Chapter 4
When I returned home, I gave the scroll to Su Yanbai and told him that Pei Ye was the Crown Prince.
“There is no time to lose. We have to move!”
I rushed to pack, but he caught my wrist.
“You said you fell. Are you hurt?”
The question stopped me short. I shook my head first.
“No.” Then I pursed my lips. “But Pei Ye said I had gotten fat.”
Su Yanbai took my pulse and laughed softly.
“That only proves his ignorance. Compared with other women four months pregnant, you are already far too thin.”
That made me feel much better.
“Where should we move?”
Holding my hand, Su Yanbai considered the question for a long while.
“Ah Qing, you are pregnant and should not endure a long journey. Pei Ye has already left. I think we should wait until after the baby is born before moving.”
He was right.
Pei Ye had set out for the capital and would not return anytime soon.
I relaxed considerably.
Beside me, Su Yanbai picked up the scroll and slowly unfurled it. His gaze drifted.
“Where my heart finds home is…”
Though he was looking at the calligraphy before him, he softly recited the words I had once seen Pei Ye write.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked.
He took my hand and traced a character on my palm.
“Was it this one?”
“It really was!” I looked at him in surprise. “How did you guess? What does it mean?”
“‘Where my heart finds home is with you, my love…’” He looked up at me, his lips parting. “He must have been homesick. It means nothing.”
So that was all.
I agreed that it meant nothing.
“He wanted to go home long before he left. No wonder he departed in such a hurry.”
Su Yanbai stopped answering and rolled up the scroll.
“We have plenty of his writing at home. We may as well throw this away.”
Su Yanbai turned to me with the scroll in hand and lifted an eyebrow.
“We cannot waste the Crown Prince’s calligraphy. I intend to have it made into a signboard so we can borrow some of his prestige.”
I had no reply to that.
With calligraphy bestowed by the Crown Prince hanging above it, Su Medical Clinic became wildly popular.
Wealthy and influential patients formed long queues outside.
Su Yanbai became a renowned miracle physician throughout the region.
A single consultation with him was worth a fortune.
In less than a month, the clinic expanded until it occupied half the street. Patients sought prescriptions, bought medicines, and waited to be examined. Business flourished.
Su Yanbai had a fine head for commerce. He hired several physicians to hold regular consultations and a shopkeeper to oversee the medicinal trade.
He appeared only when a difficult case required him and spent the rest of his time at home with me.
The whole city knew that the miracle physician Su cherished his pregnant wife beyond measure.
Half a year later, I gave birth.
Su Yanbai stayed at my side through every moment.
Truthfully, if I had not stopped him, he would have delivered the baby himself.
The infant in my arms was beautiful.
“A boy,” Su Yanbai said. “He looks like you.”
I could not see the resemblance. If anything, his brows and eyes looked a little like someone else.
“I hope he grows to resemble me more.”
I asked Su Yanbai to name him.
After thinking for a long time, he surprised me with a question.
“Could he take your surname?”
I stared. “Why not yours?”
For an instant, I assumed it was because of Pei Ye.
But Su Yanbai was gazing intently down at the baby.
“I am an orphan. Su is not truly my surname; I merely took my master’s name. I think it would be better for him to share yours.”
He looked up at me with a rueful curve to his lips.
“If I could, I would take your surname too.”
I stared at him, my eyes growing damp.
Su Yanbai rarely spoke of his childhood.
Had his infertility not been impossible to hide, he probably would never have told me that he had once been used to test poisons.
But I could imagine that everything he refused to mention was filled with pain and humiliation.
My heart ached for him.
Sensing my emotion, Su Yanbai quickly drew me into his arms.
“Do not be sad. I have you now.”
He lowered his gaze to me.
“And now we have one more person too.”
We named the child Yi: Xu Yi.
When Xu Yi was six months old, we prepared to move.
But just before our departure, trouble arose.
The prefect visited us late at night with news: the Crown Prince had been poisoned.
He wanted Su Yanbai to go to the capital.
Su Yanbai and I shut the door and discussed it privately.
“What do you think, Ah Qing?”
I rocked the cradle gently and watched our sleeping son.
“We must save him. If he dies, I fear this child may not be allowed to live either.”
Su Yanbai nodded.
“I understand.”
He did not go to the capital.
Instead, he obtained a detailed account of the Crown Prince’s symptoms and spent several sleepless days studying them. At last, he offered a prescription for the antidote.
The Crown Prince awoke in less than half a month.
The delighted prefect earned a promotion.
He asked what reward we desired.
Su Yanbai refused any reward and made only one request: the prefect must not tell the Crown Prince who had written the prescription.
“My lord, I have no desire for fame or rank. I wish only to live quietly among ordinary people, hand in hand with my wife.”
After dealing with us several times, the prefect had come to understand our ambitions.
“Rest assured. I will keep your secret.”
He was not, however, a man who forgot a kindness.
When he learned that Su Yanbai and I planned to move, he made inquiries about my old village and granted me more than a dozen *mu* of abandoned rice paddies along the mountain.
Several days later, Su Yanbai and I stood at the foot of the mountain looking over the terraced fields.
“These paddies have lain fallow for years. Without the authorities’ permission, the villagers did not dare cultivate them, so good land went to waste. Many people had to leave their homes just to earn enough to eat. I think this land could allow them to stay.”
I turned to him.
“You have your clinic to run. I want work of my own as well.”
Su Yanbai seemed to understand.
“You want to build an estate?”
I nodded and pointed out my plans.
“We will build our new home over there, plant bamboo beside it, and grow several plots of medicinal herbs. We can restore the terraces here, dig channels at the foot of the mountain to bring in water, and perhaps make a pond and stock it with fish…”
I spoke with confidence, my eyes full of hope.
Su Yanbai listened attentively.
“Could we raise crabs?” He turned to me. “I like eating them.”
“We… could do that too.”