After a month of eating and sleeping in the open, Shen Zhuxi and Li Wu finally crossed into Huzhou on the second day of the second month.

The Majiang Mountains between Xuanzhou and Huzhou divided two entirely different worlds.

On one side, bodies lay along the roadside; on the other, life went on in ease and celebration. While people just one mountain away were coming to blows over a scrap of sweet potato root, the people of Hu, Su, and Chang prefectures were gathered in festivity for the Spirit Day.

Because the flood of refugees had grown so overwhelming, the prefectural magistrates of all three prefectures — Hu, Su, and Chang — had jointly issued a decree with ruthlessly strict criteria limiting the number of people allowed to enter the cities each day. Vast numbers of refugees desperate to get in were left with no choice but to sell themselves into indenture to wealthy landowners within the city walls, falling from the status of free farmers to become the personal property of those landlords.

After Li Kun and Li Que had departed without a word, Li Wu had buried a portion of their silver; the remaining portion he now carried with him, and it was this that proved its worth.

He spent a considerable sum to purchase two entry permits, and walked Shen Zhuxi through the gatekeepers’ inspection with their heads held high.

As Shen Zhuxi passed through the long queue of people waiting to enter the city, looking at those gaunt, yellow-faced refugees and at the household stewards who had come to claim them, her heart was heavy.

These well-fed, imperious stewards — who carried themselves with the airs of wealthy merchants — did they have the shadow of the three prefectures’ governments behind them? How else could the supposedly strict entry permits become entirely meaningless the moment it suited certain parties?

Once inside Huzhou, Li Wu wasted no time on rest. He rode straight for Wucheng County, the prefectural seat of Huzhou.

Compared to the other counties in Huzhou that Shen Zhuxi had passed through along the way, Wucheng County — as the prefectural seat — was far more prosperous and lively. In sheer number of shops and volume of foot traffic alone, it vastly outstripped Xiangyang, the prefectural seat of Xiangzhou.

On the main streets of Wucheng County, there was not the slightest sign that a famine had ever touched this place. Elegantly dressed young ladies and gentlemen moved to and fro in continuous streams; the sounds of gongs and drums from the entertainment quarters rose and fell without pause; the altars in the doorways of every roadside shop were laden with fruits and sweets offered to the earth deity. The air drifted with scents — familiar yet somehow long-missed — of wonton soup, pastries, and noodle broth, all of it reaching straight into Shen Zhuxi’s hollow stomach and pricking at her fragile tear ducts.

Only now, at last, did she feel the visceral reality that her ordeal was truly over.

No more starving. No more living in fear. No more pressing on through wind and rain.

She could finally stop. Take a hot bath. Eat a bowl of hot rice. Sleep a proper sleep.

Even the mere thought of it was enough to make her eyes sting with heat she couldn’t hold back.

Through the introduction of a housing agent, Li Wu secured a place for them to settle within half a day. After Shen Zhuxi had seen the courtyard house the agent showed them with her own eyes and given her approval, Li Wu paid two months’ rent on the spot, signed the lease, and formally moved them into this courtyard in the western part of the city.

As the agent was leaving, Li Wu pressed an extra sum of money into her hand and asked her to arrange for some household supplies to be delivered.

The first thing Shen Zhuxi did was bathe.

By the time she came out, Li Wu — who had already rinsed off before her — was up and moving with wet hair, busy with something. The agent, true to the efficiency that came with being paid, had already seen to the delivery; the courtyard now held a variety of pots, bowls, and domestic supplies. Li Wu stood before them, counting the items.

Shen Zhuxi went to look for a cloth to dry her hair, but could only find the one she had just used herself. She had no choice but to bring it back, damp as it was, and stand behind Li Wu. Rising on her toes, she pressed it to his hair.

“This cloth is the one I just dried my hair with — you’ll have to make do.” Shen Zhuxi said.

A sound of acknowledgment came from Li Wu’s throat. Still silently counting the items on the ground, he bent his knees slightly, lowering himself to a more manageable height.

Shen Zhuxi spent the time it takes to burn an incense stick wringing the last of the moisture from his long, half-wet hair, then stepped back, satisfied. “Done.”

Li Wu straightened up again and said: “Do you have the energy to go out?”

“Where to?” Shen Zhuxi asked, hesitating.

“The market.” Li Wu said. “To buy pork and cabbage. We’re making dumplings tonight.”

“I’ll go!” Shen Zhuxi said at once. “Wait for me — one incense stick… no, not even that long!”

She ran excitedly back to the inner room, pinned her still-not-quite-dry hair up in front of the dim bronze mirror, changed into a presentable set of plain clothes, and ran back to the front courtyard.

Ah Huang, tethered in the yard, took in her flustered state and gave a disdainful snort.

“What’s the rush?” Li Wu said. “I’m not going to walk off and leave you here alone.”

Shen Zhuxi said quietly in her own defense: “I haven’t been to a market in a very long time.”

