Chapter 7: Xue Wenbin

The man at the door stood against the light, tall and broad-shouldered, in an indigo-dyed rough-cloth working outfit, a short knife at his waist, his boot tops caked with yellow loess - he had plainly come a long way.

He reached up and removed his bamboo hat, revealing a face of sharp, clean lines. His features resembled Xue Wenyan's by maybe three parts, but with more of the grit and shrewdness of a man polished by the marketplace. A hint of a smile that wasn't quite a smile hung at the corner of his mouth. His gaze traveled once over Cen Sheng's face, then past her, appraising the empty shop.

"Sister-in-law. Long time no see."

Xue Wenbin.

Cen Sheng's grip on the broom tightened slightly, but her face betrayed nothing. She only nodded coolly: "So Wenbin is back."

Xue Wenbin stepped over the threshold, the yellow mud on his boot soles printing marks across the freshly swept floor. He noticed nothing, looking the shop over with little clicks of his tongue:

"I heard Sister-in-law had opened a tailor's shop at the east end of the village. I thought Mother was exaggerating. It's real. Not a bad spot, either - two shopfronts, and a courtyard in back. Renting a place like this for a year must have cost a fair bit of silver, no?"

He turned back with a smile full of meaning:

"Where did Sister-in-law get the silver?"

Cen Sheng didn't answer. She bent to keep sweeping, the broom passing - not lightly, not heavily - over the muddy prints he had left, the way one sweeps up a pile of rubbish that has nothing to do with anyone.

"Good timing, Wenbin," she said as she swept, her tone as flat as if discussing the weather. "Your elder brother was taken by the officials this morning. Mother cried all morning. If you haven't been home yet, you'd better go have a look."

The smile on Xue Wenbin's face stiffened slightly.

"Elder brother was taken by the officials?" He frowned. "Why?"

"They say it's connected to last year's river-dike corruption case. The imperial censor's people are investigating. They came for him at first light this morning." Cen Sheng straightened up and met Xue Wenbin's probing gaze without dodging. "A private ledger was found in your brother's study. Several entries in it match the accounts of the stone merchants. Clerk Song has already taken all of it back to the county office."

Xue Wenbin was silent for a beat.

He was a man who never showed his depths - years of business in the prefectural city had trained a three-tenths smile into his bones. But just now the oily polish of that smile had cracked open, and beneath it showed alarm and doubt.

"I'll go see Mother." He turned to go, took two steps, then stopped and looked back at Cen Sheng. "You're not coming back?"

"I've still got work here. I'll be along later." Cen Sheng didn't look up, and kept sweeping.

Xue Wenbin stared at her back a moment, said nothing in the end, and strode off toward the Xue household.

Only when the sound of his footsteps had completely vanished at the mouth of the lane did Cen Sheng stop and slowly straighten.

Xue Wenbin had come back too fast.

From the prefectural city to Qinghe Village, even a mule cart needed a day and a night. Xue Wenyan had only been taken this morning. Even if Wang Guizhi had sent someone to the city with word in the middle of last night, the fastest he could arrive was tomorrow. Unless - Xue Wenbin had already set out before Xue Wenyan was taken.

No. That wasn't right either.

Cen Sheng set the broom down, sat at the table, and tapped her fingertip against it, once and once again.

Xue Miao had mentioned Xue Wenbin last night: cloth business in the prefectural city, dealings with the Wang family's shops. If Xue Wenbin had come back early for business, that would explain it. But to arrive home precisely at the moment Xue Wenyan was taken - that was too neat a coincidence.

And there was something else that bothered her more - Xue Wenbin's eyes.

In the old days, Xue Wenbin and she had rarely crossed paths. He was the son of a concubine; Wang Guizhi had no use for him, and he seldom stayed long at the Xue house. Each time he returned, he would call "Sister-in-law" politely and go about his business. But today, standing at the shop door, his gaze had been sizing up a stranger - a stranger who surprised him, who needed to be measured anew.

He had already heard something.

Cen Sheng rose, walked to the shop's back door, and pushed half the door panel aside to glance at the courtyard behind. The little yard behind the shop was not large - three main rooms and one side room, a well and a pomegranate tree in the yard. The courtyard had come rented together with the shopfront; she meant to fix it up as her lodging.

Living in that drafty hovel of the Xue house - better to move here.

Once the thought took root, it would not be pushed back down.

She returned to the front of the shop, took brush, ink, and a sheet of red paper from the corner. In her first life the few characters she knew had been taught by Xue Wenyan; her handwriting was not pretty, but every stroke sat straight and clean.

On the red paper she wrote four characters: Help Wanted.

She needed an assistant. Ideally a quick-fingered young woman who could cut cloth, whip-stitch hems, and mind the customers. She also needed a carpenter to build a counter and shelving, and the kiln to fire a batch of porcelain embroidery hoops.

