Moonlight cast its pure glow, gently shrouding the small courtyard of the Xie family.
The square dining table from the main hall had been carried outside. To celebrate the festival, it was laden with five dishes and one soup, fish, meat, roast duck. For an ordinary household, such richness rivaled New Year’s.
Xie Wuling had even brought out a pot of osmanthus wine. But since Shen Yujiao was with child, she could not drink; he had to drink alone.
Yet after so many years, to at last have “family” by his side for Mid-Autumn, though they could not share the wine, his heart was filled with joy.
“Little Jiaoniang, eat more, so many dishes here.” Xie Wuling poured himself another cup, still urging Shen Yujiao to eat: “Food left overnight doesn’t taste good.”
Shen Yujiao softly answered “Alright,” and glanced at the table.
The dishes were fine indeed. Had this been half a month ago, even one bite of meat would have sent her into delighted glee for days.
But people grow used to comfort quickly. After half a month of steady meals, the rich, greasy dishes no longer whetted her appetite.
At last, she picked up a piece of osmanthus cake and ate it slowly.
Back in Chang’an, too, osmanthus cake would be served at the Mid-Autumn banquet. But the cakes there were not the same as those in Jinling,
In Chang’an, the cakes were small, made from glutinous rice flour mixed with osmanthus, sweetened, then pressed into dainty flower-shaped molds, steamed, cooled, and placed on white Ru ware plates. For beauty, each piece bore a touch of candied osmanthus at its heart, golden and lovely, pleasing both eye and tongue.
The one in her hand now, however, was more like an osmanthus sponge cake, sprinkled with a few petals and steamed together, and that was that.
The contrast was great, yet Shen Yujiao felt no disappointment.
One must learn contentment. At least she had osmanthus cake to eat. And her parents, brothers, and sisters-in-law far away in Lingnan?
On such a fine festival night, were they sitting together at table, passing the evening in simple peace?
And, were they, like she, thinking of her at this very moment?
“Why that face, as though about to cry?”
A man’s languid voice, tinged with puzzlement, broke the quiet night. “Is Old Ma’s osmanthus cake really that bad?”
Shen Yujiao barely gathered herself, meeting his questioning gaze. Realizing her lapse, she forced a faint smile. “No, it’s quite good.”
Xie Wuling frowned at her perfunctory smile. “If you don’t feel like smiling, then don’t force yourself.”
Shen Yujiao started, the curve of her lips slowly falling. She lowered her eyes. “Forgive me.”
“What’s the sense in apologizing?” Xie Wuling’s brows knit tighter. “I wasn’t blaming you.”
She cast him a quick glance and murmured low, “I didn’t mean to spoil the mood…”
“…”
So that was it, after more than half a month together, this little lass was still afraid of him.
But was he truly so fearsome?
These days he had fed her well, treated her well. He hadn’t beaten her, hadn’t scolded her, well, unless calling her a “foolish woman” counted. But hadn’t she also called him a “lecher”?
“Enough. It’s a holiday. Cheer up a little. Stop apologizing all the time.”
He dragged the long bench closer to her. Watching her lashes tremble, as though she wanted to shrink away yet forced herself not to, his dark eyes narrowed slightly.
After a pause, he said evenly: “I know. Though you’ve stayed, and even agreed to marry me, in your heart you don’t really think much of me. You feel wronged…”
“I don’t, ”
“Let me finish.”
Xie Wuling sat sideways, long fingers holding the bowl of osmanthus wine. Against the sharp lines of his face, faintly flushed from drink, he said: “You’ve kept much from me, but I can guess: your family background is certainly higher than mine. That husband you married before, his family must also have been better off than me. Compared side by side, it’s only natural you’d feel the difference. That’s human nature.”
“But you also need to understand, those things are all in the past now. Your family has fallen, your husband’s household is dead and gone. You, a little woman with two children, must find yourself a new way to live, mustn’t you?”
This was the first time in over half a month that Shen Yujiao had heard him speak seriously.
After a brief silence, she nodded lightly. “What you said, I understand.”
“If you truly understand, then that’s best.”
Xie Wuling’s black eyes, still bright in the night, fixed steadily on her. “As for me, Xie Wuling, I may be a fatherless, motherless street rogue who can’t even read, and my household can hardly be called wealthy. But there is one thing I can promise you: so long as you’re willing to live with me in earnest, I will never stray. In this lifetime, I will treat only you well! If one day I betray you, you go to the kitchen, fetch a knife, and make a eunuch out of me. I won’t utter a word of complaint!”
