Fan Changyu was probably the first bride in history who had to slaughter pigs and prepare braised meat on the morning of her own wedding.
She butchered the pig she had sold off earlier, then turned the leftover pig's head and cooking water into braised cuts. Combined with the other two pigs, she managed to fill two full pots by the time she was done.
The aunts who had come to help leaned in over the steam and said it smelled wonderful.
It was nearly noon before Aunt Zhao shooed her back to her room to change into her wedding clothes and put on her face.
She also asked Aunt Zhao about the local customs. Apparently there were two ways a man could marry into the bride's family. The first: the groom arrives by sedan chair, carried in -- what people called "carrying the groom's head." The second: no different from an ordinary wedding, where the groom stays at the bride's home the night before and the bride processes out along the flower bridge and back, as though the house were now his.
Fan Changyu used neither. For one thing, she had no money left to rent a sedan chair. For another, the groom was right next door, so they could simply bow and be done with it. Why waste the effort.
A woman known for good fortune had already been invited to make the bed in the new room. She came now to comb Fan Changyu's hair.
"One comb through to the end. Two combs, white hair to the brows. Three combs, a house full of descendants..."
Fan Changyu sat before the dressing table and listened to the woman's recitation of the Ten Combings while the noise from outside rolled in -- and for a moment, a strange feeling drifted over her, as if this wedding were real.
The person everyone outside was most curious about was, of course, today's groom. But Aunt Zhao was tight-lipped and refused to give the women a single detail no matter how they pressed.
So the women sat around cracking melon seeds and speculated freely.
"You think the Zhao family's been hiding him so carefully because his face is a mess? Some kind of ugly that can't be shown in daylight?"
"I heard the groom hurt his leg. Can't walk right."
Someone sucked in a breath. "A cripple?"
The woman beside her nudged her elbow and lowered her voice. "After all, this is a man marrying into a woman's family. If he were completely whole and able-bodied, why would he agree to it?"
That landed quietly, and a few faces turned sad.
Then someone said of Song Yan: "Notice how the Fan family and the Song family are truly done. Everyone in this whole alley is here today, and there's not one Song to be seen."
"Honestly, better that way. Song Yan is the most handsome man in ten villages around. If he showed up, the groom would look like nothing by comparison. The Fan family's face would suffer."
They were still talking when the auspicious hour arrived. Everyone crowded toward the Zhao family gate to get a look at the groom.
The bride, Fan Changyu, came out with a red cloth draped over her head. Nobody spared her a glance.
The sky had not cooperated. Snow had been falling since afternoon, and by now a thin white layer covered the courtyard walls. The ground had been worn clear by foot traffic, just dark and wet.
Firecrackers strung at the Zhao family gate split the air. Those craning their necks to see caught a glimpse of a pair of crutches emerging from the open doorway and exchanged a knowing look. As expected.
Fan Changyu really had married herself a cripple.
The crutches moved. One foot stepped across the threshold. Half an ochre-red hem came into view.
Snow fell soft as willow down, melting the instant it touched the fabric, leaving marks so faint they were nearly invisible.
The noisy crowd outside went quiet without quite knowing why.
Then the groom stepped fully out of the doorway and walked clear of the shadow of the room. Snow dust settled between black hair tied with a red headband. That black hair framed a face -- handsome in a way that was almost severe, skin a shade or two lighter than the falling snow, gaze sweeping the gate with cool indifference.
The guests who could see him clearly all gasped.
In all their years, none of them had seen a young man who looked like that. Song Yan, the pride of the opera troupe -- not even he compared to this groom, Guan Yicheng. Sword-sharp brows, star-bright eyes, a face carved like jade. The kind of looks that made a person stop mid-sentence.
A moment of stunned silence. Then the courtyard erupted, louder than before.
"The groom is beautiful!"
"I always said a girl as lovely as Changyu wouldn't end up with just anyone!"
"Who was it that said he'd be some twisted, ugly cripple? Is this face worse than Song Yan's? Tell me!"
Xie Zheng moved through the crowd on his crutches, expression blank, brow faintly creased -- the look of a man who found these well-meaning women extremely loud.
He turned the corner into the Fan family courtyard. The people assembled there stood up for a better view. The women who had been helping in the kitchen heard the news and came out without being asked.
Xie Zheng kept his irritation behind his eyes and let himself be watched all the way into the main room for the ceremony.
He scanned under the eaves ahead of him and caught sight of Fan Changyu. She was wearing a wedding dress that matched his in color. In the space between one crowd member and the next, she had lifted a corner of her head covering and was peeking out. His gaze passed over her and then snapped back. He hadn't expected that.
