The warm sun shone brightly overhead.
After more than ten days of continuous rain, the capital city finally welcomed a stretch of long-awaited clear weather.
In Tongluo Alley, every household was busy airing out clothes and bedding. In the small courtyards, people turned over damp dry rations and flour to dry in the sun.
"Child!" the adoptive mother called out to the young girl sitting on the roof tiles, her arms full of bedding. "Come down and rest a bit. I'll take over!"
Ying Xiaoman waved her hand, "Mother, you rest." She turned her head towards the west room and shouted, "Hey, come out and lend a hand."
The man in the west room slowly got off the kang bed and shuffled out into the courtyard.
The Ying family was small, and they addressed each other simply. The adoptive mother called her daughter "child," Zhi "little one," and the man who had drifted in from the water "the one in the west room." Ying Xiaoman called her adoptive mother "Mom," Zhi "little Zhi," and the mysterious gentleman "Hey."
There were, of course, reasons behind these simple forms of address.
As his condition improved and the bloody wound on the back of his left hand began to scab over and heal, "the one in the west room" regained his appetite with each passing day. Of the two sheng of millet prepared for Zhi on the stove, he ended up consuming one and a half. The adoptive mother gritted her teeth and went out to buy another five sheng.
A young, strong man could eat a family into poverty. The more Ying Xiaoman thought about it, the more she felt Doctor Li's advice was right. When the Ying family moved, they should ask this man to leave.
As the saying goes, one should not harbor ill intentions towards others, but one must remain vigilant. There were too many ill-intentioned people in the capital city. After consecutively experiencing two mishaps—a matchmaker trying to persuade her to sell herself and Yan Er Lang tricking her into becoming a concubine—Ying Xiaoman's vigilance had greatly increased.
Ying Xiaoman didn't even ask about "the one in the west room's" background.
Similarly, when the man politely asked about her family name, place of origin, and when they had come to the capital city, she didn't answer.
Ying Xiaoman only made one request to his face.
The cost of his food and drink while recovering at their home, as well as the medical expenses, was no small sum. He should repay this amount as soon as possible. Once the debt was settled, their chance encounter would be concluded, and when the Ying family moved, he would leave.
It was on an evening when the weather had just turned fine. The gentleman in the west room was sitting and drinking his medicine. The golden light of the setting sun streamed into the room, and the man sitting on the kang bed put down his medicine bowl and nodded in agreement.
"A drop of kindness should be repaid with a gushing spring, let alone such a great kindness that saved my life. Mere money is trivial compared to that. The young lady's request is entirely reasonable."
When he spoke after regaining consciousness, his voice was gentle and pleasant, his pace unhurried, always carrying a hint of tenderness.
As he spoke, he slowly tried to prop himself up. "It's just a pity that I've been ill, and still have difficulty walking..."
Ying Xiaoman quickly pressed him back down.
"Rest. Who's asking you to repay the debt while you're still sick?"
She turned and took a piece of oiled paper used for wrapping medicine from the table, waving it slightly.
"The costs of the doctor's visits, the internal and external medicines, the expenses for rice, flour, and clothes are all recorded on this paper. The pair of shoes on your feet took my mother two long nights to make. Is two hundred wen fair for you?"
The gentleman in the west room immediately praised the adoptive mother's needlework profusely, saying the soles were thick and sturdy, comfortable and soft to wear, and shouldn't be priced at just two hundred wen, but at least two guan.
Ying Xiaoman felt thoroughly pleased hearing this, her beautiful eyebrows and eyes relaxing completely.
"You have good taste. My mother's needlework was famous in our hometown. I also think that mother's two nights of work is worth two guan, but if I really charged you that much, she would definitely scold me."
The gentleman in the west room chuckled softly and said, "Miss Ying and your esteemed mother are both honest people."
Ying Xiaoman picked up the brush and wrote on the oiled paper, "One pair of cloth shoes, valued at two hundred wen." As she was writing the second-to-last character for "hundred," she suddenly realized something was amiss and turned her head to ask in surprise, "How did you know our family name is Ying? Did you coax little Zhi into telling you when I wasn't home?"
The gentleman sitting on the kang bed innocently pointed to his own ear.
"Yesterday, Auntie Yang came over to visit and called out 'Sister Ying,' which I overheard."
Ying Xiaoman: "..."
After a moment of speechlessness, she turned back to the table and finished writing the last character for "wen."
