“Third Young Master Yang, that’s qing color. Not green, not blue!” Ji Yingying lay on the rattan chair, watching Yang Jingyuan fumble about moving dye materials.
The spring sun shone warmly inside, where three side rooms on the right of Mingyue Residence had their partitions removed. Following Ji Yingying’s wishes, it had been arranged into a small dyeing workshop.
It was good to have money. Colorful dyes were neatly arranged in glass bottles, and everything was visible.
Apart from visiting Yang Jingshan, Yang Jingyuan barely left the courtyard of Mingyue Residence. He wore a fine hemp Daoist robe, his hair simply tied in a Daoist knot with a jade hairpin carved like bamboo joints, giving him an elegant air of having shed worldly extravagance.
“Qing? If it’s not blue and not green, what is it?” he turned back to ask Ji Yingying, holding a package of blue clay.
When it came to dyes, Ji Yingying’s face glowed with confidence: “Green with hints of blue, blue with hints of green—that’s qing. Qing comes from blue but surpasses blue. The blue clay in your hands is the qing extracted from the blue. Qing is like the azure sky, yet also like green jade. Unlike black and white, where black is just black and white is just white. It’s like people’s thoughts—sometimes, you know, what people say doesn’t match what they think. What they do also differs from what they truly feel inside.”
“Oh my, are you accusing me of being two-faced?” Yang Jingyuan took an empty glass bottle and filled it with blue clay. He dusted off his hands and strode toward Ji Yingying.
“Don’t make me angry, and don’t make me laugh. My wound still hurts.” Ji Yingying wasn’t afraid at all, smiling as she watched him crouch before her.
He looked up at her face, seriously studying its colors: “Your skin is white, your cheeks are peach blossom red, your lips are pink, and your eyebrows are dai color. Ying’er, is dai black?”
Ji Yingying explained seriously: “Dai isn’t black either. Dai changes with its concentration. When deep it approaches ink, when light it’s like qing.”
Yang Jingyuan smiled, “‘Face like lotus, eyebrows like willows.’ It’s not about the shape of the eyebrows, but their color.”
“My Third Young Master is so clever.”
Yang Jingyuan held her hand and said, “Teach me to make eyebrow powder. When I’m gone, you can use it to draw your eyebrows. Think of me each time you do.”
Some say time passes quickly—that must be because when one is happy, one doesn’t notice time slipping away. Ji Yingying understood his meaning and readily nodded: “Alright.”
The finest stone powder was crushed, ground to powder, and sifted through fine sieves again and again until it became so fine that a breath would scatter it. It was stored in a delicate sandalwood box. When needed, it could be mixed with water to draw eyebrows.
After Old Master Yang’s hundred-day memorial, Yang Jingyuan held a fine goat hair brush, carefully drawing Ji Yingying’s eyebrows.
“I’ve always been smart, learning everything quickly. With my martial arts-trained steady wrist, I guarantee your eyebrows will be fine and natural like willow leaves.” After finishing the eyebrows, Yang Jingyuan set down the brush, admired his work, and lifted Ji Yingying up. “Look how delicate you are. On the battlefield, anyone hit by such a light arrow would be up and about already.”
“You’re the one who won’t let me get up and walk.”
Knowing he was about to leave, Ji Yingying nuzzled against his chest and said softly, “Are you not going to bid farewell to the Madam? You’ve seen Big Brother and Second Brother, why won’t you see the Madam? She’s elderly now, should she have to come to see you instead?”
He had already seen her. He feared that if he looked at Madam Yang Shi a few more times, he wouldn’t be able to help feeling heartache for her. His mother had only been gone a hundred days; he couldn’t do it.
Placing Ji Yingying on the couch, Yang Jingyuan felt under the pillow and pulled out the small knife he had given her for cutting dye materials: “Don’t go out unnecessarily. Keep this with you. If anything happens, have Xiangyou or Ji Fu come to find me in Santai. When I have leave, I’ll return. I’ve told Big Brother and Second Brother they’ll look after any matters concerning the Ji family.”
“Third Young Master, you still haven’t told me what you do in the military?”
Yang Jingyuan had never mentioned it, and he didn’t answer now, just pinched her cheek and said, “You’ll know in the future.”
In the future, after he had made a name for himself, then he would let her know.
“Xiang’er! Ying’er!” Ji Yingying called the two maids in, holding up the clothes and shoes they had rushed to make for him. “These weren’t made by my own hands. My maids made them, but that’s the same as me making them.”
The two maids looked at Ji Yingying in surprise.
Ji Yingying, confused, pretended to be angry: “You’re both mine. What’s wrong with taking credit for your needlework?”
