Brothers

Spring woods, flowers brimming with charm; spring birds, their hearts heavy with sorrow.

The spring breeze, so full of feeling, blew open my silken skirts.

At dawn I climbed the cool terrace; at dusk I slept beside the orchid pool.

By moonlight I picked hibiscus; night after night, I gathered Lotus Seeds.

I raised my head to see the paulownia tree; its blossoms were especially pitiful.

May Heaven grant no frost or snow, that the paulownia seeds may endure a thousand years.

Abyssal ice lay three feet thick; pure snow stretched another thousand miles.

My heart was like pine and cypress—what then was yours like?

The early spring morning still carried a sharp, biting chill. Thin mist drifted above Guihua City, the largest prefectural city on the northwestern frontier of the Great Yuan Kingdom. The milky-white fog trembled daintily in the morning wind; if one looked closely, one could almost hear within it the faint moans of peerless beauties.

The broad bluestone streets of Guihua City were covered in dew, slick and glistening, clean as if freshly washed. Several chickens and ducks waddled across the road. A black dog, ears drooping and tail tucked, furtively followed behind them. All at once, the black dog pricked up its ears, shuddered slightly, then abruptly bolted. Like a gust of wind, it tore through the thin mist and vanished at the end of the street.

A small, exquisite lacquered door beside the road suddenly swung open, and a soft, coquettish voice, dripping with seduction, floated out. "Young Master Lin, remember to come and favor this servant again next time~~~"

A youth just over six feet tall staggered out on trembling legs. His face was pale with a bluish tinge, his hair disheveled, and he wore a crimson cloak scattered with silver bamboo leaves in careless disarray. He squeezed out a smile on that wan face, turned back, and waved. "I remember, I remember. Hehe, Xiao Jiao'er, make sure you bring your younger sister next time. This young master will initiate her too."

With a thickly lewd grin on his fairly handsome face, the youth pawed at the girl who had seen him out with one hand while pulling out a silver ingot with the other. He viciously hurled it at the black dog that had already disappeared into the mist at the end of the street. He cursed loudly, "Damned dog! You again, bringing this young master bad luck first thing in the morning! Next time, next time, I'll beat you to death!"

After coughing hard several times, the youth spat a glob of thick yellow phlegm onto the spotless bluestones. He lingered stickily with the girl beside him for a while longer before finally releasing her with a smiling face and heading toward a lacquered carriage at the street corner. As he walked, he dug at his ear and shouted, "Lao San, Lao San, wake up, wake up! Take this young master home."

Just then, singing drifted from a great distance away.

The song was bone-meltingly sweet and seductive, steeped in endless tender emotion. From the rising and falling melody, it seemed that nearly a hundred young women were singing aloud at once.

A large, disheveled-haired man poked his head out from the lacquered carriage. Tilting his head, he looked the youth over a few times, yawned, and asked, "Young Master, are we going back now? Not going to Jiwei Zhai for some pastries?"

The young master pulled a folding fan over a foot long from his belt and smacked it hard against his palm. "Shut up! Listen. What's that sound?"

"Spring woods, flowers brimming with charm; spring birds, their hearts heavy with sorrow. The spring breeze, so full of feeling, blew open my silken skirts~~~"

The clear, winding song came ever closer, and faint notes of strings and pipes drifted in on the morning breeze.

The mist in the sky suddenly dispersed. From the tip of the eastern city wall, a red sun abruptly rose, lavishly scattering rosy sunlight across heaven and earth.

Just like the sunlight that suddenly flooded the world, Guihua City's streets, empty only moments earlier, abruptly became crammed with people. Heads packed together, people squeezed against people, pressed against people, shoved against people. On the city's north-south main road, only a narrow passage remained down the middle. Groups of sturdy servants in red clothes, red flowers tied to their chests, seemed to emerge from nowhere. Armed with crimson hardwood staves, they desperately pushed the crowds back to clear as much of the road as possible.

The young master was nearly squeezed flat by the sudden surge of people. With a frightened squeak, he hurriedly leaped onto the carriage and burrowed into its cabin. Only after a long while did he poke his head back out through the window. He looked east, then west, carefully glanced at the sturdy red-clad servants, then quickly rapped Lao San, the driver, hard on the head with his folding fan. "Lao San, what's going on? Is there some excitement in Guihua City that I, Young Master Lin, don't know about?"

Lao San, who had been squatting on the carriage shaft and staring foolishly toward the southern city gate, rubbed his head and turned back with a foolish grin. "Young Master, you've been holed up in Fenyun Residence these past two days. How could you know the news that only came out yesterday? Our Guihua City Wang Family and the Zhang Family of Guiying City to the southeast have formed a marriage alliance."

