Chapter 44 — Husband at the Gate

CHAPTER 44

Husband at the Gate

“A married couple uses way more water!” Jiang Meilan shouted from the gate. “Two people, two buckets, two times the trouble!”

The landlady had come to inspect the new tenant before the new tenant had even unpacked. Ling Qingzhu stood under the pear tree with a small travel chest at her feet. Outside the gate, Bao Shun hovered around, and it was obvious he regretted renting out this courtyard so cheaply.

Jiang Meilan looked at the chest, then at Shi Feng, then at the well.

“What, you’re charging us by the bucket now?” Shi Feng asked.

“Every bucket wears out the well rope!” Jiang Meilan yelled, folding her arms. “Who’s going to pay for a new rope? Me?”

So she was even going to charge them for the rope wearing out.

“Fine. I’ll buy you a new rope,” Shi Feng said.

Her eyes moved to the kitchen chimney next. Apparently, being married also made way too much smoke.

Before she could get started on that, Bao Shun stuck his head through the gate. “And there are two people living here now, Auntie Jiang! That changes the price. The agreement was for one single man, it’s only fair.”

Ling Qingzhu’s fingers tightened on the handle of her chest. Royal invitations had never annoyed her this much. This broker’s oily smile made her want to draw her sword. How shameless, she thought.

Shi Feng’s expression didn’t change at all as he looked at Bao Shun.

“So you want extra because we’re married, and extra because there are two of us?” Shi Feng asked. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

Bao Shun suddenly found the gatepost very interesting. Jiang Meilan pulled out the rental agreement. Shi Feng already had his copy open, with his finger on the line that said the whole courtyard was his to use.

The landlady looked at his finger, then at Ling Qingzhu’s cold eyes above her veil. If she lost a quarrel in front of the number one fairy of Great Liang, half the lane would come running to watch. The extra rent wasn’t worth that much embarrassment.

“Just make sure it’s a good rope,” Jiang Meilan said, and stalked out, looking like she’d done them a huge favour.

“Auntie, my handling fee!” Bao Shun began.

“Handle yourself home!” Jiang Meilan snapped over her shoulder, and he followed her with nothing at all.

Ling Qingzhu waited until their footsteps faded and set down her chest.

“You enjoyed that,” Ling Qingzhu said. “Don’t deny it. You almost smiled.”

“He started enjoying it first,” Shi Feng said. “I felt obliged to join.”

She waited until he shut the gate. Then she untied her veil.

Shi Feng stopped looking at the latch.

Jade-white cheeks, a delicate nose, soft red lips. Her face was even more beautiful than he imagined. The veil had hidden far too much. No wonder the kingdom could find nobody to rank above her!

“What?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

“I was checking whether the register exaggerated,” Shi Feng replied.

“And?” Ling Qingzhu asked, lifting her chin.

“It ran out of ranks,” Shi Feng said.

Her cheeks warmed. She folded the veil instead of answering.

“I wear it around everyone else,” Ling Qingzhu said. “At home, with only you here, I don’t need it.”

Shi Feng felt unexpectedly pleased. That wasn’t written in their agreement.

He showed her their only room. Her bed stood beneath the courtyard window, with space for her chest at its foot. A new folding screen stood beside it. His straw mat and rolled blanket lay against the opposite wall.

Ling Qingzhu looked at the bed, the screen, the mat, and the four steps between them. She said nothing.

The room was smaller than her dressing chamber, but clean and ready for her. Her heart eased a little.

“The bed’s yours,” Shi Feng said. “The screen is for changing. I’ll sleep on the mat, facing the wall.”

“Four steps,” Ling Qingzhu said. “That’s all between us? A border crossing?”

“I measured,” Shi Feng said. “The agreement doesn’t say how far.”

She turned away and became very interested in the table.

“You can move the table,” Shi Feng said. “The leg nearest the bed is short. Put the wedge back afterwards.”

She looked down and found the little wooden wedge exactly where he’d said.

