Jiang Wang glanced at the barely touched tea. "Aunt Song, have you eaten? I'll reserve a table at a restaurant."
"Ah, let me go!" Du Yehu leapt at it like a condemned man pardoned. "I know every wine-house in Fenglin City!"
Aunt Song sat down and waved a hand. "No hurry. I came because there is a matter I must discuss with you."
Catching the small girl watching him in secret, Jiang Wang gave her a gentle smile. "Whatever it is, please speak."
Aunt Song stroked the little head beside her. "Go walk about with these two big brothers, won't you? See the place where your brother lives and cultivates."
Du Yehu flung his arms open at once, his broad face crumpling into a grin like an old chrysanthemum. "Come! Brother Tiger will buy you every sweet thing in the city!"
Ling He said, with more tact, "Set your mind at ease. We and Jiang Wang are brothers who have traded lives. We'll look after An'an."
Little An'an was obedient. Timid as she was, her mother had spoken, and so she took several hesitant steps — toward Ling He.
By any reckoning, the even-featured Ling He with his mild smile was far more trustworthy than Du Yehu, whose full beard and enormous grin were frankly alarming.
Ling He, deeply consoled, led the girl out by the hand. Du Yehu, before following, shot Jiang Wang a glare of pure betrayal — a look that said plainly: what is the meaning of this, with your sister?
Only when they were well away did the smile leave Jiang Wang's face. "Has Fengxi Town been peaceful of late? And the family shop, does it do well?"
"There's no great trouble, only..." Aunt Song shifted in her seat, working at her sleeve.
Jiang Wang made himself patient. "Whatever it is, say it."
"Since your father passed, the business has grown worse by the day, until the two of us, mother and daughter, can scarcely keep body and soul together..." She drew out a handkerchief and began to blot her eyes.
The family's one remaining property was a medicine shop — modest, but with channels cultivated over long years, and a name spoken with respect throughout Fengxi Town. When the household fell they had sold nearly everything and kept only that shop, precisely because such a trade endured. It could not make a man rich; neither could it leave him struggling to eat.
What sort of talent did it take, then, to run a steady, slow-flowing medicine shop into the ground in a few short years?
Jiang Wang was no fool. While his father lived, the old man had deliberately taught him a little of business, in case the boy's cultivation came to nothing and he had to go home and live an ordinary life.
He knew there was something rotten in the account. But all he said was, "Is there some way I can help, Aunt?"
If she wanted silver, he could scrape a sum together. Jiang An'an was his only sister; for her sake alone he wished them to live better.
"I know our Little Wang has always worked hard. You'll surely have a fine future. But your aunt..." She wiped her eyes again. "Your aunt is only a woman, with no craft and no skill to her name. I truly cannot hold on any longer..."
She raised her tear-filled eyes to his face. "Would you take An'an to raise from now on?"
The last thread of warmth went out of Jiang Wang's eyes.
By no road of thought could he have arrived here. This woman did not want even the daughter of her own body.
He nodded slowly. "So Aunt has been promised to a good family?"
Aunt Song lowered her gaze. Only now, before the eldest son of her dead husband, did a thread of shame climb up at last out of the deepest place in her heart.
"Marriage and mourning are the common affairs of men and women." Jiang Wang never let a hard word into his voice. "Then does An'an know she is to live with me?"
"She doesn't know yet. Your aunt thought to ask your opinion first. You know how she is — timid from birth, afraid of strangers. Even if I kept her, she would not thrive..." She was explaining herself, but her voice sank lower with every word.
"I understand." Jiang Wang cut her off. "Do I tell her, or will you?"
"You tell her..." said Aunt Song. "I... I must be going. The carriage waits outside the city."
Jiang Wang was silent a while. "Very well. I won't see you off."
"Every month, I'll send you silver."
"There's no need. I can afford to raise An'an. Aunt, look after yourself."
"Ai. You and An'an be well." She rose.