The spiritual spring in her space, for now, could only nourish plants and hasten growth. But she had always felt the spring had other uses yet to be discovered. In her first life it had only truly opened as she lay dying; there had been no time to understand it. This life she had all the time in the world to explore it slowly - but first, she had to get her footing.

"Sheng Ji" was her first step toward standing firm.

Meanwhile, in the main courtyard of the Xue house -

Wang Guizhi had moved from the shrine hall back to the main room, half reclining on the arhat bed, a cloth soaked in cold water laid across her forehead. Jing Shishi knelt on the footstool pummeling her legs, her eyes swollen red as mashed peaches, mouth going round and round the same phrases: "Wenyan-ge will be all right, won't he?" "Auntie, say something!"

Xue Lan'er sat on an embroidered stool nearby, dazed, thinking who knew what.

This was the scene that met Xue Wenbin when he came through the door.

"Mother." He crossed the room quickly and sank to one knee by the arhat bed. "Your son is back."

When Wang Guizhi opened her eyes and saw Xue Wenbin, a spark finally kindled in her clouded gaze. She struggled upright, seized his hand with a grip that blanched her knuckles:

"Wenbin! You're finally back! Your elder brother -"

"I've heard it all." Xue Wenbin patted the back of her hand and lowered his voice. "Sister-in-law opened a shop at the east end of the village - why did Mother never tell me?"

"Don't mention that bitch!" Wang Guizhi shrieked; the cloth slid off her forehead, and Jing Shishi scrambled to catch it. "She's the one who ruined Wenyan! She's the one who drew the officials here! Twelve years she hid in our Xue house, soft as a ball of dough for anyone to knead - and a belly full of black water the whole time!"

"Keep your voice down." Xue Wenbin frowned, glanced at the door, rose to shut it, and came back to sit on the edge of the bed. "Things have gone this far already - what good is wailing? What matters now is fishing Elder Brother out. Mother, tell me the truth: what was written in the ledger they found in his study?"

Wang Guizhi's face went stiff, as if a hand had closed around her throat.

She opened her mouth, and no sound came.

Xue Wenbin's gaze sank:

"Mother, if you won't tell me the truth, how can I help him? What Clerk Song carried off wasn't only Elder Brother's private ledger. It was also Father's old tin box - am I wrong?"

Wang Guizhi's color changed.

"How did you know?"

"Word travels in the prefectural city. What the imperial censor is investigating isn't this year's affair - it's the old case from twelve years ago, the breach that drowned three villages. If that case is turned over, forget Elder Brother - the whole Xue family is finished." Xue Wenbin fixed his eyes on Wang Guizhi, each word dropping like a stone. "The things in the tin box. Has Mother seen them?"

"I haven't!" Wang Guizhi shook her head hard. "Before your father died he said the box held land deeds and field deeds, told me to keep it safe and let no one touch it. If I'd known that was what was inside, I'd have burned it long ago!"

Xue Wenbin closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.

"It's too late for any of that now. The evidence is in the imperial censor's hands, and Elder Brother has been taken. The only thing left to do is scrape ourselves clean." He opened his eyes, a cold gleam passing through them. "Mother, tell me - twelve years ago, when Second Uncle was pushed from his horse. Did you have a hand in it?"

Wang Guizhi shuddered from head to toe.

"Wenbin -"

"Yes or no?"

Silence.

In the long silence, Jing Shishi's fists stopped; Xue Lan'er looked up at her mother; even the thrush in the cage under the eaves went quiet.

Wang Guizhi's shoulders slowly caved, and she deflated like a punctured ball. Her head hung low, her voice so soft it was barely there:

"It was your father who made me do it. He said the second one wasn't his own blood... said the second one's mother was loose, that the second one was a mongrel... that he couldn't be allowed to stay..."

Xue Wenbin's fist slowly clenched.

"And the old servant?"

"He went back to his home village three years ago. Qingzhou." Suddenly Wang Guizhi raised her head and clutched hard at Xue Wenbin's sleeve. "Wenbin, you can't abandon your mother! Everything I did, I did for you and your elder brother!"

Xue Wenbin looked at her for a long, long moment.

Then he slowly loosened his fist and stood.

"Mother, don't leave the house these next few days, and see no one who comes. Lan'er, you stay with Mother. Jing Shishi -" he turned to his cousin, who was still dabbing her eyes, his tone cold to the point of cruelty, "you had best keep quiet, and no tongue-wagging in front of Mother. And as for Sister-in-law's affairs - stay away from them."

Cowed by that look, Jing Shishi shrank into her neck, mouth pursing, and in the end dared not make a sound.

Xue Wenbin looked at her no longer. He pushed the door open and strode out. Standing under the eaves, he gazed at the persimmon tree in the yard, stripped bare of leaves, his expression shifting between sun and shadow.

