Chapter 5

Recovering from an injury is exceedingly dull.

At least, it looked that way to me.

Eating and sleeping in bed every day. Even soybeans put out to dry get turned over, don’t they?

“This won’t do,” I told Gu Changfeng. “You need something to occupy you.

“How about snapping beans with me?”

His expression said, Have you heard yourself?

“Yipinxian doesn’t keep idlers,” I said. “Snap beans, and there’ll be beans for dinner. Trim chives, and there’ll be chives fried with eggs.”

He reached for his sword. “Miss Xu seems to have lived quite long enough.”

What?

I moved my chair out of cutting range.

That evening: plain porridge.

The next morning: plain porridge.

The next evening: plain porridge.

On the third morning, Gu Changfeng held out his hand.

“Where are the beans?”

And so I acquired a vegetable-preparing companion.

I chatted to him every day.

“Squire Wang in the north of the city has taken his thirteenth concubine. Men really do go bad as soon as they have money.”

“Chief Zhang of the Iron Palm Sect was poisoned by his mistress a few days ago. Nothing is more venomous than a woman’s heart.”

“You know the man who stands outside the yamen shouting for silence? His sow had a litter today.”

“If you want to learn martial arts, start by hanging up a fresh side of pork to practice your blade work.”

I considered this.

“Frightened, Miss Xu?” he asked ominously.

“Full of regret. All I knew to do back then was hold a basin for the blood. Otherwise, I could have slaughtered every faithless man under heaven.”

After a lengthy silence, he praised me as a heroine among women.

I cupped my hands and smiled. “Too kind. Too kind.”

By the time the first crop of long beans had been harvested, I took advantage of a fine day to hire two carriages and bring us out into the countryside.

It wasn’t Gu Changfeng who needed an outing. It was me.

I had stayed home looking after him so long I had nearly counted every blue brick in the house.

Outside the city, the breeze was mild and the grass was full of bright yellow flowers.

Good weather, lovely scenery, and a familiar face: Granny Wang.

I asked where she was going.

Seated in an oxcart, she said she was going to the capital to visit her daughter, who had married far from home.

The cart creaked so alarmingly that I feared it might tumble her out. I couldn’t help asking a little more.

“Will you come back to Qingzhou afterward?”

“Of course. I can’t live off my son-in-law forever. But I’m old now. Every visit leaves one fewer ahead of me.”

“Have you thought about finding work in the capital? Then you wouldn’t have to miss her.”

“At my age, who would take me? I can’t even keep up with other people at washing clothes.”

I thought for a moment. “Let Miaomiao teach you to make jujube porridge. Use your fare home to set up a stall at the city gate instead.”

She kept saying she couldn’t possibly accept.

Yipinxian’s jujube porridge was famous. Everyone in Qingzhou knew it.

I smiled. “It’s only a bowl of porridge. Why shouldn’t you?”

And I carefully explained the secret recipe.

After she left, Gu Changfeng gave me a sidelong look.

“Aren’t you afraid your father will beat you?”

Chewing a grass stem, I lay happily among the little yellow flowers.

“Father could never bear to beat his precious darling.”

“Even for giving away Yipinxian’s secret recipe?”

“It’s only porridge. We also have roast goose, lotus-leaf chicken, suckling pig, and pineapple rice. Plenty of specialties. Yipinxian won’t collapse.”

The grass stem tasted faintly sweet. I chewed it slowly and looked up at the clouds.

“Granny Wang’s husband cast her out because she couldn’t give him a son. She took in an abandoned baby girl, raised her on her embroidery earnings, and married her off to the capital. Now she’s old, and years of embroidery have ruined her eyes. If I don’t teach her to make and sell porridge, how will she live there?

“Not everyone can be like me, with a father to catch them when they come home divorced. I’ve simply been fortunate.”

Such things always made for heavy conversation.

Even the white clouds seemed to grow heavy.

I sighed, got up from the ground, and said, “Let’s go home.”

For once, Gu Changfeng didn’t scowl at going home so soon after arriving.

He even plucked a blade of grass from my hair.

It was a fine, breezy day. I had checked the weather carefully before we left.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten to check the almanac.

A group of black-clad men appeared from nowhere and surrounded us.

Each carried a long saber, its edge gleaming coldly.

On our side, Gu Changfeng was bare-handed and not fully healed, with nothing in his sleeves but the breeze.

I looked about, then painfully parted with a hairpin, pulling it out and handing it to him.

“Gu Changfeng, don’t die.”

“I know.”

