"Business still isn't good..."
At the snow-swept crossroads, Ning Yi spoke with a smile, still eating the pancake in his hand. Beside him, Nie Yunzhu looked at the unsold pancakes left on the cart, pressed her lips together a little, then clapped her hands in resignation. "In snow like this, hardly anyone comes to buy."
"I told you long ago to wait until spring before you bothered with any of this—didn't I? See? Now you're paying for it."
"It took me so long to think it through and decide. Of course I had to start right away. If I sat on it a few months, who knows whether I'd just get lazy—and by then, who knows what I'd even be thinking."
"Oh, I see. You just wanted to try out what running a little stall feels like..."
Though Ning Yi had not come by since Nie Yunzhu opened her stall, he kept up his training every single day, snow or no snow. Each morning on the steps in front of that little house the two of them would talk for a while, and by now they were easy enough with each other. Nie Yunzhu's pancake business was poor, and Ning Yi knew it perfectly well. A few days earlier he might have offered a word of comfort; after a while, a few teasing remarks were unavoidable.
Just as he said, Nie Yunzhu's reason for opening this little stall was not that hard times forced her to it—well, perhaps partly—but mostly it was still just an effort to make herself fit into a more ordinary, ever more ordinary way of life. The household's means had not yet sunk to the point of real hardship; at least for this stretch of time, she was enjoying herself.
"...Yesterday I saw a few people take a tumble across the street, and then they nearly came to blows—something about an escort agency... And a few days back, a shop sign over there came down and almost hit somebody... Hutao was here with me, but then Erniu came by too, so I sent them off to buy rice and flour. I made a point of mentioning a few things, so it'll probably take them all the way to the East Market. Gives the two of them some time alone..."
Ning Yi ate his pancake while Nie Yunzhu chattered on about everything she had seen these past few days, and he chatted back a little. After a good while the stall still had not seen a single customer. Ning Yi smiled and brushed the snow off his clothes. "This business—time to pack it up. The only stretch where you sell anything worth counting is the morning anyway. Why keep toughing it out now?"
As he spoke he picked a little stool up off the ground and tossed it into the cart. Nie Yunzhu waved her hand. "Don't bother—maybe a few more will sell. And this cart... I can't push it. With all this snow, Erniu comes over morning and evening to push it for me..."
"So long as I can push it, that's fine."
"Master Ning... you really don't care about appearances. What scholar or man of letters would do this sort of thing..."
"Appearances, what appearances..." Ning Yi laughed. "Besides, that business I asked you to see to the other day should be about finished by now. We've got the time—let's go take a look at how it turned out. If it turned out well, your pancake stall may just be saved."
"It's only salted duck eggs, and you even skimped on the salt," Nie Yunzhu said with a pout and a smile. Still, hearing him bring it up, she stopped arguing. She went over to an old granny nearby who sold cakes and pastries too, asking her to pass along a message, then came back to help Ning Yi pack up. After a moment, she explained her reasoning to him with a certain air of profundity and smugness.
"The truth is, Hutao and I will never be any good at this sort of thing, not for a long while. Before we can sell well and actually make money, we'll have to feel our way along and get used to it for quite some time.
So I thought: if we work through the winter, making a little less each day, we waste less rice and flour, and maybe by spring we'll be turning a profit. If we only started in spring, the waste would be bigger, and it'd be summer before we had the hang of it. So the sooner the better."
"You know quite a lot, don't you," Ning Yi said with a smile. "I think what you're really after is marrying Hutao off as quick as you can, isn't that so?"
"That's part of it too."
The two of them pushed the cart along the snow-covered road toward home, Nie Yunzhu laughing softly.
"In the early years I always thought the two of us sisters would just depend on each other. But in the end that can't last forever. Now that she's found her own place, I'm happy for her.
Ha—when she and Erniu first got together she kept trying to hide it from me; in the end Erniu worked up the nerve to come ask for her hand, and that's how I found out. She was worried I'd have no one to look after me, so she kept refusing to marry.
Since I treat her as my little sister, I can't drag her down forever."
"Heh. I'm afraid the day may come when you marry Erniu right alongside Hutao..."
Nie Yunzhu was not shy about such jokes. She pursed her lips and smiled, looking for a moment as though she were truly giving it serious thought, then shook her head. "I'm afraid not. Erniu is simple and honest, a good man, but he has nothing to say to me. If I married him, we might treat each other with respect for the first few years, but a few years on I'd likely be getting beaten and cursed—and then Hutao would be the one in the hardest spot."
"The drop," Ning Yi said with a nod.
On they went, through the noisy market streets where steam rose everywhere, past the snow-buried courtyard walls and gatehouses of the residential lanes, past the Qinhuai River where the trees were silver and the branches furred with ice, where the painted boats and storied barges all lay moored and row upon row of icicles hung down, until they looked like palaces of the water dragon king.
