Ning Yi did not have much faith in this body of his, but he had been exercising it for a few months, at least, so a bit of dizziness on waking was only natural. He pushed the door open and let the breeze in, and his head cleared.
It was not yet light. The whole city of Jiangning lay under a dark canopy of sky, but dawn was close, and from the second floor he could see, near and far, the floating specks of lamplight already stirring throughout the city—the Su family's own estate included. In the courtyards nearby, servants who had risen early were moving about, their voices carrying faintly. Farther off, beyond the courtyard walls, street after street lay steeped in dark outlines, with the blurry glow of lamps in the houses.
In the two-story house opposite, warm yellow lamplight shone out through the lattice windows, laying a cozy color over the courtyard.
The three little maids always had to rise early; Su Tan'er's hours came early or late as she pleased, but this morning she seemed to be up already—upstairs in that window, a woman's silhouette was reflected at her mirror, doing her hair, while a little maid's shadow bustled back and forth around her.
As Ning Yi started down the stairs, Juan'er was just passing along the corridor toward that house. She dipped in a slight curtsy and greeted him softly: "The son-in-law is up."
"Morning, Juan'er."
Then a window below opened, and Xiao Chan's face appeared, busy at something inside: "Don't come down, son-in-law, I'll bring the water up."
"Ha, no need to trouble yourself. I can manage."
The Su family had a large kitchen, so these two little houses had none of their own for cooking; but the small room downstairs was where hot water was boiled and washing was done, since in winter, anyone with any refinement would have a fire lit under the tub to bathe, and a bathroom like that was awkward to put upstairs.
Xiao Chan had grown used to Ning Yi's habit of morning exercise, and meant to carry the hot water up—but Ning Yi had already come down. As a modern man he did not stand on such little proprieties; boiling his own water was nothing.
A few days ago he had risen at dawn, run downstairs, and while waiting for the water, squatted idly by the stove feeding in firewood, which left Xiao Chan flustered and at a loss. At breakfast Su Tan'er had put it delicately: "Husband, please don't do such things."
Xiao Chan had hung her head beside him as though she had done something wrong. He had only smiled and said it was no trouble.
There was no need to make a deliberate show of his own eccentricity. Things that truly crossed the line he would not do—but neither did he need to rein himself in so hard that he turned completely into an "ancient." Otherwise, what would be the point of living a life here at all?
If they were all really going to muddle through many years together—if there truly was a chance they might be husband and wife—then in these small matters, rather than restrain himself, it was better to let the other party slowly grow used to him, slowly come to understand him.
So in all the trivial places that did not matter, he would let it show. Which was why he did not mind stepping into the kitchen now and then to feed the fire. Which was why he would tell his students a story or two in class, some tale from around him—and that he would not change.
Which was why an occasional modern word that no one else understood might slip into his speech, and that need not trouble him either.
In front of that old man of the Qin family, he could now and then voice a rather forward-looking notion, and even if it was a little heretical, it did not matter. The old man had been an official and had seen the world; he could think things through, and he did not fuss over small proprieties.
They were only Go partners, with no interests tangled between them.
As the old man himself had said, having married into a merchant household as a live-in son-in-law, it would be very hard for him to climb toward anything like official rank and name; perhaps "the friendship between gentlemen is as mild as water" described their situation exactly, and the man would hardly go so far as to do him harm.
In all the time they had played Go, Old Qin had been taking his measure—and how could he not have been taking Old Qin's?
Since the man was worth having as a friend, the rest did not matter. Once in a while, saying a couple of things a step ahead of the times and watching the old man sink into thought was really rather gratifying to the vanity. For him it was no more than idle chatter; such notions were not absent from this age, only phrased differently. As for anything genuinely sensitive, naturally he would not touch it.
Downstairs he brushed his teeth and washed his face—toothbrushes and tooth powder did exist by now, though the taste was truly poor—then went out of the courtyard, took the little path to the side gate, and left. Along the way the roosters had begun to crow, and in the east a faint white was showing. Now and then he passed a maid or a steward from the other courtyards, who would call him "son-in-law" and greet him.
Out of the Su family compound, he took his usual route at a jog, thinking about what he ought to say in class today, and then about the Chinese-style songs he knew.
