Chapter 5

Pan Fugui drank himself into a sodden heap and stayed that night at the Zhao house, sleeping with Deguan.

In the side room, after the candle was blown out, Zhao Deqian would not lie down. Several times he seemed to want to speak, then stopped.

My face burned and my heart was uneasy too. But I was not made to keep words locked up, so at last I spoke.

“Master Qian truly had bad intentions toward me, but I—”

“I believe you.” Wind rose outside. In the cool night he cut me off with absolute certainty, and the tangle in my heart seemed to be sliced through at once, every thread lying smooth.

“From the day you insisted on sending Monkey Third to the yamen, I knew you were a virtuous, resolute girl.”

My face grew hotter. “I’m not that good. Why did you keep pouring wine into Pan Fugui today?”

Zhao Deqian lifted a brow. “If I hadn’t made him muddled, how could I have drawn out the truth? What if the contract he carried was false?”

“I never knew you had so many thoughts.”

“It is better to be careful. But from what he said, he should truly be your father. Do you resent him? What will you do with him?”

I sighed toward the half-open window. “It is neither resentment nor closeness. I don’t remember him, after all. In the future, I’ll treat him like an ordinary relative.”

He had sold me in the drought year, but one thing he said was true. He was an unreliable widower with a little girl. Had he not sold me, he might have starved me to death.

Many people had died of hunger then.

Some things in this world cannot be examined too closely. What else can one do? Just muddle onward.

The next morning, once he sobered up, Pan Fugui secretly dragged me beneath the cucumber trellis.

“Xi’er, hide these fifty taels in banknotes. Don’t let your husband’s family know. I pretended to be drunk last night and heard that they treat you fairly well, but hearts are separated by bellies. Keep your wits about you.”

Me: “…You were pretending to be drunk?”

“If Father didn’t pretend and talk foolishness, how could I make them lower their guard?”

Me: “…”

I was speechless. Could there really be so many clever people in the world?

Only I was so straightforward that I seemed a fool.

Pan Fugui had bragged the night before. His barren hill did have a small mine, but it was not valuable. He had sold it for two hundred taels and meant to find a business in Taoyuan Town.

Of course I did not want his money. But as I was refusing it, a blurred memory of childhood came to me: I vaguely remembered that he liked gambling.

Two hundred taels was more than enough to support him in old age. But if he gambled it away—

At once I changed my mind. I stuffed the banknotes into my clothes and whispered, “Where is the rest? Where did you hide it?”

Pan Fugui blinked and reached into his robe again. “I carry it with me. I’m afraid of losing it.”

Quick as lightning, I snatched every banknote from his breast. “You owe me, understand? You have seen how poor my husband’s family is. How much can my husband earn selling tofu? I’ll keep all this money for now. If I don’t use it, I’ll return it. What do you say?”

The old man’s broom brows drooped as if he might cry. “Xi’er, how can you be this kind of person?”

“Tell me: did you marry again or have other children?”

“No. I only had a fling with Widow Cui.”

“Then you’ll have to rely on me to support you in old age.”

“But you haven’t even acknowledged me.”

“Father, it’s settled.”

At the word Father, Pan Fugui nearly bubbled snot with joy. “Settled! Settled! But Xi’er, give Father twenty taels first. I need to buy a house in town.”

I lifted my chin. “Easy. Your son-in-law goes to town every day to sell tofu. I’ll have him find and arrange it directly.”

The old man sighed and walked away, muttering, “I, Pan Fugui, have been a despicable man all my life. How did I give birth to a daughter even more ruthless than I am?”

That morning Zhao Deqian made five boxes of tofu. After breakfast, Pan Fugui had nothing to do but sneer at his son-in-law.

“One look tells me you’re a dead honest fool. A few inns divide up this little tofu and it’s gone; why walk streets and lanes crying it out?”

“Father-in-law is right.”

“Build a workshop. Hire people to grind beans and boil pulp. Don’t keep making my daughter do rough work.”

“Your son-in-law obeys.”

“You’re still green at business. Ask me for advice.”

Pan Fugui bit savagely into a cucumber. The frustration he had taken from me all morning finally found an outlet in his meek son-in-law.

My hometown was Qingshui Town in Yanzhou, forty li from Taoyuan. Pan Fugui was famous there as an idle wanderer, but that wanderer had a silver tongue and somehow coaxed the prettiest girl for ten villages around into marrying him.

My mother had no luck. She died of illness four or five years after marriage, leaving Father and me alone.

There were no close relatives left in our home village, and the few distant ones were sick of him. This time Father had decided to put down roots in Taoyuan Town.

Zhao Deqian got things done. In less than two days, he spent fifteen taels finding Father a good little house at the edge of town. A carriage could reach Taoshui Village in the time it took to drink two cups of tea.

Father did not waste time. After wandering Taoyuan for a day, he had arranged orders for three extra boxes of Zhao tofu every day.

“I never thought your father was truly capable,” Zhao Deqian said after supper as he drew water beside the well and I scrubbed bowls with a loofah sponge.

I laughed too. “Cats have their paths, dogs have theirs.”

“Why talk about your father that way? By the way, Master Qian’s house caught fire today. More than ten rooms burned, and people were hurt.”

I froze. “You mean—?”

Had Pan Fugui done it?

The next day he drove his carriage to the Zhao house, beaming and ruddy as if some wicked plan had succeeded.

I pulled him aside. “Did you set the Qian fire?”

He thrust out his chest. “I did.”

“How could you? Aren’t you afraid the yamen will arrest you?”

