Pursuit of Jade
Chapter 38
The waiter waiting to collect the bill and the other diners in the restaurant all froze, clearly none of them expecting such a turn of events.
Even the few men who had just been sneering at the An family’s live-in son-in-law took a moment to process what had happened.
Fan Changyu stared blankly for a moment before asking in bewilderment, “Did someone pick your purse off you on the way here?”
Then she called to the waiter, “I’ll pay.”
During the New Year festivities, the streets were packed with people, making it especially easy for pickpockets to ply their trade.
After Fan Changyu’s shout, everyone in the room who had been staring at them turned back to their own meals. Someone remarked, “We’re going to the lantern fair later, and the streets will be packed. It’ll be even easier for someone to steal your things, so keep your wits about you!”
Someone else lowered his voice and said, “That man’s even better-looking than a woman. Could he be another little white face living off his wife?”
The person beside him retorted, “How could he be? He was just trying to pay the bill himself!”
“Anyone can put on a show after seeing the An family’s live-in son-in-law make a fool of himself. But with a face like that, he’d be more than qualified to live off a woman…”
Before Xie Zheng could lose his temper, Fan Changyu scooped up Changning with one hand, grabbed him with the other, and hurried out of the restaurant.
Only after they reached the main street did she catch her breath enough to ask Xie Zheng, “Your purse really was stolen?”
The icy expression on Xie Zheng’s face stiffened for a moment. He gave a small nod.
With his skills, there was no way someone could have picked his pocket without him noticing. In fact, just as Fan Changyu had said earlier, he had simply bought too many things for the child and failed to notice that he no longer had enough money on him.
After all, in the past, whenever he went out to buy something, the question of whether he had enough money had never even crossed his mind.
Fan Changyu remembered that he had visited the bookshop earlier and decided against buying anything because he found the prices too high. She had assumed he knew how much money he had left and would hardly wait until it was time to settle the bill before discovering he was broke.
She sighed. “It must have happened when the streets were crowded just now. A pickpocket must’ve lifted your purse.”
She took out her own money pouch, counted out two silver ingots and a large handful of wen coins, and held them out to Xie Zheng. “Keep these with you. If you see anything you want to buy at the lantern fair later, it’ll be more convenient.”
Changning was equally generous. “Ningniang’s New Year money can go to Jiefu too!”
The smile on her face made it seem as though the three of them truly were a family.
Something strange stirred in Xie Zheng’s heart. He frowned. “No need. I’m not buying anything.”
“Why are you always so fussy? It’s more convenient to have some money on you, whatever you need to do.” Fan Changyu assumed he was embarrassed to take her money. She simply caught hold of one of his hands and placed the silver and copper coins in his palm.
Her hands were always warm, no matter when. When she took hold of his hand, that warmth passed into him as well, as though it could seep through flesh and bone and reach somewhere deeper.
After she withdrew her hand, Xie Zheng looked at the handful of copper coins and silver pieces resting in his palm. His fingers curled almost imperceptibly before he closed his hand around them, as though trying to conceal something.
Dusk settled over the city, and lanterns had already been lit throughout the streets and alleyways.
The warm yellow glow picked out the lines of his profile. He looked at Fan Changyu, the expression in those dark, phoenix-shaped eyes becoming increasingly impossible to read, “Thank you.”
“What are you thanking me for? You bought Changning so many things anyway. Besides, your forty tales are still with me…” Fan Changyu thought nothing of it.
Xie Zheng simply listened in silence. Only after she had finished did he say, “The money for the candy is the money for the candy. It’s different.”
Fan Changyu paused, slightly taken aback.
A sudden cheer rose from the crowd in the distance. All three of them were drawn to the commotion and turned to look, only to see a street performer breathing fire.
No one could say how the fire-breathing performer managed it. He held a small burning bamboo stick in his hand, and with a forceful blow, the little flame instantly became a great burst of fire. Whenever the flames swept toward the onlookers, they cried out and stepped back in alarm, only to break into applause and cheers a moment later.
Changning found it all fascinating. She immediately tugged on Fan Changyu’s sleeve. “Ah Jie, Ningniang wants to see the big fire!”
By now, it was completely dark, and the streets were crowded with people. Afraid that Changning might trip or get knocked into, Fan Changyu simply picked her up and said to Xie Zheng, “Looks like the lantern fair has started. Let’s go have a look over there.”
Xie Zheng glanced at the group performing the fire-breathing act. Whatever thoughts had been lingering in his eyes disappeared, and he said to Fan Changyu, “Let me carry her.”
Fan Changyu, who had strength to spare, immediately refused. “No need. Your injuries haven’t completely healed yet…”
Xie Zheng said, “Carrying a child won’t be a problem.”
After a pause, he added, “I noticed the other children on the street are being carried by their fathers or elder brothers too.”