He had known she was good-looking. But he had never seen her in full wedding makeup before.
The red cloth half-hid her face. Those apricot-shaped eyes looked out with a brightness in them. A light layer of rouge on her cheeks -- the application a little clumsy, but her coloring was strong enough that it didn't matter. Lips painted red. Skin like snow. At first glance she was brilliant.
Her eyes met his. She startled, seemed to register where she was and what was happening, then quickly yanked the covering back down like someone caught doing something wrong, and stood up very straight.
She was genuinely beautiful. But her instincts were, as always, entirely their own kind of thing.
The irritation Xie Zheng had been carrying, ground down by the noise and the staring, eased slightly.
Perhaps this enormous, tedious ceremony would not be entirely unbearable.
He walked into the main room on his crutches. The fortune-woman handed him one end of a red silk cord with a flower ball tied at the center, and gave the other end to Fan Changyu.
The officiant called out: "The auspicious hour is upon us! The couple will now pay their respects!"
"First bow -- to Heaven and Earth!"
Fan Changyu couldn't see anything under the cloth. Aunt Zhao guided her into position, and she followed Xie Zheng through the bow.
"Second bow -- to the Ancestors!"
Both of them had lost their parents. Only a memorial tablet stood at the high seat. They bowed to it.
"Third bow -- to each other!"
As Fan Changyu lowered her head, a gust of wind swept in and nearly pulled the head covering off entirely. She reached for it on instinct, but a large hand had already pressed it back down, one step ahead of her.
She didn't need to imagine the picture that made. She already knew it looked absurd.
Laughter rippled through the guests. "Look at this groom -- he can't even bear to let us see the bride's face!"
Sealed behind the covering, Fan Changyu couldn't see his expression. She could only listen to the jokes and hope he wasn't annoyed. She was embarrassed enough for both of them.
"Ceremony complete -- into the bridal chamber!"
At that call, she and Xie Zheng followed the red silk cord and were escorted into the new room that had been arranged since morning.
New room was a generous term. It was the same room as before, dressed up with red paper cutouts on the doors and windows and festive-colored bedding on the frame.
After the fortune-woman had said everything she needed to say, Xie Zheng lifted the covering from Fan Changyu's head.
The room came into focus all at once.
Earlier, when she had sneaked a peek outside, she hadn't gotten a proper look at him. Now he was standing just a step away in his red wedding robe, and she found herself thinking what she had already thought once before -- that people really did depend on their clothes.
If he walked out in these colors on any ordinary day, he would leave girls speechless in the street.
The fortune-woman smiled warmly. "Look at them -- the bride with her lucky face and the groom who matches her perfectly. Heaven arranged this match."
The women in the room covered their mouths and laughed.
Fan Changyu curved the corner of her mouth in awkward agreement.
Xie Zheng's face stayed neutral. Unreadable.
The fortune-woman reached into a plate of peanuts and red dates and began scattering them over the couple's heads. "Dates and peanuts for sons soon to come, peanuts and dates so the children won't wait--"
The things stung a little when they hit.
Fan Changyu said, right on cue: "Thank you, aunties, truly. But my husband is still recovering from his injury, so let's call it here today. The luck has arrived. No need to go further."
Someone immediately teased: "Look at her protecting her husband already!"
Fan Changyu let them laugh. Once she had seen everyone out of the room, she turned to Xie Zheng and asked plainly: "Did any of that hit your injury?"
Xie Zheng looked at her with an expression she couldn't quite name. "No."
"Good." She moved toward the door. "I still need to go out and see to the guests. Rest in here. There are pastries on the table if you're hungry before I'm back."
These were words a groom might normally say to a bride. Coming from Fan Changyu, they sounded strange no matter how you arranged them.
Xie Zheng was quiet for a breath. Then he gave a short nod.
The injury had worn on him for a long time. The tiredness on his face was not something he was bothering to conceal.
Fan Changyu went out to manage the banquet. With no elders present and a husband who had married into her house rather than the other way around, there was almost no one to push drinks on her. The meal was lively all the same. When the evening grew late, guests said their farewells one after another.
After the tables cleared, while Fan Changyu was moving benches and stacking dishes, she found a brocade box sitting on the table near the door. She hadn't seen anyone leave it.
"Auntie," she called to Aunt Zhao. "Whose family sent this?"
Aunt Zhao looked uncertain. "The gift register was written before the meal started, and I never saw this box. Someone must have left it without saying a word."
