Chapter 2

Huo Cizhou did not leave at once. Instead, he looked at the ledger in my hands and considered for a moment.

“If my wife isn’t my private property, surely my children are?”

“No, sir.”

I shook my head without expression, suppressing the fury that had erupted inside me and keeping my face composed and businesslike.

“Children are free persons too. You can only pawn the affection between you and them. Once you do, they will never have anything to do with you again.”

Huo Cizhou did not seem surprised. He gave a slight nod.

“How much is that worth?”

“Five years of life, ten thousand taels of silver, or the chance to cure a serious illness.”

“Now that’s worth something.”

He chuckled, with what looked almost like relief.

“Then I’ll pawn outright the affection between me and the son and daughter my first wife bore me.”

“Very well, sir. I’ll arrange it now.”

I restrained the urge to batter him to death and opened the ledger, ready to enter the transaction.

As I put brush to paper, I could not help reminding him,

“Sir, once you pawn something outright, there is no taking it back. Have you thought this through?”

He nodded, the smile still on his lips.

“That second son my first wife gave me is dull and lifeless. He hasn’t a fraction of the courage and intelligence of the son Haiyue and I have. What could there possibly be to regret?”

My grip tightened on the brush.

My clever, darling boy was actually his second son?

Ha!

I put brush to paper then and there and recorded the pledge in the ledger.

I would never tell him that, according to the customer’s life history in the ledger, Huo Cizhou had only one son and one daughter in his entire life—my children.

“And what would you like in exchange, sir?”

He stroked his chin and thought before answering.

“The chance to cure a serious illness.”

“Very well.”

I handed him a yellow talisman.

“Moisten it with water and apply it to the patient’s forehead. When it dissolves on its own, their condition will improve greatly. They will soon recover.”

He took the talisman and tucked it safely against his body. As he did, his figure dispersed like a wisp of smoke.

After Huo Cizhou left, the old man who had been waiting behind him looked thoroughly disgusted.

“He looks like a respectable fellow, but what a rotten heart he has. A pity I couldn’t make out his face, or I’d expose him before His Majesty.”

Sometimes Pawnshop Number Whatever had many customers, sometimes few.

When there were many, they had to wait in line.

To protect their privacy, white mist veiled their faces, keeping them from seeing one another’s true appearance.

Only I, the shopkeeper, could see their faces clearly.

Now I looked at Elder Lin, the retired grand secretary, and fought to hold myself together as I attended to him.

Pawnshop Number Whatever had a rule: the shopkeeper could not turn away a customer.

As long as anyone remained in the shop, I could not close it, unless dawn had come.

“What would you like to pawn, sir?”

Elder Lin looked at me and stroked his beard.

“I’d like to pawn my remaining years in exchange for my daughter-in-law living the rest of her life free of illness and pain.”

A father-in-law trading his life for his daughter-in-law’s health?

That was a rare thing indeed.

Seeing my surprise, he smiled and explained.

“My dear son died young. My late wife spent years bedridden before she passed away, and my two grandsons are not yet grown. My daughter-in-law has always managed everything, both inside and outside the house. All that work has worn her down. She coughs and wheezes every day, and sometimes brings up blood. I suffer because I’m old and useless, with nothing left but this broken, ailing body and a long stretch of years. Ah! An old man who will not die is a burden. If age brings illness, I’ll only exhaust the little our family has. All of life’s hardships cannot fall on my daughter-in-law. Young friend, help me. I don’t want to burden her.”

“Very well. As you wish.”

After entering the pledge in the ledger, I handed him a yellow talisman.

“Dissolve it in tea and have her drink it.”

The rules of Pawnshop Number Whatever forbade the shopkeeper to refuse a customer’s request, even one she considered unreasonable.