Morning light entered through the bamboo slits, brightening the room that still smelled of sweet sweat from the friction of the early hours.
Near the cedar chest, Zhì Yuǎn breathed deeply while tying the leather belt over the gray tunic. The open pores in his skin now worked on their own, drawing the cold moisture of the morning straight into the bones and cooling the heat accumulated in the blood.
Sitting amid the rumpled sheets, Yù Qíng hugged her knees, still marked by the fresh bruises of the night, watching her husband dress with her jaw locked.
"You're already going to open the mountain veins tomorrow so my father can deliver the quota," she said, pulling at the tip of the sheet. "You didn't need to leave the bed so early today just to weigh coal in front of an imperial official."
Zhì Yuǎn turned slowly, a half-smile curving the corner of his lips as he looked at his wife.
"The agreement with your father still stands, Qíng. I weigh the sacks, keep the official's mouth shut, and maintain the village quiet…" He took a step to the edge of the bed, the shadow of his broad body covering the girl. "After all, he swallowed the scandal of the adopted son and the daughter living as husband and wife even before they married. I'm only paying the debt."
Yù Qíng's face colored at once. She looked away and seized the rumpled sheet tightly.
"It's no scandal. You were adopted already grown, and I always knew you were mine from the first day."
Zhì Yuǎn kept the half-smile without answering, only extending his hand to run his thumb lightly over her chin.
"If I don't go down today, the noise of the village will reach here. I'm not going to allow that."
Yù Qíng released the sheet little by little.
"I'm going with you."
She rose from the bed and put on the simple blue cotton tunic, but paused when she looked at her own clean, smooth wrists, still carrying the memory of the dead cultivator staring at her skin by the riverbank. Opening the drawer, she pulled out a scrap of thick, dark fabric and wrapped it around her head, covering her nose and the lower half of her face with a firm knot at the nape, leaving only her eyes visible.
"No one in that square is going to drool over what belongs only to you," she said, her voice muffled by the cloth as she stopped beside his left arm. "Let's settle everything quickly."
Zhì Yuǎn looked at the improvised veil. A short smile curved the corner of his lips as he felt the blood warm in his chest at the sight of her hiding from the world for him alone.
He opened the cabin door and the two left the bamboo grove.
------
The courtyard of the main house smelled of horse sweat and coal dust. In the center, the imperial official held an open scroll, escorted by four guards in gray armor, while a few steps away Yù Chéng wiped his soaked nape with a cloth, his face gray with exhaustion.
"Fifty sacks under weight," the official said, pointing his brush at the pile of jute. "The moisture has soaked the coal. The empire pays for fuel, Yù Chéng, and the water at the bottom of these sacks is useless for the forges."
Yù Chéng opened his mouth to explain, but Zhì Yuǎn's low voice cut across the courtyard before he could speak.
"Moisture expands the jute and loosens the sisal. These ropes are dry and tight."
Zhì Yuǎn crossed the space between the workers with Yù Qíng walking exactly one step behind him, the dark veil tied over her face. Stopping before the immense iron scale, he raised his right hand and ran his thumb directly over the central axle. The thick rust yielded under the force of his finger and crumbled onto the earth.
"The axle is corroded," Zhì Yuǎn said. "The gear locks before the lead counterweight can descend. The sacks are at the proper weight and the coal is dry."
Silence fell over the courtyard. Yù Chéng let out a long sigh of relief, but the official ignored the evidence. He tossed the bamboo scroll into an empty basket and kicked the iron base of the scale with his boot.
"I care little for the adjustment of this scale," the official cut in, the bureaucratic tone replaced by raw haste. "You received the war seal three weeks ago, Yù Chéng, and until now you haven't stacked even half of the two thousand sacks in the courtyard. The northern line retreated again three days ago. The border troops demand fire now!"
The color left Yù Chéng's face. He took half a step back and braced his hand on the jute sacks to steady himself.
"Excellence, our men are mining through the night!" the old man choked. "The good shafts have dried up. We need more time to—"
The official ignored the justification and mounted the brown horse one of the guards held for him.
"The Empire has no time for this, Yù Chéng. Fix the sacks. Dig the mountain with your nails if you must."
He pulled the reins, looking down at the entire courtyard.
"You have until the end of this week. Five days. When the troop wagons return, either the two thousand sacks are ready, or I myself will have your heads."
The guards turned their horses and the retinue galloped out of the main house.
Zhì Yuǎn remained motionless in the middle of the courtyard for a moment. Behind him, Yù Qíng squeezed her own skirt so hard that her knuckles cracked, glaring at the official's back as he vanished into the dust. Without a word, Zhì Yuǎn turned, ignored the useless scale, and walked to the large water barrel in the corner of the yard to wash his hand, followed closely by his wife.
In the shadow of the kitchen veranda, Yù Méi watched everything.
She gripped a clay bowl dirty with flour between her callused hands, having run to the back the moment the empire's horses echoed in the courtyard. The anger at the isolation of her brother-in-law and sister over the past weeks burned on the tip of her tongue, ready to become a shout, but the voice dried in her throat when the two stopped far from the raised dust, under the direct light of the midday sun.
The brightness struck Zhì Yuǎn directly, revealing skin that had lost the weathered, cracked, and dark leather of the mountain and become pale, smooth, and dense. The air around his broad body shimmered as it was drawn into the pores. Behind him, when Yù Qíng raised her hand to adjust the dark veil, the exposed fingers showed not a single callus or stain of earth. She maintained a cold and tranquil posture, as if the village's despair did not touch her.
