The day after the Ghost Festival, Li Wu came back from the market carrying a vivid red piece of beef.
Back at home, he headed straight into the kitchen without pausing for a moment.
He sliced the meat and blanched it, working in one smooth flow. He took the large spring onions and garlic, held his cleaver with steady hands, and chopped them with decisive strokes. Apart from helping to pick and clean the vegetables at the start, Shen Zhuxi had spent the rest of the time simply watching his practiced movements.
After the beef had been simmering in the pot for about an hour, Li Kun and Li Que arrived. Li Que started laughing the moment he stepped into the courtyard.
“Better early than lucky — what delicious thing is Big Brother making this time?”
Li Kun followed his nose straight to the kitchen doorway, poked his head inside, and shouted excitedly, “Beef noodles! Beef noodles! Today we get to eat Big Brother’s noodles —”
Li Wu grabbed a steamed bun from the bamboo colander on the stove and hurled it at him.
Li Kun caught the bun with one hand, bit into it, and ran off happily.
“Sooner or later I’m going to rip that tongue out of his head.” Li Wu cursed under his breath.
“Big Brother —”
Li Que paused at the kitchen doorway and shook his head at him.
Shen Zhuxi could not tell what silent exchange these two were having, but Li Que had already come by twice that morning, and each time it was the same single shake of the head. Li Wu also showed no particular reaction, as though he simply did not care about whatever matter Li Que was conveying.
His reaction was such that Shen Zhuxi did not feel it was her place to ask. Rather than listen to him deflect and talk around it, she might as well wait for him to bring it up on his own.
After making his report, Li Que stepped away, and soon the sound of the two brothers joking with each other drifted in from the main hall.
Although Shen Zhuxi did not know what had happened that night, she had noticed shrewdly that the rift between Li Que and Li Kun had disappeared. Even when Li Wu was not around, Li Que had begun engaging with some of Li Kun’s peculiar remarks and odd musings.
While she was turning these thoughts over in her mind, the water boiling the noodles came to a roiling boil.
Li Wu grabbed the fresh hand-pulled noodles nearby and tossed them loosely into the boiling water. The bubbling surface immediately went quiet. He then picked up a pair of long chopsticks and spread the white noodle strands apart. Once the water came to a rolling boil again, he dropped in a large handful of greens.
The greens sank into the water, turning an even more vivid, glistening shade of emerald. Li Wu pressed the leaves under the surface, and once the water boiled again, he tapped the rim of the pot with his long chopsticks and stretched one hand toward Shen Zhuxi.
He made a sound through his nose: “Hmm?”
Like an apprentice attending to a master craftsman, the moment the master spoke, Shen Zhuxi anxiously and respectfully held out a large deep bowl, terrified of being even an instant late and holding up the master’s important work.
Li Wu took the bowl and deftly lifted a tangle of noodles from the pot. Once all four large bowls had been filled with cooked noodles, he took up a large ladle and walked over to the adjacent stove where the beef was braising, and poured two generous ladlefuls of the vivid red, fragrant, and spicy beef broth over the noodles.
The red-oil broth cascaded down through the noodles, and the tender braised beef was piled high on top — every piece had translucent tendons with visible grain running through them.
The moment the hot oil made contact, the fragrance of spring onion leaves hit the nose.
One moment ago Shen Zhuxi had not been hungry at all; the next moment she was quietly swallowing.
“Carry these out. Mind the heat.”
Shen Zhuxi nodded repeatedly and reached out to take the bowls.
“Hold the base — not the rim.”
“I know…” Shen Zhuxi moved her hands slightly closer.
She blinked, her face full of anticipation, her ten slender, flawless fingers as fair and tender as the white of a spring onion.
“…Oh, forget it — just go sit down!” Having given perfectly clear instructions, Li Wu suddenly pulled the large bowl back. Shen Zhuxi stared at him blankly as he turned his head and bellowed, “If you’re not coming to carry the bowls, do you all expect me to serve you at the table?”
One lion’s roar, and Li Que and Li Kun came flying over.
Li Kun scratched the back of his head with a wronged expression. “You didn’t call me…”
Li Que, smiling cheerfully, was the first to pick up two of the large bowls and, as he headed out, said to Shen Zhuxi, “Sister-in-law, leave this kind of rough work to us — please go and sit down first!”
Shen Zhuxi felt awkward about just eating without doing any work, so she ran to fetch four pairs of chopsticks and set them out on the table.