"At dawn I climbed the cool terrace; at dusk I slept beside the orchid pool. By moonlight I picked hibiscus; night after night, I gathered Lotus Seeds~~~"

The song came closer still, while the dull sounds of route-clearing gongs—"clang, clang, clang"—also traveled over from the southern city gate.

Young Master Lin stood stunned for quite some time. He forcefully propped his folding fan against his brow and frowned. "The Wang Family? Is Wang Lao Er taking a wife? He was competing with me in the same room at Fenyun Residence yesterday. Why was he getting married today?" He cursed under his breath, "You bastard Wang Lao Er, you really have no loyalty! Getting married is such a huge matter, yet you didn't tell your brothers a word. Serves you right if your kidneys fail and you can't get it up! But that's strange—why were they sending the bride off so early in the morning? Don't we in the northwest insist on sending the bride out at noon?"

Lao San looked at Young Master Lin with an honest, foolish smile and shook his head hard.

"Idiot!" Young Master Lin cursed. Seized by anger from nowhere, he kicked Lao San off the carriage.

Without even grunting, Lao San climbed back up from the ground and obediently squatted beneath the carriage shaft. The dappled horse pulling the carriage cast a cold glance at him, then suddenly flicked its tail. Its long tail swept across Lao San's head.

"I raised my head to see the paulownia tree; its blossoms were especially pitiful. May Heaven grant no frost or snow, that the paulownia seeds may endure a thousand years~~~"

The singing came closer. In the distance, heads could faintly be seen surging through the streets, along with the loud clamor of idlers.

Amid earthshaking firecrackers, a young man with thick brows and large eyes, who looked imposing at first glance, rode a tall, pure white horse toward the southern gate. Yet his eye sockets were deeply sunken, and the dark circles around his eyes showed plainly that his vigor had been excessively drained. Surrounded by a group of red-clad servants, he looked left in bewilderment, then right. Then he suddenly spotted Young Master Lin, who had leaned more than half his body out from the roadside carriage. He hurriedly called, "Lin Yao, Young Master Lin, I... I... why was I suddenly getting married?"

Young Master Lin opened his mouth, wiped away a drop of drool from the corner of his lips with his sleeve, and blankly watched the young man hurry away, surrounded by servants as fierce as wolves and tigers.

"How would I know you were getting married? You didn't even know, so how could I know? I'm not your father!"

After coughing violently several times, Young Master Lin spat another mouthful of thick phlegm, faintly streaked with blood, onto the ground. He frowned and extended three fingers of his right hand to feel the pulse on his left wrist. His cheeks suddenly twitched violently. "Damn it. I failed to store essence in winter and depleted my yang energy too severely. Now that spring has come, internal consumption was about to flare up. If that old man finds out, it'll be another round of trouble."

"Abyssal ice lay three feet thick; pure snow stretched another thousand miles. My heart was like pine and cypress—what then was yours like~~~"

The song came closer still. Twelve servants could now be seen carrying a huge purple-gold gong six feet across on shoulder poles, walking along with joyous expressions as they struck it all the way—"clang, clang, clang."

Behind the twelve route-clearing servants came lines of maidservants carrying palace lanterns and shoulder poles bearing incense burners. The palace lanterns were lit with deep-sea merman oil, while the burners held the finest dragon saliva incense. From several hundred yards away, the thick fragrance nearly knocked Young Master Lin off his feet. The maidservants walked slowly as they sang at the tops of their voices. That lingering, seductive music came from their little mouths.

"My goodness, what grandeur! The Guihua Wang Family, the Guiying Zhang Family—what grandeur!" Young Master Lin snapped open his folding fan and fanned his face a few times. Then he hurriedly tossed the fan into the carriage, flusteredly called for Lao San to serve as a stepping stool, and climbed onto the carriage roof using Lao San's body. Standing there, he gazed eagerly toward the southern gate.

Pair after pair of servants and maidservants walked past. Group after group of guards in brocade robes with long sabers at their waists passed by. The bridal procession numbered nearly a thousand people! Then came more than thirty red-clad servants, smiling broadly as they surrounded the Wang Family's Second Young Master, whose face was blank and whose lips muttered something unknown, hurrying forward in great excitement. Behind them came a great red sedan chair borne by thirty-two girls in colorful robes.

The sedan chair was over ten feet long and wide. Four pillars carved with a hundred flowers and flying birds supported a grand canopy topped with three layers of colored glaze. Countless thumb-sized pearls had been strung into curtains that hung from all sides of the canopy. Through those glittering pearl curtains, one could see a young woman in pink gauze sitting quietly within the sedan chair. A veil made from purple pearls the size of sesame seeds concealed her features tightly; no outsider could see her face through both the curtain of pearls and the veil.