After a whole winter of famine, Shen Zhuxi had missed the vibrant life of the marketplace so deeply that even the dead pig’s head she remembered from before seemed somehow endearing to her now.

The two of them set off, asked an elderly passerby for directions, and made their way toward the largest market in Wucheng County.

After about one incense stick’s worth of walking, the teahouse that stood at the entrance of every market came into view. Beneath the tea awning the noise was lively and robust: men of varying ages, wearing rough cloth and short jackets, sat at square tables in spirited conversation; the tea master performed his art with a long-spouted kettle, pouring tea from a great height into the cups without spilling a single drop. A long-robed elder watching the display stroked his beard in delight.

Not far away, a barefoot farmer with a carrying pole was making his way along the street, calling out to sell the vegetables he had just harvested from his fields.

Those bright, beautiful, fresh vegetables were nothing like the tubers and wild fruit Shen Zhuxi had been eating all along the road. The mere sight of these unprocessed ingredients was already enough to make her mouth water.

On a whim she asked the price — a jin of plump, red tomatoes cost only fifteen copper coins. In famine-stricken Xiangyang, you couldn’t have bought even the stem of a tomato for that price.

This place was like some blessed corner of heaven.

So it was for Shen Zhuxi; so it was equally for the refugees outside who had been willing to sell themselves into servitude just to get through the city gates.

“How much for the pork shoulder?” Li Wu stopped in front of a butcher’s stall.

“One hundred and twenty coins per jin.” The butcher, a coarse-featured man with a fierce look and narrow, slanted eyes, peered down at them.

“You’re selling gilded meat at this price!” Li Wu exclaimed. “The other butcher I checked just now was much cheaper than you!”

Shen Zhuxi stared at him blankly.

Wasn’t this the first butcher’s stall they had seen?

“Coming from the direction you came, where exactly is there another butcher?” The butcher asked the very question that was on Shen Zhuxi’s mind.

“There certainly is one!” Li Wu replied, his expression utterly sincere. “Right at the corner behind us — a peddler carrying meat on a shoulder pole came by. He asked if I wanted to buy, but I thought I’d come check out your stall first, and then I find out you’re charging this much!”

“That’s loose-cut meat from a street peddler — how can you compare that to mine?” The butcher wrinkled his brow. “Who knows what kind of dead animal he stripped it from — eat that and you might just drop dead from it.”

“Which is exactly why I didn’t buy from him — isn’t that right?” Li Wu said. “Sir, my surname is Zhen. What’s yours?”

The butcher, confused by the question, said: “My surname is Zhang.”

“I go by Zhen Ya, from Jinzhou. A newcomer to this city — my respects to you, Hero Zhang!” Li Wu said with dramatic flair. “Since we see eye to eye as fellow men of principle, why not give me a fellow hero’s price? My household of five eats meat every day — let this hero here supply all of it from now on!”

A hero’s price? A household of five?

Not only had Li Wu counted in the absent Li Kun and Li Que, he had apparently included Ah Huang — who did not eat meat — as well?

Shen Zhuxi stared in open-mouthed astonishment at Li Wu, who stood there completely unruffled under the butcher’s skeptical scrutiny.

“One hundred and ten coins per jin then. Loyal customer’s price.” The butcher said.

Li Wu pressed further: “We’re both men of principle here — forget the loyal customer price. Just be generous and straight with me, give me a hero’s price outright!”

The butcher was beginning to look impatient and opened his mouth to speak, but Li Wu pivoted smoothly, his tone shifting to one of grave and earnest gravity:

“You don’t know what we’ve been through, sir. Our family of five only entered Huzhou today. Every coin we had went to securing the entry permits — what’s left in this purse is barely enough to breathe with, and we still need to buy rice and cooking oil; there’s not a single copper we can afford to waste. Just look at my wife! She’s five months along, and her belly hasn’t grown at all — it’s purely from going hungry!”

Shen Zhuxi suddenly found herself the center of attention, and nearly choked.

Five months along? Who?

Li Wu placed his hand on her shoulder and looked at her with deep, tender affection. “My wife says her greatest wish right now is one proper, satisfying meal of fresh pork. I don’t have many coins to spare, but I am absolutely going to make that wish come true for her.”

Shen Zhuxi: “…?”

In the end, Li Wu bought pork at the hero’s price of eighty coins per jin — and on top of that, through sheer tenacious persistence, he talked the owner into throwing in two liang of fatback at no charge.

Shen Zhuxi quietly filed away every move he had made, determined that someday, when she was doing her own bargaining, she would put the full combination to use herself.

Once the pork was bought, Li Wu went through the same routine and managed to purchase crisp, fresh cabbage at a price well below market rate. The woman selling it, upon hearing that Shen Zhuxi was five months pregnant and not yet showing, took pity on her and threw in a short, fat, rosy red carrot, saying it would ensure she gave birth to a healthy, chubby boy.