The words were both blunt and earnest. Shen Yujiao’s brows knitted slightly, and she looked at him helplessly. “Xie Wuling, you’ve had too much to drink…”
Xie Wuling shot his brows up. “I’m not drunk! I’m speaking seriously with you.”
“…”
She looked at the faint flush across his face, then at those blazing dark eyes, and for a moment could not tell if he was drunk or not.
But drunk or not, those words he said, never straying, a lifetime of devotion, she would not truly take them to heart.
She was not some ignorant village woman. She had read poems and studied the Classics. The Book of Songs said: ‘Pledges of faith are sworn and sworn again, yet none are kept. He who does not think of betrayal, betrayal still comes.’ In the records there was Zhuo Wenjun’s letter to Sima Xiangru: ‘I hear you have a divided heart, so I come to sever ties.’
Not to mention distant examples, even in this dynasty, the founding emperor and empress had been childhood companions. She bore his sons, distanced herself from her kin, all to hold him to their youthful promise of “one pair for life.” He did keep his word, for forty years. But the year after her death, he took two palace maids to his bed.
If the late empress had spirits below, would she not feel her lifelong faithfulness had been nothing but a joke?
Because of all this, in the women’s quarters, when her mother and her tutors instructed her, little was said of love. More was taught of the duties of wife, woman, and mother. These were solid things she could hold in her hands. As for love… it was too fleeting, too elusive, never something she alone could control.
“Shen Yujiao, I’m talking to you, did you even hear me?”
The man’s impatient voice cut in. Shen Yujiao’s wandering thoughts returned. Looking at the young face before her, she nodded. “Yes, I heard.”
Xie Wuling looked at this response and felt a faint, unnameable discomfort. But after thinking, he could find no fault with it either.
Forget it. This little woman just doesn’t understand romance.
He drained his bowl of osmanthus wine, glanced sidelong, and saw her still nibbling at her osmanthus cake, docile, well-behaved, but far too quiet.
What nonsense was this about “eating without speaking, sleeping without talking”? What’s the point of meat and wine if no one speaks?
At that thought, he leaned a little closer. “Since we’re drinking, let’s talk, eh?”
Shen Yujiao paused mid-bite, her dark eyes turning to him. “Hm?”
“If tonight you were sitting with your family eating, would you just eat and drink in silence like this?”
At his words, she realized he was simply bored.
He was always talkative; after drinking, even more so.
“We would talk too,” Shen Yujiao said.
“What do you talk about?” One of his brows arched high. “Then why don’t you talk with me as you would with your family?”
Shen Yujiao looked at him. “On Mid-Autumn night, we would drink wine, paint, and play wine games.”
“I know wine games!” Xie Wuling declared proudly. “Brothers, stars, fortune and joy, three stars shine, four blessings, five chiefs, six six smooth, seven clever sevens…”
Shen Yujiao was silent a moment, then said awkwardly, “We usually played poetry games. At the Spring Feast, a ‘spring’ word flower game; at the Mid-Autumn banquet, a ‘moon’ word game. For example, ‘In the spring city, petals fly everywhere’; or, ‘Autumn sky, bright moon hanging; delicate, gazing at the autumn moon…’”
Xie Wuling fell silent.
Shen Yujiao too fell silent.
It seemed she had dampened his mood again.
But the games he spoke of, she truly didn’t know how to play.
Awkwardness drifted through the quiet courtyard. Shen Yujiao pressed her lips together, picked up the wine jar, and poured him a fresh bowl, her voice soft: “If not, then let’s just drink?”
Xie Wuling watched the clear stream of wine pour out, silent for a moment, before suddenly asking: “That man of yours, did he know how to read?”
Her hand stilled in mid-pour. She turned her eyes toward him. “…?”
His lips pressed tight, his gaze a little evasive. “That short-lived ghost you married before.”
Shen Yujiao froze, surprised he had suddenly brought up Pei Xia. But she still answered truthfully, with a nod. “Yes, he could read.”
“A scholar?”
“…Yes.”
“Oh.”
Xie Wuling responded faintly, then said no more. He lifted the bowl just poured and drained it in one gulp.
Shen Yujiao watched his rough, reckless drinking, and very much wanted to tell him to slow down, lest he choke.
But his Adam’s apple bobbed, and in just a few gulps he finished the whole bowl, wiped his mouth, and set down the empty bowl: “Fill it up.”
This drunkard.
