Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The heavy snow fell for three straight days.

Dogs barked behind brushwood gates, yet not a soul was in sight. The nearby courtyards were all buried beneath a thick white quilt, like an unbroken stretch of snowdrifts.

I was allowed to sleep on the footboard in the Second Branch’s room, my ears always pricked, not daring to slack off for even a moment.

Though Wang Long was actually very easy to serve.

He rarely called for anyone in the middle of the night. In my half-asleep haze, I would often see him leaning against the headboard, drinking the tea that had gone cold in the pot all by himself.

Knowing he did not want to wake me, I found a charcoal brazier and set it warmly beneath the kettle.

The next day, Wang Long praised me with a smiling face.

“Jing’er really is clever.”

That winter was far too cold.

Everyone in the household knew I had already done everything I could to care for him, but even with three charcoal braziers burning in the room, thin threads of chill still seemed to drift and curl through the air.

Sure enough.

After the snow melted, Wang Long came down with a high fever.

Ever since I was little, I had heard secret tales from the palace, so I immediately went to the kitchen and asked for a great deal of dried chili peppers. I mixed them with rice paste and spread it over the walls of the Second Branch’s room.

Supposedly, this was what they called a pepper chamber.

In the palace, only the most favored consorts were allowed to live in one.

Wang Long lay in bed. Even though I had wrapped him in layer after layer of cotton quilts, his face was still nearly drained of color.

Seeing me bustle about without stopping, he shook his head. His voice was calm, yet desolate.

“It’s no use.”

As he spoke, he pointed at a leaf’s shadow cast on the window paper. “Once that leaf falls, I will go with it…”

I refused to answer him and kept turning this way and that around the room.

“Master, are you still cold?”

“Should I go get another hand warmer?”

“Master? Master?”

I waited for a long while, but Wang Long did not reply.

When I looked again, I saw that he had buried his face in the thick furs, as if he had fallen asleep.

The Second Master’s strange illness was like being cast into an ice cellar. No number of hot-water bottles had any effect, so all I could do was use what little warmth I had to make up for it.

Even a little counted as something.

I swore I would not let a single thread of cold air enter the warm chamber.

If the wind blew, and the paper windows were too thin, I would wrap myself in a thick padded jacket and press myself against the crack to block the draft.

I lost count of how many nights I fell asleep standing beside the window.

If there was no wind, I would gather him up in my arms, quilt and all, or keep rubbing his icy hands and feet without stopping.

Everyone in the household said the Second Master might not survive the winter.

But he still stubbornly woke up every day.

Day after day, night after night.

Each time he stirred awake in a daze, he would ask me in a hoarse voice,

“That leaf… is it still there?”

And I would always point to the shadow before the window and answer,

“Master, it’s still there.”