Chapter 5: Earning a Meal

Yu Chenxue lay there a little longer, staring at the yellowed canopy. When she turned over, the wooden bed pressed painfully against her bones.

“Why is this bed so hard?” she muttered. The wretchedly thin mattress beneath her was stuffed with clumps of coarse fiber, as hard as a slab of stone.

All her life she had slept on three layers of silk quilts, soft as clouds. This bed was worse than her maid’s.

She sat up, hair loose around her shoulders, and surveyed the room: bare, mottled walls, a table missing a corner, and half an unfinished flatbread resting on it.

She lowered her eyes. An unfamiliar feeling stirred in her chest.

Wrapped in the two halves of his torn robe, Chen Yanfan made his way along the corridor toward the west courtyard. He kept close to the wall, hoping no one would see him like this. Luck, however, had never been on his side. The moment he rounded the moon gate, he ran straight into Steward Song.

The steward, a tall, thin man in his fifties with a graying beard, oversaw the servants of the Yu Estate. He was carrying an account book on his rounds. At the sight of Yanfan, his eyes widened.

“You! Where have you been shirking?” He strode forward and looked Yanfan up and down, taking in the robe barely hanging from his shoulders. “You vanished halfway through chopping wood. Do you know the kitchen’s waiting for it? And what happened to your clothes? Been fighting?”

Yanfan lowered his head. “I was tired, so I went back to my room for a rest.”

“Tired?” Steward Song tucked the ledger under his arm and poked him in the forehead. “The sun’s barely up and you’re tired already? Were you out thieving last night? What did you tell me when I picked you up off the street?

“You said you could endure hardship and weren’t afraid of work. That’s the only reason I made an exception and took you in! And now you sneak off to sleep halfway through chopping wood?”

Yanfan’s head tipped back under the jab. He didn’t dodge. When the steward paused for breath, he said, “I’ve put on a little weight lately. My bed collapsed.”

“What?”

“The bed collapsed.” Yanfan pointed toward the west courtyard, his face perfectly straight. “I lay down and it gave way. It really did.”

Steward Song’s mouth twitched. “You broke a bed just by lying on it? What are you, a pig?”

Yanfan considered the comparison inaccurate, but decided not to argue.

“The bed was loose to begin with,” he said, making an attempt at defending himself. “I told you last month. You said it would do a while longer…”

“And now you’re talking back?” The steward poked him again. “A broken bed means you don’t have to chop wood? Did your clothes fall apart along with it? What were you doing, rolling around on the bed fully dressed?”

Yanfan opened his mouth. For once, he had no answer.

“Well…” He looked down at his torn robe. “Could you spare my wages? I’ll make up the work. I’ll finish the wood tonight and chop another stack tomorrow.”

Steward Song snorted and glared at him for a long moment. At last he sighed. “The kitchen saved you a meal. Go and eat it later. That wood must be chopped by tonight. If it isn’t, I’m docking you double tomorrow.”

He turned to leave, then looked back after a couple of steps. “And change those clothes! Walking around in broad daylight with your chest hanging out—what kind of sight is that? People will think the Yu Estate can’t even give its servants decent clothes. Have you no shame?”

The corner of Yanfan’s mouth lifted in the faintest smile. “All right.”

He watched the steward stalk away, gathered his torn robe over his chest, and headed for the kitchen.

Yu Chenxue walked back along the corridor, her legs still a little weak, her steps slower than usual. She looked down at the hand that had torn his clothes, her fingers curling of their own accord.

Had the fabric been that flimsy, or had she been too impatient?

Heat rushed to her ears. She shoved the thought away. When she reached her courtyard, her maid Qiutang was waiting at the door with a tray.

“Miss, where have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

Chenxue cleared her throat, trying to look as she always did. “Out for a walk.”

“Why is your voice so hoarse?” Qiutang leaned closer, concerned. “Has your cold not quite gone? I’ll make you another bowl of ginger soup…”

“No need.” Chenxue waved her off and looked at the tray. A white porcelain bowl held steaming bird’s nest soup, with a small dish of preserved fruit beside it.

She frowned. “I didn’t ask for this.”

Qiutang glanced down, equally puzzled. “The kitchen just sent it over. They said…” She thought for a moment. “Oh, Chen Yanfan asked them to send it. He said you wanted some.”

Chenxue stood in the doorway, staring at the clear soup and the pale strands settled at the bottom of the bowl. Bird’s nest took at least two hours to prepare. This hadn’t been made just now; it looked as though it had come from someone else’s portion.

She took the tray and studied it for a long while.

“Miss?” Qiutang ventured. “Shall I warm it up?”

“No.” Chenxue carried the tray inside and sat at the table. She lifted a spoonful to her mouth. The soup was perfectly cooked, sweetened just right with rock sugar and red dates.

When had he asked for it? He was so miserly that even at a time like that he hadn’t forgotten to settle accounts. Yet he had still remembered to order her a bowl of soup.

What was this? Aftercare?

The thought caught her so off guard that she nearly choked.

Qiutang watched her mistress’s expression change with every spoonful: a frown one moment, a blush the next. Full of questions but afraid to ask, she quietly withdrew.

After the last mouthful, Chenxue put down her spoon and stared at the empty bowl. The more she thought about it, the stranger it seemed.

If the dream was true, Chen Yanfan’s dragon bloodline should already have awakened. Yet he spent his days chopping wood, sweeping and being scolded, haggling with Steward Song over thirty copper coins in wages. He was so poor he didn’t have a decent robe to wear.

Would a powerful cultivator really live such a miserable life?

Unless he was pretending.

The thought sent a chill down her back. If he was pretending, how long had it gone on? Steward Song had brought him home from the street two years ago. For two years he had worked as a servant, obeying orders and enduring every slight without resisting.

She had always thought him spineless, too timid even to answer when she scolded him. But if it had all been an act, that kind of patience was terrifying.

Why pretend? What was he hiding from?

Chenxue rose and pushed open the window. Sunlight filled the courtyard, and maids sat beneath the corridor eaves, laughing and chatting over their embroidery. White smoke rose from the kitchen chimney in the distance. Everything looked like an ordinary day, yet she knew her life was ordinary no longer.

* * *

Chen Yanfan sat on the steps outside the kitchen’s back door with a bowl of white rice topped by two pieces of greens and a few slices of fatty meat. Steward Song had told the kitchen to save it for him.

He ate quickly, keeping an eye on the unfinished pile of wood in the corner of the yard. He had to finish chopping it tonight and find a piece of wood to wedge under the bed leg. The robe was the real trouble. A tear that large couldn’t simply be sewn; it needed a patch.

Where would he find cloth? The laundry had thrown out a batch of old clothes last time. There ought to be something usable among them.

As for the twenty spirit stones…

Whether she had lost her mind today or had some other scheme, it was enough that the stones were real.

As for what came next, he would deal with it when it came.

He was only trying to earn himself a meal, after all.