Chapter 30

The cold late-autumn wind poured down his collar. She Zixiu shivered the moment he stepped down from the carriage, a green tinge coming over his fair face.

Seeing the palace eunuch's face gone sour, Meng Wanquan didn't dare shout on merrily as before. His voice shook a little as he patted the wooden door and called: "Granny~!! Quick, now..."

Before long a small, clear, crisp young woman's voice came from the yard: "A moment, if you please! There's no man in the house, and we'd no word ahead, so we're in no fit state. I must tidy myself before I can meet such honored guests. Please bear with us, sirs. I'll only be a moment."

At that Meng Wanquan grew tenser still, and turned to look at She Zixiu. But She Zixiu waved an easy hand: "Don't rush her. What the young mistress says in there is only right."

This was, after all, the receiving of an imperial edict. You truly couldn't come to it unwashed and unkempt.

So the party from the palace stood outside the plain little yard and waited in quiet.

While they waited, the women of the settlement came drifting up again and thronged forward. Only this time they couldn't crowd in close by the door. The palace eunuch had brought twenty-odd guards besides, in eight-panel helmets and purple lacquered scale-armor, sabers at their waists and mounted on horses. The moment the women came, the guards held them off twenty paces away.

After a little the yard door opened at last, and an old lady came out first.

She Zixiu looked up. This old lady had her hair in a simple knot and a dark cloth wrapped about her head. She wore a deep blue-green round-collared robe with a front-button, and under it a crossed-collar lined jacket. The rarest touch was this: at the point of that crossed collar she'd set a strip of snow-white lining.

Out from the palace, the whole road had been one choking grey. That snow-white collar-strip alone was enough to win her a good first mark from every man there.

The old lady's features were nothing to look at, broad brow, faint eyebrows, drooping eyes, a wide mouth. But there was a rare thing about her. She was clean and brisk through and through, inside and out. And though her eyes held a blank bewilderment as she peered up and down and side to side at them, careful as a child, somehow no one could dislike her.

The old lady still had no idea what had happened. She only knew her granddaughter-in-law had gone over her from head to foot once more, stripped off her bangles and her silver flat-pin, dug out the good burial clothes she'd long hidden away, and dressed her in them.

Last, she'd put a cloth kerchief over the crown of her head. And out she'd come, muddled as anything.

Her looking done at last, the old lady turned and gave the tender-faced boy at the head of them a thorough once-over.

This one had skin far too soft, white as a shelled boiled egg, the kind of young skin a puff of wind might break.

She couldn't tell his age either. He looked in his teens, but his eyes looked past twenty. A clear, handsome face and a bearing to match. He wore a black hat and grass-green clothes, with the five-colored square panel on his chest that only the great officials had.

This little young master, an official? He held a pair of small brocade scrolls in his hands too. What were they? By the look of them, that gaudy, costly satin facing?

What had he come to do?

The old lady was most afraid of people with that square panel on the chest. Those birds and beasts on it were so fierce, they ate people!

Qian'er was still young. She couldn't hold up the household, and it took courage to be afraid inside and still act. So the old lady set her teeth, edged up, and asked, careful as could be: "Child? Young master? Great lord? You, you? You've come to my house on some business?"

Only when she'd asked did she remember the curtsey. She bobbed a hasty half-crouch, stiff and forced.

Poor fourth-grade Seal-Holding Eunuch She Zixiu had frozen half the day. And when an old lady finally came, the first thing out of her was to call him "child."

He couldn't hold it in. Out came a snort of laughter. And when he laughed, the little eunuchs and the guards around him jumped in fright.

This one never laughed. His face, all year round, was the warning before a thunderstorm, black and cold.

Warmth rose in Eunuch She's heart all at once. He found this old lady artless and dear, plain and pure. He was past thirty himself. And what did she call him? Child? Was he so small as that?

Seeing him laugh, the old lady steadied inside and was afraid no more. He'd smiled at her, so it was nothing bad, was it?

She was about to ask more when scolding voices came from over there, and a woman's shrill cry.

She looked up again and saw Madam Gao and the rest held off outside by the saber-bearers. She turned her head and saw Meng Wanquan's face all twisted at her again. What was he after? She couldn't tell.

Her heart flustered anew, and she turned to look for Qi Qian'er. And there was Qi Qian'er, carrying a satin-draped kang-table in both hands, stepping carefully out, and asking as she came: "Might I trouble you, sirs, should we receive the edict out here, or in the yard?"