“We wouldn’t dare!” The two giggled and lowered their heads.
“It’s getting late, I must go.” Yang Jingyuan picked up his bundle, glared at the two maids, and strode away.
As soon as he left, the smile disappeared from Ji Yingying’s face. She said listlessly, “Bring water. He’s gone, who am I wearing makeup for?”
When the wrung-out cloth was handed over, Ji Yingying changed her mind: “Bring the mirror, I haven’t seen what kind of eyebrows Third Young Master drew.”
“Miss, perhaps better not to look,” Xiang’er advised awkwardly.
“This is the first time he’s drawn my eyebrows, I need to remember how they look.”
At Ji Yingying’s insistence, the two maids brought the mirror.
One eyebrow thick and one thin, one high and one low, looking like two worms! And he had boasted about his martial arts-trained wrist being steady as a rock, able to draw eyebrows as fine as willows.
“Yang Jingyuan!”
Standing waiting in the corridor, Yang Jingyuan burst out laughing: “Ji Yingying, you dyed my horse with flowers, I’ve finally gotten my revenge!”
Goodbyes were too difficult; he could only give her more memories so time would pass more quickly.
He ran away swiftly, leaving Mingyue Residence far behind.
Time indeed passed quickly. The arrow wound on Ji Yingying’s shoulder finally scabbed over, leaving a pink scar. She spent most of her time in the small dyeing workshop, mixing various dyes, and testing them on small pieces of cloth and silk. The new brocade pattern Yang Jingshan had conceived was called “Autumn-Dyed Dense Forest.” He wanted to use the most brilliant colors to capture the essence of autumn foliage.
“The spring silkworms should be emerging now, right?” Ji Yingying had been thinking about this. The battle brocade would certainly need new silk thread. Raw silk hadn’t had its sericin removed, and regular dyeing workshops used degummed silk. But she suddenly had a new idea. What if they dyed the silk before removing the sericin—would the colors change?
Thinking of this, she undid her arm binding and went to White Egret Hall to find Madam Yang Shi.
Seeing Ji Yingying arrive, Madam Yang Shi smiled: “We were just talking about you, and here you are.”
Seeing both elder brothers and sisters-in-law present, Ji Yingying paid her respects and sat in the lower position.
After nearly two months of recovery, Yang Jingshan still couldn’t walk and was carried over in a rattan chair. He became excited as soon as he saw Ji Yingying: “Sister-in-law may not know. Every year when the spring cocoons are harvested, the Yang family’s Mulberry Mountain holds a ceremony to worship the Silkworm Goddess. This year Second Brother will preside. All Yang family wives must personally go up the mountain to collect silkworms. Mother is elderly and can’t leave home. Your First Sister-in-law can’t go. Your Second Sister-in-law will go. Mother was worried you’d be bored at home and wanted to ask if you’d like to accompany your Second Sister-in-law.”
Going up the mountain didn’t mean going into the forest, but rather entering the silkworm farm to select the largest, fullest cocoon.
Ji Yingying’s eyes lit up: “I was just wanting to discuss with Big Brother whether we could have the family dyehouse dye some raw cocoons. We could extract the silk after dyeing.”
Yang Jingshan became interested: “It’s always been extract first, then dye. What’s the reasoning here?”
Ji Yingying said shyly, “I want to see if silk dyed this way might show new colors.”
White Egret Hall was spacious, and Ji Yingying sat below Second Young Master Yang and his wife, making it awkward to talk to Yang Jingshan sitting opposite in the upper position. Yang Jingshan was eager to hear more and ordered: “Mother, you all discuss the ceremony matters first. Carry me over there, I want to talk with my Third Sister-in-law about dyeing raw cocoons.”
Was that necessary? First Madam Yang watched her husband staring at Ji Yingying with shining eyes and felt uncomfortable. She couldn’t help but interject: “My lord’s health isn’t fully recovered, he should rest more. Why not let the Third Sister-in-law go to Mulberry Mountain with the Second Sister-in-law? Both the dyehouse and silk workshop are there. After the Third Sister-in-law selects the cocoons and dyes them, she can bring them back for my lord to see. Before they’re dyed, Third Sister-in-law doesn’t know how they’ll turn out either.”
“Yes, Big Brother should stay put. We’ll see how the dyeing goes.”
Ji Yingying hadn’t originally planned to select the cocoons herself, but with First Madam’s words, it was settled.
On the eighth day of the fifth month, she would go with Second Young Master Yang and his wife to the Mulberry Mountain estate in Longquan Post to worship the Silkworm Goddess.