STS Chapter 1

The wind and rain were dark and dim; mist dampened the lanterns.

The young man knelt with his robe hanging straight, and amid the patter of raindrops beyond the threshold, a long whip lashed heavily across his back. The fabric of his clothes darkened with a streak of blood. The veins at the side of his neck bulged faintly, yet he endured it without a word.

“How did I raise such an insolent son! Ni Qinglan, tell me—have you forgotten all the ancestral rules of this family?” Another lash came down.

“I forgot some. Not all.”

That sentence was completely at odds with the boy’s upright, solemn tone.

Ni Zhun, already in a towering rage, turned even more livid when he heard it. “What did you say? Do you know what people outside are saying about you? They say you and that He Liu-shi are entangled in something improper, that the two of you exchanged private favors! You have utterly disgraced the Ni family!”

“He Liu-shi is over thirty, while our Lan’er is only sixteen. Does my lord truly believe those rumors outside? After giving birth, He Liu-shi’s health has been poor, with repeated lochia and bleeding. Her husband’s family refused to seek a physician or medicine for her. She had no choice but to…”

“What a fine son you’ve taught!”

Madam Cen entered while supporting herself against the door, the hem of her pale apricot skirt just brushing over the threshold. Before she could finish speaking, Ni Zhun turned and glared at her. “He is a proper young man, yet he insists on meddling in women’s ailments. Now he even dared, while I was away, to privately diagnose He Liu-shi’s illness. He has no regard at all for the proper boundaries between men and women! And now the He family is preparing to sue him, claiming he committed adultery with He Liu-shi!”

Ni Zhun’s furious roar almost drowned out the thunder in the distance. Outside the door, a little girl blocked by the maidservants saw Madam Cen’s thin apricot skirt flutter slightly. Madam Cen’s tone remained calm. “Have you not already smoothed things over with the county magistrate?”

“Zishu!”

Ni Zhun seemed to have reached the limit of his patience, unable to face the mother and son’s identical composure. “Do you understand or not? Once he treated He Liu-shi, his reputation was ruined!”

“Is standing by and refusing to save the dying the duty of a physician?”

Just as Ni Zhun’s words fell, the boy behind him spoke again. Ni Zhun turned back with the whip in hand and struck him several more times. The crack of the whip scraped against the ears of the little girl by the doorway, but she did not hear Ni Qinglan make even the slightest sound.

Madam Cen noticed her and glanced at the maid by the door. The maid immediately stepped over the threshold and picked up the little girl. Before she could even open an umbrella and enter the courtyard, the sound of hurried footsteps splashing through rain drew closer and closer. The maid raised her head and saw that it was the old steward. He shielded his head with one hand and rushed over. Before he had even climbed the steps, he shouted, “My lord! Something has happened!”

Ni Zhun was still in a rage. He turned his head and cursed, “Does this household have no rules left at all?”

“My lord…”

The old steward trembled and lowered his hand. Rain struck his face heavily. “The servant boy who went out to buy incense and candles said that He Liu-shi could not endure the humiliation from her husband’s family and threw herself into the river!”

At those words, Ni Zhun’s hand shook, and the whip fell to the ground.

The night rain grew heavier. A few cicadas, unable to bear the rain and dew, had fallen beneath the shade of the trees, silent.

The little girl watched the blood-streaked boy in the ancestral hall turn his head. Fine beads of sweat covered his temples and the bridge of his nose. The candlelight reflected the shock on his face.

After a long silence, Ni Zhun looked again at Ni Qinglan, who was kneeling on the ground. The fury had vanished from his face, replaced by a helpless kind of mockery. “Boy, take a good look. You thought you were defying the great taboo of physicians to save her. In the end, were you saving her, or harming her?”

Ni Zhun no longer had the strength to beat him.

The night rain did not quiet. Ni Qinglan knelt in the ancestral hall for half the night, his knees numb and almost devoid of feeling. Suddenly, he heard a creak. Coming back to himself, he turned his head and happened to glance over. The usually unsmiling young man could not help tugging faintly at the corner of his lips.

That little girl did not have the strength to push open the heavy wooden door completely, so she could only squeeze sideways through the narrow gap.

She had come here in the middle of the night, and even the ties of her outer robe were fastened wrong. Ni Qinglan raised a hand toward her. “A’Xi, come here.”

