Ji Zhiwei heard laughter.
Light, carefree laughter, drifting around his ears.
Lowering his head, he saw that he was holding a wedding steelyard. A red knot was tied to the slender iron rod. The workmanship was rough, the iron crude and on closer inspection it seemed bleak and shabby yet it radiated a joy that could not be ignored.
Listening more closely, he realized that the irrepressibly delighted laughter was coming from himself.
Why was he laughing so happily?
Because he was getting married?
Because before him sat a bride, hands and feet drawn in, her small body curled into a delicate bundle like a slender willow branch?
He himself had once taken a wife yet that day he had not gone to bow at the ceremony, nor had he lifted the bride’s veil.
Besides, marriage was nothing more than an exchange of interests or the preservation of reputation. What was there to rejoice over?
Was he dreaming?
Doubt and confusion rose in Ji Zhiwei’s heart yet his hand moved all the same, lifting the red veil.
Amid the laughter, the veil swayed, its tassels brushing past his eyes. A young man with spring bright rouge on his cheeks revealed a tense, pretty face.
Eyes sparkling like stars, he lifted his gaze with shy adoration and called to him with expectation:
“Husband?”
In an instant, overwhelming joy crashed down.
Then came memories bursting forth like floodwaters breaking through a dam.
Ji Zhiwei found himself smiling back at the young man but in the very next moment, that figure, seeming to clutch his heart, shattered along with the twisted surroundings, like an illusion breaking apart.
Before his eyes stretched a vast emptiness.
The sky was shedding great, heavy flakes of snow, falling thickly.
He exhaled and his breath turned into pale white mist in the air. Once more, Ji Zhiwei saw himself, soaked through, slumped on the young man’s back.
Cold water ran down his body onto the young man’s, whose frame, already swaying under the weight, trembled and shook even more.
At one point, the young man had fallen to his knees on the gritty ground, then used blood-abraded palms to grip Ji Zhiwei’s arm and stagger back to his feet.
It must have been very heavy.
It must have been terribly, terribly cold.
Ji Zhiwei still remembered that day. In the kitchen’s haystack, Tuan Yun’s palms had been warm and burning hot, like a beam of life saving light on a snowy plain, something to cling to amid bone piercing pain.
He followed along, hearing his own sleeping self murmur something at death’s door. The young man, crying, anxiously leaned close to his ear. “What did you say? Are you calling for your parents?”
How could he be calling for his parents?
Ji Zhiwei had been born into great wealth and honor. His mother was his real mother, his father his real father. He was a precious legitimate son.
But his parents were not lovers. At the family table there was always silence, heavy, oppressive silence, like a place of death.
His father liked to teach him the classics, to teach him self cultivation and household order yet himself took seven or eight concubines, siring so many sons and daughters he could not recognize them all; he taught him loyalty to ruler and country yet privately criticized court policies, venting his dissatisfaction in furious essays.
His mother liked to teach him rules, to urge him to be kind yet would, before everyone, burn out a concubine’s eyes with a heated hairpin for no reason or beat a servant to death; she liked to teach him brotherly harmony yet disliked him sharing things with his elder brother, often suspecting that his intelligence might surpass his brother’s and breed resentment, leading to fraternal strife.
Such hypocrisy, even that might have been bearable, if only they had given him parental love in the proper form.
But they did not. His father loved his bastards more than his legitimate son; his mother loved power above all else, desiring the glory and profit a son could bring but not liking the act of raising a child, nor craving a child’s dependence or closeness.
When he was young, he often sought hugs from his parents. After being denied several times, he gradually stopped asking.
He did have the advantage of early maturity and keen understanding. It was no wonder his mother guarded against him. Around the age of eight, when he was given his own quarters in the rear courtyard, he had already grasped what kind of family this was and what kind of person he himself should become.
Sure enough, when his words finally came out clearly, they were not words like father or mother.
He only said that he did not want to die and that he had nothing else.
What did it mean to have nothing else? He had far too much. To complain like this was nothing short of greedy.
But the young man truly believed him. Before he could even respond, the young man was already stroking his head, tears falling in great drops.
“You don’t have parents either?”
The young man cried, “I don’t have parents either.”
In truth, the young man did have parents, because not long after, when he wanted to fetch salt to rub his body and warm him, a sturdy couple immediately arrived and slapped him hard across the face twice.
That night, the young man, tears welling in his eyes and his face swollen red, pressed his body against Ji Zhiwei’s, sharing his warmth.
Flesh against flesh, they shivered together, trembling in the cold.
In the end, he did not die.
The young man stayed with him through the entire night, guiding him back from the brink of the underworld.
The days that followed rolled past like a relentless torrent.
Ji Zhiwei’s long frozen, forgotten memories, spanning a full two years, surged back in his dreams, unstoppable, overwhelming him with the past he had thought buried.
He settled in the desolate grounds of a side courtyard, living there with the young man.
They were so impoverished that every coin and possession clinked emptily. A single garment was worn repeatedly and in the winter, burning black charcoal for warmth brought them brief, ecstatic satisfaction.
