It is a curious and often cruel truth of the poor that happiness, much like the morning mist that clings to the canals of Cangqian, tends to evaporate the moment one reaches out to touch it.
For a brief season, Ge the Eldest and his wife, Madam Yu, believed they had outwitted the harsh mathematics of their existence. Through the machinations of Madam Yu's brother, they had secured a daughter-in-law for the price of empty air. Bi Xiugu—the girl the neighbors now whispered of as "Little Cabbage"—was a marvel of diligence in a household defined by its coarseness. She moved through the cramped, bean-scented rooms with a quiet grace that bordered on the miraculous. She scrubbed the damp stone floors until they gleamed, hauled water from the well without a groan, and tended to the petty tyrannies of the household with a bowed head. For a few fleeting weeks, the Ge tofu shop hummed with the self-satisfied contentment of a petty merchant who has swindled a blind man.
But the gods of the hearth are jealous deities, and they do not suffer such bargains for long.
The turning of the tide began on a deep autumn afternoon. The air had grown brittle and sharp, the wind carrying the first biting promise of the coming winter. Ge the Eldest rose before the stars had faded, as was his custom, laboring at the heavy stone mill to prepare the day's curd. By noon, the work was done, and a leaden exhaustion, heavier than any he had known, settled into his marrow.
Seeking a moment's respite, he slumped over a wooden table in the front of the shop. He buried his face in his arms and fell into a deep, unguarded sleep. He did not notice the draft snaking through the cracks in the doorframe, a cold, invisible malice that coiled around his sweating body like a serpent.
When he awoke, the world had shifted on its axis.
A violent shiver racked his frame, snapping his teeth together with a sound like dry twigs breaking. His skin, usually flushed from the steam of the vats, had turned into the texture of plucked poultry, prickling with gooseflesh. He sneezed—once, twice, thrice—each spasm shaking him to his core. A dull, heavy fog descended over his eyes, blurring the edges of the room, and his head began to throb with a rhythmic pressure.
"I have let the cold in," he muttered to himself, pulling his padded cotton jacket tighter around his shoulders. He stood up, swaying like a drunkard, but the warmth of the jacket could not touch the ice that had taken root in his marrow.
By evening, the "chill" had metastasized into a raging beast. His head spun as if the millstone were turning inside his skull. His nose was blocked, his ears rang with a high-pitched whine, and his limbs felt as though they had been beaten with iron rods. He could no longer sit upright.
"Wife," he croaked, leaning heavily against the doorframe of the inner room. "I must rest."
Madam Yu looked up from her mending. She reached out to touch his forehead and snatched her hand back as if burned.
"You are boiling like a kiln," she exclaimed, alarm sharpening her voice. "To bed, immediately. I will get medicine."
In the insular world of Cangqian, medical options were limited. Madam Yu wasted no time. She pulled a handful of copper coins from the hidden jar and thrust them at Pinlian, her stunted son.
"Run to the Hall of Benevolent Love," she commanded. "Find Qian Baosheng. Tell him your father has caught the wind-cold. We need a powder to drive it out."
Pinlian vanished into the twilight. He returned breathless, clutching a small paper packet of pungent herbs. Madam Yu boiled the dark, earthy concoction over the stove until it reduced to a thick, black sludge.
"Drink," she urged, lifting Ge's head. He swallowed the vile liquid, gagging slightly, and collapsed back onto the pillow.
Madam Yu was a woman who believed in brute force when subtlety failed. She piled every quilt the family owned onto her husband, burying him under a suffocating mountain of cotton. The goal was simple: force a sweat, break the fever, and drive the demon of sickness out through the pores.
That night, the domestic geography of the house shifted. Madam Yu lay beside her shivering husband, listening to the rattle of his breath. Pinlian and the "Ugly Fool," Third Girl, took the outer room. Little Cabbage, lowest in the hierarchy, spread a straw mat on the dirt floor beneath the main bed, ready to fetch water or empty the chamber pot at a moment's notice.
The night passed in a fever dream of groans and shifting shadows. When Madam Yu woke to the fish-belly gray of dawn, she reached out a hand, hoping to feel damp skin.
Her husband was dry. He was hotter than before. His eyes were half-open, glazed and unseeing, like a dead fish.
Fear, cold and absolute, gripped her heart. The wind-cold had not been driven out; it had dug in.
"Get up," she hissed to the children, her voice trembling. "We must open the shop. We must sell what we have. If the mill does not turn, we do not eat."
For the next few days, the Ge family fought a losing war on two fronts. In the front shop, Madam Yu, Pinlian, and a terrified Little Cabbage frantically sold off the remaining stock of dried tofu and bean curd skins, smiling tightly at customers while the smell of sickness drifted from the back room. Even Third Girl sat by the door, sensing the tension, staring blankly at the street with her bulging eyes.
From the bedroom, a weak voice called out. "Pinlian... tea."
Pinlian rushed to pour a cup of hot tea and brought it to his father. Madam Yu followed him in.
"How is it?" she asked, her voice tight.
"It is no good," Ge whispered, his face flushed a terrifying crimson, his breath coming in shallow gasps. "My head... it is splitting."
"We must call a doctor," Madam Yu said firmly. "This is beyond herbs from the shop."
Ge, in a moment of lucid despair, grabbed her wrist. His grip was weak, his hand trembling. Tears began to leak from his eyes, carving tracks through the grime on his face.
"Doctor?" he wheezed. "We live from hand to mouth. We earn today to eat tomorrow. Where is the silver for a doctor? If I rest for two days, I will mend. Do not waste money we don't have on a dying man. If I don't work... there is no rice."
