In the winter of the first year of the Yong’an era, the snow Qiqian’er had dreaded most finally arrived.
The snowfall started off with real force — at first fine as the down beneath a hen’s neck, unhurried but steady, and over some ten days, the snow worked its way from the hen’s head all the way down to her tail feathers.
Early one morning, Old Madam Tao’s eldest daughter-in-law, Madam Huang, braved the snow to knock on the door, bringing along a bowl of fried dough. Word had gotten around the village lately that all the men in her family — except for the old one — had sent grain and silver home from the Four Southern Prefectures.
Madam Huang, bundled in a thick sheepskin vest, her head wrapped in cloth, her face flushed red from the cold, stood at the door not daring to move, her knock growing gradually louder, her voice timid and unable to raise itself.
Qiqian’er finally heard her and opened the door to find her there.
Seeing Qiqian’er, Madam Huang carefully bent one knee slightly, resting a hand on it in a respectful bow, and said: “Huo — Madam Anren, good day to you.”
She was a generation older, so Qiqian’er hurried to open both sides of the door, returned the greeting, and invited her in: “Auntie, what brings you here?”
Madam Huang rarely left the house — at most she’d glance around eagerly just outside her own gate before hurrying back in, since Old Madam Tao usually kept her tied down with chores in the back courtyard.
This was the first time Qiqian’er had ever seen this woman step outside her own gate — and she’d come all this way just to deliver something?
Qiqian’er couldn’t help wanting to smile.
Old Madam Tao, too embarrassed to come herself, had sent Madam Huang to curry favor instead — quite generous of her, considering this was fried food!
Seeing Qiqian’er courteously usher her inside, Madam Huang was delighted. Her face flushed, she held out a shallow bowl of fried dough with both hands and said: “Snow’s come today, and it looks like we’ll be shut in for the winter soon, unable to go out. My mother-in-law sent me to check on you two ladies — if there’s any housework needing an extra pair of hands, just let me know.”
Qiqian’er came down the steps and took the bowl with both hands, and noticed that this woman’s fingers, once covered in deep, unhealed cracks, now had medicinal oil applied to them, with two of the worse ones even wrapped in fine cloth.
The world was full of strange things — this woman really ought to have died this winter. Other households had men to support them, and even so, winter was hard enough; they still had to bring home dozens of catties of grain to see them through.
The Tao family had no man. This woman had worked herself to the point of chronic illness, and it seemed she wasn’t going to make it through.
Madam Huang looked at her own hands, smiled bashfully, but her tone couldn’t hide a note of pride: “Rubbed on some horse oil. Yesterday my mother-in-law went and asked Steward Meng, and he sent someone to escort us, even had a cart from the camp hitched up, and we went — we went all the way to Yandu… oh? Is the old lady here? Let me go pay my respects and then I’ll be off.”
Qiqian’er was astonished — did that mean they’d passed through Qingfeng City, thick with refugees, all the way to Yandu? She wanted very much to invite her to sit down and ask all about it.
Out of fear, and unwilling to witness the misery of the refugees, Qiqian’er hardly ever went out — she wouldn’t even go near the main road.
She smiled and told Madam Huang: “The old lady’s over in her own courtyard — she won’t be back till this evening.”
The old lady was afraid that if she moved out, someone would take over her fine house, so no matter what anyone said, she refused to give up what belonged to her, insisting the place needed the warmth of human presence.
Hearing this, Madam Huang laughed.
In the end, everyone in this settlement knew each old woman’s temperament through and through.
The two of them went into the courtyard together; Qiqian’er didn’t take Madam Huang to the main hall, but instead brought her to the west wing of the front courtyard, where she usually did her work during the day.
The moment they stepped inside, Madam Huang felt a wave of warmth wash over her, along with the distinctive smell of sheep manure mixed with burnt wood ash — not a pleasant smell, but it left her body feeling comfortable, warm through and through.