At that She Zixiu raised a brow. This one, he thought, is truly not like the rest. By the look of it she knows the rites for receiving an edict.

This one was a marvel too. With six words she'd thrown the whole Tan house into an uproar, won her man a great, shining future, and, rarest of all, that high favor everyone now envied.

So thinking, he began to study the young woman on the sly.

This wife was thin and slight, small and finely made, not tall, her shoulders narrow. Her looks were no beauty, passably neat and pretty, no more. She was got up clean and brisk, but to his eye, used to the soft delicate blossoms of the inner palace, her looks wouldn't rank even eighth-grade.

But short as she was by nature, this young wife had one thing other women did not: ease. A fearless ease that looked on everything openly, the seasoned air of someone whose plan is set and whose house is in order. That was rare indeed.

What sort of place could raise a young woman with such a temper?

Chen Dasheng and the rest had been ten days in Yanjing now. In those ten days the Emperor, whenever he had nothing on, would ask after them. How were the old blades settled? Where did they lodge? Were they comfortable? Don't go hemming them in! What had they eaten? How much?...

He'd even found time to see them three times. Each time he asked after old days, and reminisced over Tan the Second, and now and then asked of other things, how many were in the family, where they all were now, and the like.

From family talk it came out that Chen Dasheng's old grandmother had got him a wife. And that was the thread that led back to the source of the whole Tan-camp business.

Earl Chang, blank-faced, had been summoned into the palace and questioned this way and that. Out of it came a great meritorious deed. Now, tell me that's not the stuff of legend.

Chen Dasheng's new wife had written him a letter. Only then did he learn his own name, and only then did he notice the orders were wrong. And so came the whole business of Chen Dasheng going through the camp asking after his orders.

Ai, a stranger tale than any storyteller's book could dream up.

Eunuch She said with a smile: "Don't fret, Madam Huo. These aren't the old days. Things are done in haste now, and there's no need to stand on ceremony, nor is it the time for it. The old lady is on in years. The yard will do. The wind's strong out here."

This eunuch knew her surname?

Qi Qian'er's feelings turned complicated.

Through the crack in the door she'd seen the eunuch, and the patent-scroll she'd stroked a thousand times over. So she knew what was about to happen.

That was the facing of blue-green, yellow, red, and black satin. She'd received such a patent once, been a titled lady.

But think as she might, it made no sense. How did the house come to have a patent now? What in the world had happened?

All at once everything had veered off course. And this eunuch even knew her surname?

Her head was in a muddle. Still, she fell back on old habit, worked to keep her face calm, and dealt with it a step at a time, a word at a time.

Qi Qian'er turned and passed the kang-table to Meng Wanquan. Flustered too, she'd forgotten he had only the one arm.

Lucky for her, Meng Wanquan could do anything with one arm. He braced a single hand under the table and held the little altar steady as anything.

Qi Qian'er let out a breath. Then she took hold of the flustered old lady, patted the back of her hand, ran a hand over her chest and back, and coaxed her like a three-year-old: "Don't be afraid! Don't be afraid, it's a good thing, Granny! A good thing!"

At that the old lady let out a long breath: "Ah, a good thing?"

"Yes, yes! A good thing. Set your heart at ease first, a good thing! We'll talk in the yard, all right?"

So the old lady, half believing, nodded, and turned to walk into the yard herself. This was an old lady who'd seen nothing of the world. She had no notion of giving way, and there was the imperial edict, still not gone in.

Qi Qian'er, helpless, stepped up and took hold of her, then turned back to Eunuch She: "Don't take it amiss, sir. My old lady's on in years, near seventy."

Eunuch She said with a smile: "No matter. Past seventy there are no taboos at all. Let the old lady do as she pleases." Then he added: "The young mistress is well-informed."

Qi Qian'er glanced at him: "My old family, ten generations back, all kept estates for the imperial house, so I know a little of the rites. Just scraps of hearsay, you must laugh at me. If I give offense, I beg your patience."

"So you're a young lady of a great house too."

"How so? Concubine-born. My father didn't know me, my legal mother didn't trouble with me. Born and flung out in the back court, to die if I died and live if I lived, just as Heaven pleased! I grew up in the hands of luckless women serving hard sentences. Those aunties were kind. They never scorned me, and taught me what they knew of keeping alive. Hearing it over and over, my heart grew wiser. A few painful falls, and the lesson stuck for good. And I've held on till now."

