Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Zhou Yuqing had miscalculated.

Before us lay nothing but desolation.

No matter where we walked, there was no way out, no path to survival.

Hunger.

I was so hungry.

My stomach felt as if it were on fire.

I wanted nothing more than to bury my head in the dirt and swallow mouthfuls of yellow earth.

Even harder to bear than the hunger was the fact that there wasn’t a single drop of clean water. The water in the stagnant, muddy ponds was absolutely undrinkable; one sip would be the end of you.

Zhou Yuqing had traded his purple bamboo walking stick for a piece of flatbread the size of a palm. Most of it had ended up in my stomach.

Now, he leaned on an ill-fitting wooden staff, limping along with great difficulty.

After five days, the clean, fastidious Zhou Yuqing was gone. He was now covered in grime, his hair a matted mess, looking every bit the beggar.

My heart ached for him. I thought of that famous doctor who was supposed to treat his leg.

“You came looking for me… what about your leg? Aren’t you going to get it treated?”

“Didn’t you say your Erhei could still guard the house even with a limp?” Zhou Yuqing clearly cared deeply about this, his voice sounding muffled and sullen. “Are you going to despise him now?”

“I won’t despise him, I won’t!” I hurriedly took Zhou Yuqing’s hand, trying to show my loyalty.

I remembered when I first arrived at the Zhou Family home. Changle had warned me to be careful when serving the young master. Ever since his leg had been crippled, his temperament had become eccentric and his tongue sharp.

At the time, I had thought of Erhei and his limp, so I waved my hand dismissively.

“It’s fine. My Erhei has a limp, and he still guards the courtyard just fine.”

That comment had infuriated Zhou Yuqing. He had snapped back at me, calling me ugly and saying the freckles on my face looked like magpie droppings.

…It seemed I was the one who had wronged him first.

“I thought the Zou Family had taken you with them,” he said. “But then I ran into their carriages on the road and realized they had just left you behind.”

I lowered my head further and further, unable to find the words to respond.

Perhaps fearing I would be embarrassed, Zhou Yuqing cursed again.

“That’s why I said that Zou Bo’an is no good. He doesn’t act a bit like the heroes in the storybooks.”

Along the road, human traffickers were seizing the opportunity to buy people at rock-bottom prices.

A girl as beautiful as a flower was worth two bags of millet. A young girl who had just begun to grow was worth one.

Men, the elderly, and children – after some haggling – went for no more than a handful of millet, and even then, only if the trafficker felt a spark of pity.

I spotted a familiar figure.

It was Miss Su.

Her eyes were hollow, her hands bound with hemp rope, as she was driven along like a walking corpse by a trafficker.

I wanted to save her, but Zhou Yuqing and I had been starving for two days. We couldn’t produce so much as a single bag of grain from our pockets.

I looked at Zhou Yuqing with trepidation, afraid he might sell me to trade for Miss Su.

However, he didn’t even look her way as he pulled me along.

“…It’s Miss Su,” I whispered, tugging gently on Zhou Yuqing’s sleeve.

“What Miss Su?” He glanced at me. “It’s not like she’s a big white steamed bun.”

Seeing the anxiety on my face, Zhou Yuqing tightened his grip on my wrist.

“Unless I can get ten steamers of buns the size of grave mounds, I’m not selling you.”

But you used to care so much about Miss Su. You were always comparing me to her.

“In the past, I always thought I would like a well-bred young lady from a family of equal status, like her.”

Zhou Yuqing looked at me with great earnestness.

“But I realized the person I actually like isn’t like that at all.

“I just didn’t dare admit it, so I tried to force her to change.

“That was wrong. It must have hurt her deeply.”

My heart stirred. I suddenly remembered how ugly our argument had been when we parted.

“I’m sorry, Zhou Yuqing. Those twenty silver taels… it wasn’t that I wanted to use them as a dowry to marry into the Zou Family. The trafficker made a mistake. I was originally sold to the Zou Family.”

“At first, I thought I’d just let you have your way with me for free, and then I’d pay the Zou Family twenty taels of silver to marry into their house. But that night you came to find me and asked me to come home for dinner, I changed my mind. I wanted to pay the Zou Family the twenty taels and then live a good life with you.”

Zhou Yuqing fell silent.

After a long while, I quietly stole a glance at his face.

Under the moonlight, the corners of Zhou Yuqing’s mouth were curved upward, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t press them down. His dirty face looked like a smug little kitten.

“Why bring that up? I’ve known for ages.”

We suffered through hunger and exhaustion all along the way. When it rained, we didn’t have a single tile over our heads for shelter.

I caught a cold, and while I was burning up and drifting in and out of consciousness, I finally managed to drink a mouthful of hot soup in my dreams.

When I woke up and saw the unhealed scars on Zhou Yuqing’s arm, I realized my mouth was full of the taste of blood.

I cried and begged him, “Zhou Yuqing, just sell me. Otherwise, neither of us will survive.”

He still acted like I was annoying him, wanting to say something biting.

But he was too hungry and too tired. He trembled as he carried me on his back, his voice shaking as he spoke: “Not selling. Shut up.”

I stopped talking and hooked my arms around his neck, leaning gently against his shoulder. I felt as though my heart and my stomach had just finished a meal and a bowl of hot soup-warm and full.

“Zhou Yuqing.”

“Yeah?”

“Zhou Yuqing.”

“…What is it?”

I didn’t say anything, just chuckled to myself.

“Are you hungry-stupid? Or fever-stupid?”

I poked his face, which was swollen from malnutrition; each poke left a tiny little pit.

“Once we settle down and have money, I’m going to take four baths and use osmanthus oil.”

“Give it a rest. Where would we get the money to buy you osmanthus oil?”

Sigh, he didn’t understand what I meant.

The sky full of stars looked like white sugar, and like Zhou Yuqing.

Suddenly, Zhou Yuqing sighed and whispered “I’m sorry” very, very softly.

Sorry for what?

It was nothing. If he didn’t remember, then forget it.

“Grape.”

“…What?”

“If I die on the road, just pretend that the mean, biting Zhou Yuqing died, okay? When you think of me in the future, don’t only remember the times I was bad to you.”

My heart ached, and I couldn’t help but forgive him a little.

“No… you have your good points, too.”

“Hurry up and say it then. Where am I good?”

“Don’t rush me! I can’t think of any right now. It’s your fault for being so mean to me all the time!”

…

“Grape, if I die, go find Zou Bo’an. He… he’s actually a decent man, and he likes you. He won’t bully you, and he’ll give you a bite to eat.”

“If you like him and sleep with him, I won’t make you pay me back the money.”

How silly! If you’re dead, how could you ever collect from me?

“But you… you wait a couple of days before sleeping with him. And don’t let me know.”

“You’ll be dead. How would you know?”

Zhou Yuqing suddenly got very angry.

“Aren’t you going to come burn spirit money for me?”

Oh, right. I would. I’d burn it.

When I said I would, Zhou Yuqing somehow got angry again.

“Can’t you say something nice? Like saying you won’t sleep with him!”

I was the one who found it baffling!

You’re the one telling me to sleep with him, and you’re the one telling me not to!

“You, you, you…”

“I never planned on sleeping with him anyway.”

“Then what do you plan to do!”

“I’ll die with you.”

Zhou Yuqing stopped talking. A long, long silence followed.

“Grape.”

“Yeah?”

“Grape.”

“…What?”

“Live. You’re not allowed to die.”