By the time she woke again, it was already morning — an overcast day that looked like it might rain, the air a little stuffy. Her husband’s figure was no longer at the window; Xiao Chan had gone to rest too, replaced now by Juan’er and Xing’er keeping watch. According to Juan’er, the old patriarch had stopped by earlier, and seeing her asleep, had signaled not to wake her — only asking in passing what those charts on the desk were for. Learning they were Ning Yi’s work, he hadn’t pressed further, only telling her to rest well.

A single night wasn’t enough to break a high fever. She drank another bowl of medicine, her head foggy, her mouth full of bitterness. The anxiety in her heart still lingered — even after everything Liheng had said the night before, how would things really turn out in the end… She already knew, in truth, more or less how it would go; she simply couldn’t bring herself to accept it, after all the effort she’d poured in.

That figure was no longer in the room, and thinking of this left a great hollow feeling inside her — but eventually she drifted, hazily, back into sleep. This time the sleep wasn’t like the one in the small hours before — all manner of nightmares came crowding in, leaving her unable to find peace. By the time she woke again, it was roughly past noon. Ning Yi was once more seated in the chair by the window, speaking quietly with Juan’er standing beside him — apparently about some account discrepancy from the previous year, Juan’er explaining the reasons in a low voice.

Xiao Chan came over. “Young mistress, you’re awake?” At this, Ning Yi and Juan’er turned as well.

Her body felt exhausted, and she didn’t much feel like talking or moving. Xiao Chan came and propped up her pillow higher, and Liheng reached over to rest his hand on her forehead — aside from the night before, they’d never had this kind of intimate contact before, yet it felt entirely natural.

Having measured the temperature of her forehead with his palm, the man nodded. “Seems a bit better. I’ll have someone call Physician Sun over again in a while.” Then he murmured something about “roughly forty degrees yesterday,” words whose meaning she couldn’t quite grasp.

Xiao Chan went out and brought back a bowl of porridge, “forcing” a few small mouthfuls of plain rice porridge on her. Before long, Physician Sun arrived too, asking after her condition; Xiao Chan occasionally chimed in with a few words, while Liheng continued going over the account books at the desk, jotting things down, only occasionally speaking up. She lay there watching the group of people come and go; sometimes it was just her and Ning Yi alone in the room. The figure at the desk moved swiftly and decisively, methodical and orderly, producing a strange feeling that somehow put the mind at ease.

Toward evening, the sky darkened, and rain began falling outside the window, fresh air drifting into the room carrying the scent of damp earth.

She only drifted off occasionally, then woke again. That night, Shopkeeper Liao and the others didn’t come to the residence; amid the curtain of rain, there was none of the restless lamplight that had marked the previous few days. What were they doing, she wondered — had anything shifted on the business front… The thought crossed her mind now and then, with only Ning Yi and the three maids keeping her company in the room. Several sheets of rice paper had been hung on the walls; Liheng would glance at them now and then, lending this quiet scene a strange, indefinable color.

Her bedroom, though often used for handling business matters and thus grander than the typical young lady’s chamber, still held plenty of things and decorations that girls tended to love. Now, with these sheets of rice paper added, the atmosphere had been thoroughly disrupted. Most of the time, the room stayed quiet — Xiao Chan, Juan’er, and Xing’er spoke softly to her and to Liheng, moving in and out gently, blending into the curtain of rain outside. Liheng’s busy, focused presence had its own kind of order, and brought with it only a quiet, steadying strength.

That night, she finally recalled more clearly the thought that had come to her in the small hours before: her husband was a scholar — the finest talent in all of Jiangning, even.

Years ago, before she’d married, still a girl, she’d harbored dreams about such things, imagined more than once that she’d someday marry some brilliant, talented scholar. Even as a merchant’s daughter, her family was, after all, a great merchant house — such a chance wasn’t out of reach. Once she’d come to understand the ways of the world a little better, such fantasies had faded somewhat, though the longing had surely never disappeared entirely. She’d always taken keen interest in the tales that circulated around Jiangning of talented scholars and beautiful women, the rising fame of men like Cao Guan and Li Pin, the stories of poetic contests at one banquet after another. Even later, when she attended gatherings at Pu Garden mostly for business reasons, hearing about other poetry gatherings and seeing fine verses still felt worthwhile to her — as though glimpsing another world entirely, one that didn’t stop her from admiring and longing for it all the same.