Yù Méi looked at her own rough hands dirty with flour, then at her father trembling with sweat and fear against the coal sacks. Near the water barrel, the couple no longer seemed to belong to that world.
The clay bowl slipped from the girl's fingers and struck the veranda floor, shattering and scattering flour across the dark boards.
The dry snap cut through the corner of the courtyard. Zhì Yuǎn turned his face slowly toward the veranda while Yù Qíng followed the movement, fixing her black, cold eyes above the veil directly on her younger sister. Yù Méi swallowed hard, her heart hammering violently against her ribs, unable to look away from the imposing figure the two formed amid all that soot.
------
The walk back to the eastern bamboo grove was followed closely by hurried steps. Yù Méi tracked the couple from the square, ignoring the flour on her own skirt and Sū Huì's shouts from the kitchen. When Zhì Yuǎn crossed the cabin threshold and Yù Qíng turned to close the bamboo door, the youngest's dirty hands flattened against the wood, forcing her way in.
"You're not going to lock me outside again," Yù Méi's voice came out choked, her chest rising and falling fast as she faced her sister's pale face and her brother-in-law's broad back. "You disappeared for weeks. What did you do to your own bodies?"
Yù Qíng released the door and let her sister stumble into the warm room. Zhì Yuǎn walked to the small table and sat down.
"Your brother-in-law discovered how to tear the limit of the body and remake our bones from scratch," Yù Qíng answered, dry, a short smile of superiority curving the corner of her mouth. "Only the price of that is being burned alive from the inside, Méi. You wouldn't last even the first night."
The provocation lit Yù Méi's eyes at once. Ignoring the dense, strange smell of the room, she stepped forward and seized Yù Qíng's cold wrists.
"Teach me," the girl demanded, her eyes shining. "Let me do the same! I can take the pain."
Yù Qíng pulled her arms down, freeing herself from her sister's dirty hands, and looked at her husband. Zhì Yuǎn observed Yù Méi's chest in silence for a moment before speaking.
"You can't cultivate now, Méi," he said, his voice low and calm. "Your meridians were born broken. Entire pieces are missing in the channels between your chest and your arms. If you try to draw Qi from the air like we did, the energy will leak straight into your organs before forming any foundation."
The gleam left Yù Méi's face at once. She took half a step back and her legs lost strength, making her drop to sit on her heels on the bamboo floor. Her hands closed on the fabric of her skirt and she bit her lower lip hard, lowering her head to hold back the tears.
"But it can be fixed," Zhì Yuǎn continued in the same direct tone. "The golden energy that your sister and I refined doesn't burn or tear. It's dense enough to connect and rebuild what's missing in you."
Yù Méi lifted her face immediately, wiping the backs of her hands over her eyes to dry the tears before they fell.
"The problem is that our control is still too crude," he explained, bracing his arm on the table. "I still don't know how to guide this force through another person's body with precision. If I try to send my Qi into your chest today, any mistake would kill you. You'll have to wait."
Yù Qíng approached the table and stopped beside him.
"The books we bought from the peddler are too basic," the elder sister said, looking down at her. "We're not going to try to fix your body in the dark without knowing properly where to touch."
Zhì Yuǎn nodded.
"In a few weeks we'll go to Qīngshí to look for ancient manuals and resources in the markets there," he said. "But before renting any wagon, I need to settle your father's coal quota."
Yù Méi sniffed low and braced her hands on her knees to rise from the floor, lifting her chin with stubbornness.
"I'm going with you to Qīngshí."
Zhì Yuǎn held the determined gaze of his sister-in-law for a moment. Since he already intended to fix her channels as soon as he obtained the manuals in the city, taking her along did not seem a bad idea.
"Then have your clothes ready when the day comes," he agreed.
The sentence had barely ended when Yù Qíng stepped forward, seizing the fabric on Yù Méi's shoulder and pulling her at once, pushing her out of the cabin. The youngest stumbled on the veranda steps.
"Go help Mother and stop wasting our air," Yù Qíng said.
The heavy wooden log fell into the door support with a dry snap, locking Yù Méi outside and returning the room to dimness despite the midday sun shining in the yard.
Yù Qíng turned her back to the entrance, pulling the knot at her nape to let the dark veil fall onto the boards before undoing the tie at her waist. The blue dress slipped from her shoulders and fell around her bare feet as she walked naked to the table, stopping a few inches from Zhì Yuǎn. Her short nails dug into the front of the gray tunic, pulling her husband against her own cold belly.
"You just said you need to control this energy better so you don't kill my sister," she murmured, her voice low and direct. "Then use my body to train."
Zhì Yuǎn faced his wife's dark eyes and a short smile pulled the corner of his lips.
"How considerate of you all of a sudden," he said, his voice low and drawn as he slid his fingers along her bare waist. "Using your sister as an excuse just to lock me in bed in the middle of the day."
Yù Qíng's face heated at once, but she ignored the provocation and leaned forward, pressing her hip against his chest.
"The day has barely reached its midpoint, A-Yuǎn," she whispered against his neck. "And we still have much to refine before tomorrow."
Zhì Yuǎn's large hands closed on his wife's waist, lifting her from the floor at once as he stood and carried her to the bed, laying her on her back over the straw. The bamboo frame creaked loudly under the weight of both when he climbed over her and drove his hips forward at once, drawing a hoarse moan from Yù Qíng's throat as the heavy rhythm began again in the dark of the room.