He suddenly remembered the day he first arrived at Denghua Lane.
“Wretch! To strike so viciously at your own blood brother, and still refuse to repent! Men, break his legs!”
Rain poured down in sheets, lashing against the youth bound and pinned to the ground in the courtyard.
He raised his head stubbornly, the sharp light in his narrow, elongated eyes seeming to pierce through the curtain of rain, fixing directly on the figure standing high on the veranda, glaring down at him with furious contempt.
“I’ve done nothing wrong—why should I confess to it!”
A cudgel as thick as a child’s arm was raised high, then brought down with crushing force. The youth’s body trembled with pain, but he bit his lip and refused to cry out.
Amid the dull thuds of the club striking flesh, his breathing grew faint, and he murmured in a slurred voice: “I did nothing wrong…”
“A-Che! Stop, all of you stop… Husband, A-Che is still young—he can’t endure this! I beg you, tell them to stop!”
A woman’s heart-wrenching cries pierced through the noise of the rain, reaching his ears in a muffled blur.
Don’t beg him, Mother, don’t go and beg him… Pei Zhaoxue struggled to lift his eyes toward the figure in the rain, but his eyelids grew heavier and heavier, drooping downward.
Bloodstained rainwater surged past his blurring vision like a stream.
Cold. So cold. The wounds ached with a bone-deep sting, his head throbbed and swam as if about to split open—it seemed he might die in this downpour.
“Brother Pei, are you there?”
A girl’s crisp, sweet voice crept sneakily through the crack in the window—soft, yet clear.
In an instant, the clouds parted and the sun broke through; the rain ceased and the sky cleared.
The bone-chilling cold receded like a receding tide. Pei Zhaoxue opened his eyes from the nightmare, his body damp with heat. The heavy quilt pressed down on him, making it hard to breathe.
He threw back the corner of the quilt and let out a breath, his still-dazed gaze drifting toward the window beside the desk.
The girl’s voice chattered on like a little sparrow outside the window: “Are you there? I came a bit early today—did I disturb your rest?”
Chu Mingse hesitated, tilting her little head toward the window. She hadn’t heard the sound of pages turning. Could Brother Pei still be napping after lunch?
Maybe she should wait a little longer before…
Thump, thump—two short knocks sounded from inside the room.
Chu Mingse’s eyes lit up. He was responding to her! So Brother Pei really had been listening to her talk!
“You’re up!” The sparrow-like voice grew even more cheerful. “I managed to buy the very last bit of fresh bamboo shoots today. Mother said she’d make stir-fried bamboo shoots with pork. Do you want to come eat at my house?”
Even though she was asking someone else, she swallowed her own saliva. Spring bamboo shoots were tender and crisp—once summer came, they’d be gone. She thought that since Brother Pei came from the capital, he might never have tasted the spring bamboo shoots of their town, Shui Jin. So today she’d gotten up extra early, tucked some copper coins in her pocket, and run out to find the vendor, snatching up the last basket of spring shoots.
This was her “delicious food strategy.”
Back when she used to throw little tantrums with her father and mother, as long as Mother mentioned the day’s menu from outside, she’d immediately open the door, beaming, ready to make peace.
But the person inside the room resisted the temptation of good food, not making a sound.
The plan had failed. Chu Mingse was tired of standing on her tiptoes, so she let go of the wall, sat down familiarly on the small stone step beneath the window, and continued carving the half-finished wooden figurine in her hands. From time to time she’d murmur a few words toward the room, showing no discouragement at having her invitation refused. She had already come to treat opening the neighbor brother’s door as a long-term challenge.
Inside the room, Pei Zhaoxue propped himself up against the bed frame and sat up. The heavy Plain Sedan Chair stood silently by the couch. He gripped the armrests of the sedan chair with both hands, straining to shift himself over, the pale backs of his hands bulging with veins.
His movements were still somewhat clumsy as he maneuvered alone; several times he nearly toppled sideways. By the time he managed to sit down, a thin sheen of sweat covered his forehead.
He turned the sedan chair’s coarse wheels, and as he rolled forward, fresh rough scratches appeared on his fair palms.
