Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Clutching the contract, I made my way back to our inn.

My heart was pounding like mad.

I said I didn’t believe it, but a faint shadow had settled over my heart all the same.

People these days believed deeply in gods and ghosts.

I had even heard that the emperor in the palace had taken in many Daoist priests in pursuit of immortality.

Mother was sitting behind the counter, working the abacus.

When she heard me run in, she asked without even looking up, “Well? Did you win the argument?”

I said listlessly, “I won. The silver will be returned tomorrow.”

Mother looked a little surprised.

Even Uncle Biao poked his head out from the kitchen. “Well now, Wangyue actually won an argument against that Yu family boy? That’s a rare sight!”

Why were they looking down on me too?

Annoyed, I puffed out my cheeks.

Then I thought about it and realized Uncle Biao was telling the truth, so I slunk away, deflated.

My mother was the daughter of an escort chief.

Once, while accompanying my grandfather on an escort run, she met a cloth merchant-my father.

Mother was bright and straightforward; Father was smooth and sociable.

I inherited their gift for words, and when arguing with others, I rarely came out the loser.

Except with Yu Hebai.

Eight years ago, Father died of illness.

Mother brought me here to settle down and opened the Lion-Tiger Inn.

Not long after, a family surnamed Yu moved in at the end of the street.

A widow and her orphaned son, with nothing to their name. They were rather pitiful.

Mother taught me to be kind to our neighbors and often helped them out.

Their leaking eaves were patched tile by tile, brick by brick; their empty house slowly grew tables, chairs, and stools.

Madam Yu was grateful, but had no way to repay us, so she offered to have Yu Hebai teach me to read.

Yu Hebai’s father had once been a scholar who failed the imperial examinations.

After years of trying without success, he fell ill from bottled-up frustration and passed away.

Madam Yu poured all her heart and effort into her only son.

Yu Hebai also lived up to her hopes.

Though young, he had read widely and was steeped in scholarly refinement.

When a stubborn, illiterate stone like me saw him, I only felt tongue-tied and clumsy, all my usual cleverness gone.

According to the old ranking of scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants, merchants came last.

Mother also hoped I would read more books and become a sensible, well-mannered girl, not someone covered head to toe in merchant habits.

From then on, Yu Hebai began teaching me to study.

In those first few years, he was the Brother Yu I admired beyond measure.

He was good-looking, patient, and even his words were pleasant to hear.

Until he passed the provincial examination and became a juren.

Then everything changed.

The once-gentle Brother Yu grew more and more severe, often lecturing and correcting me.

I didn’t know how to argue back.

I only felt that the standards he held me against, all those rules and constraints, boxed me in until I could hardly breathe.

But however strict he was, it was still for my own good.

And however stifling it felt, none of it had ever hurt as much as what he said today.

What did he mean, “someone unrelated”?

Those words made every thorn on my body stand on end.

Today, in front of him, I had shown such a mercenary, slick-tongued face.

Clearly, I had meant to make him uncomfortable. So why did my own heart feel even worse?

With my head lowered, I went to tidy the guest rooms.

When I entered the best room, Heaven-One, I discovered that one compartment of the snack box on the table was already empty.

What had been in there was my homemade dried tangerine slices.

Mother, Uncle Biao, and the others all thought they were sour, and very few of our guests ever liked them either.

Yet today, they had actually been eaten clean!

Just as I was marveling over it, a smiling voice drifted over from by the window.

Clear and cool, like a spring in the deep mountains flowing past my ear.

“Little innkeeper,” the female guest who had stayed the night called me. “I like these dried tangerine slices so much. Do you have any more?”