Chapter 555 — Everything on the Bill

CHAPTER 555

Everything on the Bill

“Sesame cake, two coppers,” Ling Qingzhu said. “Paid by husband.”

“Paid,” Shi Feng said, and put two coppers on the counter.

“Fried river shrimp, one paper cone, nine coppers. Paid by husband,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“Paid,” Shi Feng said.

“Sweet osmanthus rice cake, four. Husband,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“Nine plus two plus four,” Shi Feng said, counting out the coins. “Fifteen. That's the third stall.”

“Don't help me,” Ling Qingzhu said. “It's my bill.”

“It's my money,” Shi Feng said.

“It's your bill with my commentary,” Ling Qingzhu said.

She took the rice cake from the stallkeeper's hand with her veil lifted a thumb's width, bit into it, and closed her eyes. The stallkeeper, a young man with flour on his sleeves, looked at Shi Feng with open sympathy. He glanced at the coins, then at Ling Qingzhu's next choice. Shi Feng paid without the complaints he usually heard from husbands.

They moved on. Ling Qingzhu took back the rabbit lamp and carried it in her left hand. She ate with her right. She said the price of everything aloud, in a clear voice, to the whole street.

“Pickled plums, three. Steamed bun with pork, five. Hot ginger tea, two, because the husband is cold and won't say so. Paid,” Ling Qingzhu called to the whole street.

“I'm not cold,” Shi Feng said.

“Your nose is red,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“It's winter,” Shi Feng said.

“Husband's nose, no charge,” Ling Qingzhu said. “Paid by the weather.”

Shi Feng drank the ginger tea. It was hot and too sweet, and it warmed him from the throat down. He hadn't realised he was cold.

The stout chestnut seller at the next stall had been listening. “Good girl. Make him pay for all of it. Envy the mandarin ducks, not the immortals, I always say,” the chestnut seller said approvingly, leaning over her pan.

“That's the plan,” Ling Qingzhu said.

Shi Feng thought, I'm being discussed again. Today he found he could bear it.

At the bridge steps, a flat covered boat was tied up beneath a row of lanterns. A boatman in a straw coat stood at the stern with a long pole and an expression of deep contentment.

“Canal run, six coppers,” the boatman said. “One end to the other. Song, three extra.”

“Boat, six,” Ling Qingzhu said. “Song, three. Husband.”

“Paid,” Shi Feng said.

They sat on a low bench under the arched mat roof. The boat slid out into the canal. Lantern light lay on the black water in long red and gold stripes, and every time the pole dipped, the stripes broke and gathered again. On both banks, the shops were closing their shutters and lighting their last lamps. Noise from the streets became softer and farther away.

Ling Qingzhu lifted her veil entirely, folded it twice, and set it on her knee.

Without it, she looked younger than he had ever seen her. The fatigue he remembered from the Valley was gone. Her cheeks were pink from the cold and the sweet things, and she was watching the water.

“In the capital,” Ling Qingzhu said, “when Wanning dragged us out, you paid every bill.”

“I remember,” Shi Feng said.

“I didn't offer a single coin. I called it part of the agreement,” Ling Qingzhu said without looking at him. “I've thought about that more than I like.”

Shi Feng waited.

“So I'm saying thank you,” Ling Qingzhu said. “Out loud, with prices. I'm told that's how you speak.”

“Who told you?” Shi Feng asked.

“Everyone who has ever received an invoice from you,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“They didn't say thank you,” Shi Feng said.

“Then they were rude,” Ling Qingzhu said. “Husband.”

He looked at the lamp rocking on the boat's prow. The flame inside the paper rabbit was steady. Nobody had ever thanked him with an itemised list before. Shi Feng was touched. She remembered the things he'd paid for when neither of them had much money.

“Paid,” Shi Feng said, after a moment.

“Paid what?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

“All of it. The ginger tea too,” Shi Feng said.

“The ginger tea wasn't a thank-you,” Ling Qingzhu said. “It was a diagnosis.”

The boatman began his song. It had a slow, wandering tune about a girl who waited at the dock for a boat that always came late. Ling Qingzhu listened to every verse. At the line where the girl said she would forgive the boat for being late if it came with a lantern, her thumb stopped pressing against her sleeve. Shi Feng noticed it stop.

When the song ended, the boatman bowed to the roof of his own boat.

“Nice rabbit,” the boatman said. “Riddle stall? The old scholar's been crying into his tea all evening.”

“It was a prize,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“Course it was,” the boatman said, setting his pole against the canal bottom. “If you're walking back to the landing, take the old tanners' alley. It's shorter, and old Bian sets up there until the third bell. Best candied hawthorn on the river. Nobody tells the tourists.”

“Nobody tells the tourists,” Shi Feng said.

“Because then there'd be a queue,” the boatman said, “and Bian is an old man.”

Ling Qingzhu turned to look at Shi Feng. Her eyes were very bright.

“Item twelve,” Ling Qingzhu said. “Candied hawthorn. It's been on my list since the capital. Now it has an address.”

“It's not on the paper,” Shi Feng said.

“It is now,” Ling Qingzhu said.

She plucked the paper from his sleeve, took a pocket brush from her own, turned the sheet over and wrote it in.