The creaking sedan chair rolled over the crumpled paper balls scattered on the floor, coming to a stop before the desk. Several letters lay quietly on the carelessly spread books, all from his former teachers and fellow disciples.
When the incident had occurred, not one of them had spoken up for him. He wondered what they could possibly want now, writing to him like this.
He opened each envelope one by one, scanning the contents at a glance, then curled his lips into a mocking smile.
More crumpled paper balls joined the ones on the blue brick floor.
A bunch of fools—every word they wrote condemned him as unfilial and unkind. Pei Xingyi had spun them around with just a few sentences, and they believed everything.
No, perhaps they had chosen to believe his nonsense. After all, Lord Pei was a prominent second-rank official in the current court, while he had only just passed the boy’s examination, still at the age of youth. Who was more important, who was not—why should they struggle with the choice?
He had once thought they were classmates and mentors he could trust and rely on, but it turned out they were merely vulgar creatures driven by profit.
No one could be trusted… no one could be trusted…
A dark storm brewed in Pei Zhaoxue’s eyes, surging emotions gnawing at his organs, his lips nearly bitten bloody.
Tap, tap.
The window lattice was suddenly knocked upon, and a rustling sound pressed against the window.
“It’s getting dark, I’m going home for dinner. I’ll come find you to play tomorrow.” With a thud, something was set down against the window. “This is for you!”
The small shadow beneath the window gradually shrank and receded into the distance.
The tightly shut window quietly opened a crack.
A pair of eyes silently watched from the gap as the little sparrow-like figure hopped away.
The sun was about to set, brilliant rosy clouds spreading across the sky, dyeing the still-gray Pei family garden in a layer of resplendent color. The evening glow swallowed her small figure, leaving only an empty, silent courtyard.
Pei Zhaoxue opened the window wider and saw a small wooden figurine placed by the sill.
The carving was crude yet lively, the simple lines making it instantly recognizable as a likeness of him.
A big, grinning smile had been carved onto the wooden figure’s face.
He stared at that ugly smile for a long while, then reached out, trying to bring the wooden figurine inside. He strained his body forward, his fingertips pressing hard enough to make his veins bulge, yet still he remained half a finger’s width short of reaching it. His powerless legs could not support him leaning any further.
He paused, then let his strength go and withdrew his hand, placing both palms on his numb, unfeeling legs.
He suddenly recalled the day he had first arrived at Lantern Flower Lane. Before the carriage had even turned into the alley, he had heard the cheerful nursery rhymes of children.
Through the leaping cotton curtain, he had seen a little girl with twin hair buns hopping and splashing through puddles, her figure flickering among the flowers, brimming with radiant vitality.
He would never again feel the touch of solid ground beneath his feet, never again measure the vastness of the world or the distance of mountains and rivers with his own steps.
Like a useless cripple, he was trapped day after day within a cage of four walls.
He tilted his face up and sniffed the wind. The smell of rain mixed with mud made him nauseous, and his complexion turned three shades paler, almost like that of a dead man.
The Chu family courtyard was filled with the mingled aroma of cooking food and wood shavings. The kitchen was lit, and curled wood shavings were piled beneath the low stool.
“He Niang, Sese is back!” Chu Qingyuan set down the ink-line box in his hand, lifted Chu Mingse down from halfway up the ladder, and joined Qu He in surrounding her.
“How did it go today? Did he speak to you?”
Chu Mingse shook her head, then said amid the disappointed looks on their faces, “But Brother Pei did respond to me a little bit today.”
“The book says that with hard work, even an iron rod can be ground into a needle. Brother Pei will surely be willing to talk to me soon.” Determination blazed in Chu Mingse’s eyes.
“How is Sese so amazing?” Chu Qingyuan cupped his daughter’s face and gave it a couple of gentle squeezes.
With her father holding her face, Chu Mingse pouted her little lips and said sweetly, “Who else would I be but the daughter of A-Die and A-Niang? A-Die, A-Niang, do you know Brother Pei’s real name? Calling him that all the time makes it seem so distant.”