And then life had simply gone on being life. She’d married as arranged, taken in a son-in-law — one who was, on paper, a scholar, but hardly what anyone would call a talented one, just a bookworm. Life was life; she could still go on admiring the great poets and geniuses from afar, and yet, when her own husband turned out not to be quite as dull as expected, when certain things began to overlap, she found herself at something of a loss.

Her own husband was now being called Jiangning’s foremost talent — how was she meant to feel about that? She found she couldn’t sense within herself any of the signs a great scholar or literary giant was supposed to carry — from what she’d heard in storytelling houses, seen in operas, such men were always clearly marked: quoting the classics, speaking in elevated phrases; even in the somewhat unconventional legends and romances, they’d casually display their brilliance wherever they went, always the center of attention, a figure set apart, impossible to approach casually. She’d once dreamed of marrying such a man — imagining exchanges like “my lord, you must be exhausted from your labors,” “thank you for your concern, my lady” — the sort of formal, distant courtesies one saw on stage. But without that distance, what was it supposed to look like?

His everyday manner of speaking was simple and casual, understated, never boastful, wry and good-humored — and yet this was the man people called the foremost talent. She kept revisiting those two ci poems of his again and again. Between the two of them, it wasn’t like an ordinary marriage at all — sometimes it felt almost like friendship. She’d never heard of having a friend quite like this — every few days they’d go up to the second floor and talk, about anything at all. Could a man and a woman really become friends like that? In certain romance tales, there were stories of women disguising themselves as men to befriend someone that way — but she hadn’t disguised herself at all. Was there such a thing as a husband and wife like this? She’d never heard of it before either.

In truth, she loved this feeling — loved it to the point where… she didn’t know how to change it, didn’t know how to take it further. But the fact that her husband was a great talent had always remained somewhat hazy to her, up until now. Only tonight had it come into sharp focus.

From afternoon into evening, she’d heard her husband quietly ask a few questions, each touching on the most crucial points in these years’ worth of accounts. Her husband was a clever man, and he was working through all of this in earnest. Su Tan’er understood this quickly enough — but even someone of the greatest talent could do nothing about this. Her husband was a great scholar; she herself was the merchant’s daughter. This was, by rights, her work to carry, and she’d been working hard at it all along, trying not to let these business matters trouble or distract him — yet now, in the end, she’d dragged him into it after all.

What the outcome would be no longer seemed to matter much here. Her husband couldn’t possibly handle this well — he’d said, to ease her mind, “I will make sure this works out.” But this wasn’t something mere resolve could solve. Regardless, having brought him in to marry into the family, she’d still ended up burdening him with all this…

She lay there thinking these thoughts, drifting in and out of sleep, until, by midnight, the rain still falling but the night grown quiet, the oil lamp’s flame flickering, only Liheng’s figure remained in the room, seated in the chair, reading through some correspondence with shopkeepers from various regions. Sensing movement behind him, he turned, set the letters down, and rose to come over.

“You’re awake? Want some water?”

“Mm…” Su Tan’er nodded faintly.

Ning Yi propped her pillow up higher, poured a cup of warm water from nearby, and helped her drink a few small sips. “Juan’er and Xing’er are asleep. Xiao Chan was worn out too today, so I made up an excuse to send her off to rest a while ago. But when it’s time for your medicine, you’d better be awake by then — uh, if you need to…” Ning Yi watched her, hesitating a moment, then stood. “I’ll go get Xiao Chan.”

Ning Yi’s hesitation had good reason behind it. During the day, he’d deliberately made himself scarce a few times, mainly to give her time and privacy to get out of bed for necessities. Her cold was severe, but she still had some strength to get up — she wasn’t truly bedridden. Such private matters weren’t easy to bring up; ordinarily, Su Tan’er’s face would have flushed who knows what shade of red, but right now she only felt a mild embarrassment. Seeing Ning Yi about to leave, she finally spoke. “Husband… there’s no need…” When he paused, she added quietly, “Husband really doesn’t avoid such things at all…” Of course, if he’d avoided the subject entirely, or hadn’t wanted to think about it at all, the one left suffering would likely have been herself.

Ning Yi smiled. “Feeling better?”

“A little better…”

“The fever will probably take another two or three days to break.” Ning Yi looked her over a moment; there was much he could have said, but in the end he simply shook his head. “You’re not feeling well, I won’t pester you. If you want something to eat, or need anything else, just tell me.”

He picked up a letter and sat down in a chair not far away. The room fell quiet, the autumn rain outside having long since faded into background noise. Su Tan’er gazed at that figure for a long while, then finally spoke. “Husband… why did you agree to this marriage?”

