chapter 2

# chapter 2

Why did I save this highborn lady?

The reason is really quite simple: I came across her.

My mother always said a person should walk straight and sit upright.

I couldn’t very well let someone die right in front of me.

I crouched by the stove, coaxing the medicinal broth along over the heat.

The stuff was bitterly foul, so I broke off a small piece of rock sugar and dropped it in.

Then I fed it to her spoonful by spoonful until she’d drunk it all down.

Expensive medicine earns its price, I suppose, because after finishing that one bowl of broth, the lady actually stirred and came back to herself.

The moment she opened her eyes and saw me, she looked around the room and went still. “Where am I?”

I explained everything – how I had found her, start to finish.

She listened with reddening eyes, then looked down at the gold lock in her hand and couldn’t hold back her sobs.

“Ah Nian, Ah Nian…”

“My daughter…”

I hadn’t seen many women cry like that.

Old Aunt Wang next door cried all the time, crying over that useless husband of hers.

But she always cried with a cleaver in her hand, slamming it down on the chopping block – not a shred of frailty about her, just a sense that she could flatten you if she wanted.

This lady before me wept in a way that split you open from the inside, that made you feel every bit of her pain as your own.

I scratched my head and tried to work out how to comfort her.

I was afraid she’d cry herself into a fit and pass out again.

Just when I was completely at a loss, the door swung open.

In walked my uncle’s family.

They came in without the least concern that someone in the room was weeping, and my aunt by marriage grabbed my hand right away, all warm smiles and good cheer.

“Lin girl, Xu the butcher told us your pork sales went wonderfully today.”

“You must have saved up quite a bit over the years.”

“You see, your cousin here is getting on in age – time to find him a wife.”

“You know your uncle never could hold on to money. We’re all family, so this money…”

Three sentences in, her purpose was plain.

She had come to squeeze out of me the money for my cousin’s bride price.

I shook my head. “Auntie, bad timing. I happen to be out of money.”

My aunt’s face tightened, and her voice climbed. “Lin girl, you ungrateful thing.”

“Your parents died young – our family raised you, didn’t we? Now your cousin needs money, and you’re hiding it away.”

“Your cousin is the only male heir in this family. You’re just going to watch him fail to find a wife?”

“Hand it over right now, you ungrateful little wretch. Don’t you try to play games with me.”

My uncle chimed in from the side: “Lin girl, your aunt is right. Finding your cousin a wife is the most important thing there is.”

“You’re a girl – naturally you ought to help your cousin so our family line can carry on.”

My cousin, who was shaped like a barrel, gave a grunt. “The way I see it, she’s just trying to get married herself, squirreling away money for her own dowry.”

The three of them worked together in perfect concert, dead set on wringing silver out of me.

I upended my money pouch onto the table. Only a few scraps of silver tumbled out.

“I told you. No money.”

My aunt’s eyes swept across the table with disdain. She scooped the fragments into the pouch and made straight for the cabinets to start rummaging.

“You little hussy, what do you have to spend money on?”

“You’ve hidden it somewhere, I know you have.”

Just as we were locked in a stalemate, the lady suddenly spoke. “Everyone, the fault is mine.”

“It must be that Miss Lin spent her money going to fetch a physician for me.”

She reached up toward her hair as she spoke.

But the rushing water in the river had long since swept away every hairpin on her head.

Her jewelry too – all of it, gone.

Her hand found nothing. She gave an apologetic smile and chose her words carefully. “I will certainly repay her double in the days ahead. Please, there is no need to make things difficult for Miss Lin…”

She hadn’t finished speaking before my aunt’s sharp eyes locked onto the peace lock on her wrist.

Her gaze went glassy. She very nearly lunged forward. “Why wait for some future day? That peace lock on your wrist looks like it’s worth something.”

“As the saying goes, saving a life outweighs building a seven-story pagoda. Our Lin girl saved your life – just give her that peace lock in return.”