After returning the bamboo basket, the first thing Xue Qingqing saw upon entering the house was a patch of soup stains at the foot of the bed.
The man on the bamboo couch furrowed his brows slightly, his refined face full of guilt: "I suddenly felt discomfort in my stomach just now, and couldn't hold back the soup I vomited. My apologies, Miss Xue, for wasting your hard work."
Xue Qingqing said, "As long as Young Master Shen is unharmed, that's what matters. It must be because I didn't cook the mushrooms thoroughly enough."
She first swept the area with a broom, then wiped it clean with a mop, without saying much more on the matter.
Just as she finished, the little tiger in the cradle began crying again.
Xue Qingqing supported her numb waist, went over to pick up her son, and touched the swaddling cloth with her hand. Finding it wet, she carried the child into the inner room to change his diaper.
The house was not large, divided into an outer and inner room, separated by a cloth curtain. When people passed through, they would lift the curtain and let it fall back down as they went. The curtain swayed, casting a flickering shadow on the ground.
Pei Huaizhen watched the swaying shadow on the floor, listening to the gentle humming of the young woman.
"Be good, don't cry. Mother will change your diaper right away, and soon you won't feel uncomfortable anymore."
"Our little one is so wonderful—stopping your crying just like that."
"Comfortable now? Look how happy you are. When you smile, you look just like your father."
After these words fell, the inner room was silent for a long time, with no more sounds from the woman.
When sounds resumed, they were faint, extremely soft, sounds of inhaling breath.
It was a woman crying.
Pei Huaizhen glanced sideways, sweeping his gaze toward the center of the room, landing on the black lacquered memorial tablet placed in the middle of the long table.
Sacred tablet of the late Lord Lu Fangzhi
Devotedly offered by the widow Xue Qingqing
What a devoted couple indeed.
Pei Huaizhen sneered inwardly.
Born into an imperial family, he held nothing but contempt for this so-called conjugal devotion. It was merely that they hadn't spent enough time together for their ugliness to reveal itself, and with the advantage of an early death, three parts of affection appeared as ten parts of rarity. Had they truly lived together for decades, they would likely have grown sick at the very sight of each other.
Withdrawing his gaze, Pei Huaizhen turned his attention back toward the inner room.
Listening to the woman's soft, restrained breaths, he cursed "foolish" in his heart.
His finger bones unconsciously turned the white jade thumb ring on his thumb.
…
In the middle of the night, Xue Qingqing was startled awake by the little tiger's cries. She sat up groggily, gathered the child into her arms, and began to nurse him. Her milk had always been abundant, and it would quickly soothe the child's crying.
But today was unusually difficult.
No matter how the child sucked, not a single drop of milk entered his mouth, and he cried and fussed in desperation.
Xue Qingqing was also in severe pain. She reached out to touch the area and felt a hard lump the size of an egg yolk.
Her milk was blocked.
Xue Qingqing straightened her clothes and tried to get off the bed to find some cold water to ice the area.
But the pain had drained every ounce of strength from her body. Her head was swollen and dizzy, her breath hot and heavy, her entire body burning as if roasted over a fire.
In the depths of her misery, even the child's cries seemed to come from far, far away. Xue Qingqing's consciousness sank into darkness, and her eyelids could no longer be pried open even a sliver.
After an unknown amount of time, in the boundless suffering, a cool, jade-like hand approached her forehead, placing a damp cloth upon her skin.
The unconscious woman felt comfort, sensing that she was being cared for. Her tightly furrowed brows relaxed slightly, and then two streams of tears slid from the corners of her eyes.
She instinctively reached out her hand, gently grasping the hand that was adjusting the cloth for her, and choked out: "Lu Lang, I miss you so much…"
Where have you gone? Why have you made me search so hard?
Xue Qingqing's grip gradually tightened, as if clinging to a lifeline. Her cheek pressed against the man's palm, her hot lips brushing against the man's slightly cool fingertips.
Then she brushed against something cold and hard.
Xue Qingqing finally sensed something amiss and forced her eyelids open with all her might.
A small candle had been lit in the room for the night, casting a dim, flickering yellow light that danced across the bed.
She looked at the hand she was gripping tightly.
The hand was long and fair, with well-proportioned, delicate knuckles. Though the fingertips and palm had calluses, they clearly bore no traces of rough labor.
Most importantly, on the thumb of this hand was a clean, fine white jade thumb ring.
How could this possibly be her husband's hand?