It was the cry of the eternal peasant—the terrified calculation that the cure would cost more than the life was worth.
Madam Yu wiped her own eyes, steeling herself. "Do not speak of money. You are the pillar of this house. If you fall, what becomes of us? Pinlian is a boy. The girl is a child. And Third Girl..." She glanced at her idiot daughter, who was happily shredding a bamboo mat in the corner. "I am sending for the physician."
Pinlian was dispatched again. He returned with a doctor of higher standing than the herbalist Qian. The physician took Ge's pulse with three fingers, inspected the mossy coating on his tongue, and shook his head gravely.
"This is Shanghan—Cold Damage Disorder," the doctor pronounced. "He has accumulated stagnation from food and labor in the summer heat, and now the autumn wind has trapped it deep in the body. It has turned into a typhoid fever. It is critical."
He wrote a prescription for expensive ingredients. Madam Yu paid the consultation fee and sent Pinlian back to the pharmacy. They boiled the expensive roots and poured them into Ge.
One day passed. Then another.
The medicine was like water poured onto a stone. Ge the Eldest did not improve. The fever consumed him, burning the flesh from his bones. His lips turned a bruised purple, then black. He began to rave, shouting for water, shouting for cold.
The money ran out. The savings from years of grinding beans were gone. Madam Yu began to pawn their winter clothes.
Desperate, she called to her son. "Go to your uncle's house. Fetch Yu Jingtian. Tell him I need him. Tell him it is urgent."
An hour later, Yu Jingtian arrived, breathless, with Pinlian trailing behind him.
"Sister," Yu exclaimed, stepping into the dim room. "Why did you wait so long? Why did you not send for me sooner?"
"Look at him," Madam Yu sobbed, pointing to the wasted figure on the bed. "If anything happens... how will we survive?"
Yu Jingtian approached the bed. He peered closely at Ge the Eldest. The man's face was the color of old ash. His eyes were sunken, his cheekbones protruding like blades. His lips were scorched black by the internal heat. Death was not merely waiting in the room; it had pulled up a chair.
Suddenly, Ge opened his eyes. He saw his brother-in-law standing there and nodded weakly.
"Brother..." he gasped. "You have come? I... I am finished."
He fought for air, a rattling sound in his chest. "My wife... my son... I leave them to you. Look after them. I will be grateful to you even in the underworld."
He reached out a hand, thin as a bird's claw, shaking uncontrollably.
Yu Jingtian, usually a man of calculation, felt a sudden, sharp pang of pity. He wiped his eyes with a handkerchief, fearful that his own grief would frighten the patient further.
"Don't talk like that, brother-in-law," he whispered. "We will find a better doctor. You will recover."
He turned to his sister. "What medicine is he taking? Show me the prescription."
Madam Yu pulled the crumpled paper from a drawer. Yu Jingtian read it and his face fell. He recognized the potency of the herbs listed; he knew this was a battle against a formidable enemy, and the enemy was winning.
"Sister," he said, pulling her aside. "The shop cannot open. The priority is his life. You need a better doctor, and you need money."
"I know," Madam Yu wept, her shoulders shaking. "But where can we find money? We have pawned everything. We have nothing left."
Yu Jingtian sighed. He was not a rich man, but he was family. "This is not the time for pride. Crying will not boil rice."
He reached into his waistband and produced ten heavy, silver dollars—bright Mexican eagle dollars that shone in the gloom. He pressed them into her hand.
"Take this," he said. "Get the best doctor. Save him. Pay me back when the mill turns again."
Madam Yu clutched the coins, nodding mutely, overwhelmed by relief and shame.
Before he left, Yu turned to Little Cabbage, who was cowering in the shadows, her eyes wide with fear.
"Xiugu," he said gently. "I received word from your mother. She plans to visit you in a few days."
The girl's face transformed. For a moment, the gloom of the sickroom vanished. "Truly? Oh, Uncle, tell her I am waiting! Please!"
"I will," Yu promised. He then bid farewell to the weeping household.
But the silver dollars could not bribe the Reaper.
Madam Yu hired new doctors. She brewed stronger medicines. But Ge the Eldest slipped further away. Two days later, he fell into a deep coma. He spoke only in delirium, muttering nonsense about millstones and debts.
The family watched, helpless. Madam Yu, Pinlian, Little Cabbage, and Third Girl took turns watching the bedside, their eyes red from lack of sleep. The ten dollars dwindled. The doctors began to shake their heads and leave without writing prescriptions—the silent, universal signal that hope was gone.
Madam Yu knew the end was near. She had no money left for a coffin.
"Call your uncle again," she told Pinlian, her voice hollow and dead. "Tell him to bring your aunt. Tell him it is time."
When Yu Jingtian returned with his wife, Mrs. Wang, the scene in the bedroom was one of absolute despair. Madam Yu collapsed into her brother's arms, wailing, her composure finally shattered.
"What shall we do?" she cried. "He is leaving us, and we have nothing! How will we bury him?"
Yu Jingtian moved to the bed. Ge the Eldest lay gasping, his chest heaving like a broken bellows. His eyes were open but saw nothing. His teeth, once stained with tobacco, were now black as charcoal from the heat of the fever. He was a husk of a man, hovering on the threshold of the void, waiting for the final push.
The room fell silent, save for the ragged breathing of the dying man and the soft weeping of the women. Outside, the wind howled, rattling the shutters, demanding entrance.
To know the fate of Ge the Eldest, read the next chapter.