The four sat down to eat. Before their lips had touched the beef noodles, Li Que still had the presence of mind to say a few light-hearted words — but once everyone had in turn delivered the first chopstickful of noodles to their mouths, the table fell silent, with nothing but the rhythmic sound of slurping noodles rising and falling.
When she had first arrived, that sound had made Shen Zhuxi shift restlessly in her seat; now she had managed to sit entirely composed, focused wholly on the food in her own bowl.
Although she herself made no noise eating noodles, she ate with just as much enthusiasm as the others — this bowl of beef noodles was far more delicious than even the famous noodles at Mao’s Restaurant in town!
According to Li Wu, the fresher the beef the better the flavor, and from the time of slaughter to the time it went into the pot, the piece of beef he had brought back had not exceeded an hour. Fresh beef cooked that way was tender and soft in flesh, with tendons that had a satisfying bite. On top of that, Li Wu had chosen a well-marbled cut — every piece had a good balance of lean and fat — and after a slow braise in the iron pot for a full hour, every piece of beef was saturated with broth.
The beef was delicious, the noodles were delicious, and even the broth was delicious to drink. Even Shen Zhuxi, who normally held noodle broth in low regard, could not resist having two sips. As for Li Kun — there was no need to even mention him. Not only did he drain his own broth clean, he also wanted to help dispose of Shen Zhuxi’s.
Li Wu tapped Li Kun’s hand away with the back end of his chopsticks. He pushed his own bowl toward him, then took Shen Zhuxi’s bowl and placed it in front of himself.
Li Kun looked at the half-empty bowl of beef broth now in front of him, then looked at the still almost-full bowl of beef broth in front of Li Wu, and muttered:
“Stingy…”
After the midday meal, Li Kun was dispatched to the kitchen to wash the dishes. Shen Zhuxi intended to help, but Li Wu shooed her back inside to rest.
“You’re not napping?” Shen Zhuxi asked from the doorway.
“I’m not.”
“I don’t feel like sleeping either. Let me carry on reading to you from the Shiji…”
Her words were cut off as she was pushed into the inner room.
Li Wu spoke from outside the bamboo curtain, his tone none too pleasant. “We menfolk are going to play dice — don’t come in and make a nuisance of yourself. Go to sleep!”
Shen Zhuxi cursed Li the Windbag in her heart and shuffled huffily back to bed, cradling her overstuffed stomach as she lay there like a pancake being flipped.
Li Wu walked to the osmanthus tree in the courtyard and, with the guilty furtiveness of someone doing something illicit, repeatedly checked the window of the inner room to make sure no one was peering out. He then quickly fished out a battered, dog-eared book from a small hollow in the trunk.
He walked to a spot where he could not be seen from the inner room’s window and sat down with his back against the osmanthus tree.
“Right — composing poetry requires the harmony of the right moment, the right place, and the right people. Without poetic inspiration, forcing verses will only result in the dongshi eff… eff… What on earth, how did all three characters get printed on top of each other?”
Li Wu lifted the book up toward the light filtering down through the leaves overhead and squinted hard to make out the three compressed characters.
“Bu… ye… bi? Pinbi? What rubbish — cheating me out of my money!”
Li Wu tore the page out, crumpled it into a ball, and stuffed it into the nearest hollow in the tree without ceremony.
“Big Brother —”
Li Que’s voice rang out from the gate. In an instant, the book had passed beneath Li Wu’s rear end.
He looked with studied nonchalance at Li Que coming through the fence gate. “Any news?”
Li Que shook his head. “Still nothing. Big Brother…” He hesitated, his expression laced with worry.
Li Wu knew what he was worried about. He stood up — not forgetting to retrieve the poetry primer from beneath him and tuck it into his sleeve at the same time.
“It’s time to go out and take a look.” he said. “Start packing.”
……
“Zhu woman — are you still not going to come clean?!”
That shout of fury made the Zhu woman’s shoulders jerk inward, and the color drained from her face.
“My Lord, this servant truly does not know what you want me to confess! This servant has said everything she knows. Why don’t you tell this servant what you want to hear, and this servant will confess accordingly —”
“Insolent!” Fang Tingzhi said sternly. “Is this official here to extort a false confession? This official only wants the truth! Yet from start to finish, you have been evasive, hedging, and talking around the point. Zhu woman, if you persist in this obstinacy, this official will have no choice but to order that you be subjected to torture!”