This side room was quite spacious too, with an inner and outer chamber; the heating method was similar to the main house — a fire wall and heated brick bed running through the outer room.
Baa…
Seven or eight sheep, large and small, were penned in with wooden railings up near the ceiling area of the room, and next to the pen, stacked neatly almost up to the ceiling, was dry pine firewood.
Madam Huang let out an envious breath, walked over to the pen, looked down, and laughed: “Well would you look at that — lambs already, and living inside the house too, what luxury. Even the animals live better than people.”
In truth, the Tao household wasn’t cold this year either.
Everyone had been huddling together for warmth; watching the residents of the Guard’s Lane hauling dry firewood home every day, the women of the settlement had also sought help, and most households had managed to store up firewood for the winter.
In the past, everyone had assumed they’d be moving on eventually, so they’d never developed the habit of stockpiling firewood. But the Chen family was different — they had connections, standing, and reliable information; whatever the Chen family did, following their lead was never wrong.
Qiqian’er emptied the bowl, opened a small jar in the corner of the room, and added some black sauce for Madam Huang, saying as she did: “Everything’s in such disarray, even the livestock have no sense of order anymore. This litter didn’t come at the right season! This month alone we’ve had two more born, and the old lady is over the moon about it, getting up in the middle of the night just to check on them. Such an old woman running back and forth like that! Well, no matter — we’re building another shed for our ancestor-sheep, and during the day I’ll do my work here! It’s been quite eventful this year too, births and additions to the family every day.”
Madam Huang looked at the two little lambs and sighed: “What joy, what joy! Who could have imagined, once you came here you’d never be able to leave.”
Qiqian’er handed the bowl back to her; after some polite protest, Madam Huang finally accepted it.
Old custom — you never sent someone home with an empty bowl if they’d brought you something.
Black sauce was quite a treasure these days. Madam Huang touched the rim of the bowl, cherishing it, and carefully set it on the windowsill by the door.
Once Madam Huang had set it down and turned back, she saw Qiqian’er holding a wooden stick, lifting the lid off a pot and stirring a batch of red dye.
Madam Huang, being skilled in weaving, found a piece of firewood and came over to help stir, saying admiringly as she stirred: “Dyeing cloth? Only your household could afford to do that… this shade is so pure — is it mineral dye, not madder root? I thought so — your family really does have deep resources. Toon-tree ash, sure, that’s understandable, but a red like this — that’s crushed cinnabar, isn’t it?”
Qiqian’er nodded, smiling: “Ha! It’s all leftover scraps, can’t get a true pure color out of it either — just dregs from the bottom of the medicine storehouse. Earlier they moved in some old stock from various regions, and some of it had lost its potency entirely, only good for the color left in it. Master Cheng and the others said they’d throw it out, and I said, don’t throw it out, I’ll buy it!”
“They were about to throw it away, and you bought it?”
“Well, think about it — even if they threw it out, burned it, that wouldn’t do anyone any good, and that would count as misappropriation of goods. Why cause trouble for Master Cheng over nothing? It wasn’t worth much money at all.
“I just bought a batch of blue-green medicinal material — the cinnabar was in no state to be used properly, all mixed together in a jumbled pile of dozens of catties, more stone chips than actual cinnabar. What comes out isn’t a proper red either — I just mixed the materials however I could, and every batch comes out a different shade!”
Qiqian’er set down the stick and led Madam Huang into the inner room, saying: “Look, none of these came out deep enough. You’re the expert — take a look, tell me what I should add?”
The moment Madam Huang entered the room, she felt dizzy — there was no other explanation for it — a dozen or more ropes were strung across the room, hung heavy with dyed cloth: black, blue-green, dark red, vermilion, madder red, every shade filling every rope from wall to wall.
She stammered: “Not deep enough, not deep enough — maybe burn more toon-tree ash and try again?”
As she spoke, she looked left and right, and noticed that the single bed in the room was piled high with a jumbled mess of fabric — at a glance, there had to be a hundred bolts or more, and not a single one of them pure white; every piece was covered in plum-dark spots and ring-shaped water stains of yellow.
