Back in the day, he’d eaten sunflower seeds plenty of times, but somehow they’d never tasted as sweet as they did tonight.
The two of them sat side by side, close together. Lu Yang asked him, “Do you want to see a show?”
Xie Yan hadn’t learned to read between the lines yet—what he understood by “a show” was the big performances put on by traveling opera troupes. It had been years since he’d seen one. They were expensive too.
He asked, “Do you want to see one?”
Lu Yang did want to see a show. He grinned at Xie Yan. “Come on, let’s go hire someone to perform for us.”
Xie Yan blinked, not quite following. “Huh? This late at night? Why don’t we wait till tomorrow?”
Lu Yang took his hand and started leading him toward the house. “Tomorrow we’ve got the shop to run—where would we find the time? I figure if we hire someone tonight, they’ll probably start performing tomorrow. Let’s at least go ask.”
He hadn’t stopped thinking about that debt. And after Xie Yan had warmed his heart today, he was even more eager to settle things. He’d counted up the days of free labor from Silly Zhu, and decided it was about time. So he was going to take Xie Yan with him to settle up.
They kept their money in a small bamboo basket in the house. Lu Yang fetched out a string of coins.
That string held exactly 100 copper coins—not much, considering Silly Zhu had been working hard and letting them use his donkey cart for free. But Lu Yang had no intention of paying him fairly. This was just to make a show of it.
“Don’t go getting soft just because Silly Zhu’s been well-behaved for a while,” Lu Yang told him. “The softest we should be is not making things too hard on him—but a lesson’s still a lesson. If we let him off too easy, he’ll be right back at our door making trouble before long.”
Xie Yan wasn’t the type to go soft on people either—not in this village. There weren’t many good folks here. Even on their wedding day, though some people had helped them, it wasn’t enough to count for much.
Whatever Lu Yang said, Xie Yan listened. He watched Lu Yang bustle about, that smile still playing on his face.
When Lu Yang glanced up, his little scholar was looking at him with that foolish grin again. Lu Yang gave a little snort, but he couldn’t hide the pride in his eyes.
Their walk to Silly Zhu’s house wasn’t short. They let Mother Zhao know where they were going, then set off together.
By now it was fully dark. They carried a lantern between them and walked slowly along the muddy village paths.
They had no choice but to go slow. After the snowmelt, the whole village was full of puddles and mud pits. People were always slipping, landing in the muck, cursing to the heavens.
Xie Yan didn’t mind. He was enjoying the quiet, soaking in the peace of the night. There was still that bit of a scholar’s romance in him. The path might be muddy and hard to walk, but overhead the moon and stars were bright, his husband was at his side, and the little clay houses all around them gave a sense of comfort. When the villagers weren’t making trouble, the place felt calm. People used to hard times knew how to find joy where they could—every now and then you’d see a smiling face.
It reminded him of the poems he’d read about hermits living in the mountains. This must be what that life felt like.
He recited a few lines of poetry for Lu Yang as they walked. Most of it was new to Lu Yang’s ears.
Lu Yang could read a few words. Back when Old Chen had sent his sons to school, Lu Yang had watched with envy. School meant good food, new clothes, no chores. The boys could come home, waggle their heads and recite a line or two, and Old Chen would be thrilled, praising them to the skies.
Lu Yang had started recognizing characters by looking at shop signs. For a while, he’d loved hanging around restaurants and taverns—they had lots of signs to read, menus for customers. Bit by bit, he’d picked up a decent number of words.
The Luo brothers had gone to school too, and Lu Yang had tried to flatter them into teaching him a little. But they didn’t care for their studies, spent more time playing than learning, and never taught him much.
As he grew older, there was more work, less time. The characters he’d learned weren’t much use. The one skill he’d really honed was keeping the books, and that had come from getting beaten, scolded, and starved until he’d had no choice but to memorize and calculate like his life depended on it.
Later, a family of woodblock carvers moved into the alley. The old man knew a lot, always around books. Lu Yang couldn’t resist hanging around, helping out, picking up bits of knowledge where he could.
But poetry? He’d never had the time.
Writing? Same story—no time to practice.
He’d even tried leafing through books at the bookstore, but when the words he knew were printed on a page, somehow he couldn’t recognize them anymore. The only ones he couldn’t forget were the characters he’d carved over and over, burned into his mind through sheer effort.
Most days, his reading didn’t go beyond shop signs and conversation.
Compared to Xie Yan, he was still functionally illiterate.
“I like hearing you recite it,” Lu Yang said. “Write it down for me later, so I can read it every day.”
Pleased, Xie Yan recited a few more lines:
“There’s a beauty I see but once, and she haunts my dreams. A day without her, and I’m mad with longing.”