He had not told Wang Guizhi one more thing.

In the prefectural city, he had heard not only the rumor of the imperial censor's investigation, but one thing more - Cen Wangshan's case was being quietly reopened. Not by the officials. By a force whose origins he could not trace.

He suspected Xue Miao.

But since returning he had not yet had time to see Xue Miao. He had gone to the east end of the village first.

The moment he saw Cen Sheng at the shop door, he knew this woman was no longer the meek, downcast sister-in-law of his memory. She had stood in the middle of that empty shop, the broom in her hand like a weapon, and looked at him with cool vigilance - not a whisper of fear.

A person does not become another person for no reason.

Unless she had always been this, only hidden too well.

Or - unless she had lived through something enough to remake her, bone and marrow.

Xue Wenbin's eyes narrowed. He moved his gaze from the persimmon tree toward the back courtyard. The little path leading to that secluded yard - he had not walked it in many years.

He turned the short knife at his waist and set off down that path.

Dusk was settling. In the shop at the east end of the village, Cen Sheng pasted the finished notice square and true onto the door panel, looked it over left and right, and clapped the paste from her fingers, satisfied.

Across the lane, an old woman with a bamboo basket stopped and gave her a look, curiosity and probing in her eyes. Cen Sheng smiled at her and said, open and easy: "We open in a few days. Come have a look at the cloth then."

The old woman nodded, muttering "I'll come back and see," and ambled off.

Cen Sheng turned, about to close the door - and a figure flashed out of the mouth of the lane. She fell back half a step on instinct, hand finding the door bar, and only when she saw who it was did her breath ease.

"Second Uncle? What brings you here?"

Xue Miao's wheelchair had stopped at the mouth of the lane, Ling Mo not behind him this time. Dusk fell across his pale face, gilding those deep eyes with a warm golden light. On his knees lay an oil-paper packet of something unknown.

"Passing by," he said.

Cen Sheng looked at the position he had chosen - plainly impossible for someone merely "passing by" - and did not call the lie. She only stepped aside: "Come in and sit. There's no furniture yet, just two old stools."

Xue Miao didn't move. He looked up at the red paper on the door panel, his gaze resting a moment on the two characters for "hiring," then moved on, settling on the paste clinging to Cen Sheng's fingertips.

"You're hiring?"

"Mm. One pair of hands isn't enough. A girl to help cut cloth and finish hems, and a carpenter for the counter."

Xue Miao was silent a moment. Then he held out the oil-paper packet from his knees.

Cen Sheng took it and opened it. Inside was a pair of scissors.

Not large; they sat in her hand as if made for it. The blades were freshly ground, gleaming cold silver in the dusk. The handles were wrought brass, chased with two fine lines of wave pattern.

"Ling Mo's smithing is not bad." Xue Miao's tone was as flat as if remarking on fine weather. "A tailor's shop ought to have a good pair of scissors."

Cen Sheng held the scissors and, for a moment, did not know what to say. They were not heavy, yet something pressed down heavily on her chest.

In her first life her scissors had been an old pair with a notched blade; the edges of the cloth always frayed. Wang Guizhi called her clumsy; Xue Wenyan complained her stitching was crooked. She had thought of buying a new pair - but every time she saved enough coppers, something else swallowed the money. Xue Wenyan's book fees. Xue Wenyan's traveling money for the examinations. Xue Wenyan's tuition.

No one had ever thought of her - that she needed a good pair of scissors.

"Thank you, Second Uncle." She lowered her eyes and set the scissors carefully on the table, her voice softer than before. "On opening day, I'll make you a suit of clothes. No charge."

The corner of Xue Miao's mouth seemed to bend, very slightly. He turned his chair and rolled slowly into the dusk.

"Second Uncle." Cen Sheng called after him suddenly. "There's something you should know. Xue Wenbin came by just now. He came back too fast. I can't shake the feeling that something's wrong."

The wheelchair paused a beat.

"I know." He said, "Ling Mo told me just now. Xue Wenbin didn't arrive today. He reached Qingping County last night."

Cen Sheng's heart jumped.

"He was here last night? Then why did he only come home today?"

"Because last night he was at the county office."

Dusk had closed in on every side; the last thread of light at the mouth of the lane sank away. Xue Miao's figure gradually merged with the darkness, only his voice still clear:

"Half of Xue Wenbin's business is running errands for the yamen. He knows the people at the county office far better than we do. Be careful these next days. As for the shop - move fast."

The sound of wheels over gray brick faded into the wind at the lane's mouth.

Cen Sheng stood at the shop door, watching the place where he had vanished, slowly tightening her grip on the scissors.

Cold iron in her palm - and yet, somehow, warm.

She turned and pressed the notice square, shut the shop door, and walked toward the Xue house. Tonight she would pack. Tomorrow she would move out.

This Xue family - she did not want to spend one more day in it.