Chapter 2

Back home, I crumpled the draft marriage contract in my hand.

I sat beneath the eaves.

Smoothed it out.

Crumpled it again.

Smoothed it out…

Oh, well.

I tossed the paper onto the floor beside me, braced myself on my arms, tipped my head back, and leaned away.

There were carvings beneath the projecting eaves. Mother had specially hired a carpenter to carve them anew: swallows and bats, all in pairs.

She liked everything in pairs.

Even Father’s burial clothes were embroidered with a pair of wild geese.

Two years earlier, Father had met with an accident while transporting goods by boat. Both he and the cargo had gone under.

Of course Mother grieved. How could she not? But life had to go on. Her husband was gone, the goods still had to be paid for, and there was a daughter’s dowry to save. She had no choice but to take the surviving workers and carry on trading alone.

She went everywhere and sold everything.

Timber from the deep mountains of Shu, indigo and seafood from Fuzhou, furs from the north…

Of course she was exhausted. How could she not be? But whenever she thought of the unmarried daughter she and her husband still had, she made herself keep going.

Lately, she was forever telling me:

“You’ll be a bride soon. You can’t go on the way you did when you were little…”

And what had I been like when I was little?

If I wanted something, I would roll on the ground and make a nuisance of myself until I got it.

If I stopped liking it, I would throw it somewhere out of sight, even if someone pressed it into my arms.

“Once you’re grown, you can’t simply do as you please,” Mother said. “You have to think things through.”

“Take this marriage to Bufan. You insisted on it. Now you must follow his family’s rules and stay at home embroidering your wedding dress, instead of running about all day.”

“Choosing an auspicious day, catching the betrothal geese… Those are the groom’s affairs. Why are you rushing about worrying over them? Everyone we know is laughing at you.”

But Yang Bufan would not see to them.

Before we had even fixed the wedding date, he went off to the capital with a few friends. He said he was visiting a teacher about the imperial examinations, but really he wanted to avoid the bother.

Joining two families meant a basketful of little tasks just for the betrothal, and someone had to ask his opinion on every one.

It irritated him. “Why does marrying the Lu girl take so much fuss? When we were children, all she needed was a banana leaf over her head to be my bride. Now she’s grown, suddenly there have to be all these rules.”

He could not be bothered.

Anything that required a decision, he handed to that obliging cousin of his.

His cousin was foolish too. Told to take care of it, he took care of everything, diligently and thoroughly. While hunting the betrothal geese, he watched a pair in the sky so intently that his horse got away from him and charged into a stream gully.

The geese flew off, leaving him drenched.

My thoughts wandered aimlessly.

And there he was, as though thinking of him had summoned him.

A man appeared at the entrance to the covered walkway.

His soaked cousin had come again, carrying a box of who knew what.

I watched from a distance.

He held an umbrella, but instead of sheltering his own head, he kept the box safe from every gust and drop of rain.

When he reached me, he closed the umbrella. Water dripped from his finely shaped brows. He put a hand behind his back, as though hiding a treasure, and smiled.

“Ah Lin, guess what I’ve got in my hand.”