Chapter 1

Dawn had not yet fully broken.

A blanket of pale mist hung over the woods and river outside the town, hazy and indistinct.

The trees stood bare, with only a few dry leaves clinging to the branches. With no wind to stir them, they drooped there alone, making the scene feel even more bleak and desolate.

Gradually, the sound of hoofbeats arose—soft at first, then growing clearer as they drew nearer.

More than a dozen mules and donkeys, some laden with goods, others pulling carts stacked high with planks, trudged forward with heads bowed. White breath steamed from their nostrils in the cold air. The wooden wheels creaked and groaned with each turn as the caravan advanced step by step.

Men walked on every side of the convoy. The air was bitterly cold, and the carts were packed full with firewood and straw.

Eight or nine peasant men plodded along silently, each carrying bedding rolls, large bamboo baskets, or bulging bundles. They had little energy left for chatter or laughter.

The cart wheels rolled steadily over the fairly even dirt road.

One wheel had several strands of dry grass caught in it. As it spun, the grass twirled up and down with each rotation. When the strands swung low again, a foot clad in a thick black cloth shoe stretched out and stepped on them, pinning them to the ground.

As the cart rolled forward, the grass tore free, no longer caught in the turning wheel.

The man walking beside the cart was bundled tightly, his legs wrapped in bindings and his face muffled against the cold. A patched cotton cap shielded his forehead and ears, the strings tied firmly beneath his chin. His brown winter coat was worn but thick enough.

Pei Youwa kept his hands tucked into his sleeves, shoulders hunched against the chill, his back slightly bent. The town of Yunjì was just ahead. He was in no hurry now, and with the cold biting into him, his neck shrank down into his coat.

After pausing to step on the grass, his foot moved on again, keeping pace with the donkey team.

At the town gate.

The gate stood open. It was still early, and few people were going in or out.

The guards on duty lounged inside a three-walled grass shelter, yawning, drinking, or idly chatting as they waited for the shift change.

Hearing the tramp of hooves and footsteps, an old guard squinted into the distance. When the convoy drew near, he barked a command, and three younger guards came forward to perform the routine inspection of goods and travel permits.

Though the caravan looked heavily laden, its wares were only straw, firewood, charcoal, dried herbs, and some inexpensive furs and sundries—the sort of small-time trade carried on by farming households.

At the head walked a man leading a tall mule. He was unshaven, and his plain cloth garments were noticeably better than those of the others—clean and without a patch.

The old guard took the bamboo tally the man handed over, glanced at it by candlelight, and asked casually, “From Yanqiu Prefecture?”

“Yes. Luckily there’s been no snow—the roads have been easy enough,” the man answered.

The old guard didn’t engage further. After checking each man’s bamboo tag, which served as proof of household registration and identity, he turned back to his desk.

The warm inkstone’s water had already cooled, but the ink was not yet frozen. Dipping his brush, he leaned close to the candle flame and entered the record.

Once finished, he waved the caravan on.

Two carts of straw, two carts of firewood, and one cart of charcoal—each pulled by a pair of animals—rolled through the gate into Yunjì Town.

Behind them, six more donkeys and mules laden with odds and ends were led by two men, their hooves clopping as they followed the carts inside.

It was still early. The streets were nearly empty, with only a few pedestrians about, and most of the shops remained closed. Silence hung in the air, broken only by the occasional cough from a window above the street.

To sell their loads of straw and firewood, they would have to wait until households stirred and the streets grew lively.

The donkey team pressed on in silence as the sky brightened. Turning a corner onto another street, they spotted a stall setting up ahead.

At the sight, the leader, Zhao Lianxing, paused, thought for a moment, then called back: “We’ve reached the place. No need to push further. Let’s stop for breakfast—this round is on me.”

“Good, good!” the others responded with cheer. At the promise of food, and without having to spend their own money, their spirits lifted. The fatigue and chill of the road seemed to vanish.

They pulled their carts and animals to the roadside and stopped.

