"Have you really lost your memory?"
Clouds veiled the moon, and only a single lonely lamp flickered in the room.
Jiang Weiyao slowly sat down, supporting herself on the edge of the table. Her fair brow furrowed slightly as she silently lowered her head.
"Could it be that you've forgotten as well?"
Beneath the candlelight, Pei Yunheng's deep, magnetic voice sounded: "Or is it that your earlier claims of mutual affection were lies to deceive me?"
"How could you say such a thing, husband!" Upon hearing this, Jiang Weiyao abruptly raised her head, her voice urgent and vexed. "With such doubt, what becomes of the affection we once shared?"
Pei Yunheng said mildly, "Then I am all ears."
"Fine, I'll speak. Why so fierce…"
Jiang Weiyao bit her lower lip indignantly.
When she began to speak, her expression gained a trace of melancholy over things changed and people gone: "After my birth mother passed and my father remarried, there was no place for me in the household. I was sent to a country estate, with only a young maidservant to accompany me."
"The estate steward was a black-hearted wretch. Seeing me alone and vulnerable, he tormented me. Going hungry was one thing, but I also had to wash clothes, chop firewood, and do all manner of rough labor."
When she reached the sorrowful part, Jiang Weiyao choked up: "I begged Father to bring me back, but he rebuked me. Seeing this, the steward grew even more brazen. Thank goodness—thank goodness you appeared."
As her words fell, Jiang Weiyao raised her head and gazed at Pei Yunheng with deep affection.
Perhaps sensing Jiang Weiyao's gaze, Pei Yunheng lifted his thin eyelids slightly, those dark eyes looking over.
His gaze lingered for a moment on the tear stains on Jiang Weiyao's face. After a moment's thought, Pei Yunheng extended his slender fingers toward the teapot on the table.
"I won't drink, I'm not thirsty!"
Jiang Weiyao, still shaken, hurriedly stopped him.
She continued: "Back then, you held books every day. I originally thought you were a blockhead who knew nothing but reading. I don't know when you took a fancy to me…"
"Studying is already tiring, yet you often came to help me wash clothes and chop firewood. You would save money to buy me pastries from outside, and you wrote me quite a few poems. You have no idea how my heart leaped with joy."
The word "joy" carried a barely perceptible tremor. Jiang Weiyao turned her head away, her peach-blossom cheeks flushed crimson, displaying all her charming shyness.
"Oh?"
His fingertips brushed the cool rim of the bowl. Pei Yunheng's tone rose slightly, as if his interest had been piqued: "And then?"
"Then I was taken back home."
Jiang Weiyao grew sorrowful again: "Father had offended the county magistrate of Wufeng County. To make amends, he actually wanted to betroth me to the magistrate's foolish son."
"That fool grabbed and pulled at me right on the street. Fortunately, you were worried and had followed me from the estate, so you could save me in time."
Whether it was Jiang Weiyao's imagination or not, after she finished these two sentences, Pei Yunheng leaned back, as if he again found it dull and tasteless.
"You beat up the magistrate's son. How could you have any way to survive in Wufeng County? Who would have thought that just as we fled, we'd encounter natural disaster. Why are our lives so bitter…"
Tears rolled down her cheeks. Jiang Weiyao suddenly grasped Pei Yunheng's hand: "It's all because I dragged you into this. Rest assured, husband, I will surely find a renowned physician to cure you, and from now on we will live together in harmony and happiness."
The woman's hand was delicate, like a piece of warm jade that grew warm at the touch. Perhaps tears had accidentally fallen into his palm, making it somewhat moist and sticky.
His sword-like brows pressed down, and Pei Yunheng's face darkened.
"Let go."
He suppressed his anger.
Jiang Weiyao was frightened by him again, and it took her a long while before she remembered to cry.
For a time, there was only soft sobbing in the room, and the rising wind outside.
After an unknown amount of time, two barks suddenly rang out, their shrill, miserable howls shattering the silence—
"My child—!"
It was Aunt Zhou's voice.