Shen Yujiao sighed inwardly, but still poured him another. The words “drink a little less” had only just reached her lips when the man beside her spoke first: “Then you teach me to read.”
Softly spoken, a little slurred, Shen Yujiao almost thought she had misheard.
But when she turned her face and met those obsidian-bright eyes, her heart gave a jolt, startled: “You… want to learn to read?”
Xie Wuling pressed a fist to his lips, coughed, then turned his face away and raised his voice: “What, not allowed?”
Shen Yujiao: “…”
“One word, will you teach me or not?”
Such an empty show of menace made Shen Yujiao laugh despite herself.
“It’s a good thing, having the will to learn.” Her voice was gentle: “If you want to study, I’ll teach you.”
At least then she wouldn’t feel guilty, eating and living here for nothing, doing only light chores. If she could help him recognize some characters, that would be of use.
Besides, if he could learn words and manners, getting along with him in the future ought to be much easier.
Thinking this way, the smile in Shen Yujiao’s eyes brightened: “Then from tomorrow, I’ll teach you the Three Character Classic and the Thousand Character Essay.”
These were children’s primers; teaching him could also serve as her own practice, so that in the future she could open the way for Ping’an and Xie Di at home.
Xie Wuling saw those limpid black eyes of hers finally gleam with some liveliness, and his heart understood, so she really did prefer those pale-faced, scholarly types.
He himself wasn’t learned, and his face wasn’t pale, but at least he was handsome…
If he started learning now, becoming a dark-faced yet handsome scholar, wasn’t it still not too late?
“Alright. Then from tomorrow, you start teaching me!”
As he spoke, Xie Wuling lifted a bowl of wine: “Here, this bowl is my teacher’s-apprenticeship drink. I toast you.”
Seeing this, Shen Yujiao also lifted the bowl of osmanthus honey water in front of her: “Then I toast you as well.”
Xie Wuling: “And what are you toasting me for?”
Shen Yujiao looked at him, lips pressing together shyly: “For taking me and the child in…”
Xie Wuling froze, then gave a short snort: “Stupid woman, spouting that nonsense again.”
His lazy gaze drifted over the peacefully sleeping Ping’an in the cradle, over Shen Yujiao’s belly, and finally landed on that fair, gentle face before him. The corner of his mouth lifted, and with a clang his wine bowl tapped hers: “We’re family now. Say words like that again, and I’ll really beat your, backside!”
With that, he tipped his head back and drank boldly.
Shen Yujiao held her osmanthus honey water, snowy face flushing scarlet.
This rogue, will he die if he goes a day without teasing her?!
Still, this Mid-Autumn Festival passed far better than Shen Yujiao had imagined.
She slept soundly through the night, instead of lying awake on the pillow with tears of homesickness.
But the next day, trying to teach this blockhead Xie Wuling to read nearly had her in tears of frustration.
She finally understood why, back in school, whenever the teacher saw a mischievous student, he would lift that long wooden ruler in despair,
She taught him: “At the beginning of man, nature is good.”
Xie Wuling asked: “Why say ‘at the beginning of man, nature is good’? I think man’s nature is evil.”
Shen Yujiao: “The view of ‘nature as evil’ belongs to Xunzi. Right now I’m teaching you the Three Character Classic.”
Xie Wuling: “And who’s Xunzi? To think he and I see eye to eye!”
Shen Yujiao: “Xunzi, like Confucius, was a great scholar…”
She patiently explained Xunzi to him, and Xie Wuling asked about Confucius. After Confucius, he seized upon her words and asked about Laozi, Mencius, Zhuangzi, Han Feizi…
All morning long, she managed only the first line of the Three Character Classic, but recounted to him nearly the entire lore of the Hundred Schools of Thought.
Shen Yujiao seriously suspected he was using her as a storyteller, but faced with those pitch-black eyes staring at her, full of hunger to learn, she couldn’t bring herself to scold him. In the end, she could only glance up at the blazing sun and let out a long sigh: “Let’s make lunch first. The rest of the line, we’ll continue this afternoon.”
Xie Wuling agreed readily: “Alright! Master Shen, you sit and rest, I’ll cook!”
Although that one “Master Shen” made Shen Yujiao’s face burn red, seeing his eagerness to learn, she also felt a small sense of satisfaction.
So the boy was teachable after all.
Xie Wuling caught sight of the faint smile tugging at her lips, and in his dark eyes a shadow of amusement flitted past.
Had he known that learning to read would make her talk to him this much, he would have bowed to her as teacher the very first day he brought her home.