The pedestrians thinned.
The two of them chatted on and off as they walked, like a young couple who had run a baked-cake stall and were now packing up to go home: the husband the sort of bookish pedant who never lifts a finger, the sort who comes out to help on a day like this still wearing his fine long robe; the wife diligent and virtuous, running the stall every day to earn a little money for the household, dreaming that one day her husband will pass the examinations high, win himself an office or a title, and bring glory to the family name...
As they passed along one street, a carriage came racing up from behind, the driver brandishing his whip.
"Yah, yah... out of the way, out of the way... don't block the road—" Ning Yi pushed the cart aside with Nie Yunzhu and stopped, and as the carriage went by, the driver even shot him a glare.
Ning Yi let out a breath and called after him, "Well, sorry about that, then!" Nie Yunzhu lowered her head and smiled with pursed lips.
Humming some tune or other under his breath, Ning Yi pushed the cart on. Nie Yunzhu watched that back for a while, then hurried to catch up and pushed along at the side of the cart.
"I keep hearing you hum these things, Master Ning. I wonder what tunes they are."
"Just nonsense singing. It's like the little ditties mountain folk make up. Uh... folk songs..."
Ning Yi described them a bit, and Nie Yunzhu laughed softly. "Rustic folk songs, is it? I learned some of those once, long ago... 'Oh, why won't my sweetheart come...' Pfft... Those really aren't much like your tunes, Master Ning..."
She lowered her voice and sang a line, her voice clear as water, quite lovely to hear. But the street was no place for singing such things; it was only one line, in a low voice, and she flushed a little, then covered her mouth and laughed.
Ning Yi nodded, then glanced at her. "By the way—you're very good at singing and playing the qin, aren't you?"
In all their talks before this, though Nie Yunzhu called herself a woman who entertained men with her looks and seemed to carry little shame about it, Ning Yi could tell plainly that she did not care for that kind of work, and so he had never brought it up.
Since coming here he had not set foot in a single brothel or music house; he had guessed, more or less, that she must be some famous courtesan, but he truly had no idea how famous. By now it hardly mattered, and so he asked. Nie Yunzhu nodded.
"Mm. I did put real work into it, after all."
"So... very good? A master?"
"Pfft... I suppose so..." Nobody else would ask such a thing the way Ning Yi did. Nie Yunzhu found it funny and burst out laughing, then schooled her face and nodded with great gravity. "Mm. This lady is a master!"
"Oh? How much of a master?"
The carefully composed face cracked at once. "About several stories high..." Remembering that joke Ning Yi had made a while back, Nie Yunzhu answered just so. "What do you want it for, anyway?"
Thus joking, they had already reached the stretch of road by Old Qin's gate. It was unexpected that Kang Xian had come today; his sedan chair had only just stopped at the roadside, and Old Qin had come out of his door. The two of them looked over with surprise, then smiled, though what they said was hard to hear. Ning Yi waved a greeting their way. Kang Xian called over: "What is Liheng up to? Do you need a hand?" His attendants were right there beside him; if help was wanted, it could come at any moment.
Ning Yi stopped the cart a few meters off and shook his head. "It's nothing." Then he gestured at the woman beside him: "Nie Yunzhu. Old Qin, Old Kang." After the introductions, "We're fine—we were just over there playing chess..." Nie Yunzhu made a curtsy with her hands at her sides, and after the two sides had exchanged brief greetings, Ning Yi asked, "Will you still be here later, Old Kang?"
Kang Xian nodded. "I've brought a few fine things along. I should be here this afternoon. If Liheng has the time, come over later with Miss Nie and enjoy some paintings and calligraphy."
Ning Yi laughed. "Ha, what a coincidence. I'll be bringing a few fine things over later too—we can look them over together then."
"Excellent."
With that, Ning Yi took his leave and pushed the cart on. Only when they had turned the corner of the street ahead did Nie Yunzhu's earlier smile fade. "What you asked me just now, about music..."
"Oh, mainly I was thinking: if I have some songs that can be sung, could you help set them to qin music, or something of the sort?"
Nie Yunzhu nodded and gave a confident smile. "That should be no trouble at all. At least in this one matter—whether it's poems and lyrics set to song, or the rustic folk tunes you mentioned just now—if Yunzhu can't do it, I'm afraid there are few people in all of Jiangning who can."
"Wow. So it really is several stories high..." Only now could Ning Yi roughly gauge her level; he gave her a sideways look to show his newfound respect.
"Yes, four or five stories at least. High enough that you'd die if you fell off."
"Then I'm relieved." Ning Yi thought about it, then added, "But the lyrics might be a little strange. It'd probably be best if they were just sung and heard among a few people—nothing fit for refined company, I'm afraid. You'd better be prepared for that."
Nie Yunzhu nodded. "Mm."
Soon, the little house by the river drew near.