Riding the Long Wind – Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Liu Yuru recognized Jiang Rou. She hesitated for a moment, then began to push herself upright to offer a proper greeting. Jiang Rou pressed her back down. “You are not well. Stay lying down. We do not stand on ceremony in this household. I have brought a physician to look at you.”

There was nothing physically wrong with Liu Yuru. But her mind was so thoroughly empty at that moment that she could not summon the will to pretend otherwise. She lay back and let Jiang Rou call the physician in to take her pulse.

The physician examined her carefully. He found nothing acutely wrong, but noted several chronic weaknesses in her constitution and recommended a course of tonic and rest.

Jiang Rou listened, nodded, and dismissed the physician to write the prescription. She had food brought in. Then she turned back and sat looking at Liu Yuru quietly.

Her senior maidservant, seeing the look on her mistress’s face, gently shepherded everyone else out of the room. Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were left alone. Jiang Rou took in Liu Yuru’s appearance: a face that had been cried through, makeup long ruined, eyes swollen nearly shut, still in yesterday’s wedding dress. She looked like a girl who had been put out.

“Yuru,” Jiang Rou said quietly, “what happened between you and Jiusi last night?”

Liu Yuru looked down and said nothing. Jiang Rou said: “Did Jiusi say something foolish?”

Still nothing. Jiang Rou studied her, and then said, with a slight smile: “Before I came to propose the match, I asked around about you. Everyone told me you were a proper, rule-abiding young woman. And yet here you are in my household, and you seem like something else entirely.”

“Madam Gu,” Liu Yuru said at last. Her voice was level. “I did not want this marriage.”

Jiang Rou blinked. She had not expected that. After a long moment she said, carefully: “But when I made the proposal, your auntie told me you had feelings for Jiusi.”

Liu Yuru gave a small, mirthless smile. “Madam Gu, you know what my household is like. Would you believe anything my auntie said?”

“But your father was right there,” Jiang Rou said, still trying to make the pieces fit. “He would not just…”

She trailed off.

She had known the Liu household was not a harmonious one. But Liu Xuan had always presented himself well in public, and her sources had suggested that whatever his failings with his wife, he was not unkind to his children. Liu Yuru had been properly provided for and properly raised as a legitimate eldest daughter. Children were parents’ most precious things, and a first child even more so. She had simply not been able to imagine Liu Xuan standing by while his daughter’s future was bartered away.

And yet he had done exactly that. And had not said a word.

Jiang Rou felt a flash of anger that she pressed down carefully so as not to alarm the girl in front of her. She said, keeping her voice even: “I need to ask you directly. Was there truly a prior understanding between your family and the Ye family?”

“There was an intention to marry.” Liu Yuru stated it plainly, without emotion. “Old Madam Ye came herself to speak with my family. My family agreed. We were only waiting for Young Master Ye to return from the provincial examinations before the formal proposal was made.”

“This is completely outrageous.”

The words came out before Jiang Rou could stop them. Liu Yuru glanced at her. Jiang Rou stood up and walked back and forth across the room several times.

All of that effort to arrange this marriage. Her son unwilling, the girl unhappy, and the Ye family gratuitously offended in the process.

She closed her eyes. Breathed in slowly. She understood now what Liu Yuru’s state of mind had been, and was. She let herself come back to calm. The thing was done. The young ones were probably in more distress than the adults. She looked at the blank-faced girl on the bed and felt genuine pity. She returned to Liu Yuru’s side, chose her words with care, and finally said: “Miss Liu. This was the Gu family’s failure. We did not investigate carefully enough. The fault is ours. I apologize, and I hope you can forgive us.”

Liu Yuru said nothing. She was a little surprised, though the feeling was too faint to stir anything in her. She looked down and said quietly: “Something this private is not the sort of thing one would share with an outsider. Even a diligent inquiry might not have turned it up. And it was my family that gave you false information. I do not blame you for it, Madam.”

Jiang Rou saw that this was a girl who understood how things worked and did not push where pushing was not warranted. She felt no inclination to redirect any of her anger toward Liu Yuru, even though Liu Xuan made her want to throw something.

She looked at Liu Yuru and sighed. “What do you intend to do now?”

“What can I intend?” Liu Yuru said, with a tired kind of humor. “The engagement was made and the wedding is done. Do I have any option other than to make a life here and hope Gu Jiusi does not actually cast me aside? I came to the Gu household wanting to make something of this. What choice do I have?”

Jiang Rou was quiet. She heard Liu Yuru pull in a long breath, as if she were drawing up something she found very difficult to say. “But it is not that I am not trying. It is that Gu Jiusi is the one who is not trying.”

“Madam Gu.” Liu Yuru’s eyes reddened. “He talked about casting me aside on our wedding night. And now he has disappeared. How am I supposed to live here?”

“I told myself I had made peace with it. I married a man like him, and I was not going to expect very much. But at the very least, at the very least, let me stay. If he truly casts me aside, that is the same as forcing me to die.”

Jiang Rou sat still and listened.

The girl was fifteen years old, and the contempt in her voice was not even half disguised. Jiang Rou felt a rueful amusement. “So, Yuru, are you asking us to go and bring Jiusi back?”

“And what would that accomplish?” Liu Yuru said, without energy. “He comes back, then runs again, then we bring him back, then he runs again. Am I to become a joke that the whole city follows?”

“Then what do you want to do?” Jiang Rou asked.

Liu Yuru shook her head.

She did not know.

She did not want to think about it anymore.

“Just like this,” she said, her voice worn to almost nothing. “I accept it. He is what he is. He can go where he likes and do what he likes. Madam Gu, just let me stay here. Let me eat. That is enough. I do not want to calculate anymore. I do not want to manage anything anymore.”