Still, now wasn’t too late either.
***
From that day on, whenever Xie Wuling was home, he followed Shen Yujiao to study.
When Aunt Liu next door heard, she even called over her Gouwazi and Xiuxiu to listen too. Whether they understood or not was another matter, any chance to be steeped in learning was better than playing with mud at home.
With something to occupy her, Shen Yujiao’s heart gradually settled. The past seemed farther and farther away, fading from her memory bit by bit.
Life was lived facing forward, and people, too, must look ahead.
Now, though the days held no poetry, no banquets or fine clothes, the plain meals and steady peace already felt like fortune enough.
Seeing her speak more and more, Xie Wuling was overjoyed, and busily set about arranging their wedding, making a point of wandering through bridal shops every few days.
It wasn’t long before, in all of Jinling, anyone who had ever heard the name Xie Wuling also knew that this little street rogue, with his pair of charming peach-blossom eyes, was about to take a wife.
At once, the third young miss of Steward Sun’s household wept red-eyed over the falling leaves, the tofu-seller beauty at the mouth of Suoyi Alley sold tofu with a hand pressed to her heart and a furrowed brow, and the Queen of Flowers Furong, now married to a merchant, painted her brows askew.
Even the one praised as Jinling’s number one beauty, Cui Wenyin, sixth daughter of Prefect Cui, upon hearing the news from her maid, gave a start; her wrist shook, and the ink blotched across the freshly painted flower scroll.
“Xie Langjun is going to be married?” Cui Wenyin looked at her personal maid in shock. “Where did you hear this? Is it true?”
“I saw it with my own eyes, absolutely true!”
The maid hurriedly said: “This servant went to Book Fragrance Studio to buy books for you, Mistress. Passing by Lijing Garments, I saw the shopboy personally seeing Xie Langjun out the door, assuring him he would press the seamstresses to finish the wedding robes by mid-September, and that he would deliver them himself. Once Xie Langjun left, this servant even asked the shopboy, he said the wedding robes were ordered by Xie Langjun, that he is to marry on the twenty-eighth of September!”
With the maid’s words so detailed, even if Cui Wenyin wanted to comfort herself that it was mere rumor, she could not.
“So he’s marrying so soon…”
Cui Wenyin set down the purple-bamboo brush in her hand and slowly sat down, eyes gazing into emptiness, dazed: “So soon indeed.”
She still remembered that day at the spring banquet, when he, clad in red robes, leapt down from a tree with a kite in hand, spirited and dashing.
Those narrow, dark eyes turned her way, carrying a faint smile, carefree, rakish, his lazy “Alright” making her heart skip a beat.
In all her life, it was the first time she had seen such a strikingly handsome young man,
Even last year in Chang’an, attending poetry gatherings, banquets, polo matches, meeting so many noble sons of great houses, none in looks could compare with this Xie Langjun.
She had thought, since he could attend a banquet at their estate, he must surely be some noble’s son. Who knew that, upon inquiry, he was but a street ruffian under the wealthy Sixth Master Chang, with a mother from the Qinhuai brothels and a father unknown.
Such a background, the maid had feared to soil her ears in even reporting it.
Cui Wenyin had been heartsick for quite a while, never imagining that her springtime stirrings had been given to such a man.
Impossible.
Even if she wished to be like Zhuo Wenjun selling wine by the tavern, her parents would first break her legs and lock her away in the boudoir, lest she ruin the reputation of both the Cui clan of Boling and the Yang clan of Hongnong.
Spring passed, autumn came; though more than half a year had gone by and she had long since cut off that impossible thought, now hearing Xie Wuling was to take a wife, she could not help but feel a stir of curiosity: “Did you find out which household’s daughter he is marrying?”
“Knew Mistress would ask.”
The maid stepped forward and whispered: “This servant asked, Xie Langjun’s betrothed is a distant cousin, surname Shen, called Yujiao. She came from the north; her home was struck by disaster, her whole family perished, and she came to Jinling to seek shelter with Xie Langjun.”
At this, Cui Wenyin’s brows knitted delicately: “Shen… Yujiao?”
The name sounded familiar, as if she had heard it somewhere before.
She thought for a moment, a fleeting image flashing through her mind, but before she could grasp it, it slipped away. No matter how she tried, she could not recall it again.
Shaking her head lightly, Cui Wenyin steadied herself and asked: “But wasn’t it said he had no family left? How comes a cousin suddenly appears?”
