Chapter 9

It took me five days to finish the cloak. I brought it to him after supper. He must have grown tired of reading, for he was holding a piece of stone and carving a seal.

Apart from reading, it was his only pastime. Seal carving required good stone, but with things as they were at home, we could not afford any.

I put the cloak and boots on the heated bed and told him to try them on.

He wiped the dust from his hands and stood in front of the bed, looking uncertain.

I draped the cloak over his shoulders and crouched before him to look. The length was just right. I felt rather pleased with myself. Perhaps I did have the makings of a good wife and mother.

I could keep house and make clothes.

“A perfect fit. Now you won’t have to worry about the cold when you go out.”

I looked up at him triumphantly.

Then I fetched the boots and told him to sit down and try them.

He stayed motionless for ages. Only when I gave him a push did he sit on the edge of the bed to put them on.

“Do they fit? Are they warm? Get up and walk a few steps.”

I pulled him to his feet.

“Wen Sheng, money is so tight at home. You…”

“We’re not exactly well off, but we can still afford to make you a cloak and buy you a pair of boots. Go on, walk a little.”

Frowning, he tied the cloak, took a few steps, then turned to look at me.

The candlelight was dim. It was only an ordinary cloak, yet on him it looked beautiful in a way I could not explain.

There was a little more warmth in his aloof face now. He no longer seemed quite so far out of reach.

He was becoming more human every day.

Just as I had feared, snowstorms devastated the north. Grain prices in the capital changed daily. Apart from Father, no one went out without a reason.

Even the courtyard of Song Jin’s mother fell quiet.

Manman was an exceptionally good baby. As long as she was fed, she neither cried nor fussed. When she was awake, she watched people with big, round eyes. When she was happy, she opened her toothless mouth in a grin.

I adored her. Her mother said she was noisy, though I could not understand how such a good child disturbed her. I had a room in my courtyard prepared for Manman and the wet nurse.

With little to do in winter, I found scraps of cloth and sewed Manman a very ugly doll.

The wet nurse had clever hands and made her a little tiger hat.

When I was bored, I read Grandfather’s travel books. Manman was fair and plump now, her little arms and legs round and segmented like lotus roots.

She was only fifty-odd days old. I lay at the head of the heated bed reading, with her beside me. She listened for a while and slept for a while. Once awake, changed, and fed, she stared at me with those round eyes.

There could not be a better baby in the world.

Father still came to look at her now and then, but her mother had not come even once.

Only Matron Wei occasionally told the wet nurse to carry her over, and before long she would be carried back.

In February, Grandfather and I saw Song Jin into the examination compound.

He did not let himself down. He took first place, just as he had hoped.

Apricot blossoms were blowing overhead when I carried Manman out with Grandfather to watch him ride through the streets.

On his white horse, wearing a red robe, he looked as handsome and aloof as when I first met him.

However many pretty girls tossed their handkerchiefs his way, he never so much as glanced at them.

The top graduate was usually appointed a compiler at the Hanlin Academy, or given a post as an official writer or secretary, either working on the national history or lecturing to the emperor.

But Song Jin was different. The Censor-in-Chief personally petitioned His Majesty, and His Majesty agreed. Song Jin became a seventh-rank registrar at the Censorate.

At the time, the Censor-in-Chief, Lord Wu, was nearly seventy. The Censorate oversaw inspection, impeachment, and recommendations to the throne.

Lord Wu was known as the Iron-Faced Chief Censor. Working under him, Song Jin was so busy his feet scarcely touched the ground. He often could not come home. It was nothing unusual to go four or five days without seeing him.

Converted into cash, his monthly salary came to less than four strings of copper coins. When he received his first month’s pay, he put four strings on the table, then went to look at Manman, who was rolling about on the heated bed and babbling.

After a long while, he looked at me and said, “Don’t spend this. Save it for your dowry.”

My chest ached. Looking at those four strings of coins, I suddenly felt they were too heavy to lift.