Qi Qian'er wasn't the least afraid of eunuchs. Whatever the world said of them, a eunuch was a person too.

She'd seen Eunuch Liao at the loneliest, most hopeless pass of his life, and had come by a eunuch's kindness after. Toward such men she couldn't truly say she felt distaste. There was even, faintly, some pity.

Eunuch She was struck dumb. He stood collecting himself a good while before he lifted his head to Qi Qian'er: "So, sweetness after long bitterness."

Qi Qian'er smiled: "Mm. Every day I open my eyes I have to make sure of it. I'm afraid I'll drop out of the honey and back into the old days."

Eunuch She smiled too: "You won't. Never again!"

His opinion of this young woman was the better for it.

His house too had been a high family of the old dynasty, until it fell foul of the law. But it wasn't so lucky as the sentenced women the young mistress spoke of, who at least did hard labor and could one day serve it out.

His house, its daughters not yet waist-high were sent into the brothels, its boys not yet waist-high castrated into eunuchs, and the rest of the household executed to the last.

Hatred in his heart, he'd made himself the inside man for the Liang army's entry into Yanjing. You destroyed my whole family. I ruin your whole realm. Call the two of us even.

As they talked, the party came into the yard. And just as Qi Qian'er's foot crossed the gate, she heard Madam Qiao far behind them, calling: "Mother! Old lady! Qi Qian'er, it's me, it's me... old lady, let me through, it's me, Siniu's wife! Old lady, think of your Siniu! And, and Xique, the one you love best, I'm your daughter-in-law, old lady..."

Madam Qiao was frantic, hopping from foot to foot, explaining fast to the soldier-lords. She was of this house too! This was the receiving of an edict, how could the old lady be so heedless of what mattered? That little chit over there, the match not even made, could receive the edict. Why not she, the household's own presiding daughter-in-law?

Twenty paces off, and Madam Qiao's voice so loud, how could the old lady not hear? Yet she only paused a moment at the gate. And when everyone had gone in, she stepped up herself, looked at Madam Qiao's frantic, pleading face, and, coldly, silently, slowly, closed the yard gate.

Outside, Meng Wanquan had found a string of firecrackers somewhere and set them off.

Inside, the altar was set, and the old lady knelt, her hand held by Qi Qian'er.

Eunuch She first opened the edict of the first year of Yong'an. It conferred rank on Chen Wu, née Wu, grandmother of Chen Dasheng, sixth-grade Commander's Recorder.

The patent first set out Chen Dasheng's war-merits and his loyal, country-loving heart. Then it praised the old lady, her warmth and kindness, her wise and clear motherliness, her virtuous example fitting the home, and how early she'd helped her husband to teach her children and grandchildren. And last: "Hereby We confer upon you the rank of Lady of Peace."

Qi Qian'er's read: "Warm and kind to the end, both quiet and steadfast, chaste and virtuous by her nature, able to bring harmony to her house. Hereby We confer upon you the rank of Gentlewoman."

The Lady of Peace was a sixth-rank title. Below it came the Gentlewoman, and Qi Qian'er was a seventh-grade Gentlewoman.

Besides the two patents, the court granted the old lady two hundred taels of investiture-silver and Qi Qian'er one hundred, money for their clothes and ornaments. In the old days a patent of rank came with a great deal: not only the full formal dress and headpieces, but rich brocades and pearls and jewels for the titled ladies, to show off the imperial house's grandeur.

But the Emperor now was poor. So he gave a little silver and let the grandmother and granddaughter make their own.

As for the rest, it was solid enough. Five dan of each of the five grains, ten boxes of palace pastries, two hundred mu of land for the old lady and a hundred for Qi Qian'er, as their own private holding. Though the fine yearly thousand-dan endowments a high titled lady of the old dynasty took for granted were, most likely, a thing of the past now.

Qi Qian'er raised the old lady up and explained it all, slowly and gently, a good long while, before the old lady understood what had happened.

Everyone expected the old lady to be beside herself with joy. They waited for her to overflow with thanks.

But the old lady only held the patent, her hands trembling a little, and murmured: "My three sons, my five grandsons, traded me for one piece of silk..."

Qi Qian'er clapped a hand over the old lady's mouth. Seeing her look back uncomprehending, Qi Qian'er said, holding back tears: "From now on, no more crying!"

