Chapter 2

Chapter 2

My childhood name is Cheng’er.

But I am not Su Cheng. I am not even surnamed Su. My full name is Wang Heng.

I told Song Yaochuan the truth.

After hearing it, his expression remained calm, not the slightest ripple crossing his face. He simply nodded and said, “I’ll remember that.”

Then he asked me, “Wang Heng, why did you marry me?”

“It was my mother’s wish,” I answered.

He asked, “If I recall correctly, the night before our wedding, I was ordered to march to war. It was my second brother who held my ceremonial robes and bowed with you in my place. More than six years have passed. Why didn’t you leave?”

I fell silent.

He answered for me. “Was that also your mother’s wish?”

“No. That was my own,” I told him.

He seemed a little puzzled.

He had once been the most dazzling young man in the capital. At thirteen, he went to the battlefield, wielding a sixty-jin long saber in one hand, beheading enemies and winning fame across the realm.

He was the Heir of Xiping Marquis and the Empress Dowager’s younger cousin’s son. He had inherited his mother’s fine looks and was exceptionally handsome. He was undefeated in battle and brilliant beyond compare.

Whenever noble maidens discussed marriage prospects in their chambers, his name would inevitably be mentioned.

I came from an old, influential family, and my maternal clan was prominent. That was how I stood out among all the young ladies and became Song Yaochuan’s wife.

“You are still young. Perhaps you should leave. There is no need to suffer with us,” he said.

I knew he was testing me.

I did not answer.

He asked again, “Master Li said he wasn’t willing to teach me because he valued your family background, but because he valued you. How did you come to know a saber master renowned throughout the realm?”

This question, I did answer.

I said, “His daughter was on the brink of death from illness. I cured her.”

“You know medicine.”

A statement, because the fact that his right hand could now hold chopsticks was the result of my acupuncture.

“I am also skilled at embroidery,” I said.

He gave a faint smile.

A very slight smile, like a breeze passing over a lake and stirring the smallest ripples.

It was the first time he had smiled since returning wounded.

Major incidents kept erupting in court, and the Northern Di Royal Court began harassing the border again. The general who had replaced Song Yaochuan was assassinated by the Northern Di, leaving the court deeply troubled.

The emperor hated Song Yaochuan all the more for it, convinced that he had colluded with the enemy and sold out the country, allowing the Northern Di to grow strong.

Aside from the troubles on the border, there were also ministers in court embezzling funds.

Life in Wanjing Hutong drifted slowly onward.

Song Yaochuan was patient. Every day, he practiced holding a saber with his left hand and rehabilitating his right.

I opened up a small vegetable plot behind Ruzhu Hall. He said the maids and old women did not turn the soil deeply enough, so the vegetables would not grow well. He personally spent an entire day turning the earth for me, working until he was drenched in sweat.

From that day on, we would take walks outside the hutong in the evenings and chat idly about trivial things.

Our family had farmland and shops, so we had no worries about food or drink. It was only our relatives and old friends who had distanced themselves from us.

After the Dragon Boat Festival, his right hand could lift an eight-jin short saber.

My mother-in-law was delighted and wanted to take me up the mountain to fulfill a vow at the temple. Originally, Third Brother was supposed to escort us, but at the last moment, a classmate invited him out to have fun.

That classmate’s family had a younger sister, plump and pretty, lively and cheerful. My mother-in-law told Third Brother to hurry along and not waste any time.

Song Yaochuan took over the escorting duty himself.

He said, “I’ll see Mother and Cheng’er there.”

My mother-in-law was even happier.

However, on the day we went to offer incense, the weather was unbearably hot and muggy, and my mother-in-law felt unwell after rising early.

I said we should not go.

“How can we not? We must not break our word to the Bodhisattva,” my mother-in-law said.

So I went in her place.

Song Yaochuan and I ascended the mountain. Though there was a rattan chair to sit in and servants carried it, I was still covered in sweat.

Not long after we reached the mountain, thunder and lightning suddenly crashed overhead, and rain poured down in sheets.

Early summer rain usually stopped after a short while. But for some reason, this storm would not end. Fat raindrops fell for a full eight hours.

A section of the southwest corner of the temple’s main hall broke away, and the rear wall of the side rooms collapsed, making them unfit to stay in.

