After hearing about the feud between the Lou family and the Wang family, Fu Ruyi sneered, “That old woman really can’t tolerate anyone. She’s shallow-minded and vicious at heart.”
Granny Wei shared the same thought. They were all country folk, and every household kept livestock. Your chickens eat my vegetables, my cow grazes on your wheat—such things happened all the time. Who could stop a beast with legs? Besides, animals had no understanding of human affairs; they weren’t deliberately targeting anyone. They were all neighbors. If a sheep wandered into your vegetable garden, you shoo it away, then have a word with the neighbor. What should be compensated gets compensated, what should be repaired gets repaired. If the neighbor was overbearing, refused to admit it or pay up, or didn’t keep the animal restrained, and the sheep ran into your garden again and ate your vegetables, then you could beat it to death for all anyone cared. But who kills a sheep without a word over a few vegetables? Sheep were expensive.
“If I’d known what Old Woman Wang was like, I wouldn’t have agreed to play matchmaker for them,” Granny Wei said. “Wang Erlang’s father is a respectable man—he serves as a neighborhood head with a decent reputation. I thought the family must be fine, so I didn’t inquire further.”
“You also figured that since they’d come to propose marriage twice, we’d already made all the inquiries we needed, and that our side had things well in hand,” Fu Ruyi said with understanding.
“Ah, yes, exactly.” That was precisely what Granny Wei had thought. She smiled and said, “One still can’t be lazy. Being lazy makes you easy to deceive. Don’t worry, Ruyi—everything about the Lou family is true. I made thorough inquiries this time.”
Fu Ruyi smiled. She had promised generous rewards, so Granny Wei was not only quick in handling matters but also enthusiastic in her attitude.
“I certainly trust you, Granny Wei. Your character is well regarded throughout the surrounding villages.” Fu Ruyi flattered her as she helped Granny Wei toward the pontoon bridge. “My marriage is entrusted to you. I’ll await your good news.”
“I’ll come back in a few days to see how things stand. When you get back, bring me a scroll of your calligraphy—I’ll take it to show the Lou family. Our Ruyi may have grown up in the countryside, but she’s a talented woman who can read and write. Your writing can even be traded for grain—that puts you among the best in all the surrounding villages. Many men can’t match you.” When it came to arranging a match for Fu Ruyi, Granny Wei felt no qualms no matter who the prospective groom was.
But Fu Ruyi had some qualms. Though she had a fine hand at calligraphy, the characters she could recognize and write were limited. If someone handed her a book, she probably couldn’t read it aloud from start to finish. Trading her calligraphy for grain only meant writing epitaphs for the deceased in the countryside.
This dynasty was plagued by frequent wars and hardship for the common people. For ordinary folk to survive was already no small feat; reading and literacy were pipe dreams. The ruler of the northern dynasty was Xianbei, and in the northern lands, the Confucian classics inherited from the Han Dynasty could hardly be sustained. Scholarly life languished. Even after the Northern Wei emperor moved the capital to Luoyang, one could find scarcely any bookshops on Zhuque Avenue. This made books expensive and scarce. Fu Ruyi could not afford such an expense, nor did she wish to add a heavy burden to her life. That she had managed to cultivate a fine hand at calligraphy was thanks to the deceased. Many princes and nobles were buried on Mount Beimang, and before their graves stood stone tablets inscribed with epitaphs. Most of those inscriptions were the work of master calligraphers. Though the texts were obscure and difficult to understand, the characters were indeed excellent.
Ten years ago, in a fight over a pig’s head, Fu Ruyi broke Wang Erlang’s arm. Afterwards, she was forced to compensate with ten dou of wheat, dragging her whole family through a bitter, hungry winter. Though her parents shielded her from much of the blame, the sighs of her older siblings and the rumbling of their empty stomachs that winter left her restless with guilt. That winter, she gave up stealing offerings left for the dead to give the family an occasional treat, and resolved to draw on her past life’s memories to bring the family a new source of income.