At first glance, this was clearly top-quality fabric.
Madam Huang looked on with a pang of genuine heartache. She went over, gathered up an armful to feel it, lowered her head to smell it, and asked, her voice trembling with regret: “Little Anren? What — what happened here?”
Qiqian’er pressed her lips together and smiled: “Isn’t this exactly what you all were talking about — those several carts of treasures His Majesty granted us!”
Madam Huang was utterly shocked: “What? Several cartloads — this is it?”
Well, not quite — there was good brocade too, just not something she could show her.
Qiqian’er sat down, laughing helplessly: “Hah, the previous dynasty was dirt poor — what good stuff could possibly be left at the bottom of their storehouses? These past days they’ve been handing out a whole slew of honorary titles, and what came with them is pretty much this. Don’t go thinking I, as an ‘Anren,’ amount to much of anything — I’m just like this cloth, bottom-of-the-barrel stuff!”
Madam Huang’s fingers trembled with the pain of it — good material like this, they’d have needed to run the looms for who knows how many days, worked themselves half to death for it, and here it was, ruined like this?
After the initial pang passed, she thought again — well, it’s not her place to feel bad over the young Anren’s belongings. What did it matter? Such a small thing! As long as it hadn’t rotted through, cloth that landed in the hands of women like themselves could always be turned back into something fit for this world.
Madam Huang sighed: “No one can compare with the imperial family — even their leftover storehouse goods are this fine! These are wonderful things! With nimble hands, who couldn’t make use of all this? A whole year’s worth of dyeweeds — spring nettle-hemp, fourth-month indigo, riverside rehmannia root, a steady stream of woad, magnolia bark, wolf-tail grass, and autumn purple sappan wood in the eighth and ninth months. Goodness, so much cloth! This will keep the young Anren busy for years — even a small pot couldn’t dye through all this in ten years!”
Suddenly she wasn’t envious anymore at all, and instead pulled Qiqian’er close affectionately, saying: “My family dyes cloth too. Next year when we go up the mountain to gather herbs, I’ll come call for the young Anren to join us — we’ve got a few dye recipes at home too, the colors come out purer than this…”
Even as she said this, Madam Huang was truly impressed at heart — the young wife the Chen family had sought out really was capable of everything, inside the house and out. This cloth wasn’t top-grade in color, but it was rare to see it dyed so evenly, piece after piece — this was the work of a master dyer.
Qiqian’er smiled: “It’s just that I have a fondness for natural plant dyes — I’m not doing anything else anyway, so we take our time, dye slowly. Isn’t it nice to always have something new to wear, this whole life through?”
Madam Huang worked up the courage to offer a compliment: “The young Anren has clever hands — you can make anything work.”
Clever hands? Qiqian’er didn’t think herself particularly skilled — this was work she’d repeated for decades; if anything, she admired her own patience, the ability to just put her head down and keep working.
But since the woman was complimenting her, well, they might as well flatter each other.
She laughed and took Madam Huang’s hand. “My grandmother always says my hands are like rakes — my stitches are so crude and clumsy it’s a sight to see! If you want to talk about clever hands, it’s really the Old Tao family’s daughter-in-law — so quick and capable at everything, tsk~!”
With that, the two of them laughed together, and Qiqian’er invited Madam Huang to sit in the main hall.
Madam Huang had grown bolder now, and since her mother-in-law had said she could sit as long as she liked, she settled in comfortably at the Chen household.
This was an honor not easily won — every woman in the settlement these days deferred to the young Anren, practically worshipping her like a temple goddess.
That field hospital that was supposed to move but never did — its banner had been changed, now supposedly serving as a medicine storehouse instead, since there was no more fighting up front anyway. And with the Chen family’s grandmother and granddaughter-in-law going around the whole settlement posting notices?