Fan Changyu glanced around and found that among those who had brought children out to see the lanterns, whenever a child had both parents accompanying them, it did indeed seem to be the fathers carrying them.
She and Yan Zheng were also liable to be mistaken for a family of three with Changning.
Yan Zheng was tall and broad-shouldered, and with her carrying Changning, quite a few passersby had already glanced their way.
Those who knew nothing of the situation would occasionally even point and whisper about Yan Zheng.
Remembering what had happened at the restaurant, Fan Changyu hesitated briefly before handing Changning over to Xie Zheng, with a warning: “If your arms get tired, give Ningniang back to me.”
Xie Zheng calmly agreed.
He was more than half a head taller than Fan Changyu. With Changning draped over his shoulder, she could see farther than before, stretching her neck to look around. Along the way, she kept pointing things out for them to see, now here, now there, so excited she could hardly contain herself.
Fan Changyu and Xie Zheng walked side by side, the picture the scholar had drawn for them still in Fan Changyu’s hand. A rare, carefree smile graced her face.
Quite a few passersby saw them and sincerely praised what a fine-looking couple they made.
A middle-aged couple had brought their young son out to see the lanterns. The woman was carrying him when she spotted Fan Changyu and the others. She immediately passed the boy to her husband and snapped, “Look at how considerate that young man is to his wife! You good-for-nothing, can’t you see my arms are about to fall off?”
The man held the child in both arms, his head pulled to one side by the ear, and cried out “Ow, ow, ow!” as he repeatedly admitted his fault.
Fan Changyu tried not to laugh, but the woman’s words also left her feeling a little awkward.
She secretly glanced up at Xie Zheng, only to find that he happened to turn his head at the same moment. Their eyes met amid the dimming lantern light. “What is it?” he asked.
Fan Changyu gave a dry cough. Just then, she spotted a lantern tower in the distance hung with colorful lanterns. “I think there are lantern riddles over there. Let’s go solve some!”
Changning also spotted the assortment of lanterns in the distance and exclaimed excitedly, “Ningniang wants to buy a piggy lantern!”
Fan Changyu laughed. “All right. Let’s go have a look first.”
Xie Zheng asked, “Is she born in the Year of the Pig?”
Before Fan Changyu could answer, Changning was already nodding vigorously. She counted on her chubby fingers. “Ah Jie is a Tiger, and Ningniang is a Pig.”
Xie Zheng gave Fan Changyu a strange look. “You’re only nine years older than your sister?”
Fan Changyu said, “Ten years, to be precise. I was born in the first month of the Year of the Tiger, while my sister was born at the very end of the twelfth month of the Year of the Pig.”
She looked at Changning, her expression softening. “Once last year’s twelfth month had passed, Ningniang turned six as well. There’s a custom in town that, during the mourning period for a child’s parents, birthdays aren’t celebrated openly for fear of shortening the child’s life. So I didn’t prepare a birthday gift for Ningniang. I only made her a bowl of noodles.”
As she spoke, she looked at Xie Zheng. “You ate them too. That was the bowl of pork-intestine noodles I made that time.”
Xie Zheng: “……”
That hardly counted as a pleasant memory.
But her birthday was in the first month, which meant she would be sixteen this month?
Xie Zheng’s gaze lowered slightly.
Fan Changyu suddenly asked him, “What are you?”
Xie Zheng did not answer.
She started making wild guesses. “Are you a Dog?”
That sounded rather like an insult, and a passerby walking past them could not help turning around for another look.
Xie Zheng shot Fan Changyu a sidelong glance. She tried very hard to suppress the smile on her face, but still failed.
She said, “If you really are a Dog, it would suit your personality pretty well.”
The smile on her face was unabashedly bright and carefree.
Xie Zheng turned his head to look at her, “What does that mean?”
Fan Changyu gave a light cough. “I heard people born in the Year of the Dog are especially good at holding grudges, and they’re pretty vicious with their words too.”
She had barely finished speaking when she received another icy glare.
Fan Changyu suddenly felt inexplicably guilty. “You know how poisonous your own tongue can be?”
The corner of Xie Zheng’s mouth twitched. “I haven’t said much about you when it comes to other things. I merely said your taste in men was rather poor. After all, one Song Yan has been enough to keep you hung up on him to this day…”
Fan Changyu was beginning to understand what it meant to eat the bitter fruit she has brought upon herself. Back then, to keep him from misunderstanding her intentions toward him, she had spun that ridiculous lie about being hopelessly devoted to Song Yan. And now look where that had gotten her—this man seized every opportunity to sneer at her and mock her for it.
She couldn’t help protesting, “When have I ever been unable to forget him…”
“Pfft—”
A snicker came from behind the wall of lanterns, where strips of banners and flower lanterns hung.
