Winter came harshly that year.
Winter had always been the cruelest season for the sick.
All those who hovered between life and death found themselves in a peculiar limbo. Because everyone already knew there was no saving them, the visitors who came to call were invariably treading on eggshells — their words nothing but well-worn comforts, hollow reassurances that both sides knew to be meaningless, yet the back-and-forth of pleasantries was maintained all the same.
This was precisely the scene Ye Qinglan walked into when she arrived at the Meng household.
When her maternal aunt, Madam Meng, had been in good health, she had been among the most distinguished ladies of the capital’s noble families — the eldest daughter-in-law of the Meng Minister’s main branch, a woman of remarkable standing. But after years of illness, every last bit of that spirit had been worn away. Her husband had long since taken a favored concubine, who had borne him several children already. Her own family, the Lin family, had lost both parents, and the estate had passed to the son of a lesser mother. Of course, contact was maintained on the surface, but it was nothing more than a facade. Otherwise, at such a critical time, they would not have sent merely two old serving women to pay their respects — not even Lin Madam herself had bothered to come.
When Ye Qinglan arrived, only two ladies of modest family background sat in the outer hall — women who owed Madam Meng past favors — along with a middle-aged Buddhist nun named Shan Hui, who frequently visited to recite scriptures for Madam Meng. They were all murmuring sutras softly and rose to their feet when they saw her.
Ye Qinglan patiently exchanged greetings with them before leading her two younger sisters into the main chamber. Madam Meng’s quarters were divided into three sections by interior partitions: the outermost room for receiving guests, the middle room for daily living — and there on the embroidery frame still sat the butterfly-patterned satin Madam Meng had spoken of embroidering for Lingbo last autumn. The sight of it was enough to break one’s heart.
The inner bedchamber was thick with the smell of medicine.
“Auntie.” Ye Lingbo went forward first. She was the middle of the three sisters and had always been closest to Madam Meng. Seeing her come, Madam Meng struggled to sit up, but Ye Lingbo dropped to one knee on the floor beside the canopied bed before she could manage it. Aunt and niece clasped hands and looked at each other in silence, tears streaming down both their faces.
“Auntie…” The youngest sister, Yanyan, began to cry as well. The maids and serving women hurried to comfort her. The maid who had accompanied Madam Meng as part of her dowager household was surnamed Lin — she had married Lin Jiu, who oversaw the carriages and horses — and when Madam Meng managed the household, she had served as the housekeeper’s wife. Everyone called her Lin Niangzi.
“Young misses, please don’t grieve so — the physicians have all said she’ll recover once the new year comes…” Lin Niangzi hastened to console them.
But Madam Meng was so gaunt she was hardly recognizable, the bracelets on her wrists sliding over hands thin as kindling, the deathly pallor already settled on her face. All three sisters had witnessed their own mother’s final hours. Even the youngest, Yanyan, had been only seven or eight at the time — too young to fully understand, yet old enough to have wept alongside everyone else. None of them could fail to see that Madam Meng’s lamp was burning its last drops of oil.
Ye Qinglan, being the most composed of the three, knew this was no time for tears. Going along with Lin Niangzi’s words, she said gently: “Auntie is ill — too much crying will do her harm. Lingbo, take Yanyan outside. Nanny Wu, would you be so kind as to watch over them? Let me sit with Auntie for a while.”
Nanny Wu was one of the Meng household’s senior serving women, attached to the Old Madam Meng’s personal staff, and had been stationed in Madam Meng’s chambers every day. In name she was there on the Old Madam’s behalf to care for Madam Meng; in truth, she might as well have been a watchdog. Madam Meng had been married into the family for over a decade without bearing any children of her own, while the Master’s concubine had produced sons and daughters. By custom, children born of concubines were registered under the principal wife’s name, and a wife’s dowry passed to her daughters, not her sons. The Meng family’s intention was clear: Madam Meng’s dowry was to remain within the Meng household.
But if it were merely the dowry, a negotiation could be managed. The truly difficult matter was something else entirely — otherwise Madam Meng would not have gazed at Ye Qinglan with such tenderness mingled with guilt, and Ye Qinglan would not have come so late.
Madam Meng wished to entrust an orphan to her care.
The concubine in the Meng household was a formidable woman with no shortage of schemes, and Master Meng was a man of spineless temperament. Yet Madam Meng, being the legitimate daughter of the Lin family, possessed a streak of fierce resolve that no one had anticipated: in the final months of her life, she had taken in a young orphaned girl from her own maternal grandfather’s family and raised her as her own flesh and blood.
Since a wife’s dowry passed to her daughters and not her sons, now that she had a daughter, the law held that Concubine Su had no claim to that dowry.
But the law was one thing; putting it into practice was another matter entirely. The Meng household was a deep compound, the Old Madam held authority over the house, Master Meng’s career was flourishing, and Concubine Su had both sons and daughters and enjoyed his full favor. To walk out of the Meng household with that dowry intact would be harder than ascending to heaven.
And so Madam Meng did not press the point. Once everyone else had withdrawn, she took Ye Qinglan’s hand and said nothing of these practical matters, only letting the tears fall first.
“Qinglan… it is I who have delayed you.”