The old lady didn't understand. Why couldn't she cry?

Qi Qian'er pulled the old lady into her arms and patted her: "I read once in The Jade Record. When a person dies and crosses the river of the dead and is judged by the Judge, the good ones all go to Granny Meng for a bowl of soup. Granny Meng's soup. Once they drink it, they forget all that went before, and can be born again.

"But when your kin are drinking the soup, Granny, they have to go up onto the Bridge of No Return and look at their kin one last time. And you mustn't cry! If you cry, they won't have the heart to leave you. They'll think you're faring badly, and won't rest easy. They won't drink the soup, won't forget you. And if that spoils their chance at a good rich family's rebirth, how your heart would ache!"

At that the old lady's heart shook. Then her eyes went round, straining wide. And the tears that had started, she swallowed back down, by main force, into her throat.

At last she slowly pushed Qi Qian'er's hand away. She looked at Qi Qian'er, then at the people around her. And all at once she put out a hand, made the sign for "eight," lifted it from her chin, and, propping the thin flesh at her mouth, said: "Heh! See, I'm smiling!"

Qi Qian'er blinked hard. The little eunuchs standing by had tears brimming too. Only Eunuch She was blank-faced, but his heart had already crumbled to mud.

Seeing the old lady smile, he smiled along: "That's right. It'll be well from now on. The old lady has a grandson who's made good and a dutiful granddaughter-in-law. There's good fortune ahead."

At that the old lady seized his hand and nodded: "Isn't it just, you couldn't say a truer word. This granddaughter-in-law of mine, in ten li, in eight or ten towns, you'd not turn up another so good. She's a good one, she is!"

Eunuch She started, and in an instant a red glow spread over his face.

"Child, come! Poor thing, such a little one, out here in the bitter cold. Come in with Granny..."

Never minding the looks of the people about him, Eunuch She was towed drifting into the house. The old lady pressed him onto the kang, pulled off his shoes, shoved him to the hot spot by the fire-wall where it warmed your backside, and tucked a little flowered quilt over his legs.

Once she'd settled him, she went to tow the other little eunuchs in. They didn't dare, and were about to refuse, and then they heard Eunuch She, hugging his little quilt, say: "Up you get."

Up they went at once, quick and neat.

Seeing them all warmed through, the old lady beamed and boasted: "Sit, children, Granny'll go boil you some sugar-water. We've got sugar in this house! Your sister-in-law just got hold of some... hid it from me, afraid I'd rot my teeth, hmph! I know where it is!"

And off she ran.

Watching the old lady go out, Qi Qian'er reverently set the two patents up on top of the kang-cabinet.

There was no proper altar-table in the house. It had to make do.

Once they were set, Qi Qian'er climbed down from the kang and made Eunuch She a careful bow: "Forgive us. The old lady is simple and plain and doesn't understand the weight of these things. If anything's been amiss, I beg you won't take it to heart."

Eunuch She, pinching the quilt, smiled down: "No offense taken. The old lady is very fine. Only, does the young mistress know how this patent came about?"

Qi Qian'er bowed again: "With no door or road to it, two country women, I beg you'll show us the way, sir. I've a great many doubts and no one to ask. My husband, wasn't he in the Tan camp? How did he come to be the Emperor's own guard?"

Eunuch She smiled and jerked his chin at the two little eunuchs. They glanced out at the old lady busy at the stove, then simply clapped their hands over their ears, turned their backs, and buried their heads in the corner.

Rumps stuck high in the air.

Once they were well stopped up, Eunuch She said: "This patent came of that salt well the young mistress gave up. The young mistress's high generosity, offering the salt and iron, and the salt well, was a great help to the Emperor. The salt well alone lifted the danger from the refugees round Qingfeng. With salt they'll have the strength to go home. As for the rest, that's the Emperor being fond of this Chen Dasheng of your house..."

At that Qi Qian'er's eyes went bright. She glanced out at the old lady, stepped two paces closer, and said low: "There must have been some course to it?"

Eunuch She set down the little quilt and snorted a laugh. A tale like a legend, six words, just six words!

He liked to tell it, too, and gave Qi Qian'er the whole of it, back to front, in brief.

By the time he'd finished, Qi Qian'er was dumbstruck.

So, Scabby read that letter and got promoted?