“This servant doesn’t know. But that’s what the shopboy said.” The maid added, “Oh, and he also said Xie Langjun dotes on this wife-to-be. Before she’s even through the door, he’s already bought many things for her, besides ordering the wedding robes, he bought several sets of silk gowns as well.”
Hearing this, a rush of inexpressible emotions surged through Cui Wenyin’s chest.
A little sour, a little bitter, and a little wistful…
She gave a faint response, tugged the corner of her lips: “That Lady Shen is truly fortunate, to gain such a husband.”
The maid glanced at her expression and softly called: “Mistress…”
Cui Wenyin lowered her eyes and smiled gently: “It’s nothing. He and I were never fated. That he can now find joy in marriage is a good thing.”
That instant of girlish heart-flutter was like a spring breeze brushing willow branches, rippling out faint circles.
When the wind stilled, all was calm again.
***
As for Shen Yujiao, she usually stayed quietly within the little courtyard, embroidering, minding the child, doing what household chores she could, and teaching Xie Wuling and the Liu family’s two children their characters. She rarely went out.
Thus she had no idea that Xie Wuling, like a peacock spreading its tail, could hardly wait to proclaim to all Jinling: “I’m getting married!”
That evening, after finishing the day’s lesson of ten large characters, Xie Wuling shared his new idea with Shen Yujiao: “That vegetable patch in the back is sitting empty anyway. I’m thinking of building another row of rooms there.”
Shen Yujiao looked at him in surprise: “This year already?”
“My plan is to finish before year’s end.”
Sitting on a small stool, Xie Wuling used a branch to scratch big characters into the dirt, speaking lazily: “It was Wildcat who reminded me, he said children grow fast. By this time next year, Ping’an will already be toddling about, and the one in your belly will be born too. Then we can’t possibly all squeeze into one room, can we? And besides, we’ll still need two more, once Jingan and Guanyin arrive, the house will be even less enough!”
“Far as I see it, at least six rooms ought to be built. Each child gets one room, then two extra — one as a little study, the other for storage. Later, when they marry, having two more rooms will make things easier.”
“Mhm, not bad, not bad. This old man really thinks things through!”
Shen Yujiao: “…”
The baby in her belly hadn’t even been born yet, and he was already thinking about the children getting married.
Still, building new rooms was indeed very necessary.
“You’ve already thought it through, then go ahead and arrange it.”
As she spoke, her mind also followed along Xie Wuling’s train of thought — “four children,” plus “study, storage room, and marriage” — and she sketched out a rough architectural layout in her head.
The wasteland behind the house wasn’t exactly big, but neither was it small. If it could be well planned, that loquat tree wouldn’t need to be transplanted. Perhaps with a bit of design, it could serve as a courtyard feature? Why not place the study beside the loquat tree — a touch of greenery to clear the eyes and calm the heart, adding a hint of poetic charm.
Once the idea took shape in her mind, while Xie Wuling was preparing supper in the kitchen, Shen Yujiao went back inside, found the paper and brush he had once bought her, and began to roughly sketch the layout of the back courtyard.
The afterglow spread wide, tired birds returned to roost.
“I called you for dinner, why no answer for so long?”
From the doorway, Xie Wuling poked his head in. Seeing the young woman under the lamplight, brush in hand, the words on the tip of his tongue — ‘Are you trying to starve yourself so this old man becomes a widower?’ — got stuck in his throat.
Bathed in the soft warm glow of the candle, her brows and eyes were serene, her brush moving in steady strokes, her posture tall and graceful, straight as bamboo.
And beyond that, in the quiet focus on her snowy-white face as she painted, there was a kind of unspeakable strength — the sort that once you saw it, you could not bear to look away.
Clearly the room was dim and shabby, yet she herself seemed like a luminous pearl of the night, glowing bright, lighting up the humble hut.
In Xie Wuling’s chest, his heart felt as if something had struck it hard.
Thump, thump — it beat wildly.
But at the same time, it dropped with a “swish.”
Down, down, endlessly falling.
And from that endless depth, there came a clear, far-off voice—
His little Jiaoniang should not be living in such a crude and broken house.
Since she was a fine jade, she should be housed in precious wood, perfumed with cinnamon and pepper, adorned with pearls and jade, embellished with roses, gathered with emeralds.
To guard her, to cherish her, to love her.
He was lost in a daze, when by the window Shen Yujiao lifted her eyes, saw him there, and curved her gaze with a smile: “Perfect timing, come quickly and look at the layout I’ve drawn.”
