The lantern’s flame stung her eyes until they ached. The dizziness caused by the ringing in her ears made Ni Su stumble, unable to stand steady. Her knees went weak, but someone seized her wrist.
An extreme coldness pressed from his fingertips into the bones of her wrist. It was a sinister chill sharper than ice and snow. Ni Su could not help trembling all over. She barely steadied herself and looked up. “Thank you…”
Her voice was tight from the cold. Her gaze touched his face. His eyes were clear as dew, tinged with spring light, only far too cold—cold like the fingers he had just withdrawn.
Just like snow falling in midsummer, there was a strange, withered beauty to him.
The lantern illuminated the gold-painted lotus pagoda with a faint shimmer. His gaze followed it. The mountain wind stirred the copper bells into a chaotic ringing. He looked at the lotus pagoda as if he had touched upon some distant memory. There was still not the slightest bright spark in his cool eyes. He only turned his face to ask her, “Is this Dazhong Temple?”
Ni Su felt an indescribable strangeness in her heart. She was just about to speak when her pupils suddenly shrank.
Behind him, rippling lights like stars and fireflies floated in the air. One by one, they gathered together, gradually transforming into a hazy silhouette.
“Brother!”
Ni Su cried out.
The shimmering light illuminated the man’s pale, flawless profile. He silently glanced behind him. In an instant, the illusion shattered, and the crystalline glow was crushed into the wind and snow.
Great flakes of snow drifted down lightly, but just before they could fall on him, they were blown aside by the mountain wind. Not a single flake touched him.
Ni Su’s gaze followed the falling snow, and as the lantern flame trembled, she noticed that the silver embroidery on his cloak seemed ethereal, riding upon clouds, spreading its wings as if ready to fly.
The characters at the edge of the cuff glimmered faintly.
Ziling.
“You…” The sky was cold and the snow was heavy. Ni Su did not know where the copper basin she had used earlier had gone, but she could still smell the lingering ash and dust in the mountain wind. The cold embedded in the seams of her bones grew even heavier. Afraid she had seen wrongly, she instinctively reached out to touch his sleeve.
But when she touched it, there was no sense of substance at all.
The cold wind passed through Ni Su’s fingers. She watched as the figure of the young nobleman before her, who had been calmly gazing at her all along, melted in an instant into the cold mountain mist.
He disappeared.
Ni Su’s hand froze in mid-air, numb from the cold. The snow was still falling, but the ink-dark sky was showing signs of brightening.
The chanting in the mountain temple had stopped for some time.
The old abbot and the monks had gathered outside the main hall, exclaiming in wonder.
“Why has it suddenly started snowing?”
A young novice monk looked up.
“This is no good omen,” someone said.
The old abbot shook his head, recited “Amitabha,” and quieted their discussion. “Do not speak nonsense.”
The young novice monk on duty at the temple gate today was utterly fed up with the strange weather. His monk robes were thin; how could they possibly keep out this winter-like cold? He was just considering whether to return to the meditation room to search for a winter robe when he heard urgent, panicked knocking at the door.
The young novice jumped in fright and hurriedly opened the temple door, poking his head out.
He had seen the female benefactor outside before. She was the one who had come to the temple not long ago to collect a peace talisman. Only now, her hair at the temples was damp with sweat, her clothes and skirt were stained, and her face was deathly pale.
“Female benefactor, what happened to you?”
The young novice was stunned.
“Young master, I need to find the old master who gave me my peace talisman.” Ni Su was freezing, and even her voice trembled faintly.
Although the young novice did not understand why, he still invited her into the temple.
“Have the temple prayers stopped?”
Ni Su entered the temple but did not hear any chanting.
“There was originally still the time of a cup of tea left, but because of this strange snowfall that blotted out the sky, they ended a little early,” the young novice replied as he led Ni Su forward.
The time of a cup of tea.
Ni Su could no longer move.
She clearly remembered that in the cypress grove, the old master had told her the temple prayers today would not finish until dusk.
“Martial Uncle Huijue, this female benefactor has come to find you.”
The young novice’s voice sounded. Ni Su instinctively raised her head.
This Huijue was stout, with kind eyes and a dark beard. He walked over with a smile, recited “Amitabha,” and said, “Female benefactor has returned. Was there something wrong with the peace talisman?”
