This year’s Mid-Autumn Festival was the most fulfilling one since Cheng Danruo had transmigrated here.
They set out in the morning to climb the mountain and returned in the evening, yet Yan Hongzhi was still in good spirits. After resting for two hours, he announced he wanted to admire the moon and eat crab.
This time, before Cheng Danruo could even make a request, he took the initiative to say, “Crab is cold in nature. I shall merely eat some leg meat.”
Only then did she refrain from saying more.
Fresh crabs were pulled up and simply steamed, accompanied by sweet vinegar mixed with minced ginger – a truly wonderful pleasure.
When the ancients ate crab, they used the eight crab implements: hammer, block, pliers, shovel, spoon, fork, scraper, and needle. Ordinary ones were forged from brass, while more extravagant ones were made of gold and silver, exquisitely tiny.
As a surgeon, Cheng Danruo was not content to use them merely for eating.
After finishing the crab, she took out needle and thread and patiently sewed all the organs back together.
Xie Xuanying had been drinking alone, but the space was only so large. Looking at the river, looking at the moon, he inevitably noticed the movements of her hands in the end.
A feast for the eyes.
So he thought, yet also found it puzzling. It was merely the leftover scraps after a meal. If one spoke of beauty, it ought to be a woman in a splendid boudoir, facing an embroidery frame beneath the window, stitching a charmingly naive cat, dyeing a fragrant flower, or even the vast expanse of a thousand-mile landscape – none of which would be out of the question.
How could it be the shell of an eaten crab?
Yet he genuinely felt a kind of beauty.
Her movements were meticulous, refined, and nimble.
Her expression was focused, patient, and composed.
Why?
Xie Xuanying did not dare look directly at her face, so his gaze lingered on her hands for a long while.
These were not delicate, boneless, slender hands. The way her index finger hooked and moved the thread was extraordinarily nimble – he could scarcely catch her movements. In the blink of an eye, everything was already done.
Speaking of which, the palace ladies also had a pastime of eating crab and competing in cleverness. “The eight limbs intact like a butterfly” was considered the finest. Yet no matter how skilled the hands, compared to her craftsmanship, they truly amounted to nothing.
Superb workmanship that rivals nature itself.
As he thought this, his heart suddenly clenched.
Right – with such exquisite skill, should the phrase that first came to mind not have been “superb workmanship that rivals nature itself”? Why was the first phrase that surfaced actually “a feast for the eyes”?
Yan Hongzhi sat at the seat of honor. He had just finished washing his hands when he turned his head and saw Xie Xuanying staring blankly at Cheng Danruo.
Even if he was not looking at her as a person, but at the movements on her table, to stare for so long was already somewhat improper. He cleared his throat and called back his thoughts. “San-lang, pour me some tea.”
Xie Xuanying awoke as if from a dream and immediately rose to pour the tea.
Yan Hongzhi moistened his throat and covertly sized him up.
What he had forgotten in the afternoon now came back to him.
To be honest, being cautious about Dan-niang harboring any improper thoughts was not making a mountain out of a molehill. The precedent was right there – how many daughters in the capital had been trapped by love? Far more than just Princess Rong’an. But to warn San-lang not to develop feelings for Dan-niang seemed like groundless worry.
Never mind the Xie family’s relatives – cousins on the paternal and maternal sides, aunts’ daughters and uncles’ daughters – those he could have married and had met numbered at least a dozen. Add to that the families of his teachers and fellow disciples, and on occasions of incense offerings, banquets, and chance encounters, he had at least met once all the most outstanding noble daughters in all of Great Xia.
Even so, when it came to proposing marriage to the Xu family’s daughter, he was still reluctant.
One should know that the Xu family’s daughter came from a renowned house. When his wife attended their banquet, she returned full of praise, saying the girl’s appearance was lovely, her bearing dignified and elegant, every gesture proper and impeccable – countless families were scrambling to bring her home as a daughter-in-law.
By comparison, Dan-niang still fell short.
Even setting aside birth, her bearing, appearance, and manner of speech were all a notch below.
It should not come to that.
Yan Hongzhi took another sip of hot tea, yet the worry in his heart had not been set down – alas, he too had once been young, had once felt his heart stir. He well understood a certain thing that needed no saying aloud.
Marriage was marriage; it required matching families and equal standing. A stirring of the heart was a stirring of the heart; a single moment of thundering pulse was enough.
Years ago, beneath the lanterns on the night of the Shangyuan Festival, he had fallen in love at first sight with his wife as she guessed lantern riddles. How could he have known whose daughter she was?
“Ahem.” He cleared his throat and asked, as if casually, “San-lang, what are you looking at?”