Her voice broke. “I cannot take any more of this. I cannot.”

One blow after another, and every time she had thought she had found solid ground it turned out to be nothing.

She had lived carefully all her life. She had tried to do everything right. And still she had ended up here, and she was too tired to fight it, and too frightened to hope for anything.

Jiang Rou looked at the girl collapsed against the bed, crying, and let out a quiet sigh. She reached over and patted Liu Yuru’s back gently, without saying a word.

That wordless steadiness made the crying slow. Liu Yuru drew one shuddering breath, then another, until finally Jiang Rou said: “Miss Liu. When you have cried enough, stop. And when it is over, you have to stand back up. That is the only way forward.”

Liu Yuru said nothing. Jiang Rou helped her sit up, handed her a cloth, and watched her wipe her face. Then she said, slowly: “I know you are in pain. But when a person falls, they have two choices. They get up, or they stay down. Getting up is hard, but it keeps you moving. Staying down is easy, and it ends the road.”

“I know that perfectly well,” Liu Yuru said, with a tired, self-mocking edge. “But Madam Gu, I cannot see the road.”

Jiang Rou was quiet for a moment. Then she said: “I know you are unhappy with Jiusi. You see him as a wastrel, as someone with nothing to offer, and compared to Ye Shi’an, he probably does not look like a good husband by any measure.”

“I say this not to defend my son. Only to say that neither you nor the Gu family can go back now. Life has to be lived going forward. I want this marriage to be the beginning of a family, not the beginning of a grudge. So if you are willing, let me tell you what I think.”

“Please speak, Madam.”

“Jiusi is a wastrel, yes, and he has none of Young Master Ye’s ambition. But his nature is genuinely good. He has never in his life done anything truly cruel or harmful. Outside of gambling, he is restrained in almost everything. He does not touch women. What the city says about him spending a fortune at the Spring Wind House on a courtesan was done for a friend’s sake, not his own interest. He is only eighteen, but when it comes to matters of the heart, he is sincere to a fault. The wife he imagines for himself is the one and only person he will ever love. Compared to most men of his age and position, at least in this one regard, he will not treat his wife badly.”

“Sincerity in love is sweet when you are the one he loves,” Liu Yuru said, with a bleak little smile. “When you are not, it is poison. He wants to cast me aside because he is sincere. I would almost rather he were faithless, at least that would leave me a way to survive.”

“But feelings are not fixed from the start,” Jiang Rou said, gently. “Where do people get this idea that you either love someone immediately or you never will? Most of the marriages in this world are arranged by parents. I myself only saw my husband’s face when the veil was lifted. Many couples become husband and wife first, and only grow fond of each other after years of living together, day after day. That is how most love is made.”

“Jiusi has never had feelings for any girl. He has barely spoken to women at all. The reason we believed he had feelings for you was that you are the only girl he has ever said he wanted to marry. Even if that was a misunderstanding, it still puts you ahead of everyone else when it comes to his heart.”

Liu Yuru dropped her gaze. Jiang Rou could see the resistance in her and said: “I am not asking you to chase after him or win him over. I am asking you not to make yourself suffer unnecessarily. You need to look at this boy and find something real in him, something you can respect. If you go into this convinced he is beyond saving, if you resent him and despise him, then what exactly is your plan? Are you going to lock yourself in that room for the rest of your life?”

“If you do that, you are the one hurting yourself. Your suffering will not end, and your life will simply be spent.”

Liu Yuru’s tears fell without sound. Jiang Rou pressed on, with a kind of patient honesty: “I am not saying you have to love my son. I am not even saying you have to like him. I understand if you do not. But I am saying, you are here now, and I hope you will give this your real effort. Whatever I can do to help you, I will do. Today Jiusi went to the Spring Wind House. This is your first real test as a couple. How you respond, what you choose to do today, will shape everything that comes after. If you want to tell me what you are thinking, I am listening.”

Liu Yuru’s whole body had gone very still.

The Spring Wind House.

On the first day of their marriage, he had gone to the Spring Wind House. He was making her into a joke for all of Yangzhou to laugh at.

“Madam Gu,” she said, “you said you would help me. What kind of help?”

“That depends on what you ask for.”

“What if I asked you to go and bring Gu Jiusi back right now, and punish him properly?”

“I can do that.” There was not a flicker of hesitation in Jiang Rou’s face. Liu Yuru’s lips trembled slightly. Jiang Rou looked at her steadily. “Is there anything else?”

“Madam Gu,” Liu Yuru said, her voice rough, “he is your son. I do not understand why you would help me this way.”

“Yuru,” Jiang Rou said, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, “I told you. I want a family, not a feud. Jiusi is wrong here, and I will not take his side. The Gu household brought you across our threshold as our daughter-in-law. Whatever the circumstances, whatever mistakes were made, however this came about, you are here, and I am going to do everything I can to make this marriage into something good. In every life, things go wrong. The only thing we can do when they do is try to walk toward something better.”

She paused, then said, more quietly: “If I am being honest, and speaking only for myself, you will have a better life in the Gu family than you ever would have had in the Ye family. As long as you are willing to try. Your father-in-law and I are not strict people. You can manage the household, go into business, read and study, whatever you want, and I will help you learn. As for Jiusi’s nature, if he does not cast you aside, he will never take a concubine. The inner quarters of this house will always be peaceful. And I genuinely believe that if you told him what you have actually been through, he would take responsibility. He would try to find a way forward with you. He is thoughtless and impulsive, but he is not a bad person.”

“Do not write this marriage off,” Jiang Rou said. “At least try to understand who Jiusi actually is.”