Two steps toward the door she stopped and turned back, eyes brimming. "An'an doesn't like winter melon. She likes eggplant. Sweets most of all — but you mustn't let her have too many."
"She kicks off her blanket in her sleep... She... she's small yet, she doesn't understand things. You're her brother; be patient with her."
"Aunt." He had meant to let it end there, but seeing her perform this grief, he could not keep it in. "I wonder whether you still remember. My father could have held on another two years, but he refused treatment. He wanted the property left to you. He wanted you to take good care of my little sister, who was still so young..."
Aunt Song had nothing to answer. She covered her face and went.
Jiang Wang sat staring at nothing. It was a long while before he poured himself a cup of tea.
In all these years of seeking the Dao abroad, however bitter it grew, he had never once asked his family for so much as a tael of silver. Because he thought of his father lying ill in bed, and of how hard life was for Aunt Song and An'an. Because his father would sooner die early than burden them. How could he take that money?
Even though he, beyond dispute, was heir to that considerable estate.
In his ear the old conversation seemed to sound again:
"Little Wang, you've grown up now. You can take care of yourself, can't you?"
"Yes, Father."
That small figure of years ago seemed to overlap with the man sitting here, meeting across all that time.
"And I can take care of An'an as well," Jiang Wang said softly.
...
Ling He and Du Yehu brought Jiang An'an back after only a short walk.
"Eh? Where's your aunt?" Du Yehu asked, his mouth well ahead of his brain.
Ling He instinctively tightened his hold on the small hand in his, but it had already pulled free with stubborn strength.
Jiang Wang looked over. The girl, not yet five, simply stood there in silence, biting her lip, those round black eyes fixed and unblinking.
She stood between Ling He and Du Yehu, and yet she seemed to stand alone in some far corner of a vast, empty world.
She did not cry. She did not fuss.
Jiang Wang crossed the room in long strides, knelt, and gathered that small shape into his arms — pulling her out of that lonely corner, back into the living warmth of the human realm.
"An'an, from now on you'll live with your brother. I'll play with you all the time, just as we used to. I don't know if you still remember — you were so little then..."
"That's right, that's right, and Brother Tiger will play with you all the time too!" Du Yehu put in hastily, patching over his blunder.
Little An'an glanced at him, turned away without expression, and quietly buried her head against Jiang Wang's shoulder.
"All right." Jiang Wang stood, still holding her. "An'an lives with me now, and the dormitory won't do. I need to find us a place first. We'll all eat together another day."
"You should settle the lodging first," Ling He agreed. He dug two broken pieces of silver from his robe and pressed them into Jiang Wang's hand, brooking no refusal. "Take this."
Since entering the Inner Court, Ling He was no longer so straitened; the Academy paid a stipend each month. Even so, those two fragments were the whole of his worldly wealth.
"Ah — right, right." Du Yehu, thus inspired, rummaged through every fold of his clothing and produced four pieces of knife-money, which he set sheepishly in Jiang Wang's palm. "I already drank this month's stipend."
Then, with tremendous conviction: "Next month. Next month I won't touch a drop, I'll save it and buy An'an new clothes!"
Jiang Wang wasted no courtesy. He tucked the money away, took Jiang An'an in his arms, and walked out.
They were long out of sight, and Du Yehu still leaned in the doorway gazing after them. "Little An'an is too adorable! Ai, Old Ling, why is it I've never had a little sister?"
"Old Ling?" He turned. Ling He had already settled onto his own bed to meditate.
A little sister with a full beard, Ling He thought. Now that would be a horror.
"Just like Third Brother, the pair of you — cultivation maniacs!" Du Yehu grumbled. He wandered to the window, picked up the cup of tea Jiang Wang had poured earlier, and threw the whole of it down his throat.
"Pah! Pah! Pah!" He spat several times. "Why is this tea so bitter?"
"Let it bitter you to death, then!" Ling He said sourly.