“Please don’t, My Lord!” The moment the Zhu woman heard the word torture, she cried out, “This servant has said everything she should say and shouldn’t say — this servant even told you how her late husband ate one extra bowl of rice the morning he left. My Lord, what on earth do you want to hear?”
“Your husband — how exactly did he die?”
“How would this servant know how he died? That wretched man told me nothing and just went back to Xiangyang, and then died on the road — the officials came to tell this servant he was set upon by highway bandits. This servant’s fate is bitter — barely married and already widowed. This servant’s parents favor her brother; her brother is lazy and useless. Without anyone to rely on, however will this servant get by—”
The Zhu woman stretched out the final syllable of her lament, long and plaintive, sounding like singing on a stage, so much so that Fang Tingzhi’s brow creased with impatience and he cut off her wailing.
“Apply the torture.”
Two constables came forward carrying five round wooden rods threaded with rope. The moment the Zhu woman caught sight of the dried bloodstains on them, she went as white as a sheet of paper. And when the two constables fitted the finger-press onto her ten fingers, before the torture had even begun, she was already screaming:
“My Lord! I’ll talk, I’ll talk!”
The two constables stopped.
“Speak — and if there is any further concealment, the torture will be applied before you say another word.”
“I’ll talk, I’ll talk… but before I talk…” Beads of sweat rolled down the Zhu woman’s forehead. Her eyes shifted evasively, and she asked a completely unrelated question: “What hour is it now?”
In the prison there was no daylight, so her asking this was not entirely without reason — but asking it at this precise moment seemed especially suspicious.
“It is the second quarter-watch of the hour of Xu.”
No sooner were the words out than both the jailors looked at him. Fang Tingzhi’s expression did not ripple.
“The hour of Xu…” The tension visibly left the Zhu woman’s face. After a brief pause, she finally began to speak. “This servant dares not speak of things she cannot be certain of. This servant only knows… after this servant’s husband died, the local strongman of the town, Li Wu, had someone come to find this servant…”
“What did he want with you?” Fang Tingzhi asked.
“My Lord, could this device be removed? Having it fitted on my hands makes my heart race so that I cannot think…” the Zhu woman said meekly.
At a glance from Fang Tingzhi, the constable removed the finger-press and stood to one side, ready to act at any moment.
The Zhu woman, still shaken, rubbed her hands together.
“This servant’s late wretch of a husband was fed sweet talk at a gambling house and, somehow, set his eyes on the wife that Li Wu had recently taken.” The Zhu woman rolled her eyes, her face showing a flash of contempt. “In broad daylight he went to abduct her, failed to seize the woman, and instead had his face beaten in by Li Wu’s two sworn brothers. He could not swallow the humiliation and dismissed all the guards originally assigned to stay by my side, saying he was going to win back his dignity —”
The Zhu woman said coolly: “Who could have known — he never won back his dignity, and lost his life instead.”
Fang Tingzhi’s expression darkened. “An incident this significant — why did not a single person in Yutou County tell the truth?”
“Only so many people knew about this matter, so it is only natural that your Lordship could not find out.” The Zhu woman even offered comfort in return, “Besides — better to provoke a dragon in the far sky than to provoke a local tyrant on your doorstep. Everyone still has to go on living under Li Wu’s nose. Who would want to make trouble for themselves?”
“In that case, why are you willing to speak now?”
The Zhu woman gave an awkward smile. “Naturally, it’s because of the finger-press…”
“Because I told you it was already the hour of Xu, is that correct?”
The Zhu woman was taken aback.
Fang Tingzhi said coldly, “I suspect that the hour of Shen was your appointed time with Li Wu.”
“What… what appointed time… I haven’t made any appointment with anyone… My Lord, this servant cannot understand what you are saying…” the Zhu woman said, laughing stiffly.
“You and Li Wu agreed that if you had not returned home by a certain hour, it meant something had been exposed. Zhu woman — am I correct?”
The sound of the time announcement drifted in from outside the prison. The Zhu woman counted silently and went deathly pale.
“Your scheme has miscalculated.” Fang Tingzhi clasped both hands behind his back and said with a cold smile, “It is only just the hour of Wu now. Riding at full gallop, one can reach Yutou County by early evening. Your crime of shielding a criminal will be settled after I have apprehended Li Wu!”
“My Lord!” the Zhu woman shrieked.
Fang Tingzhi swept his sleeve aside with a sharp crack, his expression like iron, and strode out of the damp prison cell.
“Prepare my horse. I will go there myself!”