They’d touched on similar topics before, but the question, spoken now, clearly carried a different weight. Ning Yi set down the letter, looked at Su Tan’er on the bed, and after a long moment finally shook his head with a smile. “I’ve thought about talking with you about this, but… maybe in a few days, once you’re a bit more clear-headed? You don’t look like you’re up to it right now.”

“I’m fine, really. I want… I want to know.” Su Tan’er spoke slowly. “So husband wants to talk about it too?”

“Not why I agreed to the marriage.” Ning Yi set the letter aside, pulled his chair up to the bedside, and sat. “I’ve already told you this before — I don’t know why I agreed to this marriage. I’d lost my memory. What I want to talk about isn’t what happened before I lost my memory, but… what came after.”

“What came after?”

Ning Yi looked at her for a long moment, sighed, then laughed. “Are you sure you want to hear this right now?”

Su Tan’er managed a smile too. “If I don’t hear it, I won’t be able to sleep…”

“All right.” Ning Yi nodded. Given how limited her mental clarity likely was right now, he kept his pace slow, repeating himself now and then. “It’s really quite a simple thing, and if I don’t say it now, I’ll say it eventually anyway… A man named Ning Yi married a woman named Su Tan’er, marrying into her family — that’s how the two of us came to know each other. This much is already fact. Whether we call it fate or pure happenstance, either way, it’s the two of us now… You’re part of that. How do you see it?”

Su Tan’er frowned, thinking it over, not quite grasping what he meant by all this. “I… I’m happy about it…”

Ning Yi patted her hand, paused a moment. “What other people say doesn’t matter — talented scholar, married-in son-in-law, whatever. The thing is, this is how things already are. Life is simple. As for me, I don’t have any particular feelings about marrying in. As for you — I don’t dislike you. No — let me just say it plainly, I’m fond of you. Whether it’s business, or your temperament — you’re strong-willed, but that’s fine, it’s a temperament I like. And besides, you’re quite pretty too…”

Ning Yi propped his chin on one hand at the bedside, his words calm and easy, as if he were simply saying whatever came to mind as it occurred to him. Su Tan’er, though, was suddenly caught off guard — even weak as she was right now, a flush rose across her face, and she stammered, flustered. “Husband, husband — really… fond of me?”

“Mm, fond of you.”

“But… but, this isn’t how a proper young lady is supposed to be… a woman without talent is virtuous — women shouldn’t be like this… everyone says… this… men wouldn’t like a woman like this…” She rambled on incoherently for a while, still, even sick as she was, trying to make her point with her eyes, before finally deflating. “I… I’m not worthy of husband…”

“Still arguing even now — in other people’s eyes, I’m nothing more than a man living off his wife’s fortune. You’re more capable than plenty of men.”

“Husband isn’t without ability either…”

Ning Yi smiled. “There’s no need to keep putting yourself down right now — none of that matters. We could argue about it until tomorrow and get nowhere… In any case, it’s just something between the two of us. I’ve got no complaints about my life. I like you, I like this courtyard, Xiao Chan and Juan’er and Xing’er, the occasional bit of nonsense from the people around us doing pointless things all day — but on the whole, going on like this suits me fine. Good, even. So, that’s what I wanted to tell you.”

He took hold of her weak hand — slender fingers, softly rounded, quite lovely — turning it in his own for a moment before settling. “If you don’t have too many complaints either, then perhaps this is how we’ll go on from here… Whatever the arrangement was originally, well, things are already this way, no need to keep wondering why. As long as it’s not something we dislike, that’s enough…”

He gave her hand a small tug, waiting for an answer. For Ning Yi, this was perhaps a fairly significant decision too. When he’d first woken with no memory, he’d kept himself ready to walk away at any time; later he’d simply watched how things developed. But by now, certain things had more or less settled themselves. No need to dwell on overly romantic notions — the titles of husband and wife already existed between them, and since he didn’t dislike Su Tan’er’s temperament, since the two of them got along well enough, whether to change that or not hardly mattered. What came next was, simply, life.

Su Tan’er looked at him, blinking, blinking again, her eyes reddening, tears spilling over. She pressed her lips together, unable to speak. Ning Yi waited a long while before finally lowering his head with a small laugh. “Whatever the case, you ought to give me some kind of answer…”

“Husband…” Su Tan’er’s lips moved. “After all this is over, once Tan’er is feeling better, we…” Her voice was choked, faintly hoarse, but her gaze held something firm. In the rainy night, she paused a moment, sniffled.

“Let’s consummate our marriage.”