Chapter 5

When Qi Qian'er was tricked and sold to the old woman in her last life, she couldn't read even half a character. But Madam claimed she could read and do sums.

Never mind reading. Back then, to count a few hundred coppers she'd stack them in piles of a hundred. Only once she had ten piles would she string them onto a cord to make one string of cash.

And she was hardly the only one. Ask anywhere in Qingfeng. How many men could even count?

Even the mistress of a household like Madam Wang had only a few years' schooling. She'd learned the abacus off the family bookkeeper years ago, could read half a page of a letter, and sometimes still had to ask someone what it meant.

Those days were nothing like the good times to come. Anyone who could read was rare. A woman all the more so.

Poor Qi Qian'er. In her last life she'd been bought for ten strings of cash and fifty jin of grain, all because she could read and count.

The old woman had paid the price for a girl who knew her letters.

That money hadn't come easy. The grain was scraped from their own mouths. The cash was the pension the higher-ups had paid out when Scabby's father died.

When she got home and found she'd been cheated, the old woman took to her bed in a fury. Stingy her whole life, and stung this badly. You can imagine the life Qi Qian'er led after that.

No matter how hard she worked, how dutiful she was, it was endure and endure. Only after more than ten years, when the old woman finally died, did she feel she could breathe, and sleep soundly in the dead of night.

And even then she'd forgotten how. Her heart wouldn't settle, and she'd break one long night into eight short sleeps. To the day she died she never knew what a good night's rest was like.

It ached to remember. But for the child she longed for, her own flesh and blood, she was willing to come back and go through it all again.

Of course, she wasn't afraid now. Now she could read and count. Give her an abacus and she'd get through ten ledgers in a day.

For half a lifetime on Quanhou Street no one had troubled her. Her standing and seniority counted for something, and Scabby had left her a fair bit of land to see out her old age.

Back then the lower officials couldn't afford to live in Yanjing, so they settled their households, old and young, in new Qingfeng city. By the time Quanhou Village had come to be called Quanhou Street, the neighbors all around were minor official families. It was from then that she started to learn a thing or two about the world.

In her later years she went out into society, and the women she mixed with were all the wives and mistresses of official families. By then she knew how to carry herself, had picked up this trick and that, had the seasoning of a woman who'd run a household. But still, unable to let it rest, she went and found herself a teacher and read a great many books. And what good did it do?

You grow older and older, and by the time you understand everything, it's just about time to die.

When she heard the girl could read, the old woman's mind stirred. She tottered over and looked Qi Qian'er up and down. She had a sharp old eye, and however she looked, she couldn't take Qi Qian'er for a child of a scholarly house. The girl looked more like the daughter of some ordinary hard-up family. So she asked again, in earnest: "You say this little one can read?"

Qi Qian'er kept her head down and said nothing.

Madam Wang gave a start. Her heart lurched, though nothing showed on her face, and she nodded firmly: "She can indeed! Not a lot, mind, but enough to make out a plain storybook. Now, Old Mistress..." Afraid the old woman would dig into it, she changed the subject and said, low: "I'll not hide it from you. Look how these last few years of upheaval have gone. Think about it, Old Mistress. Girls this grown and still alive today, how many are left, would you say?"

At that the old woman suddenly thought of the hamlet behind her, one lot of women after another remarrying with children in tow, households patched together the second time round. It was true, now she thought of it, she hadn't seen a near-grown girl in a good while.

What with disaster from heaven and man both, famine and dead bodies everywhere, when an ordinary family took to the road, the first they gave up was always the girls.

Not that there were none at all. Thin girls like this, there were a few. But ones who could read and count, no, there really weren't.

The old woman reckoned to herself: things were settling down now, and a grown girl was sure to be worth a good deal soon. When her sons and grandsons came back, there'd have to be someone to warm a kang, wouldn't there? But who to give her to? This girl... mm, best give her to Scabby.

Poor Scabby of hers. His uncles and cousins each had at least a couple left to their households, each with someone at their side.

Only this boy, father, mother, brothers all dead, was left with a cold stove and no home to speak of.

At that the old woman looked up, put on an even more finicky, scornful air, and sniffed at Madam Wang: "So what if she can read? You can't eat it or drink it."

Madam Wang was no fool. Half a lifetime spent dealing with tenant wives and estate stewards. Hearing the old woman run the girl down like that, her heart settled.

She smiled and said: "Well, if that's how you see it, then never mind... Ah! It's only that my old home is so far, two or three thousand li, and I'm afraid the child won't hold out on the road. I can't bear to part with her either. Never mind, never mind! Married off so far away, from now on, if trouble comes to her husband's house, her own family couldn't lend a hand anyway..."

As she spoke she pulled Qi Qian'er back the way they'd come, and Qi Qian'er let herself be dragged.

They'd gone only a few steps when the old woman called out loudly behind them: "Ai! Ai! Hold on a moment... this girl of yours, what'll you take for her, in the end?"