Fan Changyu opened it.
Inside: a pair of clay dolls, one man and one woman.
Her face went still.
She turned and threw the box backhand into the rubbish pile Aunt Zhao had just swept together. The clay figures cracked apart on impact.
Aunt Zhao looked at the broken dolls -- male, female, unmistakable -- and her expression shifted. She turned toward the Song family's direction and slapped the air. "That heartless, dog-boned creature. First one to vanish when you needed help, and now he sends you this on your wedding day?"
"Don't be angry, Auntie," Fan Changyu said. "People like that aren't worth the feeling."
Her own anger was not grief. It was something more like a fist in her stomach.
That clay doll pair -- she had seen them before, years ago. The year Song Yan's father died, she had watched Song Yan give them away in his grief. She had been a child then, seven or eight at most.
She had told herself, all these years, that her parents had treated Song Yan well. Yet after her parents died, Song Yan was the first one through the door to end their engagement. When Fan Da's debts and the casino trouble descended on her, Song Yan's gate stayed shut.
And now this -- a pair of clay dolls for her wedding.
What exactly was he trying to say?
The unhappiness stayed in her chest through the evening. She carried dinner into Xie Zheng's room with a face that had gone expressionless.
"You're still hurt, so I kept your dishes on the lighter side."
Xie Zheng noticed her face the moment she came in. He didn't ask. He simply half-closed his eyes and said a quiet thank you.
When cleanup was finished and the night had grown late, Aunt Zhao came to collect Changning, who had fallen asleep, and bring her next door. Fan Changyu stopped her.
"It's fine, Auntie. After Father died, Changning won't sleep alone. She wakes up crying in the dark."
Aunt Zhao shook her head. "That's ordinary nights. Tonight is a wedding night. Husband and wife need to share a room -- it'd be bad luck otherwise."
She didn't leave Fan Changyu room to argue. She scooped up Changning and walked out.
The courtyard, raucous since morning, had gone to silence.
A red lantern hung under the eaves, casting a low red glow over the snow.
Fan Changyu sat on the front steps and hugged her knees and watched the snow come down for a while. Then she got up and went inside.
Since this was a false marriage, sharing a room in any real sense was out of the question. But the spare quilts were all stored in the new room. She had slept there herself for over a decade. After her parents died, Changning had crowded in beside her. Now that it had been turned into the wedding room, there was no time to set up another bed elsewhere.
She pushed the door open without thinking, out of ten years of habit.
Xie Zheng was changing clothes. His outer robe was already off. His back was to her. The inner robe had slipped half from his shoulders and hung at his elbow, the rest trailing to his waist.
His back was bare under the gauze bandaging. Candlelight caught the lines of muscle and turned the exposed skin a warm honey color. The texture of him was very clear.
At the sound of the door, he turned his head slightly. The cold expression on that carved face became, in that instant and without meaning to, something austere and arresting.
Fan Changyu stared for several seconds like someone who had gone completely blank.
Then he frowned and pulled his half-removed undershirt back together. "Something wrong?"
She snapped back to herself. Heat flooded her face. She spun to face the wall. "I'm sorry. I forgot -- I forgot to knock. I just came in for the quilt."
"Take it." His voice was cool and even.
Fan Changyu kept her eyes away from him and went to the cabinet. She pulled out two quilts, tucked them under her arms, and walked straight out without turning around. Around the corner of the hall, she stopped and breathed out slowly, three or four times.
What a humiliation. She hoped he hadn't read anything into it.
Xie Zheng's hearing was sharp. He caught every exhale through the wall.
His expression did not change. When her footsteps faded fully, he undid the bandaging and went back to work dressing the wounds that had reopened and were tearing worse.
The medicine was a wound powder from Haidong, carried in by Qingjiao. Rare and potent.
The moment the powder met raw flesh, his whole body locked up. The veins along his forearms rose to the surface. Fine beads of cold sweat appeared at his temples. He clenched his jaw hard enough that a faint taste of blood reached his tongue.
When he finally finished, he sat down on the low wooden bench in the room and placed his clenched fists carefully on his knees. His back stayed straight. Sweat rolled down and dropped dark onto the floor. It looked less like healing and more like penance.
When the sweat reached his eyelids, he did not blink.
His eyes held the candle flame in them, still and dark.
He would pay back every bit of this -- the injury, the pain, all of it.
Outside, footsteps moved away from the door. Then stopped. Then turned back.
Xie Zheng raised his eyes -- still carrying all that contained fury -- and looked toward the door.