Fan Changyu looked up and saw several young gentlemen who had been solving lantern riddles emerge from behind it, lifting the hanging banners aside as they came. One of them was none other than Song Yan.
“Song Xiong is truly a man of hidden depths. The county magistrate’s daughter was so impressed by Song Xiong’s scholarly talents that she fell for you—and even this former fiancée, despite being married now, is still at odds with her husband because of Song Xiong!”
The speaker was a man in a yellowish-apricot long robe and cap, a folded fan pointing toward Fan Changyu as he wore a frivolous smile.
Clearly, he had been the one snickering behind the lantern wall just now.
Fan Changyu’s expression instantly darkened. She never would have imagined that Song Yan and a group of his classmates would be behind that lantern wall.
Her lips pressed into a tight line. There was nothing more nauseating than having that Song fellow think she still had feelings for him.
Xie Zheng had met Song Yan before and still remembered him. When his cold, oppressive gaze swept over the several flamboyant scholars, it lingered on Song Yan for a few moments longer.
Song Yan was dressed in an indigo-blue robe. Despite the bitter cold, he still held a folded fan in his hand. When he caught Xie Zheng’s gaze and met it, he instinctively looked away.
His several classmates, however, were utterly unfazed. They all held academic degrees, after all, and could even remain standing before a magistrate without kneeling. Why would they have any reason to fear the live-in husband of a butcher’s daughter?
The man in the yellow robe immediately sneered, “My fellow brother, don’t be so easily riled. Song Xiong is the only man in Qingping County to have passed the provincial examination. It’s only natural that your wife still thinks of him.”
The other man beside him studied Fan Changyu for a long while before suddenly clapping his hands with a laugh. “I remember now! One year, this young lady even came to the county academy specifically to bring Song Xiong winter clothes. I even asked Song Xiong who she was. Song Xiong told me she was his younger sister!”
“Looks like this young lady really did fall deeply for Song Xiong. No wonder that brother gets so worked up whenever Song Xiong is mentioned…”
The lantern fair was bustling with activity, and the few men played off one another so well that quite a number of passersby stopped to watch the spectacle. The more meddlesome among them began pointing and whispering about Fan Changyu.
“So this is the former fiancée who broke off her engagement with the Song Juren.”
“She certainly is a beauty. But she’s already married—why is she still hung up on Song Juren? No wonder only a live-in husband could swallow such humiliation…”
“How fortuitous that they happened to run into each other here. Could it be she knew Song Juren would be coming to the lantern fair tonight and came all this way just to see Song Juren?”
Hearing all this, Song Yan glanced toward Fan Changyu. He then withdrew his gaze and said to his companions, “Let’s go. These lantern riddles are nothing much. There’s no point in guessing any more.”
Listening to those comments, and then catching that look in Song Yan’s eyes, Fan Changyu felt a surge of fury spread from her chest through her veins and into every limb. She was sickened from head to toe.
Xie Zheng glanced at her, then turned his eyes toward the group. “Stop.”
His tone was lazy, but the command in it was unmistakable.
At that single word, the onlookers grew even more eager for a show.
Song Yan and the others stopped. When his classmates turned around, their faces wore the smug amusement and superior airs of men who considered themselves above everyone else.
The man in the yellow robe taunted with a laugh, “Does this fellow brother mean to fight us? We’re all men of scholarly rank here. Lay even a finger on us, and I’m afraid you won’t have a peaceful day for the rest of your life.”
The sneer at the corner of Xie Zheng’s lips deepened. He said coldly, “You’ve spent ten years studying the teachings of the sages, and somehow you’ve read all propriety, righteousness, integrity, and shame straight into a dog’s belly? Is gossiping about a woman what you scholars call proper conduct?”
The several men immediately looked somewhat sheepish.
His thin lips curled with cold severity as he uttered two words: “Apologize.”
Only the man in the yellow robe refused. “When have we ever gossiped? We merely stated the truth.”
Xie Zheng lazily raised an eyelid. What came out of his mouth was both cutting and merciless, “Were the answers you wrote for the imperial examinations also nothing but gossip about women? You’ve forgotten the propriety expected of a gentleman, but when it comes to wagging your tongues, you’re quite accomplished. Fresh from a nanfeng house, are you?”
The crowd burst into laughter.
Someone even shouted, “Well said! A bunch of men who’ve read the sages’ teachings, yet they gossip about a woman like a pack of old gossips without the slightest shame! Even the tu’er yé at a nanfeng house don’t chew the rag as well as they do!”
Hearing the jeers, the yellow-robed man’s face instantly turned the color of pig’s liver. He pointed at Xie Zheng, “You… you…”
One of his companions hurriedly chimed in, “Such shameless, vulgar talk! It’s an insult to scholarly dignity!”