As the fight was about to begin, I clasped his hand, full of reluctance.

“One more thing. Let me finish.”

His voice was almost gentle.

“What?”

“Gold is soft. Don’t bend the pin. I still mean to wash it and wear it again.”

Scowling, he pushed me aside.

I found a large rock nearby, crouched behind it, and waited obediently for him.

Whenever a black-clad man was knocked my way, I used the large rock to smash his feet.

Their leader noticed something was wrong, leaped over to me, and laid his blade against my neck. He ordered Gu Changfeng to stop.

Gu Changfeng stopped three paces away, seeming to weigh his choices.

As the saying goes, my life belongs to me, not heaven.

A person must hold her fate in her own hands.

I said softly to the man holding me, “There’s something you probably don’t know.”

“What?”

“My family used to slaughter pigs.”

“What do your pigs have to do with—”

He never finished.

I seized the blade at my neck and swung it sideways. Its sharp tip plunged into his arm.

He probably hadn’t expected such strength from a delicate-looking girl.

I took the chance to run to Gu Changfeng.

He looked startled too.

I spat hard on the ground.

“I was helping slaughter pigs when I was seven, you little bastard! Who do you think you are? You haven’t seen as much human blood as I’ve seen pig’s blood. Know your own worth before you try me!”

In silence, Gu Changfeng cupped his hands and bowed.

“For all my past offenses, I thank the heroine for sparing my life.”

I dipped in a curtsy. “Whatever do you mean, sir? I’m only a sheltered young lady. What would I know of fighting and killing?”

When his wound began to scab over, I brought a wheelchair to take him out for fresh air.

My timing was unfortunate. He was changing his dressing.

His white underrobe hung half-open, revealing a broad expanse of muscular chest.

I propped my chin on my hand and stared. “Oh… What a big…”

He gave me an icy glance.

I laughed weakly. “…wheelchair. My savior, please sit.”

I supposed it had simply been too long since I’d seen a man.

I had been married. Naturally, I had tasted that particular dish.

Once you’ve tasted marrow, you remember its flavor. But it had been four or five years since my last taste, and now I was beginning to itch for another.

As I thought this, the chair jolted beneath my hands. A little stone had caught the wheel.

I crouched to clear it away, choosing my position poorly. Gu Changfeng’s face was suddenly very close.

I coughed.

“Master Gu, now that you’re almost recovered, I suppose you’ll be leaving. But what am I to do once you’re gone? People are always coveting my family’s property. Yipinxian did, more or less, save your life. So…”

“So?”

“I’ve heard people of the martial world are free-spirited. A man as extraordinary as you must be the freest of them all.”

“And?”

“Might I borrow you, so I can have a child? With an heir for Yipinxian, our difficulties would be solved. Don’t worry. The Xus are wealthy enough to raise one child. We would never trouble you afterward.”

He neither agreed nor refused. He even commended my thorough planning.

Since he hadn’t objected, there might be hope. I went on. “Only…”

He actually smiled quite pleasantly.

He leaned down a little.

“Oh? There’s an ‘only’ as well? Only what?”

“Only… the doctors have taken my pulse and say I have difficulty conceiving. Of course, Master Gu must be exceptionally vigorous. Three or five times should do it.”

“Three or five? Miss Xu, I’m an injured man, only just recovered. Could you really bear to do that to me?”

“Shall I slaughter a big rooster to build you up?”

“Good. Excellent. Go and slaughter it.”

He nodded, struck the wheelchair with his palm, stood up, and strolled away.

“You can walk? Then why make me push you?”

I pursued him with the heavy chair.

He looked back, the dark green ribbon in his hair streaming in the wind.

He pointed to his chest, then jabbed a finger at me from a distance. “Remember to eat the chicken’s brain. Build yours up.”

Of course. It wasn’t his legs that were injured.

Two more steps, and the wheelchair suddenly shattered into pieces and dust.

I had been pushing it forward and pitched headlong. Sitting on the ground, I tried to cry out, but though my mouth opened and closed, no sound emerged.

When had he struck my muting point?

Gu Changfeng crouched before me with perfect composure. Producing a little dagger from somewhere, he laid it lightly against my cheek.

“Miss Xu’s tongue would go wonderfully with that rooster.”

I burst into frightened tears, great drops rolling down my face.

Real tears this time.

He froze, then touched my neck lightly.

At last I could make a sound. I cried so hard I could barely breathe.

“Gu Huai, you petty little miser!”

His face darkened. He struck my muting point again, hard.