Chapter 78 — One More Month

CHAPTER 78

One More Month

“Seven bundles of charcoal, not nine,” Shi Feng muttered, and struck out Gao Yuan’s figure with his brush.

He fixed two more quantities, checked the total against the chit, and pulled the household account book toward him. The marriage agreement lay underneath in its narrow folder. At the top, in handwriting that now felt like it belonged to another life, it said: six months.

Under it were the house rules. She takes the bed, he takes the floor, no intimacy owed, no touching each other’s belongings.

He looked at the almanac on the wall and his brush stopped.

Today was the last day.

Shi Feng set the accounts aside. The registered marriage was still valid, because the registry didn’t care about private terms. But the private term was over. The ten thousand stones also stayed unpaid in his notation. He didn’t rub it out to make the months more comfortable. He just stopped arguing with a woman who kept acting as if that matter was closed long ago.

Ling Qingzhu stopped at the courtyard threshold. She saw the folder, the brush and the chit under his hand, and for a moment the little house seemed to hold nothing but things that could be packed. His floor bedding was already rolled up in the corner of the room. She noticed it for the first time in days.

“You can leave now,” Ling Qingzhu said.

Shi Feng looked up.

That came out way too sharp! She meant to honour the agreement with dignity, and instead she sounded sharp and rude, a woman throwing out a guest.

“I know,” Shi Feng said.

Ling Qingzhu rested one hand on the back of an empty chair. Her heart was pounding, and she hated it.

The consort's household still sent gifts to her elders. Court clerks still delayed answers, and certain relatives still called the royal match sensible. The ancestor's rule barred taking a married woman; it hadn't taught her family to stop bargaining.

The marriage was still useful. She could say all of that, and it was reasonable and clear. It was also the same excuse she’d been giving herself for six months.

“Would one more month kill you?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

Shi Feng looked at her calmly. A corner of the paper lifted in the morning breeze, and he set the empty inkstone on it before he answered.

“Either of us can end it,” Shi Feng said. “No duty to stay.”

Ling Qingzhu nodded much too quickly, and her ears turned pink. Then she straightened and her expression turned stern, annoyed at her own haste.

“Of course,” Ling Qingzhu said. “We’re only keeping what’s convenient. Don’t read anything into it.”

He drew out a clean sheet, and they wrote the extension in plain words. Staying was voluntary. Either side could end it with no second locked period. The bed and the floor stayed exactly as they were. The old unpaid claim stayed on record, and no new paper would quietly cancel it.

Ling Qingzhu read that last line and pursed her lips.

Typical, she thought, annoyed. This man haggled over herbs and beamed at every customer who paid on time. He wanted every spirit stone to answer to its name. She let the line stand, because she didn’t want to spoil the morning arguing about something she thought was settled.

She signed. Shi Feng watched her brush move.

There were practical reasons to stay, he told himself. The furnace yards were close. The courtyard suited his work. Moving in the middle of a run of orders meant lost days and deposits he could spend on ingredients. Every reason was true! The cold floor was not one of them, and Shi Feng’s expression stayed flat all the same.

None of them explained why he felt so relieved when she pulled out the chair and sat.

“So. What do you want for supper?” Ling Qingzhu asked. “Don’t say vegetables.”

He thought about this question harder than he’d thought about the extension.

“Something you didn’t burn,” Shi Feng said.

Her hand came down on the folded paper. “Keep talking and I’ll change my mind about the whole month,” Ling Qingzhu said.

He laughed.

The sound startled them both. Ling Qingzhu stood very still for a moment, and then she walked out of the gate toward the market without another word. In her heart she kept repeating one thought: he laughs so rarely. She wanted to hear it again.

“A fish like this only comes once in a hundred years, Fairy Ling!” Hu Da cried, waving a carp above his tub. “You’ve got a master’s eye!”

She was pleased, and she didn’t ask herself why.

“How much?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

“Three spirit stones,” Hu Da said.

“Three stones for one fish!” someone gasped.

“Fairy Ling never haggles…”

“…”

Ling Qingzhu paid at once and carried the carp home in a covered basket, very proud. Shi Feng took one look inside and asked the price. She told him.

He closed his eyes.

“The seller said it was fresh,” Ling Qingzhu said, lifting her chin. “It looked at me. Very alive.”

“At that price, it should jump into the pan by itself,” Shi Feng said.

She reached for the basket. He moved it out of her reach and started scaling the fish.

“Well, it’s bought,” Shi Feng said. “We might as well eat it before the price goes up again.”

Ling Qingzhu stood beside him, insulted for half a breath and amused for the rest. When he handed her the vegetables, she took the knife with great confidence. Her slices came out thick, thin, and wedge-shaped.

“Those aren’t slices,” Shi Feng said. “They’re a rumour of slices.”

“…How dare you!” Ling Qingzhu said, her face flushing. “Fine. Show me how, Master Chef.”

He turned her thickest piece on its side and curled his fingers over hers on the handle. She watched the angle of his knuckles and copied it exactly on the next one.

Shi Feng was a little astonished at how fast she learned. Worse, he noticed how easily he could picture this again tomorrow.

Not for visitors. Not to give the registered names a convincing home. Just her hair loosely pinned after the market, her sleeves tied back, and some small question carried across the room. A whole life of ordinary mornings was starting to look like something he wanted.

His chest tightened slightly. For months he had treated the courtyard as a rented shelter with clear boundaries and an end date written in ink. Now the end date had arrived, and the thought of packing his rolled bedding and walking out of this kitchen felt colder than the stone floor ever had.

He didn’t name the feeling over a board of crooked vegetables. He only knew he wanted tomorrow morning to look just like this one.

Ling Qingzhu reached for the salt jar. He caught her wrist before she added enough to preserve the fish for ten years.

“You’ve interfered at every step!” Ling Qingzhu said. “It’s my fish!”

“I’d like to survive supper,” Shi Feng said.

She laughed and let him take the jar.

They ate under the courtyard lamp. The fish was excellent, though Shi Feng refused to say so. Ling Qingzhu insisted that his complaints hid gratitude, and for once he let her keep the victory without a sharper answer.

Later she sat on the edge of the bed, took the extension out of its folder and looked at the two names.

He’d agreed quickly. Maybe the house was useful for his trade. Maybe the marriage gave him a little dignity and shelter. Maybe a man who counted stones so carefully just hated moving. Maybe he even liked the floor.

She asked him to stay, and he stayed. That was the simplest explanation, and the one she most wanted to avoid.

Ling Qingzhu put the paper away and told herself that a comfortable arrangement didn’t need examining.

Outside, Shi Feng washed the last bowl and set it down beside hers.