Chapter 1: Rain Rings (Part 1)
The wind and rain darkened the sky, and the fog dampened the lanterns.
A young man knelt with his robes trailing on the ground. As raindrops splattered against the threshold, a long whip cracked against his back, staining his clothes with a streak of blood. The tendons in his neck stood out, but he endured the pain in silence.
“How could I have raised such a wretch! Ni Qinglan, tell me, have you forgotten all the ancestral precepts?!” Another lash of the whip followed.
“I haven’t forgotten them all.” The young man’s words clashed with his formal and serious tone.
Ni Zhun, in his rage, turned even more livid upon hearing this. “What did you say! Do you know what they’re saying about you outside? They say you have an illicit relationship with that He Liu Shi, that you’ve been exchanging secret affections! You’ve completely disgraced our Ni family!”
“He Liu Shi is over thirty, and our Lan’er is only sixteen. Do you, my lord, also believe those rumors and gossips outside? He Liu Shi has been unwell since giving birth, suffering from constant lochia. Her husband’s family refused to seek medical treatment for her, so she had no other choice but to…”
“You’ve taught your son well!”
Cen Shi entered, her skirt barely brushing the threshold. Before she could finish her sentence, Ni Zhun turned and glared at her. “He’s a man, yet he dabbles in gynecology! Now he dares to treat He Liu Shi in secret while I’m away, completely disregarding the propriety between men and women! Now the He family is about to sue him, claiming he had an affair with He Liu Shi!”
Ni Zhun’s furious roar almost drowned out the thunder in the distance. The young girl, blocked by a maidservant outside the door, saw Cen Shi’s apricot-yellow skirt flutter slightly. Cen Shi’s tone remained calm: “Haven’t you already taken care of things with the county magistrate?”
“Zi Shu!” Ni Zhun seemed to have reached his limit, unable to bear the identical composure of the mother and son. “Do you even realize that by treating He Liu Shi, his reputation is ruined!”
“Is it a doctor’s duty to stand by and watch someone die?”
As Ni Zhun’s voice trailed off, he heard the young man speak again. He whirled around, whipping him several times. The sound of the whip against flesh grated on the young girl’s ears, but she didn’t hear a single sound from Ni Qinglan.
Cen Shi noticed her and glanced at the maidservant at the door. The maidservant immediately stepped out, picked up the girl, and before she could open her umbrella and step into the courtyard, the sound of hurried footsteps splashing through the rain grew closer. The maidservant looked up and saw the old steward, his hand shielding his head as he rushed towards them. Before even reaching the steps, he shouted, “Master! Something’s happened!”
Ni Zhun, still fuming, turned and scolded, “There’s no order left in this household!”
“Master…” The old steward trembled, lowering his hand as raindrops pelted his face. “The young servant sent to buy incense and candles said that He Liu Shi, unable to bear the humiliation from her husband’s family, has drowned herself in the river!”
Upon hearing this, Ni Zhun’s hand trembled, and the whip fell to the ground.
The night rain intensified. Cicadas, unable to withstand the downpour, fell silently beneath the trees.
The young girl watched as the blood-stained young man in the ancestral hall turned around, beads of sweat glistening on his temples and nose. The candlelight illuminated his stunned expression.
After a long silence, Ni Zhun looked again at Ni Qinglan kneeling on the ground. The anger on his face had vanished, replaced by a helpless mockery. “Boy, take a good look. You thought you were defying medical convention to save her, but you ended up harming her.”
Ni Zhun was too exhausted to beat him any further.
The night rain continued relentlessly. Ni Qinglan knelt in the ancestral hall for half the night, his knees numb. Suddenly, he heard a creaking sound. He came to his senses and turned his head. The usually serious young man couldn’t help but twitch the corners of his lips.
The little girl didn’t have the strength to fully push open the heavy wooden door, so she squeezed sideways through the narrow gap.
She had come in the middle of the night, her outer robe tied incorrectly. Ni Qinglan raised a hand towards her: “A-Xi, come here.”