Standing atop the carriage roof, Young Master Lin gesticulated wildly as he stared at the sedan chair for a while. Then he suddenly whistled and shouted toward it, "Hey, little lady, lift that curtain of yours!"

In the northwestern dialect of the Great Yuan Kingdom, "curtain" had another meaning—it referred to a woman's breastband. By telling the girl in the sedan chair to lift her "curtain," Young Master Lin was asking to see her breasts!

Several servants guarding the sedan chair glared furiously at Young Master Lin. A few servants in golden robes were about to come over and give him a vicious beating. But several red-clad servants hurriedly stopped them and whispered a few words into their ears. The golden-robed servants froze, shot Young Master Lin astonished looks, and returned to the sedan chair in frustration.

Seeing that the girl within the sedan chair did not move in the slightest, as though she had not heard his shouting at all, Young Master Lin could not help shaking his head and sighing softly. "What an ice-cold little lady. No matter. Wang Er and I are brothers through life and death. What difference is there between his wife and mine? I'll naturally have my chance to see her face."

After lowering his head to ponder for a while, Young Master Lin clapped his hands and sighed. "This was too strange. They sent the bride off at dawn, and Wang Er himself didn't even know he was getting married. It was truly bizarre. Should I go to his home and eat at the wedding feast? But that tiresome old thing at home was hateful to the extreme. I haven't gone home for two days; I'm afraid I'll be in for another scolding."

With a sigh, Young Master Lin unconsciously touched his backside. Bored out of his mind, he sat cross-legged on the carriage roof and lazily called, "Lao San, drive us home."

The honest Lao San answered and hurriedly climbed onto the carriage shaft. With a light flick of his whip, the horse pulling the carriage obediently started moving, heading north along the street.

The crowds watching the excitement gradually dispersed. Countless people marveled that it truly was a marriage alliance between the two wealthiest families in the northwest. Such grandeur, such a spectacle—who had ever seen the like?

This single grand bridal procession was enough to leave the people of Guihua City joyfully talking for more than half a year.

The northwestern prefectures of the Great Yuan Kingdom had never been especially lively places. The people were naturally idle and easygoing. Moreover, the land was now in troubled times, and everyone lived in fear that they might not survive from one morning to the next. Today's festive spectacle was enough to dilute that thread of unease in their hearts—if great households could still flaunt themselves by holding such extravagant weddings, perhaps the peaceful days could continue a little longer.

The lacquered carriage wound through the streets for a while before arriving at a street in the northwestern corner of Guihua City.

This street was thirty feet wide and over three hundred yards long. Along its western side stood a row of shops of every trade and profession. The eastern side, however, was entirely occupied by an enormous pharmacy. The whole three-hundred-yard stretch was storefront belonging to this pharmacy, Spring Return Hall. From far away, a surging medicinal fragrance rushed toward them, making one feel invigorated without realizing it.

Spring Return Hall's main hall stood nearly sixty feet tall and stretched some two hundred feet wide. Eight black sandalwood pillars, each about three feet thick, firmly supported the vast chamber. Above its entrance hung a huge black-lacquered plaque nearly eighteen feet square, bearing three large characters whose gold paint had completely peeled away: Spring Return Hall. This worn-out-looking plaque and the dim, absurdly enormous main hall somehow gave people a sense of calm and reassurance when placed together.

Young Master Lin jumped down from the carriage and walked up the steps before the main hall with a dark expression. Standing at the entrance, he beckoned to a physician inside who was writing a prescription. The physician froze for a moment, then hurriedly put down his brush with a smile and respectfully approached him. In a low voice, he asked, "Young Master, you... have returned?"

The physician, who wore a small goatee, smiled amiably. Yet deep within his eyes lay a faint helplessness, as well as a trace of contempt.

Young Master Lin cautiously peered into the depths of the main hall for a while before lowering his voice. "Hu Zhutie, where was the old man?"

Hu Zhutie's beard twitched upward as he replied with a smile, "The Wang Family's patriarch came over. He and the old master are talking in the back."

Young Master Lin went blank, then said in surprise, "Wang Er was getting married today. The bridal procession just passed by. What was Old Master Wang doing at our pharmacy now?"

With a light flick, he opened his folding fan and fanned himself several times in a dashing manner. Young Master Lin softly instructed, "It's good that the old master is occupied. Mm, go get me a few ingots of Purple Plum Harmony Pill."

