Yu and Jing - Chapter 8

Word spread through Chen Family Town that the “girl” Chen Shi had rescued was my cousin. A few patients even asked in passing how old she was and whether she was promised to anyone.

People in our town were decent enough, but they loved arranging marriages. There were three temples to the Matchmaker God just outside town.

I had no idea how to fend off their questions. At my wits’ end, I went to the source of the trouble and demanded, “How old are you? Are you engaged?”

Lu Jing was sitting on a little couch in a lotus-pink dress, working at his embroidery. He looked up in astonishment.

“They all think you’re my cousin. They want to find you a husband.”

For the first time, he laughed openly, his whole face bright with charm. “I’m twenty-two and unmarried.”

“Am I supposed to tell them that?” I asked, troubled.

So that on their wedding night, everyone would discover the bride and groom were both men?

Lu Jing laughed so hard his hands shook. “Tell them my heart already belongs to someone.”

I smacked my forehead. Why had I not thought of that?

He set down his needlework. “Or I could tell them I’m a man.”

He could, but the gossip would be endless. Few people would accept a man wearing women’s clothes. If he wanted to stay here, he might have to appear in public only as a man, and he clearly would not like that.

Besides, I had already announced that he was my cousin. If he came clean, no one would trust either of us again.

Above all, the fuss would draw attention. Word might even reach the capital.

The only solution was to turn away the suitors and keep Lu Jing out of sight as much as possible.

That was hard on one person in particular, who had come by every day lately to ask after him.

Chen Shi was straightforward. When he liked someone, it showed on his face, and he did something about it. While Lu Jing recovered, Chen Shi regularly brought little presents: a bracelet from a stall, a rabbit from his hunt, and then something else.

Lu Jing had seen him just once since their first meeting. He thanked Chen Shi and handed every gift back.

“Brother Chen, thank you for your kindness, but I will never love you.”

It was absolute. He left no room for hope.

I watched the big man stand at the clinic door with his rabbit in his arms and the returned trinkets in his pockets. He looked wounded. “Young Doctor Jiang, why?”

How was I supposed to explain it to him?

“Don’t be too upset, Brother Chen. Perhaps she simply didn’t feel that way. There are plenty of other women in the world.” I comforted him aloud, while privately blaming Lu Jing for being so cold. Could he not have refused a little more gently?

Lu Jing told me later that some things had to be said plainly. Being too gentle only gave people false hope.

Plainly. I could manage that.

So I told everyone my cousin loved someone who had died young. In her grief, she had decided never to marry.

Lu Jing was not angry when he heard. He only smiled. “You may be right, Doctor Jiang. I probably won’t marry in this life. Not after clawing my way out of a place like that.”

He smiled more often now, but sometimes he said bleak things as though they were jokes.

Like a garden full of spring flowers seen through mist and rain.

I did not know what his days in the brothel and the prince’s residence had been like. I could find no words of comfort. “There’s nothing wrong with never marrying. There is so much else to do in life. Why let romance confine you?”

He looked steadily at me. “True,” he said softly.

As I lowered my head to resume my work, I heard a nearly inaudible murmur. “If it’s you, Doctor Jiang, perhaps you deserve someone better.”

“What did you say?” I looked up, unsure I had heard correctly.

He studied the herbs in my hands. “I said the weather is lovely today.”

It was. The peach tree had turned a lush green, thriving in the sunlight.

I nodded toward it. “I dug that tree up in the mountains. I was gathering herbs when I saw it half dead. I couldn’t leave it there, so I brought it home. I never expected it to pull through on its own and look like this a few years later.”

“Didn’t you save it, Doctor Jiang?”

“Not quite. If it had no will to live, moving it here would have done no good.”

He murmured, “For a plant, wanting to live is only instinct.”

I turned to him. “The same is true of people.”

He met my eyes. “Not all of them.”

We said nothing more.

A gust of wind caught his skirt. Only then did I notice the gray dust clinging to the hem. It had blended into the fabric so well that it looked like an embroidered pattern.