The following day, the sky was clear and cloudless, the open air thoroughly washed clean.

Early in the morning, Shen Zhuxi and Li Wu set out together to enjoy the sights of Yangzhou — the first time since their arrival that they had gone out together.

Shen Zhuxi, preoccupied with the thought that her cycle still hadn’t come that morning, was not entirely present. Li Wu, by contrast, was in excellent spirits, pulling her along to look at this and that, with a particular fascination for the prices of goods in Yangzhou.

“…It truly is the waterway country of Jiangnan — rice is cheap here. After the Shangjiang Dam collapsed, the price of rice in Zhenchuan’s territory was double that of the surrounding prefectures, and more than four times that of Yangzhou. If we could establish a trade route between Xiangzhou and Yangzhou — buying rice and folding fans from Yangzhou to sell in Zhenchuan, then buying the green turquoise stone from Qingu County that scholars covet and selling it here in Jiangnan — we’d make a guaranteed profit!”

Li Wu’s plans grew more and more impassioned, and Shen Zhuxi, though she felt things were not quite so simple, still offered a few encouraging words along the way.

“And then I’ll slip in — cough — acquire Sui Niang’s roast chicken recipe, open the Li Family Roast Duck all across the Great Yan, and build it up to a flourishing empire — the number one duck establishment in the industry! By that point, we could just sit at home counting money! As much paper for the privy as we could ever want!”

Li Wu was growing more animated by the second, when he suddenly realized the person beside him was gone. He stopped and looked back: Shen Zhuxi had paused before a stall selling molded clay children figurines, staring at a row of them, her thoughts clearly elsewhere.

He walked back and stood beside her, joining her in looking at that row of figurines of children.

A child running with a kite, a child sitting on the ground playing with a tiger-headed shoe, a child lying on their side on the verge of dozing off, a child holding a sugar-coated hawthorn and eating it with a smeared face… Chubby little boys and girls looked out at the world with innocent, endearing expressions.

Li Wu casually picked up the figurine of the child eating the hawthorn and said, “Do you want this?”

Shen Zhuxi came back to herself with a start and shook her head in a fluster. “N-no need…”

“If you like it, buy it — what’s the ‘no need’ about.” Li Wu looked up at the shopkeeper, whose face was full of eager anticipation, and said, “Wrap all of them up.”

Shen Zhuxi was startled and had barely begun to object before the shopkeeper had already responded with a delighted, “Right away!”

In no time at all, that entire row of clay children figurines had been packed into a four-tiered wooden box. This small wooden box ultimately ended up on her dressing table.

Shen Zhuxi gently opened the box and looked at the children figurines inside, each with a different expression and posture. Her mood grew more complicated than ever.

“Madam, would you prefer a son or a daughter?”

Ti Niang’s voice rose suddenly from behind her, giving Shen Zhuxi such a fright that she reflexively snapped the box shut. Ti Niang set down a crystal plate piled with fruit on the table, entirely oblivious to her tangled state of mind, and said cheerfully: “Why did you stop looking, Madam? I hadn’t even gotten a proper look yet!”

“There’s nothing worth looking at… they’re just clay figurines,” said Shen Zhuxi.

“Madam still hasn’t answered my question!” Ti Niang tilted her head to one side with a curious expression. “Would Madam prefer a son or a daughter?”

“E-either would be fine, I suppose…”

“A boy would certainly take after Lord Li — as the old saying goes, three days without a beating and he’ll be climbing the rafters —” Ti Niang’s expression shifted as she was swept away by her own imagination. “But a girl would surely take after Madam — like a sugar-coated hawthorn!”

“…Like a sugar-coated hawthorn?”

“Sweet!” Ti Niang beamed at her.

Shen Zhuxi, flustered by the compliment, couldn’t help but blush.

“I’d love to have a girl like Madam… but a boy would be fine too — a firstborn son is better.” Ti Niang bustled around the room tidying up odds and ends and chattered on: “Once Madam’s little one is born, I will take wonderful care of him. I’m not very good at needlework, but I know how to clean fish! I’ll clean fish every single day and make fish soup for him with my own hands, wash all his clothes myself, look after him properly in every way — Madam only needs to find a wet nurse…”

“How can you be planning all this when nothing is even confirmed yet?” Shen Zhuxi laughed despite herself.

“Madam’s cycle still hasn’t come — if that isn’t confirmation, what more confirmation is needed?” Ti Niang said with absolute certainty. “Madam only needs to eat well and rest well and wait to welcome the little one! Oh, and —” She paused. “Has Lord Li been told? He’ll surely be beside himself with joy when he finds out!”

Shen Zhuxi dodged the question: “He’ll find out soon…”

Ti Niang’s eyes went wide. “Madam still hasn’t told Lord Li such wonderful news?”

“I just haven’t found the right moment…” Shen Zhuxi said quietly.

“Let’s hope the child isn’t born before Lord Li finds out he’s become a father,” Ti Niang muttered.

“Who became a father?” Li Wu stepped through the bedroom door, startling both Shen Zhuxi and Ti Niang.