No one here was a fool. The Tao family, too, was quietly harboring a literate daughter, waiting for the chance to marry her into a prestigious family.
By now, the settlement had been formally registered and fixed in place, called Guard’s Lane — and with that, people’s hearts grew even more anxious. Several of the older women spent whole days sitting with Old Madam Chen, crying.
Old Madam Chen, seeing that Qiqian’er had already found her cousin a proper residence, took credit for Qiqian’er’s analysis and spread it around as her own idea.
In an instant, every woman in the settlement went half-mad, rushing out to make inquiries of their own, and since every household had some connection to someone serving in the army, word spread quickly enough.
There were also women who’d lost contact with the men on the front and had no idea what post their husbands held now, or even whether they were still alive.
They came crying to beg Old Madam Chen for help. Heaven and earth as witness, back then who would have dared trouble the young Anren directly!
The young Anren had such a fierce temper that everyone who saw her stepped out of her way.
Yet who could have guessed — in the end, the one everyone could truly rely on turned out to be this formidable woman.
Except for Madam Qiao, who was barred from entering, in recent days, anyone who came asking got help. The young Anren was patient too, going door to door analyzing each family’s situation. For those with no idea where their men had gone, she advised them to find rooms toward the right side at the back of the settlement, and each family staked out roughly a courtyard for themselves, posted notices, and wrote down where their men were serving and under what name.
Those with real standing understood by now that the official residences they’d previously lived in couldn’t be kept, and so chose the kind of place Old Madam Chen currently lived in, splitting off to claim their own space.
This had all happened at the end of last month — when His Majesty had come again to grant rewards, this time bestowing gifts on the Chen family’s young wife alone, said to be quite a substantial amount, hauled in on several large carts. After that, no one dared provoke her — everyone had to treat her with the utmost deference and care.
From then on, the two Chen ladies of Guard’s Lane came to be addressed as Old Anren and Young Anren.
But being made an Anren changed nothing about the daily work that still needed doing.
Once the dye in the pot had settled enough, Qiqian’er put out the fire, took a burning ember from beneath the stove, and led Madam Huang toward the main hall.
Madam Huang followed along, genuinely envious at heart — to say nothing of anything else, just this iron pot alone — this family had one pot for bathing, a full set of pots for cooking, and now, dyeing cloth, they even had a dedicated pot just for that.
Nothing to be envious about, really.
Entering the east side of the main hall, Qiqian’er tucked the ember into the stove pit and added a few pieces of pine-oil wood; in moments the stove crackled to life, and the whole room slowly filled with the scent of pine and began to warm.
Even with a few rooms’ worth of dry firewood, no one could afford the luxury of heating two rooms’ worth of heated beds at once.
Madam Huang stood in the east room, looking at the double layers of fine paper pasted over the windows, and felt another pang of envy.
In the depths of winter, who wouldn’t want a bit of light? But the paper in their own household was reserved for their scholar-hopeful to practice writing on; as for their own windows, they simply crossed wooden boards over them and stuffed the edges tight with rags to block the wind.
Qiqian’er noticed her envy and went into the inner room, bringing out a dozen or so sheets of fine paper for her: “You aunties do needlework day and night — mustn’t ruin your eyes over it. Take this, paste it over your windows, let a little light in.”
Madam Huang refused no matter what, laughing as she said: “No, no! We’d need paste — with things as good as they are now at home, we still can’t bear to waste good grain on such a thing.”
Hearing this, Qiqian’er felt a pang in her heart, and went back into the inner room to fetch two pieces of elm bark for her instead.
Madam Huang accepted the bark, deeply impressed, and sat down on the edge of the heated bed, praising her: “The young Anren really knows how to manage a household — prepared for everything like this.”
Qiqian’er sat down, put water on to boil, and only then settled in properly to chat with her: “You’ll all get things sorted out sooner or later too — now that the men have started sending things home, from here on the days should get better for you, Auntie.”