“Auntie, please don’t say such things.” Ye Qinglan held her hand and spoke earnestly to comfort her. “After my mother passed away, I was left to raise my two younger sisters with no one to lean on. If it weren’t for Auntie’s constant care, how could we have grown up safe and well? I am the one who is grateful, more than I can say…”
“You are too kind-hearted, child — always thinking of others in everything you say and do. Your mother has been gone seven years, and I have been ill for those same seven years. What care could I offer you? You’ve managed on the strength of your own character — steadfast, yet gentle with everyone. These seven years, you have suffered more than anyone knows. I only hate that this body of mine was too weak, that I could not watch over you as I wished, and now at the very last, I am a burden to you still…” Madam Meng wept again as she spoke.
“Though Auntie could not be there in person, having Auntie here in this great capital gave the three of us something to hold on to in our hearts. Please don’t speak such words of despair — once you’ve recovered your health, we will still be counting on Auntie to look after us.” Ye Qinglan smiled as best she could and offered what comfort she could.
Only Lin Niangzi remained in the room with them. She brought in a bowl of ginseng broth, and Ye Qinglan moved to spoon-feed it to Madam Meng — but Madam Meng only waved her hand away again and again.
“There is no point wasting it. I know I will not outlast this winter.” Madam Meng caught her breath with difficulty, looking into Ye Qinglan’s eyes, and could not bring herself to say the words of entrustment no matter how she tried.
Ye Qinglan was not young, truth be told. Come the new year, she would be twenty-four — an age so startling among the unmarried young ladies of the capital that it might as well have shattered the heavens. Almost all her childhood friends of the same age had long since married and had children of their own. A young woman’s beauty faded quickly; though her fair, oval face was still smooth as jade and her brows and eyes still as lovely as a painting, her best years had been spent waiting in vain.
The hidden ache in Madam Meng’s heart made her even less able to speak. She could only weep.
“Qinglan, Qinglan, what will become of you…” she cried, clutching her hand. “How can I face your mother when we meet again?”
Ye Qinglan only stroked her hand and soothed her, then said gently: “Auntie, please don’t dwell on such things now. Focus on resting and regaining your strength. As for our little cousin, I will take care of her — please set your heart at ease.”
It was the mention of that “little cousin” that did it — Madam Meng’s worry only deepened, and seeing her distress, Ye Qinglan quickly added: “Auntie, trust me. I will find a way…”
“But you are so young. How could you possibly hold your own against them?” Madam Meng gripped her hand anxiously.
“The road will open when we reach the mountain. Auntie, please don’t worry — focus on getting well, and a way will present itself.” Ye Qinglan coaxed her into drinking the ginseng broth. “Rest now, and when you wake, we’ll think it through together.”
Madam Meng did not rest peacefully. What passed for sleep was little more than a deathly hovering. The second half of the night was the worst — she was trapped in a state of nightmares, starting awake again and again, murmuring in her sleep. One moment she was crying, “A’Cuo, run — they mean to harm you,” and the next, “Qinglan, I have wronged you, I have ruined your life,” until at last she began calling out for “elder sister.”
Lin Niangzi kept watch over her mistress with two maids at her side. Ye Qinglan did not sleep at all through the night, keeping vigil at the bedside, soothing Madam Meng through her nightmares, and whenever she jolted awake calling her name, clasping her hands and saying softly: “Auntie, I am here. Qinglan is right here.”
By the fourth watch of the night, the darkness lay heavy and still, and the entire Meng household had sunk into silence. Ye Qinglan sat quietly in the room, and at some point, Ye Lingbo appeared.
“I couldn’t sleep.” She was four years younger than Ye Qinglan, yet she too had grown up quickly. Girls without mothers, raised within the deep walls of a household like the Ye family’s, matured faster than others.
Ye Qinglan said nothing — she simply lifted the quilt and made room for her on the sleeping couch. The two sisters huddled close together and kept watch over their aunt side by side.
“What about Yanyan?” Ye Qinglan was always thinking of her youngest sister.
“I’m here.” Ye Yanyan was only fourteen, nimble as a flash — she wriggled herself right under the quilt, and the three sisters sat wrapped together like a nestful of fledglings.
Ye Qinglan had always been the one to look after her younger sisters, and they felt safest at her side. With their aunt hovering at death’s door, none of them could sleep alone in their separate rooms, yet curled up beside her, one by one they began to doze off. Yanyan fell asleep first; Lingbo was not far behind, her head drooping onto Ye Qinglan’s shoulder, stifling a yawn.
Ye Qinglan tucked the quilt around both of them, then glanced once more at Madam Meng lying in her final repose — and in sweeping her gaze past the curtained alcove, she gave a start.
Standing there was a girl about Yanyan’s age. She was strikingly beautiful — the kind of beauty one only saw in paintings — with a delicately tapered face and eyes as luminous as autumn water. She was very thin, slender as a willow branch, her hair not pinned up but loose, as though she too had risen from bed. She stood there timidly, watching her, and when she realized she had been seen, her instinct was to shrink back.
But Ye Qinglan smiled at her.
Ye Qinglan was not only beautiful but possessed a warmth and dignified grace that made everyone who encountered her feel an instinctive closeness — she was, by nature, the very image of an elder sister. The girl could not help but stare. When Ye Qinglan beckoned to her with a small gesture, she found herself walking over without quite meaning to.
“What is your name?” Ye Qinglan asked her.
The girl still looked wary, her eyes darting uneasily toward the sleeping Lin Niangzi and then toward the bed where Madam Meng lay.
“My name is Ye Qinglan. You can call me elder sister, just as they do.” Ye Qinglan told her softly. “Lin Niangzi and Auntie are both asleep — we mustn’t disturb them.”
The girl had clearly heard her name before.
“My name is A’Cuo,” she replied, politely and quietly. “Elder Sister Qinglan.”