Having lived in Tongluo Alley for a few months, the dozen or so households in the alley had become quite familiar with each other, seeing each other frequently. Yesterday, Auntie Yang had come over to deliver a gift.
The Ying family had adopted the orphaned girl from the Xu family, and the neighbors felt indebted. Each household contributed something: two eggs from one family, a piece of fine cloth from another, until they had gathered a whole basket of gifts. Taking advantage of the seventh day after Sister-in-law Xu's passing, they brought the gifts to the Ying family.
Yesterday, Auntie Yang and the adoptive mother had talked for quite a while at the courtyard gate, sighing deeply, with both women shedding tears. Ying Xiaoman, holding Zhi, had also become teary-eyed.
—Who knew that someone in the west room was listening intently!
The house was so small that conversations at one end could be heard clearly at the other, and neighbors frequently came to visit. It was difficult to keep one's background a secret...
Knowing that her family name was Ying wasn't a big deal. There were millions of people in the capital city, and the Yings weren't the only ones with that surname.
Ying Xiaoman was lost in these thoughts as she put down her brush and tidied up the oiled paper. When she turned around, she noticed that the gentleman on the kang bed had propped himself up again and moved closer, observing her writing.
"What are you looking at?" She clutched the paper and brush, stepping back. "I didn't overcharge you for the shoes."
The gentleman good-naturedly sat back. "Your characters are written neatly and evenly. Miss Ying must have attended a private school?"
Ying Xiaoman snorted, folding and flattening the oiled paper before putting it away in the cabinet. "I didn't. Don't make wild guesses."
Once he was able to get up and walk a bit, the man occasionally came out to the main room to help.
When the water on the stove boiled and the adoptive mother wasn't in the room, he helped remove a few sticks of firewood from the stove. When Zhi knocked over a stool, he came out upon hearing the noise, helped her up, put the stool back in place, and soothed her crying with kind words.
After three or four days of this, the adoptive mother occasionally asked Zhi to bring a bowl of egg soup to the west room to help nourish him and drive away the illness.
"The one in the west room has it tough too," the adoptive mother sighed privately to Ying Xiaoman. "Picked up from the water with barely his life, his body washed clean of even shoes and socks by the current. I'm afraid of ruining your reputation, so I don't let him go out. He only occasionally comes to the main room and avoids people, almost like a young bride. The weather's been good lately, let him come out to the courtyard to get some sun. Illness needs to see the light to get better."
It made sense.
The man in the west room had been taking medicine and resting for nearly ten days. His complexion improved day by day, and the frightening bloody wound on the back of his left hand gradually closed and scabbed over. Ying Xiaoman sincerely wanted him to get better soon.
After all, the five liters of millet newly bought for the stove had been eaten clean. Mother estimated the consumption and, gritting her teeth, went out yesterday to buy ten liters.
Fortunately, there was a fan pendant they had picked up for free.
She ran to more than a dozen pawnshops, found one with a fair appraisal, and exchanged the white jade fan pendant for two strings of cash, which she placed in the hanging basket under the eaves. Every day, when entering and leaving the house, they would look up at the heavy basket, and the whole Ying family felt at ease.
Today, with the warm sun shining overhead, Ying Xiaoman let her mother rest and called out the young man from the west room. One sat on the roof tiles, the other stood under the eaves. They worked together to dry out the damp clothes, bedding, rice, and dried food in the bright sun. By the time everything was tidied up, it was almost noon.
Ying Xiaoman stepped down the wooden ladder. The young man from the west room was someone who could see what needed to be done without being told. He had already gone over on his own and steadily held the ladder.
Ying Xiaoman was very pleased and looked up at him with a smile, "Thank you for your hard work today."
The young man from the west room folded the ladder and placed it against the wall, then turned and handed her a cloth, "Wipe your sweat. The sun in the Capital City is harsh in spring and summer. You have fair skin, be careful not to get sunburned."
There was a small water jar in the courtyard. Ying Xiaoman dipped the cloth in the cool water and casually pressed it against her slightly reddened cheeks:
"The sun in the Capital City is nothing compared to our hometown. When we were kids, after swimming in the river in summer, both boys and girls would come back red and tanned. We'd turn pale again after winter."
The young man from the west room listened attentively. The small cloth could only cover her cheeks, leaving her sun-reddened fair forehead and the bridge of her delicate nose exposed. He took a second cloth, this time dipping it in cool water before handing it over.
"It sounds like Miss Ying's hometown is near a river?"
