Chapter 128 — Ten Thousand Spirit Stones

CHAPTER 128

Ten Thousand Spirit Stones

“Did you hand over the ten thousand spirit stones from your cedar trunk yet?” Ling Zhen asked.

Ling Qingzhu looked up from the untouched cup on the table.

Her white veil was in place for her uncle’s visit. The silk hid her mouth, but not the sleeplessness in her eyes. Her uncle stood beneath the pear tree carrying the clan's departure ledger. He was at late Foundation Establishment, with a square jaw and the brisk manner of someone who disliked unfinished accounts.

“What do you mean?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

Ling Zhen looked around the small courtyard before answering. The table stood beneath the pear tree, and the kitchen door stood half-open onto an unlit stove.

“Still living here?” Ling Zhen asked. “Your standing is secure now. There's room at the residence until the carriages depart.”

“I don't need another room,” Ling Qingzhu replied.

Ling Zhen heard the sharpness and waved the suggestion aside. “I didn't come to drag you home. I'm closing the quarter's accounts before the Qingyun road. When you registered the marriage in the autumn, you refused the clan's contribution, had the vault steward release ten thousand of your own stones, and counted them into one of my pale bags yourself. Since Young Master Shi is travelling to Qingyun City separately, I came to ask whether you'd already handed it over.”

Ling Zhen glanced toward the quiet kitchen. “Where is he?”

“Out,” Ling Qingzhu said too quickly. “And I paid him the morning after we moved here. There's nothing left to settle.”

Ling Zhen frowned slightly, sitting down opposite her. “The morning after you moved? I remember the porter carrying your locked cedar trunk into the bedroom last. Which pale bag did you give him?”

She pointed to the bag Shi Feng left on the table. Its fine white stitching was familiar, and one end of the drawstring had a little extra knot.

“That one,” Ling Qingzhu said. “The spare you gave me. I had two alike.”

Ling Zhen picked it up and laughed.

“That bag was empty!” Ling Zhen said. “You asked for a spare to carry your little travel things. Don't tell me you paid your husband with air!”

His laughter stopped.

The blood drained from Ling Qingzhu’s face behind her veil. Her fingers went cold. She stared at the bag as if she no longer understood what it was.

“Qingzhu?” Ling Zhen asked.

She didn't answer. The extra knot. The matching mouths. Her own counted stones, packed away while she chose which clothes to bring.

She stood so suddenly that the chair scraped the tiles.

“Wait here,” Ling Qingzhu said.

She went into the room and opened her chest. Her hands moved too quickly, pushing cloth aside, then catching on the edge of a folded robe.

Beneath it lay the other pale bag.

She opened it.

The spirit stones were inside.

She reached in and pulled out one wrapped bundle. The cord was tied the way she always tied it, with the shorter end tucked beneath the knot. She remembered counting it herself and being pleased that she could settle the arrangement without waiting for the clan.

She never gave that bundle to him.

Her fingers loosened. Several stones rolled across the bed before she caught them. The small sound made her flinch, and she stared at the stones resting against her quilt.

She'd been so certain. Certain enough to be angry when he asked. Certain enough to call his careful account another attempt to take advantage of her.

Not a few forgotten stones. The sum she counted for the arrangement, still separated from her everyday purse. She didn't need to count them again to recognize the wrapping around the bundles.

Her knees weakened. She sat on the edge of the bed, holding the full bag in both hands.

Ten thousand spirit stones. All here.

The courtyard seemed very far away.

Ling Zhen stopped at the room's doorway. He saw the second bag and immediately understood enough to stop asking foolish questions.

“You mixed them up,” Ling Zhen said quietly.

Ling Qingzhu looked at him. The veil stirred with her breath, but no answer came.

He didn't tell her what Shi Feng bought or how the household lived. He didn't know. He could only look at the two bags and the stunned eyes above his niece’s veil.

“It wasn't deliberate,” Ling Zhen said. “Give him the payment and explain.”

The simple advice struck her harder than his laughter.

Explain. Shi Feng already explained.

There wasn't one spirit stone in this.

His voice returned with terrible clarity. He sat across from her over breakfast, holding the very bag now dangling from her uncle's fingers.

She opened it then. She saw it was empty. She decided he spent the money and wanted another payment.

He told her the truth, and she called him greedy. Ling Qingzhu bent forward, unable to draw a steady breath. Her uncle moved toward her, but she raised a hand before he reached the bed.

“He told me,” Ling Qingzhu said.

Ling Zhen stopped.

“I didn't believe him,” Ling Qingzhu said.

She wasn't defending herself or asking her uncle to explain the mistake away. She heard what she was admitting, and there was nothing he could say that would make it smaller.

He put the empty bag on the table beside the full one. Two pieces of pale cloth. Months of certainty between them.

“Where is he?” Ling Zhen asked.

“He moved out yesterday,” Ling Qingzhu replied.

Her uncle's expression changed. He finally looked at the empty corner across from the bed, then at the single pair of slippers near the screen.

“Because of this?” Ling Zhen asked.

“No,” Ling Qingzhu said, and the answer frightened her. “Not only this.”

“I didn't choose him only because the court—” Ling Qingzhu began.

She stopped. Explaining the choice to her uncle wouldn't explain how she had treated Shi Feng afterward. Whatever private feeling she'd kept safe, she had still refused to believe him about an empty bag.

She remembered offering more money. She remembered his face when she said it, and how certain she was that fairness could settle what troubled him.

She didn't even pay the first sum.

Ling Zhen remained silent. His earlier laughter felt cruel now, although he never meant it that way.

He closed his ledger quietly and said he'd wait at the residence until she was ready to speak. Ling Qingzhu barely heard him. She sat beside the two pale bags—one empty, one holding the ten thousand stones she had sworn he stole—until the gate closed.

Then she went to the kitchen.

The shelf was tidy. Her medicines stayed where Shi Feng left them. The rice jar stood beside the clean bowls. There was no forgotten note explaining everything, because he never expected her to need one.

She touched the lid of the jar and remembered the first expensive meal he prepared here.

She praised it. He looked pleased.

For months, she believed she knew what bought that expression. Ling Qingzhu covered her mouth. The first sob escaped before she could stop it.

He told her. She heard him. She looked at the evidence with her own eyes.

And she still chose not to believe him.