Shen Zhuxi quickly shook her head. “No one said anything to me.”

“What you choose to wear is nobody else’s business,” Li Wu said. “From now on, I’ll back you up. Wear whatever you want — don’t worry about what anyone else thinks.”

The woman chimed in helpfully from the side. “Quite right — a wife follows her husband’s lead. Just listen to your betrothed and wear whatever you like.”

Shen Zhuxi thought to herself: her betrothed — she had two of those.

Li Wu might swagger with authority throughout Yutou Town, but if he ever came face to face with Fu Xuanmiao, he would have no choice but to swallow his pride and kneel.

Encouraged by Li Wu, Shen Zhuxi exchanged all seven outfits for vivid, bright colors — the colors she had not worn since her mother Consort had been confined to her quarters. By the time she walked out of the cloth shop, even her cheeks had gone pink with happiness.

“Happy now?” Li Wu said.

“Happy.” Shen Zhuxi looked up at him with a bright smile.

Li Wu said smugly, “I always find a way to make you happy.”

Shen Zhuxi suddenly thought of something the proprietress had said earlier and asked, “What kind of help have you given the cloth shop?”

This question had been sitting in her heart for a long time. Everyone in Yutou Town seemed willing to bend over backward for Li Wu — what had he done to earn such respect and deference from them all?

“…A bit of business dealings,” Li Wu said simply.

Shen Zhuxi read his expression and could see he had no intention of telling the truth, so she wisely dropped the subject.

After they left the cloth shop, Shen Zhuxi had expected him to take her home — but instead Li Wu headed in the opposite direction.

“Where are we going?” Shen Zhuxi asked.

“The house is out of food. We need to buy rice and vegetables,” Li Wu said.

The breakfast stalls that had been lively earlier in the morning had grown quiet now that the meal hour had passed. People carrying poles and baskets, selling tea as they wandered the streets, were becoming more common. Every now and then, the cry of a flower-selling child going door to door could be heard.

Shen Zhuxi spotted a plainly dressed boy of about six or seven and was charmed by the fresh peach blossoms in his hands. She gave him three copper coins and bought a small bunch to hold. With her new clothes in mind, flowers in hand, even her footsteps felt lighter.

Li Wu glanced back at her from time to time, an expression of patient resignation on his face.

Shen Zhuxi knew she probably looked quite ridiculous at the moment — but she couldn’t help it. She was happy. She had never imagined that after fleeing the fallen imperial palace, she could have a day this happy.

“What’s this?” A stall at the roadside caught Shen Zhuxi’s attention, and before Li Wu could answer she had already drifted over.

What barely qualified as a stall had been set up under the eaves of a shuttered shop. An old man sat on a lopsided rattan stool, a small table before him bearing many tiny bowls, each holding clay of a different color. Beside his feet stood a bundle of straw bound into a display stand, filled with vivid, lifelike clay figurines. Dozens of children crowded around, pointing at the straw display and chattering heatedly about which was Da Qiao and which was Xiao Qiao.

“You’ve never seen clay figurines before?” Li Wu came to stand beside her.

She really hadn’t. She asked the old man with excitement, “How much is one clay figurine?”

“Twenty copper coins each,” the old man said.

“Can you make one that looks like me?” Shen Zhuxi asked.

The old man looked up at her. “I can, but you’d have to wait until I’ve finished the ones I’m working on.”

Before Shen Zhuxi could respond, Li Wu had already taken her by the arm and steered her onward.

“Forget the clay figurine — when we’re home, I’ll use mud to make you one myself.”

“That’s completely different.”

“How is it different? Don’t waste time dawdling on the road — buying rice and vegetables is what matters. If we get there too late, the shop closes.”

Food came first, everything else second. Shen Zhuxi could only be dragged along with reluctance.

At the rice shop, Li Wu arranged to have rice delivered. The young attendant agreed at once. Then they made their way to a nearby produce stall, where Li Wu selected some fresh vegetables and arranged for those to be sent home as well.

Once he’d finished his instructions to the produce shop owner, Li Wu turned to Shen Zhuxi. “Wait here a moment. I’ll be back shortly.”

“Where are you going?” Shen Zhuxi asked immediately.

“I have something to take care of.” Li Wu answered evasively. “If you want any fruit, take some and put it on the account to settle at end of month.”

The produce shop owner smiled and agreed, and started encouraging Shen Zhuxi to try his newly arrived loquats. In the time Shen Zhuxi was distracted, Li Wu had already slipped out the door.

Li Wu wound through the streets and arrived at the town’s one and only pharmacy. He ducked under the Suxin Tang sign, dropped onto the consultation chair, and sat himself down.

“What brings you in for a — ” The old doctor, stroking his white beard, looked up, took one look at Li Wu, and changed his expression entirely. “Off with you. Don’t disturb my consultations.”

“I’m here for a consultation,” Li Wu said.

“What’s ailing you?” The old doctor looked him up and down. “Has that black heart of yours finally rotted through?”

Li Wu pulled his brows together. “When have I ever been black-hearted?”

“That debt of four hundred and twenty taels came to me at three hundred and fifty-seven — you tell me who the black heart is.”

“If it weren’t for me, that three hundred and fifty-seven taels would never have come back to you at all. I collect what you’re owed and you call me black-hearted — fine, go collect your own debts next time.”

“These old bones of mine could never manage that — you’d be sending me to my grave.”

“Exactly. You provide the money, I provide the effort — mutual benefit for both sides. What’s wrong with that?”

“Forget it, forget it. You have no respect for your elders — I can’t reason with you!” The old doctor blew at his beard indignantly. “Just tell me what’s wrong and be quick about it!”

“Not me.” Li Wu paused. “My betrothed.”