Reaching the window, Jiang Weiyao saw that a fire had been lit at Aunt Zhou's house. Before long, the quiet mountain village had erupted into a clamor of voices.
"What's going on?"
Jiang Weiyao wiped the tear stains from her face and turned to look at Pei Yunheng. "Husband, let's hurry over and see."
Pei Yunheng's expression remained cold and stern. He gave Jiang Weiyao a faint glance, then walked outside.
By the time the two of them arrived, quite a few villagers had already gathered in front of the Zhou house. Even some white-haired elders who rarely left their homes had been invited over, all wearing grave expressions.
Aunt Zhou held the frail Erya in her arms, grief-stricken beyond measure. "My child, how could you be so unthinking? Are you trying to take your mother's life?"
Erya's temple was a bloody mess, and she breathed in agony. "Mother, it hurts! It hurts so much—am I really going to die…"
Clutching Erya tightly, Aunt Zhou's body trembled uncontrollably.
"Mother…" Erya wept from the pain, yet her gaze remained fixed stubbornly on the cellar not far away. "I beg you, for the sake of your daughter about to die, please let Sister out…"
"No!"
Before Aunt Zhou could speak, an old man standing in front of Jiang Weiyao suddenly shouted.
His cane struck the ground with force, and his cloudy, aged eyes glared fixedly at Aunt Zhou. "Daya is about to be married—how can you act so recklessly!"
Aunt Zhou opened her mouth but said nothing. Yet under the old man's stern gaze, she couldn't help but shrink back.
The old man tottered over. After casting a warning look at Aunt Zhou, he said to Erya, "Girl, your sister is about to be married. This is a joyous occasion. Though she lives in the cellar, she has fine incense to use and fine silk to wear—she is enjoying her blessings."
Jiang Weiyao's brow furrowed.
She had an impression of Daya.
She worked deftly and meticulously. Unlike Erya and Sanggou, she wasn't lively or quick to smile—she was the soft-spoken sort.
But thinking carefully now, Jiang Weiyao hadn't seen her in the village for a long time. She had been puzzled at first, but later heard she was about to be married, and assumed she was hiding indoors embroidering her wedding dress.
Yet she was actually locked in a cellar.
Why would someone be locked in a cellar before marriage?
"You're lying!"
The barely-breathing Erya suddenly grew agitated as well.
Her eyes glared at the old man before her with hatred, and she cried out loudly, "It's not a marriage at all, it's not a joyous occasion—you're going to throw Sister into the mountains, you want Sister to die!"
"Shut your mouth this instant!"
The old man flew into a rage and raised his cane to strike Erya.
Aunt Zhou let out a wail and hurriedly shielded Erya in her arms.
"Enough, enough."
A middle-aged man stepped forward to stop the furious old man, but his expression was equally unfriendly as he swept his gaze over Erya, then looked at Aunt Zhou. "Sister Zhou, was this what you taught Erya to say?"
"No, no!"
Aunt Zhou waved her hands in terror, forgetting even the pain in her body.
"Don't forget what Hedong Village relies on to live in peace. Erya's words are a great blasphemy. For the sake of Daya's impending marriage, I won't hold you accountable—but you'd best watch yourself, and don't bring disaster upon the whole village!" the middle-aged man warned in a low voice.
Clearly, the villagers who had rushed over in the dead of night were all afraid of being dragged down with them.
"That child Erya—even if she's about to die, she should know what can and cannot be said."
"I need to go pray, we can't let the mountain god be angry."
"The child is ignorant, mountain god don't blame her, mountain god don't blame her…"
The scolding and reproach bent Aunt Zhou's already short and frail frame. Crying, she gently covered Erya's mouth, sobbing and muttering incessantly:
"This is fate, this is fate…"
Whether these words were meant to console Erya or herself, no one could tell.
"Erya hit her head—shouldn't she be taken to see a doctor?"
Closing her eyes briefly, Jiang Weiyao suddenly spoke up.
Everyone present was taken aback.
