Chapter 85 — Not Hired Work

CHAPTER 85

Not Hired Work

“You noticed that?” Ling Qingzhu asked, stopping beneath the eaves with her sleeves still dusty from the road.

Shi Feng stood on a stool beside the room’s only window, tying the loose cord of its screen. It had knocked against the frame all through the previous night.

“It kept making the same noise,” Shi Feng said.

“I thought you’d slept through it,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“Did you?” Shi Feng asked.

She shook her head. He pulled the knot tight, tested the screen, and climbed down. Ling Qingzhu leaned past him to push the frame herself, and a loose strand of black hair brushed his wrist. The screen held.

She looked pleased in the simple way he liked best. There was no polite smile for guests and no distant look for men hoping to win her favour. She was just glad that something bothering her was fixed.

She swept the loose hair behind her ear. Shi Feng kept his hand on the chair and forgot to move it.

“Must I pay you to stop staring too?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

“You couldn’t afford it,” Shi Feng replied.

She laughed, taking it as a joke. He smiled back despite the first half of her question.

“You’re very thorough, for a hired husband,” Ling Qingzhu said, trying to sound casual.

Shi Feng’s hand stopped on the back of the chair. For once he couldn’t brush off a phrase with a joke.

“Don’t call this hired work,” Shi Feng said.

Ling Qingzhu turned in surprise. He wasn’t smiling, and he wasn’t arguing about money. He looked at her calmly, and the calm was heavier than any shout.

“I was only teasing,” Ling Qingzhu said. “Since when do you bite?”

“The agreement covers what we do in public,” Shi Feng said. “Remembering whether you’ve eaten isn’t a performance.”

Her gaze fell on the bowl set upside down on the table, still warm from the stove. She had no answer, and her expression went blank. Over the garden wall, a grey head popped up.

“Aiya! He fixed the window and she called him hired!” Granny Qin whispered loudly to nobody. “Qin Bao, come and look, the husband is angry! Somebody take a sesame cake over there!”

“Granny Qin,” Shi Feng said without turning around, “your cakes are burning.”

“They are not!” Granny Qin cried, and vanished with a clatter.

Ling Qingzhu bit her lip. Her cousin said that very word at the Ling household this morning, she thought, and I carried it home like a stone in my sleeve!

The kitchen was familiar to her now, and so were all the small things he did without asking her to notice. A cup moved out of the sun. Broth kept warm. The vegetables she disliked quietly missing from her bowl.

She knew he was considerate. She never thought that naming the arrangement could hurt him. Then she found an explanation that was easier to understand, and her heart ached for him.

His cultivation was ruined. The whole capital mocked his marriage. He took this work for money, but being called hired still stung the pride of the genius he used to be. I should’ve been more careful, she thought.

“Fine,” Ling Qingzhu said softly. “I won’t say it again.”

Shi Feng studied her face. She looked sincere. Did she understand what I meant, he wondered, or has she found a kinder way to misunderstand it?

He moved the stool aside.

“Eat before it gets cold,” Shi Feng said.

They sat at the table, and he uncovered her bowl first. There was rice, a little meat, and vegetables bought that morning. Ling Qingzhu asked about his day, and she asked with unusual patience.

“A customer wanted one jar to cure his sore hands and his wife’s nagging,” Shi Feng said.

“Both?” Ling Qingzhu asked, putting down her chopsticks.

“He was very disappointed to hear the second problem needed no medicine,” Shi Feng said. “Only better manners.”

She laughed.

“Did you tell him that?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

“He asked twice,” Shi Feng said.

“And then?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

“His wife showed up,” Shi Feng said. “The problem got better right away. He stopped talking.”

Ling Qingzhu laughed so hard she had to cover her mouth with her sleeve. He found himself smiling too, though the sting by the window hadn’t quite gone.

“Will the buyers pay tomorrow?” Ling Qingzhu asked, picking out a green bean.

“Two of them promised,” Shi Feng said.

“Then you’ll be rich and unbearable by evening,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“Promised,” Shi Feng repeated. “I’ve learned not to trust that word.”

She laughed again, and he thought, Money can wait one more night.

The evening slowly grew warm again.

After supper she gathered the bowls before he could stop her. One loose sleeve trailed through the leftover broth. Shi Feng caught her wrist, folded the cuff back, and let go once it was secure.

She stared at his hand, and her expression went strangely soft. An ordinary touch! It shouldn’t have made her forget where the basin stood.

At the kitchen door she turned the wrong way. He stepped aside without a single joke, and that somehow made it worse.

“Don’t,” Ling Qingzhu muttered.

“I said nothing,” Shi Feng said.

“You were going to,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“Yes,” Shi Feng admitted.

They washed the bowls together. She dried them, and this time none slipped.

Afterward the pear tree’s shadow lay across the bench, and the courtyard lamp made a small gold circle on the stones. Ling Qingzhu sat down.

“Mind hearing about a ridiculous family fight?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

“Will I have to settle it?” Shi Feng asked.

“No,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“Then go ahead,” Shi Feng said.

Two relatives fought over who deserved the better seat at a banquet neither one meant to attend. By the end, their servants were shouting about cushions over the whole family’s honour, which they claimed was stuffed inside.

“And the servants?” Shi Feng asked.

“Worse,” Ling Qingzhu said. “The cook threatened to quit. The steward fainted. Nobody knew if he meant it. I took a bun and left.”

“Third Uncle said, ‘My grandfather’s cushion was embroidered with cranes!’” Ling Qingzhu said, puffing out her chest and dropping her voice low. “And Fifth Aunt said, ‘Your grandfather also sat on the floor!’”

Shi Feng burst out laughing. He knew exactly how hard that floor was.

She stopped, astonished at herself. She never meant to act so foolishly in front of anyone. Yet the joy of hearing him laugh drowned the embarrassment in a moment.

For a while neither of them mentioned the agreement.

I love her, Shi Feng thought.

The knowledge needed no great discovery. He wanted her company after tiring days. He listened for her footsteps at the gate. Her careless words could hurt because her opinion mattered.

He wasn’t waiting to be paid for any of it. Nor was he keeping an account of each kindness, hoping she’d finally owe him affection.

He only wanted her to understand the difference. That was all, and it was proving much harder than a mid Foundation Establishment cultivator.

Ling Qingzhu leaned back against the bench. The window screen above them stayed quiet.

“It’s much quieter,” Ling Qingzhu said. “Three nights that cord kept me up. I never said a word.”

Shi Feng followed her gaze.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

“Thank you,” Ling Qingzhu said.

The words were plain. He accepted them plainly.

Later she stopped at the door of the room and looked back. He was checking the gate latch before he put out the lamp. It was nothing impressive. No poet would recite it at a royal banquet.

Yet she wanted it to happen again tomorrow, and the thought made her draw the screen around the bed more slowly than usual.

A whisper floated over the wall.

“Did you hear that?” Granny Qin hissed. “She laughed! The cripple’s wife laughed, Qin Bao, and the husband laughed too!”

“…” Qin Bao said from somewhere behind her.

“Good night, Granny Qin,” Shi Feng called calmly.

“Good night, husband! Eat more!” Granny Qin answered, delighted, and the wall fell silent at last.

Shi Feng waited until her lamp was out and the rustle behind the screen had stopped. Then he went in quietly and spread his bedding on the floor in his corner. He laid the practice blade beside Xu Changhe’s notes and opened the account book by the dimmed lamp.

Tomorrow he would collect two payments and take her to Yuelan Terrace before Sima Yu’s quiet inquiries reached the southern furnace yards.

Tonight, listening to her breathing behind the screen, he knew why he had stayed.