Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Rain had poured through the night and still had not stopped by morning.

It beat the loofah trellis crooked and scattered scarlet balsam blossoms across the yard.

“Yuniang, take this robe of mine to starch this afternoon.

“Miss Yinyue’s skirt is silk. Don’t wash it with soap powder.”

Only then did Pei Qingshu notice the cold stove and empty kitchen. Yuniang was gone.

Looking out at the rain, he remembered that the two umbrellas by the door—one large and one small—had vanished as well.

He had bought them for Yinyue and Qi’er a few days earlier. The sun had been fierce while they were strolling through the market, and he had feared mother and son might be burned.

Yuniang and Zhu’er had probably taken them to buy vegetables.

“Fortunately, I brought a tea set when I left home.

“The rain is so heavy today. We could brew some Longjing and enjoy the rain beneath the eaves, Brother Pei.”

Beneath the study window, Liu Yinyue handed Pei Qingshu a cup and asked in surprise, “Where is Sister Yuniang? I haven’t seen her all morning.”

With a beauty beside him and a curtain of rain beyond the window, Pei Qingshu did not want to speak of Yuniang. He changed the subject.

“It’s better that she isn’t here. She knows nothing about tea. She cannot tell good leaves from bad and would only waste them.”

Yuniang truly knew nothing about tea. A tea merchant had come through the year before and tricked her into believing he carried the finest pre-Qingming Longjing, the sort found only in the capital.

She spent a small fortune on a packet and brought it out like a treasure when he came home that evening.

One sniff had made Pei Qingshu laugh at her stupidity.

“The leaves are old, and they’re worthless local tea. Can’t you even smell the difference?”

The light in Yuniang’s eyes quietly dimmed. Yet she soon comforted herself, looked up, and smiled to please him.

“But he said they came from the capital. Try it, A-Shu. Perhaps it’s the same as the Longjing your family used to drink…”

The tea was poor, and even the tea bowls were coarse clay.

Pei Qingshu forced himself to take one sip. Afterward, he tossed the remaining leaves into some forgotten corner.

That was Yuniang: vulgar, ignorant, unable to recognize anything of value.

She was nothing like refined Yinyue, a sheltered young lady from the capital who had carried a Chenghua porcelain tea set even while fleeing disaster, so that she could drink tea and listen to the rain with him.

“To tell the truth, I was startled when I first saw Yuniang,” Yinyue said with an arm around Qi’er. “I wondered how Brother Pei could have married her. I expected at least a well-read young lady. I never imagined she would be illiterate and dress so crudely. I wouldn’t use that skirt of hers to wipe my floor.”

Yuniang had not been raised in a secluded chamber like Yinyue, pampered as a young lady of the capital.

She could not read, but her needlework was exquisite.

A wealthy household in town once gave her a pattern book and commissioned a chrysanthemum embroidery, instructing her to copy a poem by Tao Yuanming beneath the flowers.

Yuniang embroidered the blossoms in brilliant colors, but because she knew nothing of poetry, she carried the pattern book to him and asked, “Is this a poem by Tao Yuanming?”

“Yes.”

Pei Qingshu did not even lift his head.

What did it matter whether it was? She could not read. She would not understand even if he explained.

Later, the patron said Yuniang had embroidered the wrong poem and refused to pay her.

Yuniang sighed. Two months of work came to nothing, but she let it go as though she had given the piece away.

The rain was so heavy that day. How could Yuniang be foolish enough to take Zhu’er vegetable shopping? What if the child caught a chill?

Noticing Pei Qingshu staring blankly through the window, Zhao Qi’er had a sudden idea and wrapped his arms around the man’s leg.

“Uncle Pei, how do you read this word?”

Pei Qingshu came back to himself. Qi’er pressed his head coyly against the man’s knee, mischief glinting in his eyes.

“Qi’er wants Uncle Pei to be Qi’er’s papa. Wouldn’t that be wonderful, Mother?”

Both adults froze.

Outside, the rain grew louder. Yinyue lowered her head, the mottled-jade hairpin he had given her slanting beside her temple.

“Ever since disaster struck my husband’s family and I came to Shui County, I have often wondered… If I had accepted Brother Qingshu’s betrothal letter back then, would the two of us be living here now, far from all that strife, peaceful and prosperous?”

Bitterness filled Pei Qingshu’s heart.

After marrying Yuniang and spending so many years with her, he had believed he was finally over the past.

But when Yinyue gazed longingly at those two hairpins, he discovered that even after all this time, he still could not bear to see her sad.

She had only furrowed her brows, and he had hurried to give both pins to her.

Yuniang did not care about dressing up anyway. Even if he had given them to her, she owned no fine clothes to match them.

Yinyue might be the one regret of his life, but Zhu’er was already so big. The choice was difficult.

Before Pei Qingshu could answer, Qi’er cleverly interrupted.

“Qi’er is hungry. Why hasn’t that auntie come back to cook?”

The rain outside had stopped. Even if Yuniang had gone all the way into town, she should have returned by now.

A dark premonition rose in Pei Qingshu, as though Yuniang might never come back from this trip.

“Brother Pei, is Sister Yuniang angry with me?” Liu Yinyue asked sweetly. “Perhaps I should never have accepted those hairpins.”

No. Yuniang would not leave.

At least, she would not leave over two hairpins.

When she married him, he had been ruined. Not one tile above his head kept out the rain, and not one window in the walls kept out the wind.

They had no money then, but they still liked strolling through the market.

Yuniang would stroke a skirt or hold a hairpin to her hair before a mirror, turning this way and that.

Whenever she put the item down, she found some fault with it: the skirt was too bright, the pin too heavy.

If she could find no fault at all, she claimed that she did not care for adornments.

In the seven years since Yuniang entered his home, he had never bought her a hairpin or a fine dress.

Later, Yuniang earned money cutting cloth and embroidering. Zhu’er slowly grew, Pei Qingshu established himself in Shui County, and their life improved day by day.

Yuniang had always been gentle and even-tempered. How could she abandon their life over such a trivial thing?

Pei Qingshu convinced himself, stroked Zhao Qi’er’s head, and said warmly, “Don’t worry. If Qi’er is hungry, we’ll go buy something to eat.”

After the rain stopped, the three returned carrying food boxes and ran into Auntie Wu, who loved nothing more than a spectacle.

Auntie Wu was a vicious gossip who delighted in watching husbands and wives quarrel. Once, she had even cheated Yuniang of her wages and made her cry. Naturally, she would never pass up a chance to laugh at Yuniang again.

The moment she saw Pei Qingshu, she stopped him with a grin.

“I was wondering why I saw Yuniang and Zhu’er walking out in that downpour at dawn, both soaked like drowned rats.

“I asked why she was leaving, but she wouldn’t say. When I pressed her, her eyes went red.”

Auntie Wu glanced knowingly at Liu Yinyue and understood most of the situation.

“A woman whose hands are too clever always gets restless ideas.

“It’s perfectly normal for a man to have three wives and four concubines. Master Pei, you’ve spoiled Yuniang too much.”

Yinyue covered a smile.

“That isn’t fair, Auntie. Sister Yuniang was perfectly well yesterday. She even praised my gold hairpin.

“Strangely enough, after she praised it, I woke this morning to find it missing.

“I’ll search the yard again. Perhaps I dropped it somewhere.

“If you see Sister Yuniang, please speak to her. The pin was not worth much. There was no need for her to brave such heavy rain over it.”