Ni Su immediately and obediently ran to him, whispering, “Brother.”
Ni Qinglan absentmindedly hummed in response, retying her sash as he spoke. “Why aren’t you sleeping? What are you doing here? Didn’t you say you were afraid of the many ghosts in the ancestral hall?”
“That’s why I came to accompany you, Brother.”
Ni Su pulled over a cushion and squeezed in beside him, not daring to look at the rows of dark memorial tablets behind the altar.
“Brother, does it hurt?” She looked at the bloody welts on Ni Qinglan’s back.
“If it didn’t hurt, I’d be a ghost.” Ni Qinglan, wise beyond his years, pulled out a piece of oil-paper-wrapped malt candy from his sleeve and handed it to her. “Take this and go back.”
Ni Su took the candy, broke it in half, and held a piece to his lips. Then she placed the small pillow she had brought under his knees.
“You always hate hard pillows. Why would you give me your only comfortable one?” Ni Qinglan’s heart warmed. He reached out and stroked her head.
“Brother is in trouble, so of course I’m willing to.”
Ni Su looked up at him. “Nanny Qian said that if Brother admits his mistake, he won’t be beaten.” Nanny Qian was Ni Su’s personal servant.
“Does A-Xi also think I was wrong to save her that day?” Ni Qinglan ate the half piece of malt candy, his throat, dry from hours without water, raspy.
The day Ni Qinglan went out of the city to provide free medical care to the villagers, He Liu Shi, staggering, had stopped his carriage on the mountain path. The woman cried and writhed in pain, pleading, “Doctor, save me.”
Every step she took left a trail of blood. Ni Su, inside the carriage, saw the winding bloodstains behind her and lost her appetite for the pastries she was eating.
“She was in a lot of pain, but after Brother examined her and gave her the bitter medicine, she wasn’t in pain anymore.”
Ni Su remembered the woman holding the bitter medicine with joy, as if drinking honey water.
“But A-Xi,” Raindrops pattered against the window, and Ni Qinglan’s voice became more uncertain. “Did you hear today? She drowned herself in the river.”
Still only sixteen, Ni Qinglan couldn’t find a peaceful resolution when faced with such a situation.
“She wasn’t in pain anymore, why did she die?”
Ni Su, only eight or nine years old, didn’t fully understand the meaning of “death,” but she knew that when people died, they became the dark, thin memorial tablets behind the altar, bearing only names, no faces or voices.
“Because I, as a man, treated He Liu Shi for a woman’s private ailment.”
“But why can’t men treat women?” Ni Su, her hands cupping her face, asked innocently.
It wasn’t that men couldn’t treat women, but that they couldn’t treat private ailments.
However, Ni Qinglan didn’t have the heart to explain this to his little sister. He lowered his eyelids, the swaying shadows of the trees in the courtyard falling through the window screen onto the floor tiles in front of him. “Who knows why.”
The rain continued unabated.
Ni Su looked at her brother’s profile and suddenly stood up.
Ni Qinglan looked up, meeting his little sister’s clear, innocent eyes. She was so small, the lamplight falling on her shoulders. She said crisply, “Brother, I’m a girl. If I learn our family’s skills like you, can I make them not hurt and not die?”
Them.
Ni Qinglan was taken aback.
In the rain-swept ancestral hall, the young man looked at his little sister’s tender and innocent face. He smiled slightly and rubbed her head. “If A-Xi has such aspirations, they will certainly not hurt and will not die.”
The rain gradually subsided. With a final patter against the window, Ni Su, her temples damp with sweat, opened her eyes and woke up.
“Miss, did the noise wake you?” Xing Zhu, the maidservant who had just latched the vermillion window, turned and spoke softly. “It’s snowing outside. I was afraid the cold air would enter the room and you’d catch a chill.”
Although it was early spring, the weather hadn’t yet warmed after the recent New Year celebrations.
