stained with Nanzhi’s blood.
The moonlight hid behind the clouds, flickering in and out of sight. The water in the stream was bitterly cold. As she stepped into it, the piercing chill awakened the day’s suffering.
She stood in the stream, the water rising to her waist. Undoing her hair, her strands drifted apart one by one. Under the hazy moonlight, she looked like a frail, sickly spirit.
The pain that spread through her limbs and the exhaustion that had reawakened transformed into low sobs and trembling shoulders under the stream’s relentless flow.
Wen Zhiheng stood quietly in the shadows not far away, listening to her muffled cries. The willow tree by the stream swayed its branches restlessly, unsettling his heart.
A moon, a cloud, a stream, a willow—and her, and him.
The moon and water did not meet; the cloud and willow did not entwine.