Some of them he could no longer remember all the way through, and they might not suit the literary fashion of this age—but entertainment these days was so desperately scarce. Thinking that before long he might forget even more, he felt it really was necessary to write down the lyrics he still remembered.
He thought a while longer, and then of poetry: he had not been much of a student back in his school days, and the poems he had deliberately memorized were probably few, but in the decades since he had read widely, and plenty of famous lines still stayed with him. A fine resource—a pity to lose them later.
Half a lap in, he decided his body really was off; yesterday's dunking in the river had left its mark after all. But he was warmed up now, and maybe a good run and a good sweat would serve as treatment enough, so he kept going.
Mist drifted through the city, the scene much the same as the day before. As he neared the place where he had climbed out of the water yesterday, he heard some commotion from the river not far off—that was the spot. Looking over, he made out a figure swaying there, as though poling a small boat.
He slowed his steps and approached, puzzled. The little boat was pitching violently on the water; a woman's figure stood on it holding a long bamboo pole, and she did not seem able to keep her footing. He watched her sway for a good long while, and then with a thud she fell back into the boat.
He could not tell whether this was the woman from yesterday morning. Today she wore a pink cloak; she was tall and graceful, quite pretty—only the way she fell and then clambered back up from the bottom of the boat did considerable damage to her dignity.
The boat rocked hard. The woman got up warily, one hand resting lightly on the gunwale, and when she raised her head, her hair and temples were slightly disheveled. Catching sight of the man on the bank, head tilted, watching the show, she stared wide-eyed, flustered. Only then did Ning Yi see that one end of the long bamboo pole had a net bag bound to it, mud and sand still clinging to it—and that once she was carefully on her feet, she was holding a cleaver.
Oh. So it really is that same one from yesterday...
The cloak was pretty, but it had seen some years. Her swimming was poor, though she could pole a boat a little; she had actually waited until morning, when no one would be around, to come fish out this cleaver.
Is she shy? She was probably a girl who had lived decently enough before, and whose circumstances now were not so good. Ning Yi watched a few moments and came to that conclusion.
He did not much care about other people, but the woman seemed flustered; she poled to bring the boat to shore, but perhaps in her nerves the little boat only kept turning in circles, and she could not keep her balance, nearly falling several times.
And then...
"Ah-choo—"
Ning Yi had been about to leave when a sneeze caught him. The woman on the boat sneezed too, and with a thud fell back into it again. Getting up, she glared over, mortified. Ning Yi pursed his lips in faint embarrassment: "The chicken's already drowned. Why are you still fishing out that cleaver..."
A little silence.
"The chicken came back..."
"Huh?"
Ning Yi had only spoken offhand; honestly, it had been a truly, truly lame joke. But he had misjudged her answer. When the words came across the water from mid-river, Ning Yi was taken aback and froze for a moment.
"...The chicken didn't die. The Chen family's... the Chen family's auntie found it and brought it back." She explained.
"...Oh."
Yesterday she had chased that chicken into the river, and then Ning Yi had been dragged in after, so he had never seen what came next. The chicken must have been a tough one—it flapped about and actually got back out, and the local folk were honest and kind, for knowing she had lost her chicken they had even brought it back to her. Ning Yi praised them inwardly, and after a moment said: "Could you pass that pole over here?"
The boat was some distance from the bank, and the long pole could have reached; but holding it out level was beyond the woman's strength, and the leverage put the little boat at risk. She tried several times, and one end of the pole came to rest against the bank, but the rest still lay in the water, out of Ning Yi's reach. He had to walk a stretch along the river before he found another bamboo pole by the roadside; reaching that one out from the bank, he pulled the woman and the boat in together.
"Thank you, young gentleman... And about yesterday—I had only just come to, and I did something rather..."
The woman was not one to lose sight of right and wrong. Once ashore she spoke up to apologize for her unfinished words, and then to apologize to Ning Yi for the business of yesterday—saved, and then slapping the man who saved her. She must have found it mortifying. Ning Yi did not much mind; he waved a hand: "It's fine, it's fine. I've still got my run to finish—I'll be off."