"That's right. An extremely wide river," Ying Xiaoman recalled her hometown's landscape nostalgically. "Much wider than the Bian River in the Capital City, with a faster current. On windy days, white waves often rise."
"By the Han River?"
Ying Xiaoman was about to answer "That's right—" when she suddenly realized and warily closed her mouth. She took the second cloth and covered her forehead.
Now her whole face was covered, "No—nothing like that. Don't guess wildly."
The young man from the west room chuckled softly again and volunteered an explanation, "Forgive me if I guessed wrong. I heard Madam call Miss Ying 'girl' in a way that sounds like the local dialect from the Han River area in Jingzhou."
Ying Xiaoman's clear voice came from under the cloth, "I told you not to guess wildly."
If they continued talking, her hometown's origin would be revealed... She immediately changed the subject, starting her twice-daily routine inquiry.
"Are you feeling better today? Does your chest and lungs still hurt when you walk? We're moving in a few days, and it'll be very troublesome if you can't walk long distances."
The young man from the west room cooperated very well in his answer, "Much better. I feel I can walk long distances. May I ask when Miss Ying plans to move? I'll try to find a way to raise the money for the recent medical and clothing expenses. I'm afraid there might not be enough time to repay before then."
Ying Xiaoman lifted the cloth, her wet eyelashes blinked, and a drop of crystal-clear water slid down her cheek.
"That won't do," she said, a bit worried:
"Although your family isn't in the Capital City, and we can't expect them to rush here from out of town with a hefty reward to take you away after we saved your life... but you're a capable young man in your twenties. We can't save your life and end up losing money, can we? Our family is already struggling to raise Zhi."
The young man from the west room immediately agreed, wringing out the damp cloth and handing it back to Ying Xiaoman to wipe her face.
"Indeed, it's not easy for a female-headed household to begin with. The Ying family is kind and righteous, adopting an orphaned girl from next door. We can't let Miss Ying save my life and still lose money. But who said my family isn't in the Capital City?"
Halfway through his speech, Ying Xiaoman's beautiful dark eyes were already wide open. No one in the family had told him that Zhi wasn't the Ying family's daughter, or that they were a female-headed household!
But before she could question him, the second half of the young man's sentence reached her ears. The fact that "family is in the Capital City" was even more surprising. Ying Xiaoman blurted out:
"—You have family in the Capital City?! Then why has no one come looking for you when you've been missing for so many days?"
"All my family is in the Capital City," the young man from the west room pondered for a moment before answering honestly. "But my disappearance this time was unexpected. They might have searched in the wrong direction. The Capital is vast, and if they were deliberately misled to search in other areas, it's not surprising that they didn't come to look near the southern riverbank in time."
Ying Xiaoman nodded, her expression relaxing. She had originally thought he was a merchant from out of town who had been robbed and left for dead.
Having family in the Capital City was good news.
"You should find your family to come and take you away. By the way, we've already found the new house we're moving to. The house is empty, and we're negotiating the price. We should be able to move this month. Let your family know, and on the day they come to pick you up, they can also clear the debt accumulated on the oiled paper. The total is..."
She ran into the west room, took out the oiled paper, and calculated carefully for a while. Then she poked her head out of the open window, "The total is three strings of cash, plus two hundred and sixty copper coins. I see that your family background isn't bad, so five or six days should be enough to prepare, right?"
The young man from the west room walked closer to the window, pondered for a moment, and shook his head. "It won't work."
Ying Xiaoman: ?
The young man from the west room unwrapped the bandage on his left hand, revealing the unhealed wound. Originally a horrifying bloody hole that pierced through the back of his hand, after ten days of applying medicine morning and evening and rest, it now looked less gruesome, with pink new flesh beginning to grow at the edges of the wound.
"Does Miss Ying know how the wound on the back of my hand came about?"
"It looks like it was stabbed by a sharp object," Ying Xiaoman observed. "But not an extremely sharp one, so a large piece of skin was torn."
"Correct. Miss Ying has a keen eye," the young man from the west room slowly wrapped the wound back up.
"This wound was made by stabbing the tip of a hairpin into the back of my hand. But the hairpin wasn't particularly sharp, so it took a lot of force to pierce through—I did it myself."
Ying Xiaoman was shocked, instantly looking up, her gaze through the window at him changed completely.
The young man from the west room laughed, "Don't misunderstand. I'm not mentally ill. Miss Ying, please put away the oiled paper and come sit by the door. I'll explain everything slowly."