The middle-aged man frowned and looked over. Someone beside him whispered, "She's from another village, just moved here. The one next to her is her husband."
Looking Jiang Weiyao up and down, the middle-aged man said nothing. The others all watched his expression.
Only Uncle Liu, who was close to Aunt Zhou, spoke up: "That's right, take Erya to the clinic in town first. A good child like her can't just be lost like this."
Seeing someone come to her aid, Aunt Zhou pleaded, "Let Erya go to the clinic—the town is far…"
After thinking for a long moment, the middle-aged man finally relented and looked to the person beside him: "Go bring our donkey cart."
Aunt Liu acknowledged, then looked troubled: "Qiangzi broke his leg, and no one else knows how to drive the cart."
"My husband does. Let my husband go."
Jiang Weiyao picked up the thread, looking at Pei Yunheng.
His gaze shifted from the middle-aged man. Hearing this, Pei Yunheng narrowed his eyes slightly and looked at Jiang Weiyao.
Jiang Weiyao didn't flinch. She raised her eyes to meet his.
Two gazes collided in the flickering firelight.
One cold and probing, the other calm and gentle.
The corners of Jiang Weiyao's lips curved upward as she gave him a soft smile, as if offering goodwill.
Seeing that Pei Yunheng didn't refuse, Aunt Liu quickly brought the donkey cart over. The middle-aged man stepped forward and handed Aunt Zhou a few copper coins. Aunt Zhou, overwhelmed with gratitude, knelt and kowtowed to him again and again, then boarded the cart with endless thanks and left.
The cart wheels ground against the ground, growing distant, soon swallowed by the night.
Jiang Weiyao's gaze swept over the cellar in Aunt Zhou's yard.
The cellar sat at the foot of the eastern wall, close to the woodshed, a bit far from the main house. Dense weeds concealed the iron chain and heavy lock.
Jiang Weiyao withdrew her gaze and met the middle-aged man's wary stare.
She said nothing, following the villagers who were drifting home in twos and threes.
"I told you this village was off."
Wang Mingke said: "Good thing the little girl's life was saved."
Jiang Weiyao focused on eating the pastries he'd brought, not responding.
Wang Mingke glared in frustration, then couldn't help asking: "Did he actually believe what you said last night?"
Jiang Weiyao kept eating the pastries.
"Stop eating and say something!" Wang Mingke urged repeatedly.
Swallowing the last bite of fried sugar cake, Jiang Weiyao savored it, then spoke under Wang Mingke's furious stare: "Believe it or not, we'll see whether he goes to the county office today."
"The county office?"
Wang Mingke asked in confusion. Just then, from the corner of his eye, he spotted a snow-white carrier pigeon hovering outside the yard.
He hurried out, and the pigeon landed steadily on his arm, revealing a note tied to its leg.
"He didn't go to the county office."
Wang Mingke took the note down, opened it, and gave the answer.
Propping her chin on one hand, Jiang Weiyao let out a slow sigh.
"Why are you sighing?" A sense of foreboding rose in Wang Mingke's heart.
Rubbing the space between her brows with her fingertips, Jiang Weiyao wore a rare expression of helplessness: "Do you remember the last time you asked me whether I had gained Pei Yunheng's trust, and what I told you?"
"I remember." Wang Mingke looked at her suspiciously. "You said ten or twenty percent."
Letting out a turbid breath, Jiang Weiyao slowly raised her head and gave Wang Mingke an apologetic smile: "What should I do? I think I may have been bragging."
Wang Mingke: "…"
He jumped to his feet in disbelief: "What do you mean, not even ten or twenty percent?!"
Jiang Weiyao nodded gloomily: "It seems so."
"……"
Wang Mingke turned and left without another word: "If I keep fooling around with you, I'll take your surname!"
"Wait, wait, wait."
Jiang Weiyao called him back: "Don't be in such a hurry to leave. Help me analyze this too—what exactly is going on with Pei Yunheng…"
"Did he lose his memory?"