Xie Zheng gave a soft scoff, “Scholarly dignity? Do you even deserve those two words? You read a few books and suddenly your eyes are perched on top of your heads. How would you know that the wild geese fly south, but even phoenixes are left with nowhere to set their feet?”
When he said this, his cool, indifferent gaze happened to fall on Song Yan, making it obvious that those words had been directed at him.
The few scholars were stunned to learn that Xie Zheng was a man of letters himself. Then, one after another, their faces filled with indignation. His final remark had clearly been meant to humiliate them, yet they could think of no matching line with which to retort. For a moment, their expressions were utterly unsightly.
After Xie Zheng said that, Song Yan’s expression shifted unpredictably. In the end, he cupped his hands and bowed, “Just now, it was Song Mou’s two friends who spoke without restraint and offended Fan Gu… Fan family’s lady. Song Mou asks forgiveness to the two of you on their behalf.”
Seeing Song Yan make his position clear, the others, though deeply unwilling, still followed suit and bowed, “We were in the wrong just now. We offer our apologies to you both.”
Xie Zheng said nothing, merely looking toward Fan Changyu.
Fan Changyu had known that Xie Zheng was quite accomplished in literature, but she had never expected him to single-handedly win an argument against these scholars. After her brief astonishment, she immediately put on a cold expression, “I was merely exchanging a few jokes with my husband. What business is it of you, a bunch of men who have read the sages’ books, to sit there passing judgment? My husband has the looks, and he has the learning. I’m neither a fool nor blind, so why would I still pine after someone else?”
Her words made quite a few of the onlookers laugh.
Song Yan’s face went from red to white and back again, while the fingertips of his clasped hands were stretched rigidly taut.
Xie Zheng merely lifted his eyes lazily. Although he knew that most of what she had said was only to save face, he still found every word pleasing to the ear.
After all… he did not think they were lies.
Having gotten the better of the situation, Fan Changyu gave a little huff and took Changning by the hand. “Let’s go.”
Xie Zheng cast a faint glance at the few scholars still standing there, then followed after them at an unhurried pace, as though taking a leisurely stroll.
Song Yan and his classmates could only feel their faces burning with embarrassment.
The onlookers were still whispering among themselves, “They say most faithless men are scholars. Song Yan broke off his engagement with that Fan girl after passing the provincial examination, and now that he’s run into her on the street, he even brings people along to mock her. What a disgraceful man!”
“I reckon that Fan family’s live-in husband has better literary talent than these fellows. I wonder if he’ll sit for the imperial examinations. If he passes too, the Fan family’s days will surely get a whole lot easier!”
Hearing these words, Song Yan’s face, hidden in the dim shadows cast by the lanterns, darkened with gloom.
His several classmates, desperate to save face, shouted, “A little white face live-in husband? If he really had what it takes to sit for the imperial examinations, he wouldn’t have ended up becoming another family’s live-in husband!”
“I say, if he actually went to take the imperial examinations, he probably couldn’t even pass the Tongsheng examination!”
Hearing this, Song Yan’s cold expression did not soften in the slightest. He merely said, “Let’s leave it here for today. We’ll meet again another time.”
Since he had spoken, the others had lost so much face that they were too embarrassed to continue strolling around the lantern fair. They each went their separate ways.
Xie Zheng walked several paces behind Fan Changyu, the two of them moving one after the other in silence. After a moment, he suddenly said, “About what happened just now—I was the one who misspoke first.”
If he had not brought up Song Yan in the first place, those people would never have overheard it from behind the lantern wall and made fun of her.
Fan Changyu slowed to a stop. “It’s nothing. You already helped me. Besides, I was the one who lied to you first.”
Xie Zheng raised his eyes. “Lied to me about what?”
Fan Changyu raked a hand through her hair, looking a little embarrassed, “Before, I was afraid you’d misunderstand and think I had other intentions toward you, so I deliberately said I hadn’t gotten over him.”
At this, a trace of something else entered Xie Zheng’s eyes.
He said, “I thought… you were hurting.”
Fan Changyu shot him a look that clearly said, How could that possibly be?
By now, the two of them had already left the street where the lantern exhibition was being held, and everything around them had suddenly grown quiet. The occasional alley they passed was dark and gloomy.
Xie Zheng asked, “Is this the road to Yixiang Restaurant?”
“No.” As soon as Fan Changyu answered, she shoved Changning into Xie Zheng’s arms. “In a moment, cover Ningniang’s eyes and take her somewhere out of the way.”
Xie Zheng was silent for a moment before asking, “What are you going to do?”
Fan Changyu found a shadowy corner and crouched down there with him. Then she pulled out the large burlap sack and the clothes-pounding stick she had bought after leaving the market.
She bared the little tiger teeth at the corner of her mouth, “That guy in the yellow robe has such a filthy mouth. Of course I have to give him a good beating before I’ll feel better!”
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