He turned and sneezed again, and paid no attention to the odd question she called after him—"Young gentleman, is someone chasing you?"—as he ran off down the road. Repaying a kindness was as troublesome as taking revenge. Never mind the practical side of it: she would pour out a stream of grateful words and he would have to be modest for ages, and the proprieties between men and women were a nuisance besides. Why bother? He had a cold now; running until he sweated was the more practical cure.
He had run this road many times; he turned back at his usual point, and halfway along he finally spotted the woman's dwelling—a two-story house on the river, rather charming, with a small terrace jutting out over the water that gave it a certain elegant air of living on the river.
Purely as a home, though, it was likely impractical; winters would be cold. The woman was now standing beside a small vegetable plot outside the house, fenced in with hurdles; yesterday's hen was inside the fence, and the woman stood holding the cleaver, hesitating for a long while, before she finally went in and reached for the hen.
The hen flapped and fought like mad, and she retreated in disarray and hurriedly shut the fence gate.
That settled it: the woman had certainly never done a day's work, but her circumstances were none too good either. Living in a little house like this, she was most likely a woman of the pleasure quarters, tied to the Qinhuai's famous entertainment trade.
Some celebrated courtesans, once they had bought their own freedom, chose to set up on their own, or to take a charming little courtyard to live in—nominally reformed, yet patrons would still come to the door one after another; still a reigning toast of society, and free of anyone else's thumb, she might even seem a cut above.
She was pretty enough—so how had she sunk to the point of having to kill her own chicken?
Ning Yi watched as he jogged past. The woman went in once more, and this time she got hold of the hen—but turning about, the hen struggled free and flew, feathers scattering.
In her fluster the hen broke free of her and flew out of the fence, and Ning Yi, unable to watch any longer, came over and caught it in one hand. This time both wings were pinned fast, and escape was impossible.
Seeing it was Ning Yi again, the woman froze for a while, probably about to thank him or apologize once more. Ning Yi put out a hand: "Give me the knife."
"Uh..."
Ning Yi could not be bothered with all her uh-ing. He reached out and took the cleaver. A bowl had already been set out on the ground outside the fence; Ning Yi simply walked over and crouched, the hand that held the wings pinching the struggling head as well so that the neck stretched out, and then he gave the knife a light flick.
"Sir... young gentleman... um... a gentleman wouldn't..."
"Gentleman my foot. Is the water boiling?"
"...It's on the fire."
"Good."
Ning Yi wasted no words. One cut opened the hen's throat, and he began draining the blood into the bowl; when the blood had run out steadily, the hen was barely struggling anymore. He tossed it on the ground, laid the knife across the bowl, and stood up.
"Take it to the kitchen, scald it in the hot water and pluck it, then cut it open and rinse out the innards. By the way—once it's a dish, do you know how to cook it?"
The woman hesitated.
"Never mind. Find someone who can cook to help you—that auntie who fetched your chicken back, say. Killing a chicken isn't easy; don't waste it. And go see a physician; you've most likely caught a cold... I've caught one too. I'm off. No need to thank me—I'm a living Lei Feng... ah-choo—"
He turned and jogged away, leaving the dust behind him. Only then did the woman, watching him go, slowly work it out. She frowned: "Living... Lei... Feng? Living? Or Hu? Hu Leifeng... How strange..." Nobody in this world had "Living" for a surname, after all; but there were people surnamed Hu, which sounded close to it. She mulled it over quietly for a good while, and decided he might be of some minority people—or else his surname was Huyan, which would make him Huyan Leifeng. That name had a certain swagger to it. Probably that was it.
In the past she had counted herself smooth and deft with people, and she had known a great many of them—but this man had only ever seen her at her most bedraggled, and his manners and his words were both peculiar, so her usual ready answers simply would not come. She thought it over for a while, but Ning Yi had already run off; there was nothing for it but to lug the old hen and carry the bowl of chicken blood grudgingly toward the kitchen...
That morning, teaching at Yushan Academy, the discomfort in his body grew fierce. On the way home after class he threw up once, and it was plain enough that his condition had worsened. Xiao Chan was with him this time, so once they were home he was treated like a serious invalid, pushed upstairs to bed and put safely under guard.
The invalid's life he had known when he first arrived here would probably take another day or two to get through...