Ji Zhiwei had never experienced such hardship before. Looking back now, it still seemed bitter yet he felt as if he were dreaming, completely shutting out the past and briefly becoming another person.
In his heart, there was no resentment, no jealousy, no bitterness, no restraint, no rules.
His eyes no longer gazed at high positions, fame or power. He looked only at the clear blue sky, at the simple meals before him and at Tuan Yun.
Tuan Yun, so extraordinary, a heart steaming with warmth, as pure as crystal.
“If one day we could have a small courtyard of our own,” the young man whispered on the spring hillside, “I would build sturdy walls, fence it in, raise some chickens and ducks, build three sun facing brick rooms. Every day we could see the sunlight and even the coldest winter would feel warm. We wouldn’t have to curl up in fear, shrinking ourselves.”
“And we’d have a big kitchen, too, filled with firewood and bins of rice. We could cook whenever we liked, without anyone scolding or striking us. We could eat as much as we wanted.”
Ji Zhiwei looked into his eyes and asked, “How much would all of that cost?”
“Twenty taels.”
“And now, how much is missing?”
“Twenty two taels?”
“You little squirrel, saving money and you’re still two taels short?”
Ji Zhiwei was stunned but in an instant, he realized where all of the young man’s half life’s savings had gone.
Into his body. Into every medicine he drank, every grain of rice he ate.
They had met by chance, complete strangers to each other yet Tuan Yun had clung to him in everything. Even in want, he would put Ji Zhiwei first, filling his needs before his own.
The young man gave him so much care, attention and love.
Tuan Yun looked at him with eyes so clear and gentle, holding the vastness of sky and water within them. No matter the troubles or sorrows, they could dissolve into mist there.
And Ji Zhiwei, looking back at him, saw a white lotus blooming in a desolate, polluted swamp.
Every precious pearl sleeps inside a clam before being placed atop a noble’s crown. He understood just how lucky he was to have found him before anyone else did.
At that time, Ji Zhiwei had the right to speak of true heart and love. He could declare to heaven itself, to any god in the world: he loved Tuan Yun, with every fiber of his being.
Even without full memory, he had already sensed that Tuan Yun was the missing piece of his soul.
On the day he first received his wages at the county office, he eagerly took the copper coins to propose to Tuan Yun.
The young man, cast out by his parents and siblings on the very day he had resolved to save Ji Zhiwei’s life, had fought tooth and nail to secure a place to stay. He had nothing yet he did not immediately agree. He asked Ji Zhiwei repeatedly:
“Do you truly want to marry me?”
“You know how to read and could go out to teach. Even if your origins are humble, the future will be yours. You are so beautiful and I… I am just a blind, worthless boy…”
Ji Zhiwei interrupted him solemnly: “I only want you.”
“But, ”
The young man said, “I am so lowly.”
Ji Zhiwei held him tightly, his nose tinged with the sourness of emotion, his heart aching for all the years of scorn and injustice the young man had endured.
In that instant, his pain eclipsed that of the young man himself: “Without you, what would they have today? All of them are ungrateful, filthy, selfish people.”
“You are not lowly at all. In my heart, you are invaluable. To marry you, I must be committing a crime with a treasure in my arms.”
“Tuan Yun, others see you as mud, trapped in the mire but I see you in the heavens. You are a cloud in the sky… It’s all because your old name was so wrong…”
For fifteen long years, the young man had been called only one thing, his parents had called him a “worthless little wretch.”
Ji Zhiwei grabbed his hand and asked, “Tuan Yun, will you be called Tuan Yun from now on? We will be husband and wife. I will protect you all my life. No one will belittle or demean you ever again. I swear it to heaven.”
The young man was silent for a long while, then finally tears fell.
A few days later, they married.
The wedding was simple, with no feast. Granny Li brought two red eggs, which they shared, then drank together, swearing from that day on to treasure and love one another, never to betray the other.
Tuan Yun. Tuan Yun.
It was still a name Ji Zhiwei had given him.
Suddenly, Ji Zhiwei opened his eyes, a shiver of cold air rushing down his throat and his eyes were wet.
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Fleurveil
[Translator]
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ChaptersChapter 1 · How can you, so crude and vulgar, be a match for me?Chapter 2 · Children don’t just appear out of thin air if you want themChapter 3 · I also grew up reading the classicsChapter 4 · I am willing to dress up as the Goddess of MercyChapter 5 · If Cousin Ji doesn’t like me, do you not like me either?Chapter 6 · He actually summoned such a YamaChapter 7 · Am I not worthy of your attention, Madam?Chapter 8 · I think Lord Cui likes you very muchChapter 9 · Dragon and phoenix twinsChapter 10 · I will never allow anyone to belittle or despise you againChapter 11 · If that’s true, then marry your wife to meChapter 12 · Well, it really is true that one thing can subdue anotherChapter 13 · Extra 1Chapter 14 · Extra 2Chapter 15 · Extra 3Chapter 16 · Extra 4