Madam Wang stopped and turned, held out her palm, and said, brazen as you like: "Old Mistress, this girl of mine, I'll want a hundred jin of fine grain and twenty strings of cash. She can read, mind, she knows her letters."

---

In the wounded-soldiers' camp, Doctor Cheng was rushing about with his two medicine-boys, so busy he could have used his feet for hands, when Meng Wanquan, the one short an arm, came running up outside the tent.

Meng Wanquan trotted in, looked around the room till he found Doctor Cheng, came over, and, not caring whether the man was busy, took hold of him and hauled him off.

Doctor Cheng, put out, shook his arm free after a few steps and scolded: "You scamp, why aren't you out there minding those precious goats with the old woman? What are you dragging me off for? Go on, go on! Don't let someone else make off with the old lady, or see how you'll answer to Captain Chen."

Meng Wanquan's coarse face split into a thoroughly sleazy grin. He heh-hehed a few times and said: "Just so you know, Doctor, the old lady's bought Dasheng a wife, and she wants you out there to draw up the papers!"

At that Doctor Cheng's face changed on the spot. He wrenched free and barked: "The old woman doesn't know any better. Are you a fool too? Only yesterday the higher-ups gave clear orders: for now, no official or officer may buy or sell people. Pulling a stunt like this at a time like this, isn't that ruining Captain Chen's whole future?"

Meng Wanquan choked, and with his one arm slapped himself across the mouth: "My mistake, my mistake! Listen to me, it's not buying a person! I know well enough there's no buying people just now. Doctor Cheng, the old lady's taking a betrothed wife for Captain Chen. She wants you out to stand witness and write the marriage papers, that's all."

Doctor Cheng, half believing it: "Truly?"

Meng Wanquan nodded and nodded: "Truly! Truly! I'd never lie to you. They've settled the price over there, oh, the betrothal gift, I mean. Come along quick, and bring the stiff hemp-paper and the ink-box, we'll need them in a bit."

Doctor Cheng let himself be pulled along, asking as he went: "How much did the old woman put up for the bride?"

Meng Wanquan answered: "Fifty jin of coarse grain and ten strings of cash."

Doctor Cheng was astonished: "How much?!"

These days, what was the ration for even the badly wounded in the camp? A few taels of coarse grain a man to keep him alive. Fifty jin of coarse grain? That was the price you could walk into Qingfeng and trade for five quick, decent-looking kitchen-women.

The old woman never came home empty-handed. She'd pick up two lumps of dog dung and store them away. And she could bring herself to pay a price like that?

"That's the figure! Ten strings of cash! Fifty jin of coarse grain."

"She's not been cheated, has she?"

"No! How could she be, that old woman's canny as a monkey. The girl, well, they say she can read."

Now Doctor Cheng understood. That made sense of it.

In the whole camp, close to a thousand souls all told, plus the four or five hundred dependents who followed it, there were maybe two or three who could read and write, and all of them men.

Learning the girl was literate, Doctor Cheng went oddly solemn. As he walked he said, sure of it: "If, if she really can read and write, the old woman's got herself a fine bargain."

Meng Wanquan thought so too, and said enviously: "Isn't that the truth!"

In a time of disaster and chaos, people were no different from livestock, sometimes worth less.

To buy a single ox you still needed a broker, a brokerage, the yamen, three rounds of paperwork. But buying and selling people now was cash in one hand, person in the other, and done.

Oh, and silver and copper were no good now. It all came down to grain. Whoever had grain in hand was a first-rate household, a first-rate somebody.

And the old woman had grain.

The two of them walked out to the big willow beyond the camp, where the dependents, come at the news, now stood three deep.

Doctor Cheng was a hasty sort, with no great cunning to him. When he got there, Madam Wang called over Huo Yunrui, Qi Qian'er's legitimate elder brother, to talk with him.

Huo Yunrui was a young master who'd properly passed the child examinations and seen something of the world in Yanjing. In the old days he'd never have thought much of a man like Doctor Cheng. For all that everyone called him "Doctor," an army healer who tended the wounded was, by the old reckoning, a mere artisan, and a medical artisan ranked low.

Now, for fifty jin of food, he had no choice but to put on a smile, bend his back, and make conversation with the man.

Getting the respect he wanted, Doctor Cheng gladly agreed, played matchmaker, and wrote out the marriage contract in duplicate. He watched the three parties press their handprints to it, and it was done.

Madam Wang was a sharp one. She sent Huo Yunrui to the wheelbarrow to fetch a fine ink-stick sealed in waxed paper, to thank Doctor Cheng for his matchmaking.

At this Doctor Cheng warmed to the family even more, and even the thin-haired little girl looked pleasing to him.

Thin hair was no matter. With this old woman she'd never go hungry, and a few days' feeding would set her right.

Once it was all settled, he said kindly to the Chen family's old woman, Old Madam Chen née Wu: "Old Mistress, you've got yourself a fine granddaughter-in-law here."