Ni Su immediately ran obediently to him and called softly, “Brother.”

Ni Qinglan gave an absent-minded “Mm” while retying her robe for her. “Why aren’t you sleeping properly? What are you doing here? Didn’t you say there were many ghosts in the ancestral hall and that you were very scared?”

“That’s why I came to keep Brother company.”

Ni Su dragged over a prayer mat and squeezed beside him to sit down, not daring to look at the rows upon rows of black memorial tablets behind the offering table.

“Brother, does it hurt?”

She looked at the blood marks covering Ni Qinglan’s back.

“Only ghosts don’t feel pain.” Ni Qinglan, mature beyond his years, took out a piece of sesame candy wrapped in oiled paper from his sleeve and handed it to her. “Take this and go back.”

Ni Su accepted the sesame candy, but split it in two. She stuffed one piece to his lips, then placed the small pillow she had brought under his knees.

“You usually hate pillows that are too hard. This is the only one that suits you. How could you bear to bring it for me?” Ni Qinglan felt warm inside and reached out to stroke her head.

“When Brother is in trouble, of course I can bear to.”

Ni Su looked up at him. “Mama Qian said if Brother admits he was wrong, you won’t be beaten anymore.”

Mama Qian was the servant woman by Ni Su’s side.

“Does A’Xi also think I was wrong to save someone that day?” Ni Qinglan ate the half piece of sesame candy, his voice hoarse after going many hours without water.

On the day Ni Qinglan had left the city to give free medical consultations to the people in the nearby villages, He Liu-shi had stumbled onto the mountain path and stopped his carriage. The woman had cried terribly and was in terrible pain, repeatedly calling, “Sir, save me.”

Every step she took left blood behind. Ni Su, sitting inside the carriage, saw the winding trail of blood behind her and was so frightened that she could not even eat the cake brought to her mouth.

“She was in a lot of pain, but after Brother examined her and gave her bitter medicine to drink, she stopped hurting.”

Ni Su remembered how that woman had held the bitter medicine in both hands, yet had been full of joy, drinking it as if it were honey water.

“But A’Xi…”

Rain struck the window. Ni Qinglan’s voice sounded even more lost. “Did you hear today? She threw herself into the river.”

In the end, he was still only a sixteen-year-old boy. When faced with such a thing, Ni Qinglan could not find a way to accept it calmly.

“She didn’t hurt anymore, so why did she die?”

Ni Su was only eight or nine years old and still could not truly understand the meaning of the word “death.” But she knew that when people died, they became those thin, black memorial tablets behind the offering table in the ancestral hall—only names remained, with no voice or face.

“Because I am a man, yet I treated He Liu-shi’s private female illness.”

“But why can’t a man treat a woman’s illness?” Ni Su propped her hands on her knees, cupped her face, and asked innocently.

It was not that a man could not treat a woman’s illness. It was that he could not treat such a private illness.

But Ni Qinglan had no heart to explain these things to his little sister. He lowered his eyes. The swaying shadows of the trees in the courtyard fell through the gauze window onto the floor tiles before him. “Who knows why.”

The rain did not lessen, falling endlessly.

Ni Su looked at her brother’s profile, then suddenly stood up.

Ni Qinglan raised his eyes and met his little sister’s clear, innocent gaze. She was so small, the lamplight falling on her shoulders, and she said in a crisp voice, “Brother, I’m a girl. If I learn our family’s skills like you, will I be able to stop them from hurting and keep them from dying?”

Them.

Ni Qinglan froze.

In the ancestral hall on that rainy night, the young man studied his little sister’s childish and pure face. He lifted the corner of his mouth slightly and rubbed her head. “If A’Xi has such ambition, then they certainly will not hurt, nor will they die.”

The sound of rain gradually receded. Then came a sharp tap against the window.

Ni Su, her temples damp with sweat, opened her eyes and woke.

“Miss, did I wake you?” Xingzhu, the maid who had just fastened the vermilion window shut, turned back and said gently, “It’s snowing outside. I was afraid the northern chill would enter the room. It would be terrible if you caught a cold.”

The New Year had only just passed. Though it was early spring, the weather had yet to turn warm.

