The Sickly Girl and the Border Town Fool - Chapter 2

“I spent a hundred and twenty taels dragging you back from death!”

“Open your mouth and drink! One dose costs twelve taels. Why doesn’t that bastard Doctor Jin simply rob me?”

“Wang Pan! Wang Pan! If you dare die on me now, you’re dead!”

So noisy.

How could one person be this noisy? He nagged beside my ear almost every day.

I opened my eyes wearily and found Zhao Heng arguing with someone.

His aunt was spraying spittle as she cursed him. “Zhao Heng, has your brain turned to water? You used to pour real silver into supporting Yang Jiaoyue, but at least the two of you had a verbal engagement. What is this sickly wretch you’ve brought home now? We keep her alive on ginseng soup, and I have to wash her body every day. If she dies in my house, I—”

There was a thud as Zhao Heng set a silver ingot on the table.

“Enough, Aunt. I leave with a caravan tomorrow. Take good care of Wang Pan for me.”

His aunt’s eyes lit up, and she reached for the silver.

She did not get it.

I closed my hand around the ingot and forced out, “Do you have a death wish?”

Zhao Heng turned and saw me. His face brightened. “Sickly girl, you’re awake!”

I had spent the past half month too ill to wake, but I had heard fragments of conversation.

Every morning, Zhao Heng went out to work as a caravan guard, returning late at night. His aunt charged him thirty copper coins a day to look after me.

Clinging to his back, I gave directions. “Search the rice crock in your aunt’s kitchen. She hid five taels in it. She’s been watering down my medicine.”

Zhao Heng stormed into the kitchen and found the money.

His aunt raised her eyelids and said with certainty, “Think carefully, Zhao Heng. If you walk out today for the sake of that consumptive ghost, you will have no home to return to.”

His step faltered.

I seized his ear, twisted hard, and shouted, “Go! Otherwise I’ll die on your back this instant and every tael you spent will be wasted. And you’ll never learn what happens between you and Yang Jiaoyue!”

Yang Jiaoyue was the bridle that controlled Zhao Heng. Mention her and he obeyed.

He immediately carried me away.

We went straight to Doctor Jin’s clinic. He was counting silver.

When Zhao Heng entered, the doctor merely glanced up. “Ah, Zhao Heng. Wang Pan cannot do without ginseng. A new shipment just came in, and I’ll sell it to you cheaply. Only a hundred taels.”

I peered over Zhao Heng’s shoulder. “Jin Buhuan, are you tired of living? Shall I calculate when the King of Hell is coming to collect you?”

The sight of me changed his expression. He gave an awkward laugh. “You little debt collector. Still not dead?”

He returned thirty taels to Zhao Heng, then muttered to me, “I truly didn’t cheat him by that much. Don’t go telling people my business.”

I counted the silver and patted Zhao Heng’s shoulder. “Put me down. Let Jin Buhuan examine you.”

Zhao Heng froze. Rubbing the wound on the back of his hand, he waved impatiently. “I’m a grown man. A few injuries are nothing. Treatment would waste money.”

I looked at Jin Buhuan.

He immediately joined in. “Sit down, Zhao Heng. One look at your face tells me you haven’t rested properly in ages. You barely escaped that bandit stronghold alive half a month ago. I told you to take restorative pills for a month, but you bought a little wound salve and ran off.”

Jin Buhuan said Zhao Heng’s internal organs had been injured. He needed a full year of rest, or the old wounds would flare up one day and kill him.

So that was why Zhao Heng had died coughing blood years later after Yang Jiaoyue provoked him. The weakness had been there all along.

I tossed the silver to Jin Buhuan. “Use the good medicine.”

He smiled obsequiously. “Of course. Of course.”

I waited beside Zhao Heng while the doctor prepared his prescription.

Zhao Heng could neither sit nor stand in peace. He picked irritably at the splinters in the doorframe.

I glanced at him and laughed inwardly.

Then I coughed twice.

Zhao Heng instantly poured me tea, though his mouth remained unkind. “You’re almost dead yourself, and you still meddle in my affairs.”

He bought me a bowl of meat congee, while he made do with tea.

When I complained that it was too hot, he stirred it with a spoon to cool it, grumbling, “Sickly thing. You’re awfully hard to please.”

The moment he had someone to care for, the furrows between his brows smoothed out. No sighing. No fretting.

See?

Zhao Heng was a born giver. Kindness from other people made him uncomfortable.

I was nothing like that. I was a born taker. I wanted people to tear out their hearts and give me everything.

We were rather well matched.

Auntie Sun came in carrying a bamboo basket. When she saw us, she stared. “The neighbors say Wang Pan was sold to be your child bride. I didn’t believe them. So it’s true.”

Zhao Heng turned crimson. In his agitation, he spilled hot congee over the back of his hand.

“Which idle bastard is spreading that nonsense? Look at her age and look at mine! How can anyone say such things?”

Auntie Sun gave him a sidelong glance, took a bun from her basket, and handed it to me.

“Wang Pan may be younger, but she is far better than you at running a household. Forget Jiaoyue and build a good life with her.”