Chu Qingyuan and Qu He exchanged a glance, feeling a rare moment of awkwardness in front of their daughter. “His mother only mentioned his childhood name ‘A-Che’ in her letters. As for his full name…”
To avoid complications, they had never corresponded much with Yun Niang—mostly reminiscing about the past and catching up on the present, with only brief mentions of their respective children. They had never specifically introduced names.
Chu Mingse clasped her hands behind her back like a little adult. “Never mind, never mind. Can’t count on you grown-ups. I’ll just go ask myself.”
“Little clever one.” Qu He rubbed her nose against Sese’s. “Dinner’s almost ready. Can Sese go wash her hands, wash her face, and change her clothes by herself?”
Chu Mingse nodded emphatically and trotted off toward the inner courtyard with a patter of footsteps. Every time she went out, she’d climb walls and trees, always coming back covered in dust and grime, so she needed to clean herself up properly.
Watching their daughter disappear into the distance, Qu He couldn’t hold back her frustration. “If it weren’t for Pei Xingyi always harboring some inexplicable grudge against you, we wouldn’t have had so little contact with Yun Niang. If something happened, we couldn’t even protect her and the child in time—we don’t even know the young man’s proper name!”
What she was really angry about was herself—why hadn’t she sent more letters to ask? Given how Pei Xingyi had now cruelly broken even his own son’s legs, something must have already gone wrong between him and Yun Niang. If only they’d noticed sooner…
“If I’d known Pei Xingyi was such a heartless, ungrateful man, Yun Niang shouldn’t have…” She stopped abruptly. The fault lay with Pei Xingyi, not with the innocent, daring Yun Niang of the past. She truly shouldn’t blame her for marrying the wrong man.
Chu Qingyuan gave a bitter laugh. “Back when that man surnamed Pei took issue with my former engagement to Yun Niang and kept her from corresponding much with us, I should have been on my guard…”
Twelve years ago, it was actually Yun Niang who had been betrothed to Chu Qingyuan. They had grown up together as childhood sweethearts, and since the Chu and Du families had been close for generations, the two family heads had arranged a betrothal between them on their own.
But the two of them only ever saw each other as siblings—one fell in love with the poor scholar Pei Xingyi, and the other with the flower-growing village girl Qu He.
Having each found their own love, the two discussed calling off the engagement. But the Chu family was rigid and old-fashioned, treating tradition as paramount. They nearly beat Chu Qingyuan half to death and still refused to break the engagement.
Chu Qingyuan simply left the Chu family for love, destroying his own reputation and prospects, taking all the blame for breaking the engagement upon himself. This preserved Yun Niang’s reputation and allowed her to finally marry the man she loved.
It was just that over a decade had passed, and people’s hearts had changed.
“I only hope that Sese can truly get the young Master Pei to be willing to communicate with her.” Chu Qingyuan sighed. The young master of the Chu family was now eleven years old, at that sensitive and thoughtful age. Having suffered such a great upheaval, how could he be left to shut himself away all day?
The lanterns were just being lit. A warm, dim glow emanated from the small kitchen.
Chu Mingse had changed into a comfortable, soft moon-white, front-buttoned fine cotton top and light green silk harem pants. Her hair, usually tied into two little buns on top of her head, was let down and braided into two thick plaits, making her look even more lively and adorable.
She sat down at the dining table and diligently picked up a piece of bamboo shoot stir-fried with pork, placing it into Chu Qingyuan’s bowl. “Father, eat.”
“Sese is so good.”
Chu Qingyuan took a bite of the dish his daughter had picked for him, squinting his eyes in happiness, when he heard his daughter say by his ear, “This is Sese’s tuition fee. Father, you have to teach me to write tonight.”
Chu Mingse: …A good child, no piece of bamboo shoot stir-fried with pork is ever eaten for free.
“Why do you suddenly want to learn to write?”
“Sese has her reasons. Don’t ask, Father!” Chu Mingse had a plan in mind. Tomorrow, she would definitely be able to talk to Brother Pei.
Author’s note:
None