As dusk drew near, the temple monks tactfully urged the stranded worshippers to descend the mountain.

“There’s no room left.”

“Most of the side rooms are leaking, and no one stays in the prayer hall at night.”

We had to leave as well.

Song Yaochuan looked at the mountain path, which had very clearly been washed out by the rain, and said to me, “It won’t be safe for the servants to carry the rattan chair.”

If one of them slipped, I would go tumbling down the ravine, chair and all.

And on my own, I was even less steady on the slick, muddy mountain road.

I frowned slightly. Song Yaochuan asked, “You’re skilled in medicine and embroidery. Are you skilled in martial arts?”

I shook my head.

He said, “Come, my lady. Your husband will carry you.”

It was the first time he had ever joked with me.

I weighed the situation. We had to go. The only difference was whether he carried me or a servant did.

I lay against his back and felt the mud shift beneath his feet. Several times he nearly slipped too, and each step he took was cautious.

Later, I went up and down that same mountain path several times on my own, but none of those journeys ever felt as long as this one.

By the time we returned to Wanjing Hutong, it was already dark.

My mother-in-law was waiting at the gate. I did not know how long she had been there; the hem of her skirt was soaked through.

We returned to Ruzhu Hall to change.

I vaguely noticed mud on the cuffs of his blue-green trousers, but the color did not look quite right.

He used the washroom in the side chamber. When he came out after a long while, one pant leg looked oddly bulky.

“Come here,” I said, calling him into my bedroom.

He stopped at the doorway, his footsteps hesitating slightly.

There was a faint, calming fragrance in the room, and his expression eased.

I told him to roll up his pant leg, and he did as I said.

His left calf had been cut by a rock on the mountain. The sharp stones after the rainstorm were keener than knives. The gash was long and deep, and blood was still seeping out.

He had bandaged it roughly, the way battlefield wounds were bound.

He said, “It’s nothing. I know how to handle external injuries.”

So I told him, “I have a better hemostatic powder.”

He let me treat the wound.

When I was done, he stood there in a daze for a moment before rising to his feet. “I’m going back.”

I nodded.

His departing figure as he walked out of my bedroom seemed a little less decisive than usual.

With my back to him, I packed up the medicine kit.

After that day, we became somewhat more familiar with each other, like two swallows sharing the same eaves. We would exchange a few words and chat now and then.

I never hinted that he should sleep in my bedroom, and he pretended there was no such matter at all.

My parents-in-law never mentioned it either.

In my courtyard, there was a maid who had served for many years and was usually perfectly proper. Then, as if she had lost her mind, she went to wipe Song Yaochuan’s back while he was bathing, her hands wandering over him.

Song Yaochuan lifted one hand and threw her out through the window.

The maid landed on the ground in the courtyard and passed out. It was a long time before she came to.

When my mother-in-law heard of it, she immediately had the maid sold off.

After that, the servants in Ruzhu Hall became even more obedient, and throughout Wanjing Hutong, no one dared bring up the fact that Song Yaochuan and I were husband and wife.

Behind Ruzhu Hall, there had once been a lotus pond. Later, it was filled in and turned into Song Yaochuan’s small training ground.

Aside from exercising on his own and learning left-handed blade techniques from Master Li the Bladesman, he also took several of his younger brothers there to practice martial arts and strengthen their bodies.

My little vegetable garden was separated from the training ground by a single wall.

In the evenings, while they trained in the cooler air, I would bring a rough-work old servant woman with me to water the vegetable beds while it was cool.

“Eldest Brother, that concubine of yours-I heard she was an unrivaled beauty, skilled in both letters and martial arts. Is that true?” I heard the third brother ask.

Third Brother had always been simple-minded and never knew when to stop.

Song Yaochuan answered, “She’s dead. And she was not some concubine. She was your sister-in-law.”

Third Brother said, “My sister-in-law? My sister-in-law is alive and well. What right do you have to curse her?”

The brothers began to argue.

Third Brother was curious, but he was also defending me.

After all these years, we were more like a family. Song Yaochuan, who had not returned home for six years, was the stranger.

At dinner, I heard that Third Brother had punched Song Yaochuan.

I pretended I had heard nothing at all.