Madam Huang pulled Qiqian’er’s sewing basket over and dug out some work to help with, stitching a shoe sole as she chatted: “Ah, I’m quite content, really, nothing much to ask for. It’s just fortunate my mother-in-law managed to hold us together — so many died out there these years. Just for that alone, I owe her my devotion. As for anything else — heh, no point thinking about it.”
Qiqian’er nodded in approval: “That’s true too — thinking too much just makes you miserable. Auntie — did you go to Yandu with the old lady?”
Madam Huang’s eyes lit up: “We certainly did! Zhou Chengzong and the others sent things home, didn’t they, and on top of what we still had stored from the old weaving, my mother-in-law said, let’s go to Yandu and take a look — sell the cloth! Buy a few things to help us through winter.”
Qiqian’er’s hands were still busy sorting the old lady’s scrap cloth, and she deftly braided cloth strips as she asked, seemingly offhand: “So you went? Was the road safe?”
Madam Huang’s hands worked the needle deftly, not even looking at it, yet not missing a single stitch, as she looked up at Qiqian’er and said: “That’s just it! We’d all seen those men before — scared us half to death! At first we didn’t dare go either, but my mother-in-law took some goods out to the main road to trade, and that’s how we found out. All the refugees from around Qingfeng have already gone off to Yandu to make a living.”
Qiqian’er’s hands suddenly stopped, and she asked, quite startled: “But that’s tens of thousands of refugees!”
Hearing this, Madam Huang laughed — she’d truly broadened her horizons on this trip — and said: “Tens of thousands? Even hundreds of thousands, the city of Yandu could swallow them all up! Ah, let me tell you, that place — it’s enormous! And the city gates! So tall!!”
She craned her neck upward to demonstrate. “You have to look up like this just to see the top — it scared us so bad, we didn’t dare say a word even to the gate officer. It was my mother-in-law who managed it — nothing scares that woman — she just paid three coppers each and we went right in.”
Qiqian’er said nothing, just smiled and lowered her head to keep working, but her eyes were filled with shock.
She’d already prepared several thousand catties of elm bark, planning to grind it into powder these next few days, mix in a bit of coarse flour, and make it into elm-bark flatbread. Once the snow grew heavier, she meant to quietly go out and help the refugees, hoping to build up some good fortune for her son An’er.
According to what Madam Huang was saying — did that mean those refugees wouldn’t freeze to death after all? They’d all gone to Yandu? But wasn’t Yandu supposed to rely on His Majesty’s old family holdings in the Four Prefectures before it could gradually warm up again by next spring…
Madam Huang was still rambling on: “Young Anren, you have no idea! Never mind just the city of Yandu itself — there are several counties around it too, all prosperous counties! Most of the shops in the city have reopened, and they can’t even hire enough serving staff.
“The laborer who guided us said that, even though things aren’t flowing smoothly yet, they can’t find enough hands for physical work — the traveling merchants in Yandu have to go out themselves to collect goods now, they don’t even have time for their usual rounds, you know…”
She looked at Qiqian’er with a face full of contentment. “My family, well, we had some cloth, and some raw silk too…”
Hearing this, Qiqian’er teased her: “Oh? Your family has such fine things too?”
Madam Huang’s face flushed: “Mm, we do! My mother-in-law’s quite capable — the whole way here, she kept saying things would settle down eventually, that if we endured the hardship, we could rebuild our household with these bolts of cloth. And look, our old lady turned out to be right.”
Qiqian’er thought of Old Madam Tao and nodded: “Your family’s old lady has a sharp mind.”
As the old saying goes — starve someone for three days, and they’ll turn to wicked thoughts; struggle for three months, and they’ll grow scheming.
A group of women fleeing for their lives, bouncing along the road — those who survived weren’t simple people. Old Madam Tao had seen plenty, and it had honed in her a calculating mind.
Her own family’s old lady, by contrast, had only grown a loud voice, eating losses in silence all the while.