Li Wu beamed from ear to ear, accepted the carrot with a loud and heartfelt thanks, and declared that when the robust little fellow was born, the very first thing he would do was invite her whole family to dinner.

This insufferable man — what a performance.

…If she actually gave birth to a chubby little boy, the first thing Li Wu would probably do was bury her in the ground.

Once the two of them had purchased everything needed for the dumplings — pork, cabbage, and all the rest — they carried their bags and bundles back to the courtyard. Li Wu took the ingredients into the kitchen to get started, while Shen Zhuxi went to lead Ah Huang from the front courtyard to the back and bring out the fodder to feed the horse.

“Ah Huang, Ah Huang, no shortage of fodder now — eat as much as you like.” Shen Zhuxi patted Ah Huang’s mane, looking at this great contributor who had carried them faithfully through the whole journey with fond affection.

Ah Huang flicked his tail, as if responding to her words with cheerful agreement.

Once Ah Huang was settled, Shen Zhuxi made her way back to the kitchen in the front courtyard to see if there was anything she could lend a hand with.

Compared to the dilapidated state it had been in when they first moved in, the kitchen had already been set to order after some cleaning. Not only were the surfaces and cookware spotless, even the floor had been swept clean. Li Wu was standing at the stove, pulling apart the flour sack with his bare hands. A cloud of white flour puffed out from the opening and settled across his warm, tawny hands.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Shen Zhuxi asked, looking around with curiosity.

“Can you make dumplings?” Li Wu said.

Shen Zhuxi looked at him with an expression of complete innocence.

Li Wu hollowed out a well in the mound of flour on the cutting board and poured in two-thirds of the water from the ceramic bowl. As he kneaded, he said: “I’ll teach you in a moment.”

“All right!” Shen Zhuxi nodded eagerly. “What can I do right now?”

“The cabbage has been rinsed. I’ll cut the pork. There’s nothing for you to do at the moment.” Li Wu said. “Go lie down for a bit.”

“I’m not going to lie down.” Shen Zhuxi said. “I’ll keep you company.”

How could she in good conscience leave Li Wu working alone and go rest?

“Keep me company doing what?” Li Wu said.

“Keep you company talking, so you don’t get bored.”

“I suppose you have some conscience after all.”

Li Wu said this while maintaining his kneading rhythm without pause — and beneath his hands, the shapeless, muddy mass of dough gradually took form on the cutting board.

“If Li Que and the others come to Huzhou, will they know how to find us?” Shen Zhuxi asked.

“Li Que’s no fool. Once he’s in Huzhou, he’ll have plenty of ways to track us down.” Li Wu said without lifting his head. “I’ve also asked the housing agent to keep an eye out for newcomers from out of town who come through in the next while. She’ll let me know the moment she hears anything.”

“That’s a relief then.”

Shen Zhuxi kept up a light, easy conversation with him, and before she knew it the dough was ready. Li Wu draped a damp cloth over it and set it in a cool spot to rest for the time it takes two incense sticks to burn, then portioned it out into small pieces of similar size.

Shen Zhuxi volunteered to help. Her first few pieces were uneven — some large, some small — but with practice she found her feel for it, and soon she could pinch off a piece with a single pull and have it come out the same weight as Li Wu’s, more or less.

After that, the two of them worked together to roll the portioned pieces into dumpling wrappers roughly the size of a palm. Shen Zhuxi had never done this before, but she was willing to learn. Her first few wrappers were thick and misshapen, but they gradually became more even and thin — and in terms of appearance alone, they were eventually even more presentable than the ones turned out by Li Wu, the old hand at this.

With two people working together, the pace was fast. One plump ball of white dough soon became two stacks of dumpling wrappers piled high on the board.

With the wrappers done, the sun had also slipped down to the horizon. Now there was only one step left before the last: filling the dumplings.

“How do you fold them?” Emboldened by her earlier success with portioning and rolling, Shen Zhuxi asked with full confidence.

“Like this.”

Li Wu picked up one wrapper, used chopsticks to place a scoop of filling in the center, then moved his hands with swift, practiced ease — and in just a few pinches, the wrapper was sealed.

Shen Zhuxi’s eyes could barely follow him; before she had even registered the motion, a willow-leaf dumpling with neat, even pleats appeared in the palm of his hand.

“How did you do that?” Shen Zhuxi stared, jaw dropping.

“Simple. Let me show you one more time.” Li Wu said, picking up another wrapper — and again in just a few motions, without giving Shen Zhuxi any chance to track his movements, a willow-leaf dumpling appeared in his palm.

“Slower!” Shen Zhuxi was getting anxious. “I couldn’t see anything!”

“It’s not that I’m fast — it’s that you’re slow.” Li Wu said.

Shen Zhuxi was about to argue when Li Wu drew her into the spot where he was standing.

The warmth of him pressed against her back. He reached around from behind her, picked up a wrapper, and said with unhurried ease:

“This way you can see clearly.”