Chapter 11

Jixiang and Ruyi had just recovered from their illness and still couldn’t be exposed to the wind, so they couldn’t go outside. Both were worried about their appearance, and to ease their boredom, they chatted and joked from their respective bedrooms, separated by just a wall.

Seeing that the children’s spirits were improving day by day, Ruyi mother was overjoyed and ended up eating three full bowls of rice at lunch.

In the afternoon, Brother E came back with snacks and toys for the children, as well as some fabric and cotton to prepare their winter clothes. He was accompanied by a man dressed like a doctor.

Ruyi mother’s heart immediately tensed up.
“This… Ruyi and Jixiang’s pox have already subsided. Is there something else wrong?”

“No, no,” Brother E quickly explained. “This doctor is a pox specialist from Jiangnan, here to inoculate the children.”

Ruyi mother was puzzled and asked,
“Inoculate? We can’t even avoid it fast enough—why would you willingly give a child a disease?”

The pox doctor hurried to explain:
“This smallpox plague gets milder the more it spreads. In Jiangnan, we came up with a method—extracting pus from healthy children who’ve had mild cases, mixing it with a few herbs into little pellets the size of jujube pits. These are inserted into the noses of children who haven’t had pox. The child then gets a fever and breaks out in pox—but it’s not severe, clears quickly, and if the inoculation takes well, they may only get a mild fever and no visible pox at all. After recovery, they’re immune.”

Brother E added,
“This pox doctor heard our children had a good case and came to collect pox material. Oh, and by the way, he was introduced by Brother Hua—Madam Hua’s brother. Brother Hua’s four sons and one daughter were all inoculated by this doctor when they were around five or six years old, and they all had a smooth recovery.”

Three of Brother Hua’s four sons served as study companions to the Third Young Master. Apart from Madam Hua’s influence, the fact they had already had pox and posed no risk of contagion was another major reason they were chosen.

Ruyi mother was finally reassured.
“This is a life-saving, virtuous deed. Please, follow me.”

The pox doctor examined Ruyi and Jixiang’s pox and praised,
“Excellent pox! Deep roots, round tops, shiny and clear like pearls. This is the mildest strain—could heal even without medicine.”
(Note: Quoted from “Ancient and Modern Medical Mirror – Smallpox Treatment on the Third Day.”)

He then collected the pus from the two children’s pox, made them into pellets on the spot, placed them in a ceramic container, and wrapped it in a heap of cotton.
“This stuff can’t get too cold or too hot—either will kill the pox strain.”

After everything was done, the doctor tried to give Ruyi mother a string of coins as payment. She quickly refused.
“Saving lives is a good deed—we’re happy to help.”

The doctor didn’t insist and instead took out a pack of tiger-eye sugar.
“For the children. But they can only eat it after the pox has fully cleared. For now, keep their diet light.”

Brother E walked the doctor down from Cuiwei Mountain. When he returned, he brought out all the things he had bought.

First came a pile of dolls, all for Ruyi.
“This one’s a silk doll from Fusang (Japan), this is a wooden doll from the country of the Franks, this one’s a coconut doll from the Land of the Eight Hundred Brides, and this is a Russian nesting doll—look, there’s ten dolls hidden inside one!”

Ruyi’s eyes lit up—there were so many toys she didn’t know which to play with first, grinning from ear to ear.

Jixiang quickly asked,
“Dad, what about mine?”

Brother E opened a wooden box filled with little tin soldiers dressed in Western-style uniforms.
“These are tin soldiers from the West.”

Jixiang set them up on the bed and started playing war games, arranging troops and pretending to battle himself.

The two children were thrilled, finally breaking free from the gloom of being confined indoors. Ruyi mother asked Brother E,
“These are really rare items. Must have cost a lot?”

“Not a cent,” Brother E said. “All gifts from Brother Hua. Since the Emperor lifted the maritime ban, there’s been a flood of foreign goods. Our Western Residence has a storefront at Xinjiekou, and Brother Hua opened a big two-story shop there selling imported goods—he’s moving hundreds of taels of silver every day!”

Madam Hua, having given birth to both a son and a daughter, had secured her position in the Western Residence, and the Hua family had grown prosperous alongside her.

Ruyi mother didn’t idle. As they talked, she had already laid out the fabric Brother E brought and started marking with powder lines, preparing to cut clothes for the children.

Brother E held the chalk line while Ruyi mother snapped it against the fabric to leave guiding lines for cutting. As they worked, they chatted about household matters:

“That pox doctor said all five of Brother Hua’s children were inoculated. If it’s such a good thing, shouldn’t we try it with the Third Young Master too? That would be a great merit.”