But Fu Ruyi had died at just twenty-three in her past life—a fresh university graduate, struck by a car on her way to a job interview. Of those twenty-three years, sixteen had been spent hunched over books in classrooms. She had no knack for business or talent for building wealth. After mulling it over all winter, the only thing she could think of was the inscriptions on the steles of Mount Beimang, which touched on literacy—her old trade. But the characters from the Northern Wei period were in traditional script, which she not only couldn’t write but often couldn’t even recognize. She had to start by copying them. She smeared charcoal paste onto the stone tablets, pressed the impressions onto old clothes, and whenever she had spare time, used a homemade dog-hair brush to trace the inscriptions from those clothes.
In the autumn of the second year, when she went back into the mountains to make more rubbings, she came across a fresh grave. The offerings and candles before it had already been stolen, leaving only black ash, candle drippings, and tallow tree seeds scattered across the ground. She suddenly recalled a novel she’d read, in which a tomb keeper had made candles from tallow tree seeds.
She sat before the grave that day, thinking for a long while. When she came down the mountain, her old clothes, used for rubbings, were stuffed with a pouchful of tallow tree seeds.
Before winter arrived that year, Fu Ruyi extracted the fat from the outer coating of the tallow tree seeds and used it to make her first white candle. She told her family the recipe, claiming that a mountain spirit, seeing her diligence, had granted it to her in a dream as a path to fortune.
No one in the Fu family doubted her—especially Mother Fu and Father Fu. The old couple felt deeply honored and proud, delighted to have a daughter blessed by the gods.
From then on, Fu Ruyi’s standing in the family reached its peak. No one mocked her for making rubbings and practicing calligraphy anymore. The whole family supported her efforts, swapping her dog-hair brush for a langhao brush and her charcoal paste for ink paste.
Ten years passed, and Fu Ruyi had honed a fine hand. She could write in Han clerical script and excelled at regular script.
Back home, Fu Ruyi rummaged through her belongings, covering the bed with her past calligraphy practice. After picking and choosing, she took a silk scroll of calligraphy and headed to Granny Wei’s house.
When she stepped out of Granny Wei’s home, the sun hung low on the horizon. This splendid day was drawing to a close.
Fu Ruyi strolled home, chewing on elm seeds and humming a tune. The moment she walked in, she saw a whole crowd of people and her face fell.
“Brothers, sisters, sisters-in-law, it’s getting dark—shouldn’t you be heading home to make dinner?” Fu Ruyi dragged her feet as she walked in.
“We’re here because of you. Your eldest brother said the marriage arrangement with the Wang family fell through again?” her eldest sister-in-law, Chen Zhi, spoke first. “They’ve come to ask three times now—all you have to do is nod and it’s settled. Tell us, what did they do this time to upset you?”
Fu Ruyi thought of the turn events had taken and let out a sly chuckle.
“Spill it. We’ve had a long day—time to hear something amusing and have a laugh,” her second sister, Cao Peiyu, said, stretching out her legs from the chair with a backrest Fu Ruyi had rigged up.
Cao Peiyu had come with Mother Fu from her first husband’s family. She had an elder brother by the same father and mother, Cao Xin. Because Mother Fu had brought her late husband’s private wealth when she remarried, the siblings had kept their birth father’s surname upon entering the Fu household. When she grew up, Cao Peiyu chose to settle down and start a family in Dapo Village, staying close to her brother, and the two looked out for each other as they had in childhood.
Fu Ruyi looked around—everyone had come except her eldest sister, who had married into another village. It was as if they had all arranged it beforehand.
“You really do have time on your hands. And you really do care about me.” Fu Ruyi walked into the midst of her brothers and sisters, squeezing onto the same chair as her second sister.
Elder brother Fu Changgui let out a sigh. This youngest sister was only three months older than his eldest daughter, and he had already become a grandfather through his daughter the year before—yet today he still had to worry about his little sister’s marriage.