Hearing the noise, the family running the breakfast stall hurried to set out tables and benches.

The stallkeeper, a middle-aged man, greeted them with a broad smile as the nine peasants approached: “Come, sit, sit! Plenty of stools, plenty of tables. Hot water’s already on—tea will be ready in just a moment.”

His wife and her husband’s younger partner tied on aprons and sat down to wrap vegetable dumplings. Their hands moved deftly—scooping filling, folding, pinching—fast and neat.

At the big pot, the stallkeeper’s elderly father tended the fire. Seeing customers arrive, he called out warmly, tossed more wood onto the flames, and soon the fire roared up, painting his weathered face red in the glow.

The stall sold clear-broth wontons and noodles. Zhao Lianxing asked the price first:

A bowl of wontons was ten copper coins, with twenty dumplings inside. Plain noodles cost the same. Noodles with stewed toppings or pork offal were more expensive.

Zhao told his companions to order as they pleased: those who wanted wontons could have wontons, those who preferred noodles could have noodles.

Pei Youwa rubbed his hands, pulled down the cloth covering his nose and mouth, and tucked it into his coat. Looking at the dumplings being wrapped, he thought a moment, then followed another man’s order: “I’ll have a bowl of wontons.”

“All right!” the stallkeeper replied, keeping count while pulling out a ball of rested dough from the basin to knead.

The group ordered five bowls of wontons and four bowls of noodles. The stallkeeper’s whole family bustled into motion.

The sky had grown brighter, though the cold still bit. Once the pot boiled, the stallkeeper’s father brewed a large pot of tea and poured steaming cups for everyone.

Just holding the hot bowls in their hands eased their bodies, even before drinking. A gentle sip, a long sigh—it felt like they had finally arrived.

They had come all the way from Yanqiu Prefecture in Hexi, a journey of a thousand li, with Yunjì Town as their destination.

Though not as large as a prefectural capital, Yunjì’s location was ideal. With a river port and both water and land routes, it served as a crossroads. Travelers from Yanqiu or Lingshan in the west, heading to Meizhu Prefecture in the east, all had to pass through here.

In recent years, trade between prefectures had grown prosperous, and Yunjì thrived with it.

Zhao Lianxing and his companions were only peasants trading in firewood, charcoal, and mountain goods. They bartered along the way, buying and selling in villages and market towns, scraping a profit by reselling at slightly higher prices—nothing more than a peddler’s living.

Their goods would never fetch high prices in the grand prefectural city, and it was not worth the long trek. Yunjì was their final stop.

After nearly a month on the road, with frequent stops, they had gathered enough straw and firewood from nearby villages to fill their carts to the brim.

Leaving a farmhouse in the middle of the night, they had hurried the last stretch in hopes of reaching Yunjì at dawn, ready to hawk their wares. With luck, they might sell out within a few days.

It was winter—firewood and charcoal were in high demand, essential to every household. In town, gathering and drying such supplies was far harder than in the countryside.

The big pot blazed as the water boiled.

As the dumplings and noodles cooked, a mounted troop clattered past from the far end of the street.

The drivers and guards of those carts were clearly dressed very differently from this group of peasant men.

At this hour it was still too early, the streets nearly empty. Naturally, the noise from the wonton stall drew some attention, but most of the passersby just glanced over as they came from the street corner and then went straight on their way.

Zhao Lianxing sipped his hot tea as he watched and counted the heavy wagons rolling past the street entrance.

Just the large wagons alone numbered nearly twenty. Judging by the look of that mounted escort, they were surely heading to lodge at the big inn.

Unlike a proper trade caravan, the goods that men like them dealt in were only surplus grain, firewood, and straw that common folk bartered and resold among each other. The profit was little, but such petty trading wasn’t subject to tax.

In recent years the court had shown leniency; taxes had been reduced, and life for small households had become much easier.

The wontons were served. The five men who ordered them immediately picked up their chopsticks. The others, still waiting for their noodles, couldn’t help but swallow their saliva and turned their heads toward the pot where the noodles were boiling, saying nothing more.