Xue Qingqing raised her eyes and looked up. The moment she saw the man's face clearly, the blood in her body ran cold. She instinctively flung away the hand she had been treasuring moments before, curling her body backward, and stammered: "Young… Young Master Shen? How did you come in?"
In the lamplight, Pei Huaizhen pressed his thin lips together, quietly watching the overwhelming disappointment rising in the woman's eyes before him.
"The child kept crying, and I was a bit worried, so I came in to check."
His voice was gentle, as if afraid of frightening her. He took two steps back, his figure swaying, but his tone remained composed: "Miss Xue, your forehead is very hot. You have a fever."
Xue Qingqing noticed his unsteady gait and forced herself to stay alert: "I'm fine. Young Master Shen's leg injury is severe—you should go back and lie down."
Pei Huaizhen's gaze darkened slightly as he looked seriously into her eyes: "You don't look fine."
Perhaps it was true that when one was vulnerable, they couldn't withstand concern. Xue Qingqing didn't know which word in that sentence had struck her, but tears suddenly surged forth and she began to sob aloud.
In the flickering dim light, Pei Huaizhen watched her thin, trembling shoulders and waited quietly for her to finish crying.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked softly.
Xue Qingqing wiped her tears clean. When one was utterly despairing, they instead became composed. She pointed to the small tea table against the wall. "There's cold tea in the teapot. Would you trouble yourself, Young Master Shen, to wet this cloth for me?"
She removed the cloth from her forehead and glanced at it, realizing that this very cloth was the one she had used to wipe the mud from Young Master Shen's face on the first day she had brought him home.
At some point, he had washed it clean.
Pei Huaizhen nodded, took the cloth, turned and walked slowly to the table, wet it with the cold tea, then turned back and handed the cloth to Xue Qingqing.
Xue Qingqing took it, picked up the still-crying child, lowered her head, and said in a small voice, "Would you please step outside, Young Master Shen?"
Pei Huaizhen's gaze condensed, a flicker of suspicion passing through his eyes.
He had just felt the swaddling clothes—they were dry. The child crying this hard could only mean it was hungry.
And Xue Qingqing was in no hurry to feed the child, yet her head was burning with fever. That was enough to show the two were connected.
If applying to the forehead didn't work, then the only option was to apply it to…
Pei Huaizhen's breath caught slightly, but he said nothing more and turned to walk toward the outer room.
The cloth curtain was lifted and fell back, swaying as shadows rose and fell.
Xue Qingqing loosened her clothes at her chest, pressed the cloth soaked with cold tea against her bosom, and felt the burning heat gradually recede. She then held the crying little tiger back in her arms.
After half an hour of fussing, the little tiger finally got to eat, and the burning heat on Xue Qingqing's forehead had also dissipated considerably.
She gently patted the swaddling clothes, hummed a nursery rhyme, and patiently coaxed the child to sleep.
By now, Xue Qingqing was so exhausted that her soul seemed to have flown beyond the nine heavens.
But she still rubbed her eyes, forced herself to stay alert, and looked toward the curtain, asking softly, "Young Master Shen, have you retired for the night?"
The young man's clear voice came through: "Not yet."
Xue Qingqing carefully set her son down, tiptoed off the bed, slipped on her shoes, picked up the small candle, and walked out.
Because of her appearance, the entire dark outer room instantly became warm and bright, and a soft fragrance quietly enveloped the space.
On the bed, the young man with jade-like features and dark hair wore a lonely expression, sitting alone in a daze. When he saw Xue Qingqing, he instinctively pulled up the thin blanket and hastily draped it over his legs.
Xue Qingqing immediately noticed this movement and quickened her steps, reaching out to lift the blanket.
The moment she saw clearly, she drew in a sharp breath of cold air.
A large patch of fresh red had seeped through the originally clean trouser leg on his left calf, the smell of blood assailing her nose—a shocking sight.
Xue Qingqing placed the candlestick on the wooden stool before the bed, bent down, and carefully rolled up the trouser leg.
After seeing the wound, her lips trembled slightly, and she immediately said, "Tomorrow I'll take you to town to see a doctor for your injury."
Before this, Xue Qingqing had been bandaging him herself. She didn't know how to set bones, only knew folk methods to stop bleeding. The reason she hadn't taken him to a doctor was twofold: first, the village was twenty li from town, making the journey inconvenient; second, as a widow, if she were seen taking a strange man to see a doctor, and a familiar face spotted her, there would be endless trouble afterward.
But now she couldn't care about any of that.
After all, if not for this Young Master Shen just now, she might truly have passed out. In this ancient era without antibiotics, a fever burning to the end could very well mean death.