What a coincidence – Xie Xuanying had just been called out by him and was feeling guilty. His thoughts subconsciously dodged away from their original track and ran far off to some completely irrelevant place. Thus the thought that blurted out was exceedingly strange. “If it were a live crab, after being taken apart like this and sewn back together, could it still live?”
Yan Hongzhi: “…”
Sure enough, he had overthought it.
Then again, Dan-niang’s medical skill was indeed extraordinary, and he too was curious.
For Cheng Danruo, opportunities to discuss medicine were few, and in truth it was rather lonely. Since someone had asked, she answered him seriously, “If a crab loses a leg, it is like a person losing a limb – it can still live, and it can even regenerate. But if the torso is dissected…”
She thought about it, not quite certain, and said apologetically, “I do not know either. Otherwise, shall we sew one up and try?”
“I spoke offhandedly.” Xie Xuanying lowered his eyes and said unnaturally, “Do not take it seriously.”
Cheng Danruo actually did not mind sewing up a crab for fun, but she feared it would look like eagerness and cause misunderstanding, so she merely smiled, letting the matter pass.
Beyond the boat window, the bright moon hung high, the water shimmering.
Yan Hongzhi was feeling the effects of the wine. He rose unsteadily. “It is late. Let us disperse.”
Xie Xuanying reached out to support him, but he waved his hand. “You have drunk quite a bit too. Go rest. Dan-niang, help me.”
Cheng Danruo hurried forward to take his arm and escorted him back to the cabin to rest.
Mo Dian was sharp-eyed and quick-handed; hot water had already been brought.
Cheng Danruo wrung out the towel, but she did not need to attend to him personally -handing it to Mo Dian was filial enough.
“Pour a cup of water,” Yan Hongzhi instructed Mo Dian.
Mo Dian went to pour the tea.
Seizing the moment, Yan Hongzhi looked toward Cheng Danruo. She was already fifteen, of medium stature, plainly adorned, and lovely in appearance. Though she lacked the refined elegance and delicate beauty of a great family’s daughter, she possessed a spirit that neither groveled nor overreached.
That spirit was the rarest thing of all.
Yan Hongzhi sighed imperceptibly, yet somehow felt a subtle, indefinable confusion lingering in his heart.
“Dan-niang.” At last he could not help himself, and aided by the wine, asked, “Is San-lang good?”
Good in what way? Cheng Danruo looked up, puzzled, and saw that Yan Hongzhi’s expression was strange – seeming hesitant, seeming probing, seeming curious, and a little… indescribably bewildered.
She understood. After thinking, she asked in return, “Is the bright moon good?”
Yan Hongzhi said deliberately, “How bright the moon is – of course it is good.”
“Yes, the bright moon is of course good,” Cheng Danruo said. “My heart has its own bright moon; through all ages it is full and never wanes.”
Yan Hongzhi was stunned, then burst out laughing.
He suddenly understood the confusion that had lingered in his heart: all the probing and testing today, in the end, was perhaps nothing other than a single phrase – “what a pity.”
At that same moment, Xie Xuanying lay alone in his tent, unable to rest easy.
Countless thoughts flashed through his mind: Why was it “a feast for the eyes” and not “superb workmanship that rivals nature itself”? He brooded over it for a long while before convincing himself that the two things could well coexist – he had merely thought of one before the other, with no other meaning.
But on second thought, minding it at all was itself rather wrong.
If it were Rong’an, his most familiar cousin, and he first called her “naive,” then “charmingly innocent,” what difference would the reverse make? He would not think twice about it.
If there truly were no difference, then there would be no need to mind it at all.
The very fact of “minding” made one mind it.
He grew even more restless.
Just then, faint footsteps came from outside.
The cabin’s soundproofing was poor to begin with, and Xie Xuanying’s hearing was exceptional, so he heard it all the more clearly.
He could distinguish it: the soft creak was the sound of a door gently closing. Someone had come out of Yan Hongzhi’s room. Then came footsteps, light and crisp as they landed – it was Miss Cheng’s gait.
In all fairness, the way she walked was not particularly graceful.
Xie Xuanying knew what graceful footsteps were like: the dignified ones like green bamboo standing tall, calm as an abyss; the elegant ones like quiet flowers by the water, poised and composed. As for the delicate, willowy, swaying kind, though pleasing to the eye, they smacked of vulgar charm, and he had always disdained them.
Miss Cheng… he could not say.
And this was precisely what confounded Xie Xuanying.
Why was it that such ordinary footsteps, he could somehow distinguish them?
He tried to recall the footsteps of his sisters at home, but drew a complete blank.
