Chapter 35: Waiting for a Chance

“Teasing me again! I’ll tear your mouth!”

Red-faced, Xiaomei reached for her companion, who laughed and dodged. Seeing more people arriving with buckets, the woman stopped.

“Enough. Others are waiting for water.”

Their own buckets were full. They shouldered the poles and started up the steps. Xiaomei passed Zuo Shaoyang with a blush, a sidelong glance and a soft laugh.

He touched his neatly straightened futou and watched her graceful figure go. Her faint scent lingered at his nose. Somehow it brought back the wood-gathering girl’s fragrance: grass just beginning to sprout in spring.

The thought left him pleasantly dazed.

He fetched water, opened the doors and swept. No snow had fallen overnight, so there was none to clear.

His father was still asleep; the shop need not open for business yet. He cracked pine cones, crushed the kernels and fed their juice to the squirrel through a spring-onion tube. Practised now, he soon satisfied it. It curled up and slept again.

By the time he had tidied the rooms, Zuo Gui was up. Huixiang arrived too. With only one day left to raise the money, she was anxious for her parents and kept coming over.

Madam Liang brewed her husband a pot of hot tea.

“Tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve. What are we to do about the two thousand one hundred wen?”

“We’ll find a way when we reach it.”

The large cup almost engulfed Zuo Gui’s face, muffling his voice.

“I’ll take Zhong out again later and earn something for New Year. This time we’ll keep it and buy a cut of meat. Even beggars have New Year’s Eve. If tomorrow goes badly, we’ll move. With a hundred or two in hand, we can rent somewhere. We’ll make our living as travelling doctors. I won’t let you starve.”

She sighed. “It may have to be that.”

Huixiang had heard about the rich villager’s child the night before.

“We should keep Guizhi Hall if we possibly can. I thought last night: if there’s no other way, why not go to Huimin Hall and find that child’s family? Ask to borrow two thousand wen to get through this, then repay them from our earnings?”

“No.”

Zuo Gui put down the cup.

“We’ve already taken more than a thousand from them. That hardly seems proper. Go asking for a loan, and without knowing our circumstances they’ll think we’re greedy for more. People would laugh.”

“Better laughed at than thrown out,” she muttered.

“What did you say?”

“We’re borrowing, not asking for a gift! You saved their son. Surely they’d lend a little? Seeing you save him, they should trust that your skill can earn enough to repay them. Explain the situation. Offer interest if need be…”

“No. When I say no, I mean it.”

His voice turned cold.

“A married daughter is water poured away. Our affairs are no concern of yours. Look after your husband’s family.”

But her suggestion had sparked an idea in Zuo Shaoyang.

“I’ll pack the medicines, food and water, Father. Shall we go once you’ve finished your tea?”

“Mm.”

Zuo Gui lifted the cup again.

Using preparations as an excuse, Zuo Shaoyang took Huixiang into the kitchen.

“I’ve thought of a way to make money. Tell me what you think.”

“Go on.”

“Disguise yourself a little and wait near Huimin Hall. Watch for difficult cases they can’t treat. Follow the family, find out where the patient lives and come straight to us. We’ll try treating them. Father can’t object to helping where Huimin Hall has failed. It isn’t undermining them either. What do you think?”

“A good idea. But if they can’t cure the patient, can Father?”

“How will we know without trying? These last two days his brush has worked wonders—or rather, his hands have. Two critical patients cured. We should have faith in him.”

The reminder revived her spirits.

“True! Let’s do it. But where do I find you? Won’t you be up in the villages?”

“I’ll persuade Father to stay in town today. We can set up a medicine stall at the market. You can find us there.”

“Good. I’ll go now.”

Always quick to act, she turned to leave.

“Wait, Sis!”

“What?”

He wanted to ask about the girl at the well but could not quite bring himself to it.

“Well… there’s… never mind. Later.”

“What’s all this stammering? Say it.”

“I wanted to ask about someone.”

“Who?”

“A girl. A young married woman calls her Xiaomei. They often fetch water together by the river in front of us in the mornings. She has a long plait and likes to laugh…”

He described them both.

Huixiang smiled.

“That sounds like the Sang tea-shop family’s youngest daughter, Sang Xiaomei.”

“Really? I’m not sure.”

“How can you not know? You often go with Father to buy tea there. Sometimes you sit and drink a cup in the early morning. It must be her. The Sangs have three children. The eldest boy is married, and Xiaomei’s the youngest of three daughters. The woman with her should be her sister-in-law. Both older sisters are married too.

“Actually, there’s a connection between her and our family. Are you still thinking about it?”

“Thinking about what?”

His blank expression made her suppose his memory had not recovered.

“You and Father often visit their tea shop. Granny Wang next door told Mother you and Xiaomei would suit each other and asked whether she should sound them out.

“Mother agreed. If the Sangs seemed willing, she’d ask Father; with his consent, she’d formally engage a matchmaker. But when Granny Wang spoke to them, they said neither yes nor no. It’s stayed there ever since. Mother never dared tell Father. He still knows nothing.”

So that explained it. Xiaomei and her sister-in-law presumably knew and had been teasing him for that reason.

Her graceful figure stirred him, but with his family in this state, how could he think of marriage?

He shook his head.

“That’s all. Off you go.”

Huixiang studied him, then lowered her voice.

“I don’t think it’ll happen. Her parents are said to be calculating, especially her mother. Money before people, that one. They probably think we’re too poor, but don’t want to lose Father’s tea custom, so they keep things vague.

“Don’t dwell on it or tell Father. Hou Pu and I are looking too. We’ll find you a good wife.”

She patted his shoulder, told their mother she had something unfinished at home and left.

Zuo Shaoyang returned to his father.

“It’s the twenty-ninth. Would village rounds so close to New Year seem unlucky? Yesterday people looked rather odd about it. They wouldn’t let us near their doors and sat us outside, as though afraid we’d bring illness in.”

“Really? Surely not?”

Zuo Gui could not know their feelings. Still, sending away the God of Pestilence was a year-end custom. The argument sounded plausible enough to make him hesitate.

“And the patients at Laohuai have only had one day’s medicine. They won’t be better yet. After New Year, we can collect their fees and continue our rounds. Then there won’t be any question of bad luck.”

“Mm. After New Year, then. What do we do today?”

He knew few patients would come if they waited at the shop.

“Set up a stall at the market? People come from everywhere. Someone may have a headache or fever and want treatment. Wouldn’t that suit us?”

---

**Enjoyed this story?**
Discover more chapters of **The Young Physician of the Tang Dynasty** at [**NovelPotato.asia**](https://novelpotato.asia/the-young-physician-of-the-tang-dynasty/).