Heaven and earth knew, she'd written it out of swallowed fury. In her last life, this very year, Scabby had gone to the frontier, knocked about three years and eaten great bitterness, and finally met a kind-hearted officer who gave him a good post and used him well. Only then had he got leave to come home.

But that fool, come home, had gone about asking everywhere. He couldn't say his own grandmother's full name, still less what his wife was called. He only said he was looking for his grandmother, looking for his wife. He blundered about half a day before he found them at last, and became the joke in the sour women's mouths.

From then Madam Qiao had one more jibe: that thing bought for ten strings of cash, the fool whose own man didn't even know her name.

It was for that she'd written the six words in a fit of temper. Only out of a heart that wouldn't take it lying down.

Qi Qian'er's head was in a snarl, when she heard Eunuch She say: "Just now I heard, the old lady lost eight of her children and grandchildren?"

Giving her head a small shake, Qi Qian'er nodded, grave and solemn: "Near fifty souls left home. The jolting road took more than half. Of the womenfolk only two were left. Then the sons and grandsons joined the Liang army and fought across the land with our Emperor. In five years the old lady lost three sons and five grandsons. The army now holds one son, four grandsons, and one granddaughter's husband."

Eunuch She drew a cold breath, and after a long while said: "A whole house of the loyal and the fallen."

Qi Qian'er nodded: "Yes. So, I beg you, sir, don't tell my granny the real reason for this patent. The old lady will bear it better so."

Eunuch She was a little taken aback, then quickly smiled and nodded: "You, you're very good. A rare thing."

Qi Qian'er shook her head: "Nothing to the old lady's kind heart. It's she who's good."

From outside came the knock of a wooden lid on an iron pot, and the stir of chopsticks beating an egg in a bowl. Eunuch She looked at the little quilt in his hands and said softly: "This time back, I'll not report the matter of the old lady. Even if I did, once I'm back it's too late anyway. The patent's given, the gifts received. It's ill done to change them.

"Better to let it lie a year or half a year. The Mint is rushing the designs now. By next August at the latest, a batch of merit-reward coins will surely be issued. Sooner than gold or silver, one such coin to bless your descendants for all generations.

"Right now Chen Dasheng and the rest have only just set foot and tried the water in Yanjing. Their footing isn't firm. High in favor as they are, their road ahead is boundless too. But you, the household, must gather in your temper. Keep to your place. Be gentle and humble and self-effacing, loyal and true and easy-hearted, that's the root of a house. Don't show your edges. Modest and careful: that's how descendants stand long."

The eunuch said a great deal, but two lines Qi Qian'er took fully to heart. One, a coin to bless the descendants for all generations. Two, how descendants stand long.

Qi Qian'er made Eunuch She a most respectful bow: "Yes. Your great kindness, sir, I'll keep it graven in my heart."

At that Eunuch She held up the quilt and smiled: "I do it not for you, and you needn't remember any kindness of mine. A few plain words spoken from conscience. Out this door, and I'll have forgotten them."

Qi Qian'er smiled: "What was it you just said, sir?"

Eunuch She started, but the old lady was already coming in with a coarse bowl, beaming as she handed it to him: "Child! Here, here, drink it hot, it's warming, poor thing... you're hungry, aren't you!"

Eunuch She rose to sit in some disarray, then knelt on the kang, put out both hands to take the humble coarse bowl, and, his face utterly earnest, drank it down mouthful by careful mouthful.

Having seen to him, the old lady turned her head. And there were the two little eunuchs at the kang-head, rumps up, heads covered, burrowed down.

One look and she burst out laughing. She went over and gave each backside a slap: "Up you get, grown as you are, still playing? Hide-and-seek, is it? Aiya, this pair of silly boys."

The two little eunuchs, slapped, sat up with a jump. And then each had a bowl of red-sugar egg-drop pressed into his hands, and drank it, and wept.

Just as they sat on the warm kang eating red-sugar egg-drop, they never knew that outside, Madam Qiao sat cross-legged in a corner, weeping and wailing her grievance to anyone who'd hear.

"What in the world did I do wrong? That the old lady should so despise me? A thing this great, bungled through any old how! What does that half-fledged chit understand? And say what you like, to outsiders we're all one family. I'm Siniu's wife at the least. An edict, it's an edict being received!!"

