Chapter 58: Becoming Suspicious
Song Yuming quickly nodded and said modestly, “Yes yes yes, My Ah Dong is right, I’ll do as my wife says and rewrite it.”
Xue Dongting dismissed this with a wave of the hand. “Forget it forget it, it’s fine. We’ll run out of red paper soon!”
Song Yuming laughed this off and spread out another sheet of paper and wrote a couplet for the kitchen. Xue Dongting simply spread the three sheets of paper out on the bed to let the ink dry, then she rolled them up and sotwed them away in the cabinet to be pasted up on the morning of New Year’s Eve. She cut the leftover red paper up into smaller sheets with a pair of scissors.
“What are you doing?” Song Yuming asked.
“Your wife can’t write worth a darn, but her papercraft skills are first-rate. Before the new year, all the window decorations in Cloudgem Lodge will be her handiwork.” She was quite pleased with herself as she grabbed a sheet of the red paper and effortlessly cut out a “lucky” character (福). She unfolded the paper to reveal the character in full and smiled at Song Yuming. “This is really simple, and I can do a lot of different ones, like “deer and crane in spring”, “outstanding beauty”, “hundred butterflies’ love blossoms”, “twelve animals of the zodiac”, etc. I can do them all. Which one do you want?”
Song Yuming thought for a moment. “Why not cut out two people, one for you and one for me, and we’ll paste them together on the window sashes.”
Xue Dongting lowered her head in thought. She could draw people, but it would be hard to do it and make them look lifelike. “I’ll give it a shot.” She grabbed another sheet and got to work.
Song Yuming watched her with her head down, absorbed in her work, and he smiled but said nothing.
After a while, she had the people cut out, one a man with his hair pinned up, the other a woman with her hair down. She laughed. “This is the best I can do, I can’t make them look like us.”
She suddenly had an idea and she went outside and got two small sticks and pasted one to each of the paper cutouts. She held up the woman one and gave Song Yuming the man one and said, laughing, “I’ll teach you a shadow play.”
She moved the stick around and made the woman look like she was walking along. “The wild flower flutters in the wind, as if it is pouring its heart out; the green grass trembles in the cold wind, tangling endlessly in longing. The early-green willow branch drops into the calm blue water, throwing the tender-hearted girl into turmoil. Why does spring always come right on time, but every year there is still no word from my husband, far away from home…”
Song Yuming looked at his wife, his mind suddenly sprouting a seed of doubt. He knew what she was singing, it was a song called “Step-Singing Girl”. The sister of a former emperor, Zhao Yan, and her husband had written it. The husband was a general who was unfortunately killed in battle, and Zhao Yan followed him in death by hanging herself. The story of their tragic love spread throughout the capital. Within ten years, the song “Step-Singing Girl” spread throughout the imperial family in the capital. However, it only spread within the imperial family within the capital. How did Xue Dongting, way out here in a fishing village by the eastern sea, know this song?
Xue Dongting had no idea what he was thinking, but she saw him lost in thought and spoke up to snap him out of it. “It’s your turn to speak.” She took Song Yuming’s paper figure and said, “You’re supposed to say: Now I return home in wealth and glory, and it is already spring in my home village. I see the spring waters, the streams full of peach blossoms, and those dark hills like painted eyebrows, and none of it has changed at all… What family’s girl is this, so outstandingly beautiful, her face full of the vitality of spring? Miss, stay your beautiful steps, do you know what mistake you have made?”
She took up her own paper figure and continued, “General, sir, it’s obvious your horse’s hooves knocked over my bamboo basket, how can you say I am the one who made a mistake?”
Song Yuming stared into her eyes and said softly, “Your mistake is your otherworldly beauty, your lithe and graceful figure has made my hands ignore my commands. Your loose hair has spilled down and swelled my vision, I cannot see the paths or the mountains or rivers, only a sheet of pitch-black…”
Xue Dongting’s heart sank and she looked up at him and said no more, her mind in a whirl. If Song Yuming had been a general then it was not unusual that he should have come in contact with and heard this song, but her, a singsong girl from a border town on the east coast should absolutely not know this song.
Song Yuming asked softly, “Dongting, where did you learn Step-Singing Girl?”
Xue Dongting eyes flickered. “Uh… Mama Qiao taught it to me…”
“Mama Qiao?”
“Mm…”
Song Yuming laughed. But there was still doubt in his eyes. “Mama Qiao knows about dragon saliva incense and also can sing ‘Step-Singing Girl’. Seems she must have been an eminent person in the capital.”
Xue Dongting knew he was suspicious, but she spoke nonchalantly, “Mama Qiao was a famous courtesan in the capital, not some eminent person, though she befriended many such people. It’s not strange for her to know about those things.”
Song Yuming nodded, looking at her. “Were your medical skills also taught to you by Mama Qiao?”
“What medical skills? It’s just a smattering of knowledge I picked up here and there by reading some medical books in my spare time.”
Song Yuming laughed. “Self-taught. Your medical insight is astounding. Some day I ought to take you to the mountains to pay a visit to the miraculous doctor, Xu Xingnong. A few pointers from him could really benefit you a lot.”
“Mm,” she said, and said nothing more.
Song Yuming stood. “I’m going to the mountains to chop some firewood.”
Xue Dongting nodded. She knew he was suspicious. If she tried to force and explanation now it would only make things worse, so she simply stayed silent except to tell him to be careful up in the mountains.
Song Yuming shouldered a basket and went out the courtyard gates. There were two roads in front of the house, one leading to the mountains, the other leading to the ferry. He considered briefly, then took the path toward the mountains. There were some things he needed cleared up, but he didn’t want to ask Mama Qiao. He wanted to let Dongting tell him herself.
Xue Dongting sat fidgeting in the bedroom. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to tell him about her previous life, but he wouldn’t believe her if she told him something like that. That scene of carnage ten years ago was a nightmare for her, a nightmare she was unable to lay bare to anyone else.
At Cloudgem Lodge, a girl was wearing thin red camlet robe, amusing herself in the courtyard by kicking around a chicken feather shuttlecock. The shuttlecock was made from brightly-colored rooster tail feathers, and it went soaring high above the wall with each kick. Mama Qiao stood by the main hall doors and yelled, “Yuansheng, get in here and cut some window decorations!”
Yuansheng stuck out her tongue and continued kicking the shuttlecock as she said, laughing, “Mama Qiao, what’s the big hurry? We’ll have some pasted up this year, don’t worry.”
Mama Qiao pinched her waist. “You lazy girl, if you don’t cut them out before New Year’s Eve you won’t get anything to eat!”
Yuansheng rolled her eyes and picked up the shuttlecock and stamped off inside. She looked at the red paper and scissors on the table and scrunched up her delicate eyebrows and put her hands up to her cheeks, dejected. “Second Sis is the best at cutting window decorations. I can’t cut these. Cutting them poorly is the same as not getting anything to eat.”
The girl grumbled to herself for a while, then suddenly her eyes flickered and she shifted her big shimmering eyes. She suddenly had an idea. She clapped her hands happily and put the red paper and scissors into a bamboo basket, then grabbed two small bits of silver, hefted the basket, and stealthily made her way out of Cloudgem Lodge.
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