In the lamplight, the woman's eyes were rimmed with red, her gaze moist. As her fever had just broken, her cheeks, neck, wrists, and fingertips—every patch of exposed skin—was suffused with a delicate, radiant flush. A faint fragrance seeped from her sleeves and collar, sweet as honey.
Pei Huaizhen's gaze swept over Xue Qingqing's hazy, tear-filled eyes, her snow-white neck, her sweat-dampened dark hair, and unconsciously, his eyes drifted downward—
Her neatly arranged collar lay properly against her, but the summer clothing was thin, and without warning, two damp marks had seeped through, faintly visible.
Pei Huaizhen's Adam's apple rolled heavily, his lips and teeth going dry.
"No need," he said in a low voice, his tone cold, unlike his usual gentleness.
Xue Qingqing was startled, lifting her eyes to look at him in confusion.
The lamplight shifted between brightness and shadow. Pei Huaizhen's gaze fell into the light, and in an instant, all the gloom faded, becoming soft and sorrowful. He parted his lips: "Miss Xue, you've already helped me so much. Why continue spending your money?"
Xue Qingqing lowered her eyes and bit her lower lip.
After settling her husband's funeral affairs, the family truly didn't have much money left.
Pei Huaizhen clenched his right fist: "If this leg is ruined, then so be it. With a cane, I can still walk."
Xue Qingqing's hesitant gaze instantly turned resolute, and she retorted without hesitation: "How can that be? You're still young—if you're left crippled now, what will you do in the future?"
When Pei Huaizhen tried to speak again, Xue Qingqing put on a stern face and insisted firmly: "It's settled then. Tomorrow we'll both get up early, and while it's still dark, we'll go to town to see the doctor."
She tucked the blanket back over Pei Huaizhen, picked up the candlestick, and returned to the inner room.
Pei Huaizhen watched her figure disappear behind the swaying curtain, his eyes narrowing slightly as he unclenched his fist.
His hand was stained with blood—his own blood.
The wound had healed well, and tearing it open again just now had taken considerable effort.
And it wasn't certain that Xue Qingqing would take him to town even after seeing the injury.
But Pei Huaizhen had always been a man who loved to gamble.
He was betting that Xue Qingqing would soften.
…
The next day, before dawn broke, Xue Qingqing prepared two bowls of breast milk in advance and handed the little tiger cub to the neighbor auntie for care, using the excuse of going to town to sell vegetables for money.
Though she said she was selling vegetables, she had actually just pulled a few wild greens from the roadside, neatly stacked them in the wooden cart, along with several animal hides and two baskets of eggs, packed to the brim.
No one would have guessed that beneath these unremarkable goods lay hidden a grown man.
Under the neighbor's eaves, the auntie took the sleeping baby and glanced at the contents of the wooden cart, looking at Xue Qingqing with pity as she sighed, "A woman like you, with a child to raise, relying on just these few things—how will you survive in the future?"
Xue Qingqing didn't respond. She pulled out a copper hairpin from her head and pressed it into the auntie's hand as payment for watching the child, then returned to the cart, sat on the front, and used a branch to urge the donkey forward.
The sound of donkey hooves echoed all the way to the village entrance, gradually fading into the dark blue dawn. In the distant sky, a faint pale light began to appear, slowly piercing through the clouds, beautiful as a painting.
The mountain road after rain was muddy and difficult to traverse. What should have been a two-hour journey took nearly three, and by the time they reached town, it was already noon.
Xue Qingqing asked around on the street and learned of a medical clinic specializing in bone injuries, then hurried over immediately.
Inside the clinic, the physician examined Pei Huaizhen's leg injury with a deeply furrowed brow: "Why did you only bring him now? The wound is starting to fester. Even if the bone is set, it will likely heal slowly."
Xue Qingqing, already feeling guilty, hastily said upon hearing this, "Please use the finest medicine, whatever it takes to heal him."
Pei Huaizhen, however, remained perfectly composed. He turned to look at her, his gaze gentle and calm, and said softly, "Don't be nervous. Whatever happens, good or bad, is my own fate. Just use some ordinary medicine. Save the money and use it to buy some meat for you and the child to nourish yourselves—wouldn't that be better?"
The physician glanced at Xue Qingqing, seeing she was young and dressed in mourning clothes, assuming she was in mourning for an elder. Seeing the extraordinarily handsome man beside her, so well-matched with her, he teased:
"Young missus, you're truly fortunate. Your husband really dotes on you."