“Pah. Arrest me for what? I gave a little beggar on the street several white steamed buns and told him to make trouble for the Qian family. If they arrest anyone, they arrest the beggar. What has it to do with me?”

“What if he names you?”

“Heh, heh. I disguised myself. How would he know who I was? Daughter, don’t worry. I have no other skill, but I have all the dirty and underhanded tricks. Anyone who bullies my daughter—bah! I’ll finish him!”

I took a deep breath and rubbed my temples. It was enough to make me worry myself sick.

Sure enough, an unreliable man could not become reliable even when death came for him.

Father had come for money. He had found a shop in town and wanted to buy it for a little eatery.

“Not only an eatery. You two just make tofu. I’ll send carts to supply inns and wealthy homes. You’ll have plenty to do.”

For all his faults, Father’s mind was quick. He knew how to talk to everyone, and not long after arriving in Taoyuan he had made drinking friends from every walk of life.

In mid-September, the Noble Guests Bring Joy eatery opened. On its first day customers streamed in. Father wore a crimson robe and a brocade cap, turning joyfully through the restaurant, bowing to every guest and offering lucky words until they nearly floated to the sky.

One table, wanting a novelty, ordered an eight-dish tofu assortment. When the two-foot carved wooden box arrived, its fragrance made them dizzy.

Inside stood eight little dishes arranged in a pleasing pattern: sesame-chilled tofu, tofu with scallions, tofu braised with seasonal vegetables, dry-fried tofu with shredded meat, bitter-melon tofu cups, assorted tofu balls, soy-sauce tofu cubes, and tofu mushroom soup.

“Fresh, tender, smooth as congealed cream! Shopkeeper, where did you buy this tofu?”

“To speak plainly, our shop makes it itself. If honored guests like it, I’ll have a waiter send it to your residence tomorrow.”

“Done.”

“Shopkeeper, bring us a tofu assortment too.”

“At once, please wait.”

“Shopkeeper, this table wants one too.”

“…”

No one expected that by Father’s slick tongue and the cook’s skill, the little eatery would clear three taels on opening day and use three whole boxes of tofu.

At closing, Zhao Deqian, who had come to help, stared at the account book. “Father truly knows business. He is much better at it than I am.”

Seeing the envy in his eyes, I snorted with laughter and comforted him. “You have your own strengths.”

“Name them.”

“You’re strong, hardworking, and your fists are hard.”

Zhao Deqian’s nose nearly bent out of shape. “That’s it?”

I was astonished. “Isn’t that enough?”

One punch could flatten a bad man. That was so manly. Why was he dissatisfied?

I seemed to have offended him. All evening he ignored me. When I offered him a sweat cloth, he only snorted through his nose; after wiping his face, he turned over and went to sleep by himself.

The moon was bright, the stars few. Man and woman alone, and the crickets, grasshoppers, and mice around the house chittered without end for some reason.

Then wind rose. Something in the courtyard crashed over. Zhao Deqian sprang up, went down from the kang to look outside, then returned, took off his shoes, climbed back on the kang, and crawled to my side.

“You heartless woman. Here.”

He lit the candle and held out a white cloth bundle.

Rubbing my eyes, I opened it. Inside lay a pair of pure silver earrings.

“You bought them for me?” In the candlelight I grinned foolishly, put them on, and swayed my head happily. Then I scolded him sweetly. “Why waste money again?”

Zhao Deqian snorted. “Remember this: I have another strength. I dote on my wife.”

The words dote on my wife made both speaker and listener blush at once.

My flowerlike face felt as though fire had scalded it, as if dark-red rose juice might drip from it at any moment.

But I can be terribly lacking in sense. In that very moment of dry tinder and fierce tenderness, I suddenly asked the most foolish question imaginable.

“Did you dote on your former wife this way too?”

Zhao Deqian’s face went from red to black. “…No.”

“Why?”

“No reason.”

I would not let it go. “I told you every filthy thing that happened to me at the Qian house. Can’t you tell me one truth? Why did your former wife run away? I heard gossip that Dewan and Deguan listened outside the wall.”

“Nonsense! Do you think Third and the little one are that kind of people?”

“Then what was it?”

He clearly hated speaking of that woman, but at my insistence he sighed.

“We paid three taels in bride-price to marry her. On the wedding night she demanded another ten taels, saying she feared all the money would later be spent on Third. I refused. She made a scene and scratched up my face. Mother, Third, and the little one heard the noise and came to calm us. She threw herself down and wailed that the whole family disgusted her.”

“And then?”

“Then she cursed, took her bundle, and ran. Later I heard she had caused the same trouble in four or five families.”

I had nothing to say. “…She was cheating people out of bride-price.”

I had heard a play in town about a handsome man who swindled widows with savings and took two hundred taels in three years. When it came to light, he was ordered to return everything, given forty strokes, and imprisoned for years.

A person with hands and feet who refused to work and instead schemed crooked ways to cheat people deserved every beating, in my view.

The Zhao family was poor enough already, yet she had come expressly to take their three taels. Taking the silver was one thing; she had even slandered the two younger brothers. She was utterly vile.

Dewan was a scholar who hoped for an official career. What would become of him without a good name?

Still, it had let me find a great bargain.

Mother had a warm heart, Second Brother was willing to work, Dewan could study, and Deguan had craft in his hands. Their livelihood was hard now, but the days before us were plainly getting better.

People said poverty did not take root and wealth did not pass for ten thousand generations. So long as a family did not spare its sweat and stood united, there was no household in the world it could not raise upright.