She herself had once envied others’ twists and turns of clever scheming, but after half a lifetime she’d come to understand her own path — to cultivate an open, honest, straightforward spirit; with that, no fortified city in the world could withstand it.
And so, she held no grudges, blamed no one, simply tended to her own affairs without wronging others. But if someone came to provoke her?
Then — she’d crush them flat.
Like that Eunuch Liao — whatever came up, it always ended with a swift little crack.
Madam Huang had no idea who Qiqian’er was mentally cracking just then; she was simply feeling pleased with herself, and continued boasting: “The day we entered the city, people saw we had half a cart of cloth and swarmed right up to us! Young Anren, you wouldn’t believe it — before, cloth like ours barely fetched three hundred coppers even at a stretch, and now in Yandu it’s going for three strings a bolt — and that’s not even the price we asked, that’s the price a whole crowd of shopkeepers begged to pay us.”
Qiqian’er laughed at her: “Well then, your family’s struck it rich!”
Madam Huang’s eyes shone bright with hope. “Doing quite well, really! We even have lamp oil at home now!” With that, the woman happily set down one shoe sole and picked up a thick insole, jabbing it with an awl. “Now we can even do needlework by lamplight at night.”
Qiqian’er set down her cloth cord, went out, and brought back a bowl of water for her, adding a pinch of salt.
Madam Huang took it and drank, then set the bowl down and thanked her: “Even the water in the young Anren’s house is fragrant.”
Qiqian’er laughed: “Then come drink it often!”
“Oh! I certainly will.”
With that, Madam Huang bent her head and worked diligently, and after a good while, hearing no sound from Qiqian’er, looked up to find the young Anren gazing out the window, lost in thought.
Someone of such standing must be thinking of something important — she didn’t dare disturb her.
Little did she know, what Qiqian’er was pondering was something much bigger. Would there really be no deaths this winter, after all?
Qiqian’er had no way of knowing that all of this had started from just a handful of words…
The snowflakes gradually grew heavier. Madam Huang, quick with her hands, had finished half a shoe sole, when Qiqian’er, who had meant to keep her for a meal, heard Meng Wanquan calling out from outside the gate.
Hearing this, Madam Huang took her leave, gathering up her black sauce to head home. Once she’d walked off some distance, Meng Wanquan spoke to Qiqian’er at the gate: “Little sister-in-law, you’d best go take a look over there — Chen Siniu is back!”
With that, he turned to leave, then stopped a few steps on and added: “Little sister-in-law, just take care of the old lady, you don’t need to worry about the rest.”
Qiqian’er bowed slightly to him in acknowledgment.
As for Chen Siniu — having completed his term of service and gathered up what he’d saved over the years, he’d set off for home clutching his letter of recommendation like a man freed from bondage.
After traveling a thousand li, he arrived home just as the snow began to fall.
Reaching the settlement, he had to ask around for quite a while before finally finding out where his family lived. He drove his cart home, and after finally managing to knock the door open, Madam Qiao came running out in tears, sitting right down at the doorway to wail.
There were no neighbors close by here, so Qiqian’er, over at the mouth of the lane, didn’t hear any of it.
Amid the wind and snow, Chen Siniu stood at his own front door and listened to a full recitation of Madam Qiao’s grievances.
The old lady had married off Stinkhead to some world-upending troublemaker of a wife, and worse — the two of them had somehow been granted honors by the imperial court, and wouldn’t you know it, she herself had gotten nothing out of it!
The old lady had helped out everyone in the entire settlement, along with Qiqian’er — but had cast aside Madam Qiao and Xique without so much as a glance…
Madam Qiao was a shrewd one; with no one looking after her, she’d found her own way. She’d hitched up a cart, loaded her belongings and Xique onto it, and moved into a courtyard roughly next door to the old lady’s.
Guard’s Lane was a through-lane — ten households to a lane.