Seeing Ni Su curled up beneath the quilt without answering, Xingzhu came to the bedside in concern. “Miss, what is wrong?”

“I dreamed of Brother.”

Ni Su seemed to have only just fully woken. She rubbed her eyes and sat up.

Xingzhu quickly took her clothes from the wooden rack and helped Ni Su dress. “The winter examination has already been over for two months. With our young master’s abilities, he will surely pass this time. Perhaps the news will arrive soon!”

From Yunjing to Que County was more than two months’ journey on foot, so news did not travel quickly. Ni Qinglan had left Que County almost half a year ago, and the letters he had sent home amounted to only two brief ones.

Once she was properly dressed and had washed up, Ni Su had just stepped out of her room when the old steward came hunched through the moon gate twined with green branches. He did not even have time to wipe his sweat. “Miss, Second Master and the others have arrived. Madam asks that you remain in your room.”

After saying this, he waved for the servant boys below to hand the food box to Xingzhu, then added, “Madam will not be having breakfast with you either.”

“Why has Second Master come at this hour?” Xingzhu frowned and muttered.

The old steward only obeyed Madam. When Ni Su saw that he did not answer, she knew her second uncle had not come with good intentions. Otherwise, her mother would not have told her to stay in her room and not go out.

Beside the courtyard wall, the green bamboo stood lonely and clear. Spring snow drifted through the hall like fine dust.

Madam Cen sat upright in the main hall. At her side, the servant woman Mama Qian brought forward a bowl of tea at just the right moment. She accepted it but did not drink. The warmth of the cup wall heated her palm, yet her voice was cold and calm. “So early in the morning, and in such cold weather too—Second Brother has brought your entire family to this widow’s courtyard. Is it because you pity how quiet it is here and wish to add some liveliness for me?”

“Sister-in-law, things were busy around the New Year, and our family never managed to gather. Today we thought we would come together and make up for the New Year visit. What do you think?” Second Master of the Ni family, Ni Zong, rolled his eyes but did not speak. Liu-shi, sitting beside him with a teacup in her hands, had always been one to keep a smiling face. Unable to bear the chill settling in the room, she hurriedly spoke in a friendly tone. But when she turned her head, she happened to see Ni Zong glaring fiercely at her.

Liu-shi stiffened and lowered her head, saying no more.

Madam Cen watched coldly and then slowly said, “The food here has always been plain and light. I have not prepared anything good either. I do not know whether younger sister-in-law and the others would be used to it.”

Liu-shi looked at Ni Zong, still weighing whether she should respond, when Ni Zong stood up and set down his teacup.

“Sister-in-law, why do I not see my little niece?”

“Miss developed a fever before dawn. She took medicine and is now still asleep,” Mama Qian said.

“A fever?”

Ni Zong stroked his beard. “How convenient. The moment we arrive, she falls ill.”

“What kind of words are those, Second Master?” Mama Qian took away Madam Cen’s tea, which had gone lukewarm. “If Miss were not ill, she would certainly have come out to receive guests.”

The words “receive guests” were meant to remind Ni Zong that the second branch and the eldest branch had long since divided households.

Ni Zong gave a cold snort and cast her a sidelong glance, but he spoke to Madam Cen. “Sister-in-law, in my opinion, you are far too kind and lenient. Not only do the old servants by your side lack manners, even that niece of mine has become more and more outrageous.”

“Do you know what Ni Su has been doing outside?” Ni Zong paced back and forth a few steps. “She has been associating with those lowly midwives! What kind of family are we? What status does she have? For her to act with such disregard for her own dignity—Sister-in-law, tell me, if this spreads outside, how will people look at our Ni family?”

“Second Master should speak with evidence. It is not right to slander our family’s young miss so baselessly.” Madam Cen did not speak, so Mama Qian, standing beside her, had no choice but to speak again.

“Who is slandering her without cause? Sister-in-law, you may call her out and ask her yourself. Did she go to Zaohua Village yesterday or not? Did she, in a farming household, assist a peasant woman in childbirth together with a midwife or not?”

Ni Zong ignored the old servant and fixed his eyes on Madam Cen. “Sister-in-law, if you ask me, how is a daughter born of a concubine worth protecting like this? Her mother died, and only then did you acknowledge her under your own name. Could it be you truly raised her as your own flesh and blood?”