Yu and Jing - Chapter 1

It would be more accurate to say Lu Jing delivered himself to my door than to say I found him.

For no reason I could name, I could not sleep that morning. I got up and wandered into the back courtyard, where I heard something beyond the little gate. When I opened it, I found someone in a red skirt lying faceup on the threshold. The air smelled of blood. I checked for breath, found a little left, and carried him inside.

I was a physician. I could never bear to see someone injured right in front of me.

At first, I took him for a young woman. He wore a dress, had delicate features, and was slight of build. But when I brought him into the guest room and examined him, I looked at his flat chest, then at his pretty face, and fell into thought.

The first person I had ever picked up off the street seemed to be rather extraordinary.

He had many wounds, old and new. Most looked like whip marks. The newest was on his abdomen and seemed to have come from a blade. I had no idea what he had been through to leave his body in such a state. But that was his own affair. I had no business prying. My job was to treat him.

I cleaned and dressed his wounds, then changed him into a new, pale-colored dress I had bought. When I went to buy it, Second Aunt Chen, who kept the shop, could not resist teasing me. “Young Doctor Jiang, what’s brought you out to buy a dress? Have you found a sweetheart? Come on, tell me which lucky girl it is.”

I smiled. “Nothing of the sort. A distant younger cousin is coming to stay in a few days. She wrote ahead and asked me to have some clothes ready for her.”

Worried she would not believe me, I gave a helpless shrug. “She’s been spoiled since she was little. The elders dote on her.”

Second Aunt Chen had watched me grow up. She knew I had never shown much interest in romance, and my story sounded plausible enough that she finally let me go.

As for the person I had brought home, he slept for a full day and night. On the day he woke, I was grinding herbs in the back courtyard when I heard his door open. I looked up and saw him leaning against the doorframe, watching me.

It was spring, and the peach tree in the courtyard had bloomed. A gust of wind scattered petals around his feet.

I set down what I was holding and hurried over, treading through their fragrance.

“You’ve only just woken. You shouldn’t be walking around. Go back and lie down.”

He said nothing. His brows drew together as he looked at me.

“My surname is Jiang. I’m a physician.” I pointed toward the back gate. “You collapsed outside yesterday, so I brought you in.” Then I glanced at his clothes. “I… I was the one who changed you.”

That seemed to put him at ease. He ignored the hand I offered to steady him and went back into the room on his own.

It was not especially polite, but somehow I was not surprised.

For the next three days, he obediently ate, took his medicine, and rested in bed. He did not speak once.

Perhaps, I thought, he could not speak at all.

On the fourth day, he finally opened his mouth, and what he said took me by surprise. “A prince bought my freedom from a brothel.”

“He kept me prisoner. I stabbed him and ran away. So, Doctor Jiang, if you take me to the authorities now, you might earn yourself quite a reward.”

He spoke so lightly that anger flared in me. Even then, I set his medicine on the stool beside the bed before answering. “You don’t need to tell me any of that. I’m here to treat you.”

“You believe me just like that?”

“Miss, as I said, I’m a physician. I treat people.”

“We’ve never met. Aren’t you afraid I’m lying?”

“If what you’ve told me is true, you haven’t murdered anyone or set anything on fire. You only wanted to live. What wrong have you done? Of course I should help an innocent person. And if you’re lying—if you’re actually some vicious criminal—I’ll still make you well, then send you to the authorities.”

I looked at his lowered eyes and said gently, “Miss, I’m a physician. I can’t watch someone die before my eyes. That’s all.”

Nor could I bear to hear someone I had saved say he no longer wanted to live.

But it was not my place to lecture him.

I stood by his bed for a while. When he seemed to have nothing more to say, I turned to leave. He stopped me.

“Doctor Jiang.”

I looked back.

He fixed his clear eyes on me and pressed his lips together. “I’m not a woman.”

“I know.”

You’ve kept wearing dresses these past few days, though, and shown no wish to take them off. That was why I had addressed you that way.

“But I always wear dresses.”

“Mm.” I waited patiently for him to continue.

He suddenly smiled. “Doctor Jiang, call me Ah-Jing.”

“Jing as in spring scenery?”

“The Jing with the jade radical. Add ‘jade’ to the jing for spring scenery—like the scenery at a prince’s residence.”