“I’ll go wash these clothes…” Ti Niang grabbed the clothes to be laundered and fled the bedroom as though her life depended on it.

“Who became a father?” Li Wu looked at Shen Zhuxi and asked again offhandedly.

Shen Zhuxi looked at him in silence.

“What are you looking at me for?” Li Wu said, puzzled. “I’m asking you — who became a father? Is there happy news again from the senior uncle’s side?”

“You…” Shen Zhuxi gathered her courage and squeezed out a voice barely above a whisper.

“Who?” Li Wu dug a finger in his ear. “Did you miss breakfast?”

“You! You are with child!” Shen Zhuxi shut her eyes and shouted without restraint, her cheeks burning hot.

Half a moment of silence.

Shen Zhuxi opened her eyes to meet Li Wu’s look of pure shock.

“I am with child?” he repeated incredulously.

Shen Zhuxi nodded, watching him without blinking.

First, Li Wu’s face showed bewilderment, then confusion, and then a surge of instinctive joy rose to his face. But that joy lasted only a moment before another emotion — a worry governed by reason — took hold of his eyes, and in an instant washed the happiness from his face.

“You’ve been strange these past two days — it was all because of this?”

Shen Zhuxi nodded shyly.

Li Wu said not a word, shot across to Shen Zhuxi like an arrow, and before she could react, swept her up in his arms and laid her down on the bed.

“How are you feeling right now? Are you tired? Are you feeling sick? What do you want to eat? Do you need to sleep?”

Shen Zhuxi stared up at him, deeply unaccustomed to this sudden and overwhelming flood of concern.

“What are you doing…”

“Now that you’re carrying another life, you can’t go charging about everywhere like before — what if you fall or bump into something — do you want to be the death of me?” Li Wu said, eyes wide.

“Don’t go saying things like ‘death’ all the time!” Shen Zhuxi hated him putting death on his lips, and she smacked his arm in irritation.

Li Wu didn’t dodge. He sat and let her palm land lightly on him. He fixed his eyes on her without looking away, as though meeting her for the first time today.

“When did you find out?” As though afraid of startling her, even his voice had dropped.

“…Just these past couple of days,” said Shen Zhuxi. “Ti Niang said my cycle had been late for a long time.”

“Have you seen a physician?”

“I was afraid of a false alarm, so I thought I’d wait a few more days — what if the cycle still came…”

“And it still hasn’t come?”

Shen Zhuxi’s face was flushed as she nodded.

“That makes no sense —” Li Wu furrowed his brow, his face the picture of baffled incomprehension. “I took the medicine — how could there still be a pregnancy?”

Shen Zhuxi was taken aback and watched his expression carefully: “…You don’t want this child?”

“I do!” Li Wu said at once. “When there was no pregnancy, I put it out of my mind — because I feared the suffering childbirth would bring you. But now that there is a pregnancy, of course I want this child! This is our child — of course I want this child! How could I possibly not?!”

His repeated, earnest insistence released the tension Shen Zhuxi had been holding.

“And you… what do you think?”

“What else would I think? Take care of you, of course!” Li Wu didn’t hesitate for a moment. “Starting today, you don’t need to do a thing. I’ll look after you so well — just say the word and food is on its way! Just say the word and your drink is brought to your lips! I’ll wash your face in the morning, walk with you in the evenings — just say what you want! Even a mountain of gold and silver, I’ll haul it here for you!”

Shen Zhuxi was so tickled by him that she laughed. But Li Wu instead put on a serious face and looked at her with earnestness:

“I’m not joking with you! Childbirth is nothing to treat lightly. I don’t trust anyone else to deliver this baby — I’ll have to figure out how to go and apprentice myself to a midwife…” said Li Wu with complete gravity.

Shen Zhuxi turned white with alarm at his outlandish idea. “Whatever you do, don’t do anything rash!”

“Most importantly…” Li Wu placed his hand on her still-flat belly and looked at her with something close to pleading in his eyes. “If there is anything at all that feels wrong — no matter how small — you must tell me as quickly as possible. I won’t be annoyed, I won’t find it tiring — you must not tough it out alone…”

Shen Zhuxi was still in the midst of marveling at this uncharacteristic, timid caution of his when Li Wu suddenly lowered his head and buried his forehead in the curve of her shoulder. After a moment’s pause, he said in a hoarse murmur:

“All I want is for you to live, safe and whole, to live here by my side… On that foundation, and only then, can I welcome anyone else who comes… Do you understand what I mean?”

She understood immediately.

As it turned out, she was not the only one who feared she might not make it back from the threshold of death. There was someone else who, just like her, feared for her life and held that fear deep within.

Strangely, the moment she realized this, the dread that had been lodged in her heart for days dissolved like smoke.

“…It will be all right,” she said. She raised her hand to the back of Li Wu’s head, gently stroking his smooth, dark hair, and said softly, “I have always been in good health. I almost never fell ill growing up, and even the imperial physicians rarely saw me… This time will surely pass safely too.”

Li Wu said nothing. He breathed in deeply, his face buried in the hollow of her neck. Shen Zhuxi could feel it — the apprehension he kept locked deep inside, unwilling to give voice.

