Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Formidable Stepmother

An Yi had not walked far before the rain began to fall in scattered drops. She opened her umbrella against the rain. The downpour grew heavier, and she quickened her pace, turning a corner—only to be caught unawares as someone came running straight toward her. Unable to dodge in time, she was struck hard by the person and fell to the ground with a cry of pain. “Ouch.”

Seeing that he had knocked someone over, the person stopped, turned back, and checked on her.

An Yi noticed his bare feet clad only in straw sandals caked with mud. Her brow creased slightly—with spring only a little warmer than winter, straw sandals must be terribly cold. Looking up, she saw that it was Li Guyu standing before her. Her eyes flickered; she stood up and said, “I’m fine, you should go.”

Li Guyu picked up her umbrella from the ground and handed it to her. When she took it, he turned and ran off without a word.

When An Yi returned home, Mrs. Luo was startled to see her covered in mud and her hair wet. “What happened to you?”

“Someone bumped into me and I fell.”

“Who was it?” Mrs. Luo asked as she fetched clean clothes from a chest.

“Li Guyu.”

Hearing it was him, Mrs. Luo said nothing more.

“Mother, there’s mud and rainwater all in my hair. I need to wash my hair and bathe,” An Yi complained, feeling grimy all over.

“There’s no hot water yet. Change your clothes first, don’t catch cold. I’ll go heat some water, then you can wash,” Mrs. Luo said.

An Yi had no choice but to endure it, changing into clean clothes while she waited for the water to heat.

Near midday, Luo Cuimei arrived. “Aunt, no matter how I embroider this flower’s stamen, it doesn’t look right. Could you see where I’m going wrong?”

Mrs. Luo took the embroidery, examined it, and showed her with the needle, “These few stitches need to go this way—then it will be right.”

Luo Cuimei understood and nodded repeatedly.

Once the stamen was done, Luo Cuimei didn’t rush off, but lingered for lunch. With her slightly rounded belly, she left satisfied.

An Yi couldn’t help but laugh to herself. Luo Cuimei had come with a question about embroidery as a pretext—her real aim was to share a meal.

The spring days remained bleak, with rain as fine as ox hair falling without end, leaving everything damp. An Yi was reluctant to go out. But Xinliu, undeterred by wind or rain, came every day with little Zhu Sheng to learn her letters.

This time, An Yi taught her five characters: “The people regard food as heaven.”

Xinliu had not yet left when Zhang Lian arrived, bringing a fish and half a pound of clam meat. When Xinliu went home, Mrs. Luo gave her half the fish.

An Yi narrowed her eyes slightly. If this continued, Xinliu would only become more shameless, receiving gifts as a matter of course. She could not allow her to rely on these supposed favors and take whatever she pleased.

That afternoon, Mrs. Luo embroidered flowers in the inner room, while An Yi hid in the study, copying down from memory the various medicinal formulas she had worked out over the years, afraid that with time, she would forget them. These recipes had cost her more than ten years of effort; she did not wish to lose them.

The next day, Xinliu arrived punctually with little Zhu Sheng. An Yi ground her teeth in secret, wishing she could concoct some poison to rid herself of Xinliu and be spared the constant annoyance. But first, she had yet to find the right poison; second, she could hardly act at home; and third, even if she managed to poison her, there was no place to bury the body. So it was only wishful thinking. Instead, she brought out the slate. “Xinliu, I’d better teach you a few more characters at once. You can write them at home, so you won’t be delayed from your housework.”

Xinliu replied cheerfully, “I’ve arranged everything. It won’t delay my chores.”

Ignoring her, An Yi opened “A Thousand Family Poems” and found a classic every Chinese child recites, Meng Haoran’s “Spring Morning”: “Spring sleep knows not dawn; everywhere I hear birds call. In the night came wind and rain—how many blossoms fell?”

With this poetry collection, An Yi was now certain that the Tang Dynasty had existed in this world. In another history book, she had learned that the current Xu Dynasty, where she found herself, was founded by a man surnamed Qin after the fall of the Southern Song, with its capital in Beiping, replacing the Yuan Dynasty she remembered.

Xinliu quickly memorized the melodious poem, wrote it twice on the slate, and seemed to grasp its writing. She went home with some bean cake and a handful of vegetable seedlings.

An Yi had thought this poem would keep Xinliu away for five or six days, but only two days later, Xinliu returned. The morning rice porridge had been finished, so Mrs. Luo, not wanting to treat little Zhu Sheng poorly, especially steamed a preserved egg for him; the little boy beamed with delight as he ate.

Without betraying her feelings, An Yi chose He Zhizhang’s “Ode to the Willow” to make things difficult for Xinliu. The characters in this poem were not particularly hard, but each line was longer by two characters—eight more in all over four lines. That should keep her away for at least one visit, sparing them her opportunistic freeloading.

This time, Mrs. Luo not only packed several bean cakes for her, but also caught two wild rabbits. An Yi watched with mounting resentment. Why, in this life and the last, must she always feign civility with her enemies? Why could she never settle scores as she wished?

That afternoon, word came from An Kang by messenger: the academy was placing special importance on this year’s autumn exams and had arranged monthly tests. He would remain at school to study and not return the next day.

Mrs. Luo thanked the messenger repeatedly before returning to her screen embroidery. The sooner she finished, the sooner she could go to the city to deliver the work—and visit her son on the way.

The next day, An Yi calculated the time and deliberately went to the village entrance. Sure enough, she saw Xinliu pacing there, her lips curling in disdain—at least the girl had a good memory for time. In this era, people married young and matured early; even children already understood love between men and women. Some would even go so far as to plot to take lives to achieve their aims.

An Yi watched for a while, then turned to head home, only to see a young woman approaching with a wooden board in her left hand and a gleaming kitchen knife in her right. As she walked, she chopped the board with the knife, cursing loudly, “Whoever chopped my chicken’s head, may you die a thousand deaths! Thief who ate my chicken, may your guts rot and your head fester! May you die without descendants, never to rest in peace! Whoever’s bastard child you are, you have the gall to steal but not to admit it, you turtle coward! You ate my chicken—may you not even have a grave when you die!”

The woman’s manner was so fierce that An Yi hurriedly stepped aside to avoid trouble. After she passed, An Yi ran home, told Mrs. Luo what had happened, and asked who the woman was.

Mrs. Luo curled her lip in distaste. “That’s Jiang Shi, Li Guyu’s stepmother.”

A cold light flashed in An Yi’s eyes; she loathed stepmothers. It was a misfortune for Li Guyu and his sister to have such a woman in their lives.

Xinliu waited at the village entrance until noon, but An Kang did not return. Disappointed, she went home. In the afternoon, she came to the An house to inquire, this time without little Zhu Sheng.

Feigning ignorance of her purpose, An Yi asked, “Xinliu, you’re here. Have you learned to write that poem?”

“I have,” Xinliu replied, her gaze flickering.

“I’ll teach you another, then.” An Yi saw through her lie at a glance but did not expose her. She took out Du Fu’s quatrain: “Two yellow orioles sing amid emerald willows; a row of white egrets soars into the blue. Beyond my window, I see the snowy peaks of the West Mountain; at my door, a boat from distant Wu is moored.”

This poem contained several difficult characters, such as the complex forms for “oriole” and “egret,” which even An Yi nearly failed to write correctly.

Xinliu’s heart was not in it; she wrote the character for “oriole” several times but still couldn’t manage it. An Yi did not rush her, watching as she wrote it wrong again and again.