Seeing Ni Su nestled silently in the covers, Xing Zhu approached the bed with concern. “What’s wrong, Miss?”
“I dreamt of Brother.”
Ni Su seemed to have just woken up. She rubbed her eyes and sat up.
Xing Zhu hurriedly took clothes from the wooden rack to help Ni Su dress. “The winter examinations have been over for two months. With our Young Master’s abilities, he must have passed. The news should arrive soon!”
The journey from Yun Jing to Que County took more than two months, so news traveled slowly. Ni Qinglan had been away from Que County for half a year, and only a few letters had arrived home.
Dressed and washed, Ni Su left her room. The old steward, hunched over, came from the moon gate entwined with green branches, too preoccupied to wipe his sweat. “Miss, Second Master and his family are here. Madam asked you to stay in your room.”
He then waved to the young servants to hand the food box to Xing Zhu and added, “Madam won’t be joining you for breakfast either.”
“What is Second Master doing here at this hour?” Xing Zhu frowned and muttered.
The old steward only listened to Madam. Seeing that he didn’t respond, Ni Su knew that her Second Uncle’s visit boded ill; otherwise, her mother wouldn’t have asked her to stay in her room.
Green bamboos stood solitary by the courtyard wall. Spring snow drifted through the hall like fine dust. Cen Shi sat upright in the main hall. Nanny Qian, the servant beside her, offered a bowl of tea at the right moment. She accepted it but didn’t drink, the warmth of the bowl against her palm contrasting with her cold, indifferent voice. “So early in the morning, and on such a cold day, Second Brother brings his whole family to my widow’s quarters. Are you pitying my loneliness and wanting to add some liveliness?”
“Sister-in-law, things were busy during the New Year, and our family didn’t get together. We came today to make up for the New Year celebration together. What do you think?” Second Master Ni Zong, his eyes shifting, didn’t speak. Liu Shi, his wife, who always had a smile on her face, couldn’t bear the coldness in the room and hurriedly spoke in a conciliatory tone. However, as she turned, she saw Ni Zong glaring at her.
Liu Shi faltered and lowered her head.
Cen Shi watched them coldly and slowly said, “I’ve always eaten lightly here and haven’t prepared anything special. I don’t know if you and Second Sister-in-law will find it palatable.”
Liu Shi looked at Ni Zong, trying to decide whether she should respond, but saw him stand up and put down his teacup. “Sister-in-law, why don’t I see my little niece?”
“The young miss developed a fever before dawn. She took medicine and is still asleep,” Nanny Qian replied.
“A fever?” Ni Zong stroked his beard. “What a coincidence. She falls ill as soon as we arrive.”
“What are you implying, Second Master?” Nanny Qian took away Cen Shi’s lukewarm tea. “If the young miss weren’t ill, she would certainly come out to greet the guests.”
The words “greet the guests” were meant to remind Ni Zong that the second and first branches of the family had already separated.
Ni Zong snorted coldly and glared at her, then addressed Cen Shi. “Sister-in-law, I must say, you are too kind and lenient. Not only are your old servants unruly, but my niece is also becoming increasingly improper.”
“Do you know what Ni Su has been doing outside?” Ni Zong paced back and forth. “She’s been associating with those low-class midwives! What kind of family are we? What is her status? She has no sense of self-respect. Sister-in-law, tell me, if this gets out, what will outsiders think of our Ni family?”
“Second Master, you must have proof before making such accusations. It’s not right to slander our young miss without any basis,” Nanny Qian said, as Cen Shi remained silent.
“Who’s slandering her? Sister-in-law, you can call her out and ask her yourself. Did she go to Zao Hua Village yesterday? Did she help a peasant woman give birth at a farmer’s house, together with that midwife?” Ni Zong ignored the old servant and stared at Cen Shi. “Sister-in-law, I must say, why are you so protective of a daughter born of a concubine? You only acknowledged her as your own after her mother died. Do you really treat her as your own flesh and blood?”
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