“That young lady staying at your house?” The old doctor’s half-shut eyes went wide. He leaned forward in his chair, studying Li Wu from head to toe as if seeing him for the first time. “Well, I’ll be. I’d half expected you to become a monk. To think you’d go straight to getting married. Speak up, then — what’s the matter with her?”

“She eats very little,” Li Wu said.

“All young ladies eat little.”

“She eats very little. She can’t even finish one bowl of Old Mao’s warm noodles.”

“Old Mao, that cheating short-changer — can’t even finish one of his bowls? That is indeed very little.” The old doctor nodded. “Why didn’t you bring her in for a proper look?”

“Too much trouble,” Li Wu said. “She’d fuss and say she’s always been a light eater.”

“How’s her energy?”

Li Wu thought of yesterday, when she’d flung herself across the toilet paper with the resolve of someone prepared to die alongside it, and said, “Excellent.”

“This young lady carries herself with refinement — clearly not from an ordinary family. It’s only natural she can’t stomach plain country food.” The old doctor shook his head and picked up his brush to write a prescription. “I’ll prescribe a decoction to stimulate the appetite. The main ingredient is sour plum — it tastes rather pleasant. Take it home, brew it, and have her drink one bowl twice a day.”

Prescription in hand, Li Wu collected the medicine from the counter. When he walked out of Suxin Tang, he was carrying three lotus-leaf packets that smelled faintly of medicinal herbs.

Li Wu turned over in his mind how he might persuade Shen Zhuxi to drink the appetite-stimulating medicine, and made his way back toward the produce shop.

Walking along, he passed the clay figurine stall from earlier.

The children who had clustered around the table had long since scattered. Now only the old man remained, working quietly among the figurines on his straw stand.

Li Wu looked at the assorted clay figurines standing in the straw, and thought privately: what’s so special about this stuff? She’d been staring at them with those wide eyes, looking ready to pop. Even as a child, he had never been taken in by these trinkets for fooling little ones.

Li Wu walked past the clay figurine stall, staring at the figurines on the straw stand, his footsteps slowing more and more.

“Brother Li is back?” The old man looked up at him with a smile. “Have you come to have a figurine made for the young lady?”

Absolutely not — he wouldn’t let this old man trick a single copper coin out of him. Watch how cleanly and decisively he refused.

Li Wu’s throat moved.

“…Yes.”

Shen Zhuxi was very nearly full from the loquats the produce shop had plied her with by the time Li Wu finally arrived, fashionably late. He was carrying several extra lotus-leaf packets, and Shen Zhuxi caught the faint herbal scent coming from them before he’d even reached her.

“Who’s sick?” she asked curiously.

“Nobody’s sick.” Li Wu said.

“Then what’s that?”

“Sour plum drink to clear heat and dispel dampness.”

Shen Zhuxi loved sour plum drink. She asked at once, “Are we having it tonight?”

“Brew it as soon as we’re home.”

Shen Zhuxi was still delighted about the sour plum drink when Li Wu suddenly held out a clay figurine on a little wooden stand.

The figurine wore a pomegranate-red skirt. On her beautiful oval face, a pair of large, dark eyes gazed back at the stunned Shen Zhuxi.

“You bought this for me?”

“Found it.”

“If you found it, why does it look exactly like me?”

“You’d have to ask whoever dropped it.” Li Wu paused. “Maybe someone made a voodoo doll of you.”

“Nonsense!” Shen Zhuxi reached back and smacked him on the back. Li Wu looked utterly unaffected. Her palm, however, came away tingling.

“Never mind where it came from — take it if you want, throw it away if you don’t,” Li Wu said offhandedly.

“I’m not throwing it away.” Shen Zhuxi huffed and tucked the figurine into her sleeve. “I like it.”

Li Wu said nothing and suddenly quickened his pace, pulling several steps ahead.

“Why are you walking so fast!” Shen Zhuxi called after him.

“None of your business,” Li Wu said.

Shen Zhuxi hurried to catch up.

“You’re smiling — I can see you smiling — are you laughing at me!”

“When did I smile? You’re imagining things.”

“I clearly saw you smiling!”

The two bickered all the way home. Li Wu then went into the kitchen to busy himself. When he came back out, he was carrying a large bowl of inky dark liquid.

“Drink the soup,” he said.

Shen Zhuxi stared at the ceramic bowl, which was bigger than her face. “I can’t finish all of that.”

“Drink as much as you can.”

Shen Zhuxi drank four mouthfuls and wanted no more. Just as she was about to step away from the bowl, Li Wu reached over and pushed the bottom of the bowl toward her.

“A little more, a little more…”

“You… liar… glug, glug…”

Before long, only half a bowl of sour plum drink remained in the bowl that had been bigger than her face. Li Wu made a show of drinking two mouthfuls and tried to retreat, but Shen Zhuxi pressed him onto the bench and tipped the remaining half-bowl down his throat.

“Shen Zhuxi… you madwoman… you… glug, glug…”

After being forced to drain the entire oversized bowl of soup, Shen Zhuxi stormed off in indignation to take her afternoon nap in the bedroom.

The moment she lay down, the sour plum drink sat heavy in her stomach and she could only lie flat on her back with eyes closed. When she woke from her nap, the fullness had subsided — and in its place, a faint, unmistakable hollow feeling: hunger.

She pushed aside the bamboo curtain and stepped out. Li Wu was still sprawled on the reed mat, sleeping with complete abandon. Shen Zhuxi found the loquats and mulberries she’d bought the day before in the kitchen, rinsed them clean with fresh water, piled them into a chipped ceramic bowl, and carried it back to the main hall.

Li Wu hadn’t moved from his earlier position, still as a corpse.

If this man ever tried to make a living in business, he’d starve to death first.