She had just thought to say something more to comfort him when Li Wu suddenly sat up and gave himself a sharp slap — landing squarely on the part of himself responsible for the nightly transgressions. His expression was furious and genuine.

“Look what you’ve done!”

That slap had not been pulled at all. Shen Zhuxi was so startled she immediately grabbed his hand, her voice going up a pitch. “What are you doing?!”

“I knew I should never have touched you!” Li Wu said, full of remorse. “If something happens to you, how will I go on?!”

“Stop saying such inauspicious things!” The more flustered Li Wu became, the calmer Shen Zhuxi grew by contrast. She held his hand and soothed him as one would a child. “Didn’t you say you wanted to learn from a midwife? I think… learning a bit about it wouldn’t be a bad idea. At least that way you’d have some sense of things, and it would spare you from torturing yourself with imaginations when the time comes outside the delivery room.”

Shen Zhuxi had not imagined that with her belly not yet showing at all, she and Li Wu would already be picturing the scene of the birth — and following that thread, imagining what lay beyond, once the child had arrived —

“After the child is born, I’ll train him in martial arts. Que’er has excellent archery — he can be his archery instructor. Diao’er has great strength — he can be his sparring dummy. I myself am accomplished at cursing people out — I’ll supervise his daily drills…”

“How do you know it will be a boy?” Shen Zhuxi asked, curious.

“Girls need martial arts training even more!” Li Wu said immediately. “Look at Sui Niang, who chased me three streets with a cleaver, and at Xiao Hu, who cuts people down like cutting a melon… Raising a daughter like that is the only way to feel at ease!”

“A girl who trains in martial arts doesn’t necessarily have to go to battle, but she must at least be able to protect herself. That way, if someday a seemingly decent hypocrite takes advantage of my absence to come along saying something like ‘your mother I will care for,’ she can put a blade through him and send him to the afterlife on my behalf!”

“What nonsense are you talking?!” Shen Zhuxi was exasperated and amused at once. “Martial arts for physical strength and health is fine, but don’t fill her head with those peculiar ideas of yours. I also want to teach her music, chess, calligraphy, and painting, poetry and literature and song and dance. Oh, and speaking of which…”

Shen Zhuxi looked at him expectantly:

“I’m not skilled at needlework, so the task of embroidery instruction falls to you.”

Li Wu’s face screwed up with distaste. “We’ll hire a needlework teacher — I’m not doing it.”

“What teacher from outside could possibly compare to you teaching her yourself!” Shen Zhuxi tucked her hand through his arm and pressed close, her voice taking on a cajoling sweetness. “Do you really want your needlework skills to die with you?”

“Let them die!” Li Wu said fiercely. “And if you dare tell anyone that I know how to embroider, you will be in serious trouble —”

He suddenly grabbed Shen Zhuxi around the waist and went straight for her ticklish spots. Shen Zhuxi let out a shriek and writhed across the bed, twisting herself into a little shrimp about to go into the pot.

“You’ll squish the child!” she said.

Li Wu snatched his hands back as though he had touched fire.

Shen Zhuxi lay there on the bed, her hair ornaments knocked askew, a loose strand of dark hair caught at the corner of her lips. She looked at the disheveled Li Wu with eyes curved in delight, a triumphant smile on her face — brighter and more dazzling than the spring light itself.

It scorched his heart.

Li Wu reached out and tucked the strand of hair from the corner of her lips behind her ear. He said quietly, “Let us return to Xiangzhou — we’ll go tomorrow and take our leave of the Bai Family.”

If her belly grew large, long-distance travel would no longer be manageable. Staying on in Yangzhou, there was no telling what might happen. Xiangzhou had land and soldiers — by any measure, it was a safer place to be than Yangzhou.

Shen Zhuxi understood his concern and nodded. “…All right.”

Li Wu placed his hand on her belly again, looking into her eyes. “Have you seen a physician yet?” Seeing Shen Zhuxi shake her head, he called out toward the window: “Ti Niang!”

“Yes!”

A head popped in through the window without a moment’s delay — it was Ti Niang, who had been standing there with her ears pricked, eavesdropping so as not to barge in at an inconvenient moment.

“Should I fetch a physician? Right away — I’ll go this instant!”

Without waiting for Li Wu to say a word, she was already charging outside at full speed.

In less than half an hour, Ti Niang returned with a white-haired and white-bearded physician in tow. With great pride, she explained that this was the most renowned physician in Yangzhou, and that she had fought her way through the medical hall to get him.

“Is it this young lady who requires a pulse reading for peace of mind?” The elderly physician set down his medicine chest and bowed to Shen Zhuxi and Li Wu, who were seated at the table.

Shen Zhuxi was just about to speak when the bright laughter of the Shen family matron floated in from the courtyard. Two other voices could be faintly made out as well. Shen Zhuxi’s puzzlement lasted only the briefest of moments.

The footsteps stopped outside the courtyard.

The Shen family matron called out with a smile in her voice: “Ti Niang? Go and announce to the mistress — Old Master Bai and his wife have come to call!”