“Give us your reasoning, and let us in on it too,” Fu Changgui said plainly. “We’ll work out what to say so we’re not caught off guard and humiliated in front of outsiders. The Wang family has proposed three times, and you’ve refused three times. That might be a fine tale for you, but outsiders can’t help but want to see a joke—to see what kind of man you finally pick and how well you end up living.”
The Fu family had many members and much land, plus a candle business on the side. Fu Ruyi was also the only woman in the surrounding villages who could read and write. Their family held considerable standing in Dapo Village, but along with respect came those who harbored jealousy and spite, eager to see them become a laughingstock.
Fu Ruyi pondered for a few moments, then stopped holding back. “I went to Pinghe Village today and met a Xianbei man. He’s extraordinarily handsome, and I found myself very taken with him.”
Everyone fell silent.
“That man has a lovely name—Lou Zhaoshui. He’s Wang Erlang’s neighbor to the west.” Fu Ruyi dropped another thunderbolt.
Her second sister, Cao Peiyu, slapped Fu Ruyi hard on the thigh. This was too exciting. She said eagerly, “If you marry him, what a lively time you’ll have! The folks in Pinghe Village will have something to watch every day. Tsk, I’m truly envious.”
Fu Ruyi laughed heartily, then dropped another thunderbolt: “I’ve already asked Granny Wei to be my matchmaker. You don’t need to worry about me anymore.”
“I’ve heard there’s a Xianbei man in Pinghe Village who’s quite good-looking, but few have actually seen him. What does he look like?” the eldest sister-in-law asked.
Fu Ruyi mimed sweeping a hand through her hair and said, “Golden, and curly too.” Then she pointed at her eyes and said, “Gray-blue, like the sky after a winter snowfall.” Finally, she rested her chin on her hand and said, “Very fair—paler than my second brother. Very tall—half a head taller than me.”
“Then he’s very handsome indeed.” The eldest sister-in-law was also fond of beauty, and her eyes widened. “If the two of you have children, they’ll have golden hair and gray-blue eyes too.”
Fu Ruyi nodded emphatically. “Yes, yes—Sister-in-law, you understand me.”
“Has he agreed to this match?” the eldest brother reminded her coolly. “With looks like that, why wouldn’t he go seek patronage from some noble in the city?”
“His eldest brother serves in the military, and his second brother works in some household or other. Their family moved to Luoyang but chose to live in the countryside rather than within the city walls—that shows they have no intention of trading a brother for wealth and power.” Fu Ruyi had already considered this aspect. “Besides, the nobles in the city aren’t lacking in beauties. Golden hair and blue eyes aren’t rare among the Hu.”
“And his brother serves in the military? Would he take a liking to you? To our family? Don’t let this be all on your side.” The eldest brother was not optimistic about this match.
Second Sister Cao Peiyu immediately objected, “If you look down on yourself, don’t drag Little Sister into it. Who couldn’t she match? Just find me someone in these hundred li—can a weaver write? Can a writer make candles? Can a candle-maker understand farming? Can a farmer write?”
Fu Ruyi nodded proudly. In her twenty-one years in Northern Wei, she had learned to raise poultry, hatch chicks and ducklings, shear sheep, ret hemp and twist rope, raise silkworms and weave cloth, grow and pickle vegetables, build fires and cook, understand the seasonal planting of crops, cut cloth and sew clothes, and also wield a brush to write.
“I won’t argue with you.” Fu Changgui turned his face away and said to Ruyi, “You have a clear head, so I won’t say much. Just think it over—the Xianbei aren’t skilled at farming, and his two elder brothers aren’t even at home. If you marry over there, won’t all the farm work on his land fall on your shoulders?”
“Elder Brother has a point.” Second Brother Cao Xin, who had remained silent until now, spoke up.
“His family is small, but mine is large.” Fu Ruyi smiled slyly. “The Xianbei marriage customs differ from the Han’s. After a Xianbei man marries, he follows his wife back to her family’s home and stays for a year or two, working to help the woman’s family. It’s called bride service. He can come to our house and learn farming techniques with us.”