Pei Youwa lifted his bowl, blew on it, and first took a sip of the steaming broth.

This clear wonton soup had a few drops of scallion oil floating on the surface, giving off a fragrance that made one’s appetite stir.

For a while, there was no more idle chatter—

only the sounds of slurping wontons and sipping broth.

When the four bowls of plain noodles were finally served, even though they were still piping hot, some men couldn’t wait and shoved a mouthful of noodles in right away.

The stall owner set aside the leftover dough, covered it in the wooden basin, and finally took a breather with his family, preparing pork offal and stews for later customers.

The sky was still dim when someone came carrying two buckets of water on a shoulder pole—it was the stall owner’s eldest son and youngest daughter.

The boy was about twelve or thirteen, the girl seven or eight. They carried a basket of dried vegetables and a basket of radishes.

Seeing that there were already customers this early, neither child showed any timidity. They simply went about their tasks.

Peasant men, used to labor and long roads, all had hearty appetites. A single bowl of wontons or noodles wasn’t enough to fill them.

Some in the donkey caravan fetched their food bundles, each taking a piece or two of coarse rice cakes to finish off with the leftover broth in their bowls.

The caravan carried dry rations as well as a stove, rice, flour, and dried vegetables. Two of the men had some cooking skills and served as the group’s cooks.

All along the road from Yanqiu Prefecture, they had been stopping to set up fires and cook their own hot soups and meals—it was cheaper than buying food.

But those two cooks were not true chefs; their skills were only slightly better than the others’. Now, being able to eat a bowl of steaming, fragrant wontons was truly satisfying.

The meal was not even finished when new commotion came from the street corner. At first it was hurried footsteps—then suddenly, a woman’s cries rang out.

“Give him back to me! Give him back!”

The sound of her weeping was heart-wrenching. Both the caravan and the stall owner’s family turned their heads to look.

“Alas!” came the heavy sigh of a man.

Soon, two struggling figures appeared at the street corner.

A man was carrying a child in his arms. He said nothing, only sighed heavily, his brow furrowed tight as he tried to shake off the woman and lift his foot to walk forward.

The woman was frail. Pulled away, she nearly fell, but she rushed over again, falling to her knees and clinging desperately to the man’s leg, her face streaked with tears as she cried out hoarsely:

“If you sell him, I won’t live either!”

The man could not move, his voice thick with choked sobs:

“Every mouth opens in the morning asking to be fed. Where is there any path left to live?”

“You’re so ill already. If he goes out, at least he can eat something. That’s a path too.”

But upon hearing this, the woman grew furious. Tears streamed down her face as she broke into a fit of coughing before cursing:

“What path? Jiang Hai, you heartless bastard! You’re selling my Changxia into a brothel—what kind of path is that?!”

The man named Jiang Hai opened his mouth, but no words came.

“He’s only eight years old. Eight!” The woman’s cries grew even more pitiful. She clung to the man’s leg, refusing to let go, sobbing, accusing, cursing.

“Once he’s in a brothel, even if he grows up, how many years could he live? Jiang Hai, you beast!”

“Alas…” Jiang Hai sighed again, struggling but unable to free himself. He could neither leave nor break away, his brow etched with deep creases, his face heavy with sorrow.

In the end, unable to overcome her resistance, he held the child in his arms and pulled up the woman, who was still coughing violently, and with another sigh, turned back the way they had come.

The child in his arms looked about seven or eight. In the center of his brow was a faint red mark—a shuang’er, a boy born with features considered delicate, almost like a girl’s. He was utterly terrified, too frightened to cry, his wide eyes full of fear.

A shuang’er.

Pei Youwa’s hand paused around his bowl, a strange stirring rising within him.

He had a son, only five years old, still young.

It wasn’t rare for a tongyang xi (child bride) to be a few years older than the future husband.

But to hear a mother cry and struggle like that—clearly unwilling. After all, this was her own flesh and blood, raised to this age. How could anyone bear to part with him?