“You are Huijue?”
Ni Su could hardly believe it.
Huijue was confused. He exchanged a glance with the young novice, pressed his palms together, and said kindly, “This poor monk is Huijue.”
“Female benefactor, didn’t you just meet Martial Uncle Huijue? How do you not recognise him?” the young novice asked, puzzled.
Ni Su instinctively took one step back. Then another.
Her face grew even paler.
At this moment, the sky had returned to clear brightness. The Buddhist temple was ancient and majestic, sunlight falling along the eaves like gilded lacquer.
No. It was all wrong.
The one who had handed her the peace talisman in the temple was that old monk with the curled snow-white beard. Whether in build, appearance, or voice, he had not the slightest resemblance to this Huijue before her.
The temple was full of gods and Buddhas, yet at this moment, they gave Ni Su no peace at all. The snow, the temple, the people—everything twisted into an absurd and eerie rope that strangled her throat.
Seeing her so dazed, Huijue’s voice grew concerned. “Today’s strange snow has made it cold as the twelfth lunar month.”
He turned to the young novice. “Quickly go and find a cloak for the female benefactor.”
The young novice was just about to nod when he saw the female benefactor suddenly turn and run. He called after her several times, but it only made her steps grow faster.
“Today, not only is the snow strange, even the people are strange…”
The young novice rubbed his bald head and muttered under his breath.
The heavy snow lasted for an entire day, covering all of Que County in a layer of white. In teahouses, wine shops, streets, and alleys, countless people were discussing this strange snowfall.
After Ni Su returned home from Dazhong Temple, she fell ill.
Her fever would not go down. Every day, Mama Qian had to attend to Madam Cen and also visit Ni Su’s courtyard from time to time. Every physician from the Ni family’s medical hall came to examine Ni Su, but the prescriptions they wrote were mostly the same.
Madam Cen dragged her sick body over once to see her. After listening to several physicians discuss fever-reducing prescriptions, no expression could be read from her wax-yellow, thin face.
At night, when she heard Mama Qian say that Ni Su’s high fever had gone down, Madam Cen said nothing, but let out an extremely faint breath of relief before opening her mouth to drink the spoonful of medicine Mama Qian brought to her lips.
Only on the third day did Ni Su properly regain consciousness. Xingzhu wept with joy, carefully wiping the sweat from Ni Su’s forehead with an embroidered handkerchief as she asked, “Miss, are you thirsty? Are you hungry?”
Ni Su’s reactions were slow. Only after a long while did she shake her head. “Mother?”
Her voice was terribly hoarse.
“Miss, don’t worry. Madam is better.” Xingzhu brought over a bowl of hot tea and fed it to her.
In truth, Xingzhu could not go into Madam Cen’s courtyard. She had only heard from the old housekeeper that Madam Cen was able to get out of bed today, so she assumed Madam Cen’s illness had improved.
Who would have thought that after Ni Su had rested for only a day or two, Madam Cen would begin vomiting blood?
If Ni Zong had not heard the news and come over, and if Madam Cen had not been unconscious and unable to rise, leaving Mama Qian with no other choice but to come to Ni Su’s courtyard, Ni Su would probably still have been kept in the dark.
“Your cold has not yet fully healed. These past few days, you have had to deal with your second uncle and also attend to me. It has been hard on you.” Madam Cen watched as Mama Qian carried out a basin of water stained red with blood, then looked back at the daughter before her. She had only just vomited blood, and her voice was hoarse.
“Daughter does not find it hard.” Ni Su held Madam Cen’s hand. “Mother is the one who is suffering.”
Madam Cen tugged faintly at her lips, but it could not be considered a smile. She had never been fond of smiling. “These past few days, while I was asleep, you must have secretly taken my pulse, yes?”
Ni Su fell silent and was just about to rise when Madam Cen tightened her grip on her hand.
“You need not kneel to me.”
Madam Cen’s eyes were deeply sunken, her exhaustion extreme. “Now, I no longer avoid letting you handle medicine and illness. You have also taken my pulse. You already know perfectly well how many days this body of mine can still endure.”