She wiped a smear of snot, grinding her teeth, her heart in eight pieces, bitter as five layers of goldthread: "If not for the monk's face, then the Buddha's, for Xique's sake, for Siniu's, the whole family ought to have gone in to receive it. I served her three years! And it's all handed to the one just come? Why to her? The rewards, the rank..." She sprang up, furious as a shrew: "How is there none for me! It's not fair! I'm wronged! I'll go and lay a complaint. That one, that sweet-mouthed, bitter-hearted, knife-in-the-heart... she's cheated everyone. It was I who served the old lady, why is she the one made a lady..."

Truly she was near mad. Madam Qiao's heart was all regret and gall, hating only that there's no such thing in the world as knowing sooner.

Before this, the aunties of the settlement had always spoken up for her. But today, cry as she would, not one dared put in half a word. A thing this great, a thing the Emperor himself knew of, how would they dare say more? Oh, Emperor, sir, you've done wrong. It was Madam Qiao who served the old lady, the rank ought to be Madam Qiao's?

Mad, were they? Tired of living? And besides, what state the old lady was in now, they weren't blind either.

Say what you would, Madam Qiao wailed and raged it out there, weeping and casting eager glances at that shut gate. Until she wailed herself into a faint, and still the gate did not open.

The women hauled her off among them, a jumble of hands.

What Madam Qiao didn't know was that for the ten-odd years to come, that gate of the old lady's never opened to her again. Whether she truly mended, whether she repented in dead earnest, it was all too late.

Eunuch She found the old lady good company. The two of them jabbered a heap of small talk, until the guard-captain outside pressed him. Then the two parted with much reluctance, agreeing he'd come again another day.

Grandmother and granddaughter saw Eunuch She to his carriage. When he was settled, he remembered something, and lifting the door-curtain said to the old lady: "Old lady, ready the house these few days. That grandson of yours, Dasheng, may be home in a few days."

At that the old lady was overjoyed, asking again and again: "Truly? Truly my Dasheng, come home?"

Hearing it, Qi Qian'er's head went blank too. A thing came fast to her mind, her An'er, the dear son born after Chen Dasheng got leave and came home, three years on.

Chen Dasheng, home now?

They... that is, the... what were they to do? What if, what if there were a child?

No, no. Whatever else, she must keep clear of it a while.

Her head running wild, she saw the old lady turn and dash back into the house.

Before long she came out hugging a little quilt and a small bundle. The quilt she passed in to Eunuch She first: "Child, the road's cold, take this to wrap your legs and keep off the wind. Your sister-in-law just made it, all fresh and clean."

Eunuch She took it, got down, and thanked her.

When he'd climbed back up, the old lady handed in a small bundle besides, and said, pleased with herself: "Child, when you're back, tell the Emperor for me. He gave us so much, land and grain and silver both, and we're poor and can't repay the courtesy. So tomorrow we'll go to the temple and burn long incense for him. I'll ask the Bodhisattva to keep him safe and grant him long life.

"In this bundle are five pairs of cotton socks, three men's, two women's, all new cloth, new cotton, newly made. It's turned cold. Have the Emperor put them on so his feet won't freeze. And when the ladies weave through the winter days, their feet won't be cold either!"

Eunuch She was struck quite dumb. Woodenly he took the bundle and thanked the old lady.

And so grandmother and granddaughter saw him off in all sincerity, a long way. When the carriage had near gone from sight, Eunuch She lifted the curtain to look back. And there at the mouth of the settlement, on the big millstone, the old lady was still waving to her granddaughter-in-law.

When the carriage and horses had passed clean out of sight, the old lady hopped nimbly down from the millstone.

Qi Qian'er wiped her brow: "Granny! You really are, saying whatever comes into your head, giving them whatever there is to eat. They're from the palace. The ladies there don't weave, how could you give the socks we made to the Emperor..."

She hadn't finished grumbling when the old lady turned and gave her a heh-heh of a laugh: "What do you know! Of course I know they go out in golden carriages and eat chicken drumsticks every meal, as many as they please! Am I some know-nothing country old lady? Our house has lost so many of its own. I've got to make this family..."

The old lady spat hatefully on the ground: "I won't have them buy our family's lives with money. Whatever he gives me, I give a bit back. In a word, square! Nobody owes anybody!! There'll come a day they repay it. The Judge keeps a tally!"

And with that the old lady walked off, leaving poor Qi Qian'er standing in the wind, blown and blown... blown cold to the very heart.