And at the head of that lane was a T-junction; the courtyard where the old lady lived had its main gate facing Guard’s Lane, but the house itself wasn’t actually on the same lane — it belonged to a separate single row of lanes, seven households in a row, with the old lady’s place right in the middle — the best courtyard of them all.
Seeing Chen Siniu now, Madam Qiao immediately wanted to move in right alongside the old lady. She wailed loudly enough for the old lady to hear, hinting: over here, your favorite son has come home, why haven’t you come out yet?
But the old lady never opened her door.
Chen Siniu stood dumbly in the snow, listening. So Madam Qiao had actually split off from the old lady and moved out separately? The old lady had found Stinkhead a wife? The old lady, who’d taken it upon herself to look after the whole settlement’s outsiders, wouldn’t even let Madam Qiao through her own door…This — this meant it had been discovered, it must have been discovered!
Chen Siniu felt utterly hopeless, and for a moment even thought of dying.
Qiqian’er, carrying a food box and wrapped in a lambskin cloak, made her way at an unhurried pace toward the far end of the lane.
As she reached her own gate, she saw Madam Qiao alone, pulling on a draft animal, calling out: “Whoa! Whoa… easy, easy…” directing a large mule cart to back into her courtyard.
Seeing Qiqian’er approach, Madam Qiao gave a haughty snort and spat on the ground.
Tsk!
Qiqian’er didn’t bother with pleasantries. She set down her food box, scooped up a couple handfuls of snow, packed them into a solid snowball, and hurled it straight at Madam Qiao.
With the force behind her throw, Madam Qiao toppled straight over backward and started wailing again.
“Murder! A junior striking an elder!!”
“Tsk!”
Qiqian’er clapped the snow off her hands and, picking the food box back up, said in an unhurried but distinctly menacing tone: “You’d best shut that mouth of yours. Making that much noise — if the old lady cared, she’d have come out already… you’re nothing but a concubine, you know that?”
Madam Qiao scrambled up, stamped her foot, and marched toward the old lady’s gate to work herself up for a big wailing performance — but before she could let loose, she heard that same unhurried, ghostly voice behind her say:
“Pay me back.”
Madam Qiao froze on the spot instantly. After a long moment, she wiped her face, sniffed, and, no longer daring to spit, said as though nothing had happened: “Ah, Xique must be crying.”
With that, she scurried off.
Qiqian’er sniffed too. “Tsk~!”
The old lady’s courtyard gate stood unlatched, so Qiqian’er pushed it open and went in. Stepping into the main hall, she heard what sounded like the old lady slapping herself.
Crack, crack —
Qiqian’er glanced at the door, then slowly reached out and pulled the curtain open a crack, and saw the old lady striking her own face.
She quickly let the curtain fall back, stood there for a moment, and sighed silently, helpless.
Inside, the old lady had struck herself on both cheeks until her face was flushed red, and she was crying as she knelt over Chen Siniu, who was kneeling on the ground before her: “…It’s my fault! I’m the sinner! I failed to raise you right! I deserve this retribution!! Ah~! But I remember — when I gave birth to you, you had a human face too. How did you go out into the world and come back with the heart of a wolf…”
Gently sticking out her tongue, Qiqian’er stepped back toward the entrance and called out loudly: “Grandmother! I’ve brought you your meal.”
The crying inside stopped abruptly. After a long moment, the old lady said: “Qian’er, dear, just leave the food in the courtyard and go on home. I need to have a word with your fourth uncle…”
“Yes! Understood!”
Qiqian’er set the box down in the courtyard and turned to leave.
Guard’s Lane’s third row was quiet and still. Qiqian’er looked at her own footprints, listened to the crunch of snow beneath her feet, and made her way slowly home.
Just as she neared her own gate, she heard the whisper of wind behind her, and reaching a hand back without turning, caught a snowball — no, half a snowball?
From behind the nearby gable wall, a head slowly poked out — Sister Cheng, face smeared with soot, hair disheveled, holding up a rice ladle, grinning at her: “Hey, little sister — you, do you know how to cook?”