One wish off her mind, Old Madam Chen looked at the dependents standing three deep, her face the very picture of pride and smugness. Yet her mouth never let up, and she said, all disdain: "Ai, what a scrap of a girl she is, a rack of ribs without two taels of meat to scrape off. Look at her, can't carry a load or lift a hand! I'll have to spend good grain fattening her up. Hah, it's only a family like ours. Go and ask around, Doctor Cheng, it's just that my heart's too soft to leave her be."

She pointed at Qi Qian'er, then at her family: "Their old home's three thousand li off. If I didn't buy this girl, she'd starve to death halfway there for sure."

That set Doctor Cheng openly curling his lip.

The new nobles now were thick as ox-hairs, and for their sons' and grandsons' sake there were plenty of newly capped officials with heavy money to spend, all wanting to wed a literate girl from a great house to prop up their standing.

Never mind that even in peacetime such a girl was hard to find. With the market as it was now, the old woman had plain got a bargain and was crowing about it too.

Doctor Cheng had taken a liking to the Huo family, and now, seeing the thin girl fall into the hands of an old woman like this, he pinched the ink-stick in his hand again. It was a piece from the Hanqing workshop, handed down for centuries, worth thirty strings of cash in the old days, a thing a physician at a little apothecary would never have dreamed of owning.

The gift weighed in his hand. He couldn't take it for nothing, could he? So Doctor Cheng stroked his straggly beard and spun a line: "Old mother, take in a good bride and three generations prosper. Think about it, your house is on the rise now, and from here on you'll carry official rank. In all your dealings, at home and out in the world, if you want to keep face you'll need someone who can read and write. Isn't that so?"

And that was exactly how Old Madam Chen saw it. These last few years the family had lost so many, and just when there were posts to rise into, they'd taken a beating for it. Her whole brood of boys had swallowed their losses in silence, military orders and commands they understood none of, and what the higher-ups meant they could never work out. Truly a litter of piglets straight out of the pen, walking the world in human skin, every one of them a fool beyond all bounds.

From now on things would be different for the family. At least there'd be someone who could read. The old woman glowed inside, and looking again at Qi Qian'er's little narrow eyes and thin wisps of hair, found her a hundred, a thousand times more pleasing.

Pursing her lips, tickled pink, she said to Doctor Cheng: "May your good words come true, Doctor. From tomorrow I'll have this granddaughter-in-law of mine read me the whole almanac, every single day."

That said, the old woman even waggled her neck and, smug as could be, called over to the dependents on the other side: "Anytime you've something on at home, come to my house to ask the almanac. Ah, don't you go standing on ceremony with us!"

The women all said yes to that and burst out laughing again.

Madam Wang, seeing her son tying up the grain sacks over there, and with something guilty on her mind, glanced around and pulled Qi Qian'er off to a quiet spot.

Once it was safe, she took a pair of silver ear-studs from her sleeve and pressed them into Qi Qian'er's hand, then folded the marriage contract neatly and gave her that too.

Qi Qian'er held the contract and didn't move, and Madam Wang's eyes reddened again. For once she stroked Qi Qian'er's head and said softly: "Good girl. Do you remember the name your brother gave you?"

Qi Qian'er nodded. She'd had the same treatment in her last life. Her elder brother, to lend the look of a scholarly house, had written her a surname onto the marriage contract.

Huo Qiqian.

"Good, so long as you remember!" Madam Wang pursed her lips, still uneasy, and gripped Qi Qian'er's hand: "Seventh girl, you're blessed! Far luckier than I ever was! Look at this family, you can see they're different. Look at how that old woman's got herself up, new nobility! From now on, just serve her well and good days will be yours. Have you got that?"

Qi Qian'er nodded again, wooden as ever.

Madam Wang pressed her lips, and had to coax her with a smile besides. She pointed at the contract: "You keep this safe, now. This is a proper, above-board document. If one day they don't want you, with this paper you'll be in the right wherever you go."

And that was just how it was. Even though that blockhead thought it didn't matter, the old woman had meant to fob her off as a bondmaid, and if Doctor Cheng hadn't stepped in and laid down the law, there was no telling where she'd have ended up.

Qi Qian'er, without a word, tucked the contract into her sleeve.

Seeing her do it, Madam Wang let out a breath and said with a smile: "Ai! That's the way. These next few days, put on a bit of an illness. Say you're missing us, that you can't bear to leave us. Be sharp about it, understand? If you give the game away, I won't let you off, understand?"

A stab of pain shot up her arm, and it riled Qi Qian'er, who'd meant to hold her tongue. Still trying to trick her, even now?

Long past patience with being pushed around, Qi Qian'er crooked her arm, lifted her yellow-thatched head, and stared at Madam Wang with glittering eyes: "Madam? At a time like this, who is it you still think you're fooling?"

Madam Wang gave a start and stood there dumbstruck.

Qi Qian'er sneered: "Take a look at who that old woman is. Look where we are. The gentlemen standing over there carry blades! And the blade at his waist has drunk its fill of human blood!"