Brother E said,
“You think we haven’t tried? It’s just that Madam Hua can’t bring it up directly. With the pox outbreak getting worse lately, at Xiangshan, your Sister E (my wife) mentioned it to the Marchioness of the Western Residence. She seemed interested, but—right now, both the Eastern and Western Residences are staying at the Xiangshan villa. All the young lords and ladies are keeping the old matriarch company, so the Marchioness can’t make the decision alone. She said she’ll have to consider it carefully.”

The Marchioness of the Western Residence, Lady Cui, was the daughter of the Princess of Yongkang, so her status was prestigious, equal to that of the Zhang family.

However, she was a second wife. The first Marchioness, Lady Sun, was the daughter of the Marquis of Huichang and had borne the legitimate eldest son of the Western Residence, Zhang Zongjian, before passing away from illness.

The Huichang Marquis household was also part of the imperial in-laws—Lady Sun was the mother of Queen Mother Sun, who was the mother-in-law of the late Queen Mother Zhou, who in turn was the grandmother-in-law of the current Queen Mother Zhang.

Dear readers, are all these “grandmothers” giving you a headache?
In short: just remember that the Sun family once produced an Queen Mother too, and was a powerful imperial in-law.

Because the eldest young master of the Western Residence was born of Lady Sun and would eventually inherit the title of Marquis of Jianchang, the current Lady Cui, as the stepmother, had to tread very carefully.

She wanted to have the children inoculated with smallpox to put an end to future worries once and for all. But there were risks involved. The practice was only common in the South; it was barely known in the North. What if something went wrong?

As a mere nanny, Sister E had no say in her masters’ affairs. She had hoped to use the pox matter from Jixiang and Ruyi to inoculate the Third Young Master, so that she, as his nursemaid, could finally be at ease. But without the Lady Marquis’s approval, even if Concubine Hua agreed, it would be useless.

Fortunately, Sister E had heard from her husband that Jixiang and Ruyi had fully recovered and hadn’t even been left with scars.

Sister E clutched her chest in relief, saying “Good” three times in a row. “Ruyi mother has worked hard during this time. Concubine Hua rewarded me with a few bolts of fine satin—give them all to her.”

Her husband replied, “If you give them to her, she’ll just use them to make clothes for the kids. She won’t keep any for herself. You’d be better off giving her some nice ready-made clothes—if the children can’t wear them, she’ll have to wear them herself.”

After eleven years together, Sister E’s husband had become quite savvy in the ways of human nature.

“Good idea.” Sister E took out a dark blue short jacket, a multicolored silk skirt, and a green gauze robe from her trunk. “These were all rewards from Concubine Hua. I’ve only worn them once. Let Ruyi mother have them.”

Her husband packed up the clothes and asked, “So when are you all finally coming down the mountain?”

Sister E smiled bitterly, “I’m just a lowly nursemaid—I don’t get to decide. I’m dying to go down and see the kids, but if I do, they might say I’ve brought ‘impurities’ from the mountain. If any of the young masters or ladies in the villa fall ill, I’ll be blamed for carrying the plague. Better to bear it a while longer. Maybe we’ll return once the leaves in Xiangshan turn red.”

Her husband returned to Cuiwei Mountain and delivered the clothes to Ruyi mother, who treasured them like precious items. “I’ll save these to wear when we go out for a banquet,” she said.

There was no sound from the bedroom, so Sister E’s husband peeked in and asked, “Where are the kids?”

“Catching crabs,” said Ruyi mother. “They said autumn crabs are the fattest. They left right after breakfast.”

Around lunchtime, Jixiang and Ruyi returned carrying a whole basket of crabs.

“How are we going to finish all these?” Sister E’s husband asked.

“If they catch more, I’ll cook them properly and send a batch as a gift to Huaien Temple to thank them for letting us stay here these past days,” said Ruyi mother.

Jixiang and Ruyi went off to catch another basket of crabs, while Sister E’s husband and Ruyi mother got to work. They cracked open the crabs and prepared the meat, roe, and paste for later use.

Ruyi mother was a skilled cook and made two kinds of crab dishes.

The lighter dish was Steamed Orange-Stuffed Crab—the crab meat and orange pulp were steamed inside hollowed orange peels.

The richer dish was Stir-Fried Crab in Thick Sauce—the crab meat was coated in flour, deep-fried until firm, then stuffed back into the shells and stir-fried with fermented bean paste and seasonings.