Ni Su met her gaze. “Mother…”
“In our family, women cannot have such ambitions.” Madam Cen leaned against the soft pillow, her chest rising and falling as she spoke. “Your father beat you and punished you, but with your stubborn nature, even after pain and hardship, you still refused to yield.”
“I know. It was all Lan’er who taught you.”
Only when Madam Cen mentioned Ni Qinglan did a soft curve appear on her pale lips.
“…You knew?”
Ni Su murmured in astonishment.
“If Lan’er had not poured everything he had learned into teaching you, how much could you have stolen by secretly learning in the medical hall alone? Back then, your father guarded against you as if guarding against a thief.” Madam Cen was ill and without strength, yet when speaking of these things, she seemed to regain a little spirit. “Ever since he treated He Liu-shi at sixteen, and He Liu-shi threw herself into the river and died, your father forced him to study. From then on, he secretly kept you by his side and taught you. One time, he was teaching you to recite the Tangtou Gejue. I was outside the study door.”
Ni Su had thought she and her brother had hidden it very well. The family only knew she had often been punished by her father for failing to secretly study medicine properly; they did not know her brother had always been teaching her.
Even more, she had never expected that Madam Cen, who had always opposed her studying medicine, had long since discovered the secret between her and her brother, yet had never exposed them in front of her father.
She was not Madam Cen’s biological child, but Madam Cen had never treated her harshly in the slightest. After acknowledging Ni Su under her own name, Madam Cen had truly raised and taught her as her own daughter. But Madam Cen always wore a cold expression and spoke little. She was naturally distant, creating a barrier that made intimacy difficult. Because of this, Ni Su had respected and loved her since childhood, but could never be as relaxed with her as Ni Mizhi was with Liu-shi.
In truth, Madam Cen was not this way only toward her. It was simply Madam Cen’s temperament. She was difficult to approach. Even with Ni Qinglan, the relationship between mother and son had always been plain and restrained.
“Did your brother ever tell you why, as a man, he insisted on studying women’s medicine?”
“No.” Ni Su shook her head dazedly. Uncontrollably, she thought of the cypress grove at Dazhong Temple, and that young man in the dark-black cloak with his thin, frail frame.
In that strange light behind him, she had briefly seen Ni Qinglan’s shadow.
Madam Cen slowly sighed. “He was a filial child. After I gave birth to him, I developed a hidden illness. At first, it was not anything serious. Who would have thought that as the years passed, the illness would become much worse? You also know that most physicians in this world neither understand women’s medicine nor think it worthy of them. Your father was the same. As for my own condition, I was unwilling to tell him.”
“But the illness truly became harder and harder to endure. One time, I was in terrible discomfort, and Lan’er happened to see it. He was still a child then. I found it almost impossible to speak of such things to my own son, but he was stubborn. If I refused to tell him, he would go and find his father to examine me. I had no choice but to tell him that his father could not treat this illness, and should not treat it.”
“But he took it to heart. He actually went outside and secretly brought back an old medicine woman to examine me.”
In the present world, the “three aunts and six grannies” were considered thoroughly low-class. Medicine women were one of the six grannies. Most sold medicine in the countryside to women with hidden ailments. They had no respectable reputation and were despised by others.
At such a young age, Ni Qinglan had run alone to a village and found a medicine woman to come back and examine Madam Cen.
“Your birth mother was a woman of bitter fate. She gave birth to you, but could not raise you.” When Madam Cen mentioned that gentle and obedient woman, her expression was calm. “When she gave birth to your younger brother, the labour was difficult. The midwife had no solution. Your father actually could not bear to watch your birth mother and younger brother die like that either. But he did not understand women’s medicine. Even after casting aside those rites and rules and entering the room, he still could not preserve either of their lives.”
Madam Cen studied Ni Su. “You were very young then, crying terribly. Even when Lan’er bought sesame candy for you, he could not coax you.”
“A’Xi,” Madam Cen said, “your brother dared to commit the great taboo of physicians for two reasons. One was for me. The other was for you. He could not bear to see me suffer from a hidden illness, nor could he bear to see you suffer the pain of losing your mother. Because of you and me, he developed a compassion for women that is rare in this world. Naturally, he could not bear to see other women tortured by hidden illnesses either.”
Unfortunately, the first time Ni Qinglan truly treated a woman became the last time.
“He set his heart on this path, but the world would not tolerate him.”