The footsteps disappeared.
She had entered her room; outside there remained only the faint wind and waves.
Xie Xuanying let out a breath, closed his eyes, and tried to clear his mind so he could fall asleep. Yet people had this peculiar flaw: the more they tried not to think about something, the more they thought about it.
It was Mid-Autumn Festival today, and on a day like this, she was dressed so plainly.
She shouldn’t have dressed that way. He silently offered his critique. With such striking features, she ought to wear plain clothes, like a red plum in a simple vase; that would be both beautiful and tasteful. Someone with delicate, understated features, on the other hand, ought to try something splendid and colorful. Like a white camellia, for instance: pair it with a white or celadon porcelain vase, and the whole thing would look too cold and austere. Pastel porcelain would be better, striking just the right balance between richness and restraint.
Miss Cheng had already injured her cheek. The plainer and paler the colors she wore, the more they would accentuate her wan and pitiful appearance. A red jacket with a white skirt would look good, or perhaps a purple jacket with a jade-colored skirt. And preferably in a figured brocade fabric.
After turning these thoughts over in his mind, he suddenly realized that he had been rather impertinent. Annoyed with himself yet unable to help feeling a little regretful, he reluctantly turned his thoughts elsewhere and began counting the flower vases in his home instead.
At last, little by little, he drifted into sleep –
After fifteenth of August, the boat continued north, and the temperature began to drop sharply.
Within only a few days, anyone standing on the deck for a while would need to throw a light cloak over their shoulders.
Yan Hongzhi had developed a slight cough, so Cheng Danruo had a small brazier brought in and began simmering some autumn pear paste for him.
Whether it actually worked was hard to say. In any case, she cooked it down until it was very thick, so it had to be diluted with water. A few cups a day meant he was getting plenty of fluids, which could only do him good.
She also bought fresh apples and oranges from the shore, peeled and prepared them herself, and urged the old man to eat more fruit.
A son or daughter’s filial devotion was not something a father could easily refuse. As Yan Hongzhi ate, his autumn cough gradually improved, until it was mostly gone.
If the child was filial, then the father ought to be loving in return.
Yan Hongzhi decided to add a new subject to their lessons: he would teach Cheng Danruo the Four Books.
At the time, the Four Books and Five Classics were still considered a field of learning for men. Cheng Danruo was overjoyed that he was willing to teach her, and would gladly have studied for twenty-four hours a day if she could.
But Yan Hongzhi taught very slowly. He would explain a few passages, discuss some historical anecdotes, or play a few games of chess with her. Occasionally, when the mood took him, he would even set her a question and ask her to compose a poem. He simply never offered any comments on what she wrote.
Cheng Danruo knew that her work still fell short, so she could only write more and keep experimenting. Before long, she had accumulated a thick stack of poems about travelling in the autumn rain.
Aside from her studies, she was hardly ever idle. Every day, she had to set aside some time to do a little needlework.
She wanted to make a pair of shoes for Yan Hongzhi as a filial gift, and once they reached the capital, she also intended to make something for her adoptive mother. She was not particularly skilled at embroidery, so she took the easier route and made knotted cords instead, which fortunately did not strain the eyes too much.
With her days so full, she hardly paid much attention to Xie Xuanying.
She only noticed that he had been appearing much less often lately and did not speak to her as much. Remembering Yan Hongzhi’s question on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, she assumed that he was deliberately keeping his distance to avoid giving rise to gossip. Naturally, she cooperated. Whenever they happened to cross paths, she would simply nod at him before moving on.
Then they arrived in Jining.
As the saying went, half the Han dynasty steles in the world were in Jining. Yan Hongzhi had been looking forward to the visit for several days in advance, saying that he wanted to go into the city and see whether there were any new rubbings of steles to be found. But after visiting several shops dealing in ancient inscriptions and stone carvings, he came away with very little.
He was unwilling to accept it. “I came here in high spirits, only to leave disappointed.”
Then, struck by a sudden idea, he declared, “Tomorrow, I shall go looking for the surviving fragments of steles myself.”
Cheng Danruo and Xie Xuanying exchanged a glance, both at a loss for words.
Xie Xuanying advised him, “Sir, it is already September. The weather is turning colder. Would it not be better to return to the capital sooner?”
“The autumn skies are clear and the air crisp. This is the perfect season for travelling.” Once Yan Hongzhi had become interested, ordinary excuses were of no use. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back within five days at most.”
Xie Xuanying had no choice but to give Cheng Danruo a meaningful look.
Cheng Danruo pretended not to notice. Unlike him, she was not particularly eager to stop Yan Hongzhi.