They packed two large food boxes full and had Jixiang and Ruyi deliver them to Huaien Temple for the Taoist priests.

It was clear the food had been made with great care, and it catered to different tastes.

The abbot of Huaien Temple, Daoist Master Zhang, accepted the food. He had once been bought by the Zhang family as a substitute for the Western Marquis when he was a child—Zhang family feared their child would fall ill, so they purchased a substitute to take the karmic hit. Later, the Zhangs gave him the surname Zhang, and as the family rose in wealth, they put him in charge of their family temple.

Daoist Zhang loved the two crab dishes. Seeing how neatly dressed and lovable Jixiang and Ruyi were, he said, “What a fine pair of golden boy and jade girl! Let me give you both protective charms—named after you two, so you’ll live in peace and prosperity.”

The children thanked him in unison.

The charms were jade pendants inlaid with gold. One side was inscribed with “Peace,” and the other with “Jixiang Ruyi” (Auspicious and As You Wish).

The two children loved them so much they immediately hung them around their necks.

As they left Huaien Temple and walked down the spirit path flanked with stone sculptures, the setting sun cast their shadows long and tall.

The spirit path was swept daily by the priests, so it was very clean, but the area was secluded and rarely visited. Sometimes tufts of wild grass poked through the cracks in the flagstones like unruly nose hairs.

Suddenly, Ruyi stopped. “Jixiang, did you hear someone crying?” she asked. This was a cemetery, after all—there were still eight coffins awaiting transport back to the ancestral graves in Cangzhou.

Jixiang listened. “Maybe. Don’t scare yourself—it’s probably just a cat.”

“It’s fall already,” Ruyi said. “Cats only cry in the spring. That was crying.”

In truth, Jixiang was scared too, but he wanted to appear brave in front of Ruyi. He acted nonchalant and said, “So what if someone’s crying? Let’s just keep walking. Don’t forget—we’ve got protective charms from Daoist Zhang.”

Ruyi touched her pendant for courage. “Right. We have Buddha’s protection.”

“There’s no Buddha in a Taoist temple,” Jixiang corrected her. “Only immortals. Hmm… Who do we worship at Huaien Temple?”

The temple honored the Three Pure Ones of Taoism: Yuanshi Tianzun, Lingbao Tianzun, and Taishang Laojun.

Ruyi was stumped. “Uh… I don’t know. Three immortals, I guess. Do you know?”

“Of course!” Jixiang declared. “Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, and Sha Wujing.”

Ruyi promptly tugged his ear, expertly imitating Sister E’s signature move. “Nonsense! I can tell a monkey and a pig when I see one!”

Jixiang’s ear hurt, but the mood had clearly lightened. The eerie crying no longer seemed so frightening.

The two of them continued down the spirit path, laughing and teasing each other—when the crying suddenly grew louder!

The crying was coming from behind a stone elephant. Resolving himself, Jixiang tore off his protective talisman and hurled it in the direction of the stone elephant. “Any demons or evil spirits, disperse immediately as per the divine decree!”

As the talisman struck, the crying stopped.

A young Taoist novice dragging a broom emerged from behind the stone elephant, rubbing his head and cursing, “Who the hell threw that at me?!”

The voice was familiar. Ruyi squinted, “Heitun?”

Jixiang also recognized him, “Heitun? How did you end up a Taoist monk?”

Heitun couldn’t believe his eyes. He rubbed them and pinched the back of his hand—it hurt. This wasn’t a dream!

He flung the broom aside and ran toward them. “Jixiang! Ruyi! What are you two doing here?!”

The childhood friends from Siquan Lane reunited in a cemetery—half joyous, half bittersweet. Ruyi said, “We’re here recovering from illness. Having smallpox was awful. It almost left scars. How did you end up becoming a monk?”

Heitun burst into tears. “I’m here as a substitute! That bastard steward Lai Xi’s grandson got smallpox—had a high fever, they thought he wouldn’t make it, so they needed someone to take his place and become a monk. The fortune-teller said my birth chart was the most suitable, so they sent me here!”

Jixiang said, “Even if Lai Xi is the chief steward, he can’t force you to become a substitute monk. Come on, you’re coming back with us.”

Hearing that, Heitun sobbed even louder. “It was my own parents who sent me! They said Lai Xi gave them fifty taels of silver, promoted my dad to a courtyard guard with triple the pay, and got my mom a job at the inner gate. They told me if I disobey or try to run, the family will lose all these benefits!”

That’s the harsh reality. Not all parents love their children. Some would give their lives to save them. Others treat their children like bargaining chips—to trade for money, for status, or for their own future.