Chapter 22: An Unexpected Turn

Huixiang rounded on her, eyes blazing.

“What did you say? My brother hasn’t asked an outrageous price. Why speak so foully? Pay by the ingredients? Did you come to buy medicine or to have someone treated? If you knew how to use it, why didn’t you buy it yourself and give it to her sooner? Why come kneeling before my father?”

The old woman planted a hand on her hip, the purses clutched in the other.

“What’s wrong with paying the listed price? How much do you want? Five wen extra for your trouble—will that do?”

She shook the coins with a clatter.

“Want money, do you? Can’t take your eyes off it? If you’re so desperate, why don’t you sell yourself at a brothel?”

Huixiang set both hands on her hips, thrust out her chest and shifted her slender waist, looking the old woman’s shrivelled figure up and down.

“At least I’m young. If I did, someone would pay! You undying old hag—take a look at yourself and see whether you’re human or a ghost. Strip naked in a brothel and no one would glance at you. Put you on a butcher’s block in the market and they’d complain of the stink! Pah!”

“You little whore—”

“Enough!”

Zuo Gui slammed his hand on the table.

“I don’t want a single wen! Satisfied? Out! All of you!”

The old woman seized the offer.

“Fine! You all heard him! It isn’t that we refuse to pay. I offered the medicine money and five wen besides. They’re the ones who don’t want it. No one can blame us! Come on, carry her out!”

She hurriedly pushed her husband and the others towards the door, as though afraid the physician might change his mind.

“Mother!”

Her son, scarlet-faced, dropped to his knees.

“Father said we’d sell our home and fields to save her. They haven’t asked us to do that. They only said to give what we could. We’re already in their debt, and now you’re scheming to pay nothing! How can we ever show our faces? Please! They saved my wife’s life. Give me back the purse and let me pay them!”

“What do you know?”

She stuffed both purses inside her clothes, held her robe closed with one hand and tugged at him with the other.

“Get up and go! What are you lingering here for? Go home and look after your wife!”

The onlookers outside erupted in jeers.

“I’ve seen shameless people, but never one like that!”

“They saved her daughter-in-law. Refusing to pay is bad enough without insulting them!”

“What a vicious mother-in-law. Marrying into that family must be eight lifetimes of bad luck.”

“Uses people, then kicks them aside. Utterly shameless!”

She ignored them. Unable to drag her kneeling son away, she turned on her husband. He dared not resist and followed her out with his head hanging.

“Come on!” she called to the relatives who had helped. “Lift her and let’s go!”

They exchanged embarrassed looks, shook their heads with strained smiles and glanced apologetically at Zuo Gui’s ashen face. Then they took the four corners of the door and started out.

“Wait.”

The patient’s voice was weak, but they stopped.

She gave Huixiang a sorrowful smile.

“Could you come here a moment?”

Huixiang approached stiffly. “What is it?”

With difficulty, the woman lifted the quilt, slipped a jade bracelet off her wrist and drew Huixiang’s hand towards her. She laid the bracelet in her palm, tears running down her face.

“I’m so sorry. This… I brought it from my parents’ home. Thank you for saving my life. It’s only a small token. Please take it.”

From outside, her mother-in-law screamed and rushed back.

“What are you doing?”

She reached for the bracelet.

Huixiang pulled it out of reach and shoved her so that she staggered.

“Did you hear, you old hag? She brought it from her own family. It isn’t yours! She’s giving it to thank my father for saving her. Any other time, I wouldn’t accept it. But after your behaviour today, I won’t swallow this insult. I’m keeping it. Let it choke you!”

“You… you…”

The old woman went white with rage. But the bracelet really had come from her daughter-in-law’s family. Tang custom respected a woman’s ownership of her dowry. If she wished to give it away, her mother-in-law had no grounds to object.

Outside, the elder was relieved that his daughter-in-law knew how to behave. Afraid his wife would cause further humiliation, he waved the others on.

“Let’s go.”

He bowed to Zuo Gui and led the way. His son hurriedly knocked his head against the floor a few more times, then rose to help carry the door.

Zuo Shaoyang spotted the flask still on the counter, more than half full.

“You’ve forgotten your wine!”

The husband smiled guiltily and bowed with cupped hands.

“Keep what’s left. You worked hard too. Have a drink to ease your weariness.”

The aroma had already made Zuo Shaoyang swallow longingly. He did not refuse. Copying the gesture, he said, “Thank you.”

The old woman, seeing everyone leave, lost her bluster. She cleared her throat, meaning to spit on the shop floor. One look at Huixiang’s cold, tigress-like face made her swallow it instead. Muttering, she hurried out.

The crowd dispersed, still talking.

It had all happened too quickly for the Zuo family to take in. Never since opening the shop had they faced such a scene: a critically ill patient begging for help, a grave illness cured, and then a woman so devoid of decency that she discarded her benefactors once they had served her purpose.

Zuo Gui was angry, but his joy in the cure was greater. Even Doctor Ni, the most famous physician in the prefectural seat, had failed. Yet he had saved the woman with a single prescription. That sense of achievement soon overcame the disgust, and the family’s spirits revived.

Huixiang laid the bracelet on her father’s table.

“What shall we do with it?”

“She gave it to you. Do what you like.”

“Father! You saved her. It was to thank you. She knows you’re soft-hearted. If she’d put it in your hands, that old hag would have snatched it back. That’s why she gave it to me. She said it was for you. You decide.”

“Yes,” Madam Liang agreed. “Tell us what to do.”

He considered.

“Pawn it. See what it will bring. Pay the rent first, as much as we can. Perhaps Madam Zhao will give us longer.”

“Good! Mother can go. I’ll cook.”

Madam Liang took the bracelet and left.

Zuo Gui paced the hall with his hands behind his back. Suddenly he turned to his son.

“So a purgative formula really can expel a dead baby?”

“Yes, Father.” Zuo Shaoyang smiled. “I’m surprised myself. Perhaps it was one of those fortunate coincidences.”

His father burst out laughing. He made several circuits of the room, returned to his chair and stopped—only to begin again as the thought struck him afresh.

“Strange indeed! How did my head suddenly become so clever? Of all the formulas I could have chosen, I picked that one. Surely Heaven guided me! Very good. From now on I’ll use it for this condition. It can be our own family secret! Ha!”

Zuo Shaoyang was alarmed. Treating other retained stillbirths with that prescription would invite trouble.

Yet he could not immediately think how to dissuade him. He would have to deal with it when it came.

Fortunately, a baby dying in the womb was relatively uncommon. More than half such cases resulted in delivery without medicine. Only a few were retained, and very few endangered the mother’s life. There should not be many occasions to use it.

Dusk settled. Between tasks in the kitchen, Huixiang lit the lamp and set it on the table.

As the first watch began and they prepared to close, Madam Liang returned with a heavy purse and a smile she could not contain.

She set it on the long table.

“Guess how much the bracelet brought!”

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