“I could buy you a better table, you know,” Ling Qingzhu said. “It’s no trouble.”

“This one holds things,” Shi Feng said.

She couldn’t tell whether that was thrift or an insult to the whole furniture trade. Shi Feng would cultivate after she slept, or in the kitchen. She must never see it.

When she opened the chest at the foot of the bed, two pale storage bags lay among the wrapped clothes. She pushed them aside to reach a silver clasp, then frowned, because one drawstring was caught under the other. They were the same make, with fine white stitching across each mouth.

Shi Feng turned to face the wall and went out to heat water. He’d promised her privacy, he thought, and curiosity didn’t cancel a promise.

When he came back with the kettle, the bags were out of sight and her few things were laid out behind the screen. A sword lay within reach of the pillow. His own sword hung on a nail by the mat. He noted where hers was and asked nothing.

At dusk the public show began again.

At Granny Qin’s knock, Ling Qingzhu tied her veil before Shi Feng opened the gate. Granny Qin brought sesame cakes and her staring nephew.

“Aiyo, such a beautiful bride!” Granny Qin shouted. “Eat! Still hot! And if this courtyard’s too small, my nephew Qin Bao has a spare room. Very airy, east-facing, canal view…”

“Thanks, Granny,” Shi Feng said, taking the dish. “The cakes are very welcome.”

He shut the gate on the nephew. Ling Qingzhu removed her veil again. Ling Qingzhu stood by the kitchen door, her expression astonished.

“You could’ve let her finish,” Ling Qingzhu said, fighting a laugh. “She was just getting to the canal view.”

“She finished when she started describing a spare room in her nephew’s house,” Shi Feng said.

They split the cakes. He took the broken ones, and she noticed.

Before supper they had to decide what to call each other in public. She turned down every sweet nickname at once. He agreed so fast that her brows drew together.

“Just say ‘wife.’ That’s enough,” Ling Qingzhu said. “No honeyed names. I’ll laugh. Then we’re ruined.”

“That’s what the certificate calls you,” Shi Feng said.

“You don’t have to say it like it’s a cart registration!” Ling Qingzhu said.

He looked up from the kettle and actually thought about the complaint. Then he set her cup down beside her hand, instead of reaching across her.

“Then tell me when I do it,” Shi Feng said.

The straight answer took some of the edge off her face.

A royal messenger arrived before they ate.

He came in a lacquered sedan carried by four bearers, and every doorway in the lane emptied to watch.

“The eastern residence!”

“For the cripple’s courtyard?”

“For the bride, you fool! Nobody sends a sedan to a cripple!”

“That courtyard has one room. Where’s the husband going to sleep?”

“Granny Qin, your cakes are burning again!”

“Aiyo, my cakes!”

“…”

The invitation had an embossed border and a seal that made Bao Shun’s surcharges look cheap. Shi Feng took it at the gate. The messenger looked past his shoulder, failed to catch a glimpse of the bride, and left in an unseemly hurry.

Ling Qingzhu read it by the kitchen door.

“A celebration at the eastern residence,” Ling Qingzhu said slowly. “His Highness wants to congratulate me. How thoughtful of him.”

Shi Feng looked at the single name written on it.

“He forgot someone,” Shi Feng said.

The paper talked about flowers, music, and a small gathering of close friends. It said nothing about a husband. That was no accident, and Shi Feng sneered in his heart.

“You don’t have to go,” Ling Qingzhu said. “He only invited me. I can say you’re busy.”

She meant to give him a choice. To his ears it sounded like being shut out of a danger he’d accepted when he signed. He took the invitation and laid it beside the stove, safely away from the flame.

“You hired a husband,” Shi Feng said. “Let His Highness remember he invited a married woman.”

Ling Qingzhu looked at him in the firelight. His robe was plain, his blade undecorated, and every gossip in the capital claimed to understand his ruined cultivation. Yet even a crown prince’s rank didn’t change the shape of an insult to him.

For the first time since the tea house, she wondered whether she’d misjudged how difficult her harmless husband could become.