Chapter 12: Memories of Agony

He entered the room and saw the girl using every ounce of her strength to stand, swaying as she leaned against the wall. Her gaze burned with intensity, and in her hand, she held a shard of porcelain, its sharp edge pointed directly at him.

Indeed, she was beautiful.

Beautiful like the cold glint of a sword blade drawn from its sheath.

She was young, no more than twelve or thirteen, yet she already possessed such sharpness and presence. One could only imagine what kind of beauty she would grow into with time.

"Generally speaking, most young ladies would point the sharp end at their own necks," he said with a smile.

The girl gripped the porcelain shard tighter, her palm sliced open, seeping bright red blood.

He stepped forward, his expression gentle: "Put it down. If I wanted to do anything to you, why would I wait until you woke up? Why bother brewing medicine for you? Covering you with a thick quilt? Taking such good care of you?"

Generally speaking, at this point, a girl’s attitude would soften, her eyes would redden, her gaze would grow vacant, and her arms would slowly drop—reverting to the helpless, fragile appearance of a weak beast.

Generally speaking, it is, after all, only *generally* speaking.

Just as he prepared to take another step forward, he heard the girl’s voice—devoid of any emotion, raspy like a broken, discarded bowl.

"If you dare to come any closer, I will kill you."

Not a weak beast, but a hyena from the legends—one that knows no pain, a stubborn creature by nature. Even on the verge of death, it would fight to the bitter end to tear a piece of flesh from your belly.

He stopped, his gentle expression slowly fading.

"Where is this?" the girl continued to ask.

"Shantang Street," he replied from the doorway, concise and to the point, while listlessly thinking to himself: What can a beautiful, stubborn girl who would rather die than submit, and who is worth five taels of silver, actually do?

The girl leaned against the wall: "A place that sells paintings, right?"

He did not answer.

"I heard Little Foot say that Shantang Street in Suzhou Prefecture is a place that sells fake paintings," the girl said, holding onto her last breath.

Little Foot must be that child who grew up in a jar, he guessed, but he still did not answer.

The girl held the porcelain shard, her gaze fierce: "I can paint."

He leaned against the wall as well, tilting his body, watching her calmly: "This is not a shop for fake paintings."

"It is." The girl spoke in a monotone: "I smell the scent of mineral pigments."

He slowly straightened up.

The girl continued: "Anything I see, I can paint. No matter how much time passes."

His expression grew serious.

"Let me stay, and I will paint for you. Ten wen per painting." The porcelain shard was embedded deeper into the girl’s hand, the blood winding down, blooming on the floor in a bright red that resembled the ill-timed lip rouge she had worn that day. "The medicine, the food, the bed—I will calculate it all in copper coins and pay you back."

This beautiful carp was covered in blood and skin and bones, yet he suddenly found himself willing to believe her.

"Fine," he said.

"Write a contract," the girl whispered.

He didn't hear her clearly.

"Write a contract!" The girl gritted her teeth, using all her might to make her voice louder.

He didn't understand why, but he complied. The contract was simple and scrawled. He signed and pressed his thumbprint first, then held out the thin hemp paper. With a half-smile, he asked: "Can I come over now?"

"Put it there." The girl raised the porcelain shard in her hand and pointed to a cabinet not far away.

He did as he was told.

The girl didn't use a brush; instead, she tremblingly dipped her finger into her own blood and wrote her name.

He Shanyue.

He murmured the name under his breath.

"Actually, this paper has no legal standing," he found it amusing. "If I harbored ill intentions, how could I be constrained by a thin piece of paper?"

The young girl braced her hands on the cabinet, her wrists fluttering like a butterfly, her voice very low: "I know. But this is my last..."

If she didn't have to pay with her life to burn together with her enemy, then this was the last, futile protection she could provide for herself in this desperate, dead-end situation.

He didn't know exactly what had happened to this young girl, but her skeletal frame and her hyena-like defensive posture were proof enough that she had endured extreme suffering.

He didn't ask for details, just as he wouldn't talk about his own past, or how Wang Er-niang, a Sichuan woman, ended up in Jiangnan, or how Old Lu had acquired his supernatural lightness skills.

"Crossing-Bridge Bones"—once the bones cross the Naihe Bridge, they are reborn as living people.

Knowing that was enough; there was no need to delve deeper.

If a clearly priced contract could bring her peace of mind, then so be it.

***

The bright moon hung high. Master Sun Wu stared blankly at the white jade mortar. The malachite had already been pounded into fine, scattered dust. A light breeze swept across the window lattice, gently rolling the beautiful green into the path of his thoughts.

Master Sun Wu snapped out of his trance and instructed his servant: "I said, no open flames or paper lanterns. What if the minerals and the paintings catch fire?"

The servant hurriedly said: "Yes! Yes! Master, it’s hard to be thorough when traveling. That fellow stole the paintings from the warehouse and was only caught in Songjiang Prefecture a few days ago. We interrogated him for days, but he refused to say where the paintings were hidden. That’s why we thought of using fire—to scare him with a branding iron..."

Master Sun Wu gave an "um" and waved his hand to dismiss the servant.

The door to the tavern closed softly.

The bolt on the post station door clicked shut in response.

There were two wooden tubs in the side room. Wang Er-niang and He Shanyue drew several buckets of hot water. Wang Er-niang carefully removed her large gold bracelets and asked He Shanyue: "Do you want me to scrub your back?"

He Shanyue didn't understand why this vicious woman from Sichuan had such a persistent hobby of scrubbing other people's backs.

There weren't even bathhouses in Sichuan.

"No," He Shanyue frowned, refusing as always.

Wang Er-niang shrugged, and before long, she emerged from the swirling steam.

He Shanyue went in fully clothed, undoing her garments bit by bit. The copper mirror in the post station was as tall as a person. She stood naked before it, first opening her mouth to look at her tongue, which had been burned by charcoal but had long since healed.

She moved her tongue, scraping the surface with her sharp molars, and finally confirmed once again: there was no sensation.

The skin and flesh in her mouth grew the fastest and had healed easily.

But the sense of the tongue—including the sense of taste—could never be restored.

Remaining alongside her lost sense of taste were the dense, interwoven burn marks that had erupted across her back.

Patches of red, white, purple, and gray.

The red was the color of fresh flesh; the white was the mark left after the scabs fell off; the purple was the witness to congested blood flow; the gray was the existence of rotting flesh where new skin had failed to grow.

He Shanyue touched her shoulder with a sense of reverence.

The flesh and blood of her own mother must still remain here, right?

Her mother had turned back, holding her tightly in her arms, and the fire had burned their flesh together.

The umbilical cord was cut, and the infant was born, but there was no longer any physical connection to her mother.

And she, she still had these scars on her back.

Mother.

My mother, who protected me in the firelight; my younger sister, who has vanished without a trace.

He Shanyue looked calmly into the copper mirror.

I have endured unbearable flight, pain, and patience, and I am finally about to enter the Cheng household.

That night, the man who served the wine was the eldest son of the Cheng family.

Fortunately, I have the ability to paint anything I have seen, anyone I have met, and any scenery I have witnessed, so I will never forget.

In the copper mirror, the girl, beautiful as a brilliant koi, slowly, slowly pulled a smile.

A gentle, mild smile, exactly the same as the one she would use as the female tutor she was applying to be today.

Friends who are familiar with A-Yuan know that A-Yuan is a fairy who thrives on mental encouragement. Generally speaking, comments are the driving force that motivates A-Yuan to write like crazy—they are even more useful than tips and monthly tickets!

(End of chapter)