Those lines were so straightforward, even Lu Yang understood them right away—and grinned.
Under the night sky, his cheeks went red. He actually felt shy.
No wonder, Lu Yang thought, that all those girls and boys in the storybooks fell for scholars. Just listen to that! Even his clumsy little top scholar could spout love poems!
They chatted a bit more, and soon arrived at Silly Zhu’s house.
Lu Yang was wicked about it. He didn’t even bother going into the yard—just called out at the gate, loud enough to wake the dead. “Silly Zhu! You home?”
The moment his voice rang out, before the second shout even finished echoing, Silly Zhu came bolting out of the house.
The door swung open, and they could see the big table inside. Silly Zhu’s whole family was in the middle of dinner. Every single person turned to stare.
Silly Zhu’s mother couldn’t sit still either. She hurried out right behind him.
After all this free labor Silly Zhu had done—his donkey cart too—she’d been stewing in resentment. Every day she heard Silly Zhu going on about how impressive Lu Yang was in town, and it felt like she had a knife twisting in her gut. She didn’t care about debts or money anymore—she just wanted to know what it would take for Lu Yang to finally let her son go.
But standing face-to-face with Lu Yang, all she could do was smile awkwardly. She didn’t dare say much.
Lu Yang pretended not to see her, and said, “Silly Zhu’s been up at the crack of dawn these days, working hard. And you’ve let me use your donkey for nothing—I haven’t forgotten. I managed to get back a little early today, so I came over to pay him. Right here, in front of everyone—no one can say I shortchanged him.”
A hundred coins. However you looked at it, it wasn’t much at all.
Neither Silly Zhu nor his mother had expected Lu Yang to actually show up with money. The rollercoaster of emotions left them mostly just pleasantly surprised, and they both turned polite in a hurry.
“Oh, he’s actually getting paid for this?” Silly Zhu’s mother said, beaming. “Thank you, thank you. My foolish boy’s finally earning his keep in town!”
Ten-odd days of hard labor for a hundred copper coins—and that’s with meals in town thrown in? Might as well starve.
Lu Yang just kept smiling. “The shop’s only just opened—there’s expenses everywhere. Let’s start with this for now. When I start turning a profit, don’t worry—I won’t forget what I owe him.”
All Silly Zhu could think was: Please, just let me off the hook already. The day Lu Yang made some real money, he’d hopefully hire a proper worker—better yet, maybe they’d finally scrape together enough to buy their own donkey and cart, and stop torturing him like this.
He gave his mother a look, and she didn’t even need to see it to understand.
It was fine for now, in the slow winter season, to keep humoring Lu Yang. But come spring, Silly Zhu was a strong man—he couldn’t be wasting away doing free labor for someone else when the fields needed tending!
Silly Zhu’s mother put on a kind face. “He’s clumsy, not too bright, and his mouth isn’t exactly quick. I know you’re short-handed now, and he’s happy to help where he can. But once your shop’s running smooth, maybe you’ll think about hiring someone proper. Didn’t that Lin fellow of yours start helping too? He’s a lot more useful than my silly boy!”
That was what Lu Yang wanted to hear—he’d gotten them scared, and that meant his plan was more than halfway done.
Lu Yang added, with a casual air, “Oh, but how could I? I still owe your family silver, don’t I?”
Silly Zhu’s mother almost blurted out, Forget the silver! but bit her tongue at the last second. Debts like these, all tangled up and messy—if you didn’t spell them out, no one could ever truly sort them clean.
Lu Yang looked her straight in the eye, the corners of his lips lifting in a knowing smile.
“Well, Xie Yan and I need to get home for dinner, so we’ll be on our way.”
And Silly Zhu’s mother wasn’t about to try and stop them.
Lu Yang lingered just a little at their gate. Sure enough, neighbors on both sides started peeking out, craning their necks to see what was going on.
But once the couple turned to head home, those nosy heads all disappeared just as quickly, ducking back behind courtyard walls.
Lu Yang took Xie Yan’s hand; Xie Yan held the lantern.
They couldn’t afford to look around too much—just glancing at each other took timing, because the ground underfoot was full of puddles and ruts, and you had to watch your step on this low-lying stretch of road.
If their eyes were busy, at least their mouths weren’t.
Lu Yang chuckled. “Did you see the way they were all sneaking peeks at us just now? Just like you, back when you used to spy on me.”
Xie Yan: “…”
Was that really how he’d looked when he’d watched his husband?
He opened his mouth to ask, and Lu Yang laughed. “I’m telling you, you were totally sneaky about it! Half your body hidden behind the door frame, peeking out like that—come on, admit it, weren’t you just trying to catch my eye on purpose?”