“A’Xi, in truth, I ought to thank you. As a youth, he was swept up in rumours and gossip, forced by your father to abandon medicine and pursue scholarship. You dared to continue his ambition. That was likely his only comfort all these years.”
Listening to Madam Cen’s words, Ni Su remembered that rainy night long ago, and the things she and her brother had said in the ancestral hall.
“Mother, when you recover, I will go to Yunjing to find Brother,” Ni Su said softly.
“Why wait? The people we sent to Yunjing still have not sent back any news. You might as well go now.”
“Mother?”
Ni Su raised her eyes in shock, then immediately shook her head. “How can I feel at ease if you want me to abandon you now and go to the capital?”
“Your brother’s life or death is unknown. Can either of us feel at ease?” Madam Cen started coughing as she spoke. After a long while, she finally pulled free from Ni Su’s hand gently patting her back and called Mama Qian in.
“A’Xi, I made you kneel in the ancestral hall because your father never wronged you. In his heart, you were just as important as Lan’er. It is only that he had his own reasoning. You defied him and defied the rules of his Ni family, so you ought to kneel before him and the ancestors of his family.”
Madam Cen stroked her face. “Do not blame me.”
Ni Su’s eyes grew hot. She knelt down. “Mother, I have never blamed you. I know you treat me well.”
“Good child.”
At this point, Madam Cen could no longer hide the tears in her eyes. “You also know I only have these few days left. Rather than stay by my side, you should go in my place to find your brother. Before your father died, he won a good reputation. That plaque sent by the county office is in our home, and these past few years, your second uncle has also been restrained by my status as a chaste widow. He did not dare shamelessly seize the eldest branch’s family wealth outright. But now your brother’s whereabouts are unknown, and they also know that my health is poor. Once I die, how can you, a lonely daughter, guard against a man as wolf-hearted and ambitious as your second uncle?”
“With no male heir here, outsiders will not care about what he does. Because you are a daughter, the Ni family has no reason to let you inherit the family business. Even if you go to the county magistrate to argue, he will have a proper justification. He could easily marry you off at random.”
Madam Cen glanced at Mama Qian. Mama Qian immediately understood and brought a small box from the cabinet. She opened it in front of Ni Su.
Although the box was small, it was packed full of banknotes.
“On the day you went to Dazhong Temple to collect the peace talisman, I had Mama Qian sell all our family’s estates and farmland. My dowry jewellery was also pawned, all exchanged for this money so you can use it when you go to the capital.”
A faint cold smile appeared on Madam Cen’s haggard face. “We cannot allow Ni Zong to bully us in everything. If he wants to take over the Ni family’s medical hall, then let him. But as for these fields, houses, and family assets—in his dreams.”
“Mother…”
“Listen to me.”
As soon as Ni Su opened her mouth, Madam Cen forcefully cut her off. “If you truly care for me, then leave as soon as possible. Do not let your second uncle scheme against you. Go find your brother. Bring him back. When the time comes, you can justifiably take back our medical hall. No matter how unwilling Ni Zong is, he will still have to arrange my funeral properly and grandly. As for the servants in the household, once I pass, Mama Qian will dismiss them for me.”
Mama Qian said nothing, but could not help wiping her tears with the edge of her sleeve.
After giving these instructions, Madam Cen seemed to have used up all her strength. She did not allow Ni Su to say another word and closed her eyes, saying calmly, “Go. I am tired.”
Ni Su held the box, forcing down the ache in her nose. She stood up and, supported by Xingzhu, walked to the doorway. The midsummer sunlight outside was bright and scorching, spilling across the threshold.
“A’Xi.”
Suddenly, she heard Madam Cen’s voice behind her.
Ni Su turned back. The bed curtains blocked her view, and from where she stood at the threshold, she could not clearly see Madam Cen’s face. She only heard her say, “This path is extremely difficult. Under heaven, there are many narrow-minded men. Are you afraid of walking it alone?”
A woman who studied women’s medicine was, in many people’s eyes, no different from those lowly “six grannies.”
The tears Ni Su had held back for so long spilled out in clusters. She stood in the sunlight, her shadow falling quietly. Looking toward the person behind the pale blue bed curtains, she answered clearly:
“Mother, I am not afraid.”
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