Shuli Go Stories Vol. 4: A Week's Bliss

Part 5

Jiang had changed into travelling robes when he met with Lian again the next day, but she did not take notice. She was energetic beyond anything he'd seen in her before, her eyes alive and her posture tilted just slightly forward – as if she were ready to do battle with a wind that hadn't approached yet. Jiang imagined the second night at the Golden Slumbers had gone even better than the first.

"Come with me, I need your help," she asked him.

"With what?"

"I'm going to buy an apartment."

Jiang bundled along as Lian paid for their rickshaw ride to one of the newer parts of Yiwu, just inside the latest set of walls. It was neither an expensive or distinctly poor part of the city – the wives and husbands of tradespeople walked about with their young children as their spouses worked – and the apartment building that Lian brought Jiang to was brand new, albeit plain and traditional. The apartment itself was just as plain: three rooms, with a central fireplace and stove, paper windows, and openings in two of the rooms that fed a latrine system along the outside of the building and into the street.

"What do you think?" Lian asked as they finished their quick tour – the housebuilder having left what he presumed was a very odd-looking couple to make their decision in privacy.

"It would make a fine house. But I didn't think you planned on staying in one place for long enough to need it."

"Oh, of course not," Lian lied to them both. "I'll rent it out, of course. But it would be nice to have a home I can come back to, if I'm ever allowed to settle down."

"Plus, it's a better investment than nights in a brothel."

Lian looked at Jiang, more than a bit surprised. "Well you'd know more about both of those than I."

Jiang smiled and got close enough to Lian to put his hands on her shoulders. "I'm not judging, really Zhao. I just don't want to see you spend all this money before you have a chance to do something with it."

"Like I said," Lian replied, still bristly, "I plan on renting it out. How much do you think I could make from it in a year?"

Jiang moved his hands away then brought them together, considering her question. "Let's see. A city like Yiwu, a nice clean place like this. You get a good tradesperson in here, maybe a small family... Probably around a silver piece a month, so ten silver a year."

"See, I'd make back my investment in ten years. Or is that considered a bad trade in the merchant world?"

"It's more of a long-term investment, that's all. And the longer the investment, the greater the risk."

"Well I've got many more years left hopefully. And I don't mind a little risk."

Jiang was about to take Lian's bait and enter into a fatherly diatribe about the other, larger risk she was taking at night, but he decided against it. He truly wished for nothing but the best for Lian after he'd drawn her into the mess in Wamai, and especially after she'd saved him from the same mess. But he knew it was up to her to find the best path for herself.

"Well," he clapped his hands together, "it's about time I was off."

"What?" Lian asked, genuinely caught off guard. "Where are you going?"

"Home!" Jiang nodded and grinned, the thought of the return journey enforcing a smile on his face. "I haven't seen my girls in half a year."

Lian returned his grin, surprised by this merchant who she'd only ever met on one far edge of the Empire or another. "Girls? As in plural? I didn't take you for a man who kept a mistress on the side."

Jiang laughed. "No, nothing like that. My two little girls. And my wife too, I suppose. She'll be less excited to see me, although I do think she'll be excited to see the gold coins I always promised her. Might even make her fall back in love with me to be honest."

Lian suddenly became sad at the thought of her friend leaving. As much as his endless gaiety ground her down at times, she'd become used to his presence at her side. She couldn't imagine suddenly going without his inane chatter during meals, or hearing him pontificate about the gold to be made in what she'd become convinced was an imaginary market called "insurance". The knowledge of where she was going that night, which had driven her exhilaration all morning, was suddenly dwarfed by the absence of where she would go when she was forced to leave Yiwu. Jiang had been her guide all these weeks, and now, moneyed or not, she was about to be on her own once again. She'd grown so far apart from loneliness the sudden prospect of it hurt her.

They left the apartment and Lian made plans to meet with the housebuilder later that day at the Magistrate's office to exchange the money and sign the papers. Then she and Jiang rode silently back to the inn, where she helped him pack and load his horse for his return trip home.

"Where is home, anyway?" Lian asked as she walked alongside his horse towards the eastern gate. "I always assumed the merchant roads were your home."

"Oh, a small town called Bupei, about a hundred miles east of the Brilliant River right near where Ming meets Southern Shu."

"Is that where you're from?"

"Yup. Born and raised."

"And is it a good place? Quiet?"

"Very. You should come visit sometime. I'd love for you to meet my girls."

"I'm sure they're wonderful," Lian said quietly. But right then and there she did not want to meet Jiang's daughters. She wanted him to stay.

They reached the last gate of the city, and Lian took her time ensuring Jiang's bags were packed tightly to the horse, then stroked the face of the animal a few times, prolonging their goodbye.

"I mean it, Zhao," he told her. "Come see us sometime. When you're done here, maybe. If you have nowhere else to go. My girls would love to meet you. You can wow them with those swords of yours."

Lian smiled weakly, then backed away from the horse and watched as Jiang clopped away, out east, into the cool winter sun. She watched and watched until he faded into the horizon, then she watched some more.