"Purple Plum Harmony Pill?" Hu Zhutie froze. Instinctively, he glanced at Young Master Lin's lower body, then at his pale, bluish face. He could not help smiling bitterly. "Young Master, taking Purple Plum Harmony Pill from the stores requires a signed tally from the old master. Our Spring Return Hall only produces a hundred or so finished Purple Plum Harmony Pills a year."

"I told you to go, so go. Why were you being so long-winded?" Young Master Lin suddenly flew into a rage. "The old master had to issue a tally? Then how could certain people take finished medicine from the storeroom so easily? Huh?!"

Along the left side of Spring Return Hall's main hall stood a row of medicine rooms. More than two hundred apprentices were busy working inside. Some filled prescriptions, some prepared finished medicines for customers, and some watched over rows of stoves, decocting precious medicinal soups that required precise control of flame and heat. The long benches lining the walls were filled with people of every height and build, fat and thin, beautiful and ugly, noble and humble. Whatever their origins or status, they all sat obediently on the benches, chatting aimlessly with those beside them.

A youth less than five feet tall, appearing no more than fifteen or sixteen years old, was helping an ancient-looking old woman out of the medicine room. As he supported her along, he said with a smile, "Rest assured, grandmother. After your grandson takes these three doses of medicine, his illness will certainly be cured."

The youth had a face that made people like him at once. His round baby face still held a trace of infant chubbiness, while a pair of fine, elegant brows flew comfortably toward his temples above his tender, fair skin. His large eyes were like two black jewels steeped in white mercury, brimming with indescribable spirit. Together with his straight nose, ruddy lips, clean and refreshing air, and the medicinal fragrance curling all around him, he could not help but inspire affection.

The old woman trembled as she repeatedly clasped her hands in salute to the youth. The youth hurriedly supported her, modestly refusing her thanks again and again. The old woman gently wiped the youth's cheek and choked out, "Young Master Xiao, your whole family is made of good people! If you hadn't waived my family's medicine fees, my grandson... sob, sob! Good people live long lives, good people receive many blessings! Young Master Xiao, may Heaven bless you. In the future, you will surely have a harmonious marriage, many sons and grandsons, and unbroken wealth and honor."

The flood of grateful words made the youth grin awkwardly, his face flushing red as he did not know what to say. After seeing the old woman off, he stood on the steps and watched her back for a while before softly sighing. Then, with a face full of delight, he clapped his hands and prepared to enter the main hall. That was when he saw Young Master Lin standing unhappily at the entrance.

"Lin Xiao, you were quite capable of using our Lin Family's money to earn merit for yourself!" Young Master Lin's face twitched as he waved his folding fan like a windmill.

The youth, Lin Xiao, changed expression. His face, which had been filled with delight, instantly stiffened. His body shuddered, and he hurriedly clasped his hands in salute to Young Master Lin. "Elder Brother."

"Don't!" Young Master Lin knocked Lin Xiao on the head with his folding fan and sneered. "I, Lin Yao, don't dare have such a 'capable' brother as you, one so capable of 'inheriting my Lin Family's ancestral business'!"

Lin Yao leaned toward Lin Xiao's grim-faced ear and cursed in a low voice, "You little bastard, you bastard born of that wild woman! You wanted to inherit Spring Return Hall? Keep dreaming your spring-and-autumn dream!"

With a cold snort, Lin Yao straightened up, smugly glanced at Lin Xiao, who stood a head shorter than him, and sauntered into the main hall.

Only a few steps into the hall, the smug Lin Yao turned and shouted at Hu Zhutie, "Why haven't you gone to get me the Purple Plum Harmony Pill?"

Hu Zhutie looked helplessly at Lin Xiao.

Lin Xiao's lips twitched. Lowering his head, he calculated for a moment, then quietly raised three fingers behind his back for Hu Zhutie to see.

Hu Zhutie's heart ached fiercely. Three ingots of Purple Plum Harmony Pill! The young master truly squandered things without restraint.

Lowering his head, Hu Zhutie shook it and hurried toward the medicine storeroom behind the pharmacy.

Lin Xiao glanced at Lin Yao's swaying back as he entered the inner hall. He too sighed, then returned to the medicine room in low spirits.

Sitting cross-legged before a mortar, Lin Xiao picked up a pestle and began pounding medicine with a series of "ding ding dang dang" sounds.

From deep within Spring Return Hall's rear courtyard came the clear sound of reading aloud. Those were the child apprentices recruited by Spring Return Hall, reciting all kinds of medicinal rhymes.

Listening to those medicinal rhymes, the smile gradually returned to Lin Xiao's face, which had been stifled with gloom.