“You smell like a campfire and fish,” the youth remarked, continuing the conversation. “Did you go into the forest? Aren’t you afraid to go there alone?”

  “No. We’re used to it already. We go every day,” Xue shook her head.

  “We gather nuts, roots, or rare herbs to sell,” Mingzhu clarified. “They pay well for those. Sometimes we find young bamboo shoots.”

  “Do those really grow in autumn?” Yun Hao asked in surprise.

  “Of course. You can find many things in the forest,” Xue nodded.

  “There are different kinds of bamboo,” Mingzhu added. “Some grow in spring, others in autumn. Once we clean the nuts and wash the shoots, we take them to sir Wang’s restaurant. He cooks all kinds of tasty dishes from them. He promised to teach me.”

  “That’s the man who invited you to work at his inn, right? Why didn’t you go?”

  “I don’t know. He’s kind, but… it’s better if we rely on ourselves,” Xue said, gently patting her sister’s shoulder. “It’s enough if he keeps buying shoots and nuts from us.”

  After dinner, everyone gathered in the main room. Like proper helpers, Xue and Mingzhu brought out and arranged the writing supplies for themselves, Yun Hao, and of course Ji Shen, then lit the candles. To the younger sister’s great disappointment, they were still not trusted with grinding the ink. Everyone took their seats, and the children began their studies.

  The girls traced characters, using almost their whole bodies, as if the lines stubbornly refused to take the proper shape. The others simply read or rested.

  “Xue, this one looks like a frog! Look!” Mingzhu whispered, poking at the smudged paper.

  “You just drew a frog,” her sister smiled. “That’s why it looks like one.”

  “Haha. No, I wasn’t drawing that.”

  Mingzhu liked holding the brush. The very act of laying ink onto white paper fascinated her, so the lively girl did not get distracted, only fidgeted from having to sit still. She still remembered how their father had taught them to read, drawing characters on the ground with a stick. Tracing the lines now, she felt as if she had briefly returned to the riverbank, where she had once been so happy.

  “You’re almost there,” Ji Shen praised her, glancing at the page. “Perhaps it would be better to study in the morning? There’s more light.”

  “No,” Mingzhu shook her head. “Mornings are busy. We have many things to do.”

  “I understand,” the old man did not argue.

  Unlike her younger sister, Xue truly enjoyed reading and writing. Her meager knowledge allowed her very little, so Ji Shen composed a short story for her using simple characters, and she reread it every day. At first she had only two sheets, then three, and today another had been added.

  Such simple gifts became part of the girls’ modest belongings, like the daggers or the rare flower. Most of their things were worth nothing, yet the sisters cherished them deeply. One of Xue’s most precious treasures, worth more than gold, was the old booklet about medicinal plants their father had brought back. Someday, she dreamed of reading it all. For now, only a few days had passed since her lessons began, and she merely stroked the cover and looked at the pictures before sleep.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “That’s enough studying. It’s already late,” the maid Hei Xun reminded them. “Drink your milk and go to bed.”

  “All right…” Xue and Mingzhu reluctantly began clearing the writing tools from the table.

  Before sleeping, both admired the mysterious plant brought from the forest. In the light of stars and moon, the purple wonder looked especially beautiful and enigmatic. Its petals shimmered faintly with green, as if only at night they remembered what color they were meant to be.

  Following Hei Xun’s advice, the sisters cared for it carefully. They watered it only in the mornings, while the soil was still cool, so it could absorb moisture before the sunny day, and by evening the leaves would dry and not fear the night chill. To make the purple wonder feel at home, they covered the soil around it with leaves, like a forest floor. Wishing the plant good night, the girls blew out the candle and lay down on the soft straw mattresses, wrapping themselves in the blanket.

  “A blanket,” Mingzhu murmured with a smile. “Milk…”

  It seemed their lives had finally settled into calm after so long. Each day passed almost peacefully, their hearts at ease, their stomachs no longer growling with hunger. Even so, they could hardly believe that this small, warm world under the old master’s roof would last. At any moment, they expected to wake in the forest with dew in their hair, but neither Xue nor Mingzhu was afraid. Now they knew, at least in their minds, what the lives of the wealthy were like.

  Early in the morning, before their planned trip to the market, Xue poured copper coins onto the table. In the rays of the rising sun, the metal glinted dully. Quickly and almost silently, she counted them, set aside about a third, and carefully put the rest into a pouch, hiding it inside the straw mattress.

  First, the girls delivered a basket of cleaned nuts and bamboo shoots gathered the day before to Lord Wang, then headed to the market. A plentiful harvest of forest goods brought in many coins, and they decided to buy tanghulu. After brief bargaining with the vendor, Xue carefully took out the money, counting the required sum. Mingzhu stood guard, her palm resting on the dagger’s hilt.

  Almost immediately, she noticed a ragged boy whose eyes slid over passersby’s clothing, searching for poorly fastened purses. The little thief met her gaze, grimaced, and vanished into the crowd. The market lived and breathed like this every day.

  Before loosening her grip on the coins, Xue habitually glanced around, and her eyes caught on a strange-looking vagrant near a large stall filled with trinkets and ornaments. Dark, matted hair fell over his face, his beard stuck out in all directions, yet he stood calmly and confidently, gesturing with his healthy right hand as he spoke with the merchant. Beneath his tattered clothes, strips of rough cloth covered wounds, as if his body had been stitched back together after a bloody slaughter.

  The wind carried a fragment of his voice, low, hoarse from road dust, indistinct at this distance. Yet in his intonation, in the way he slightly inclined his head while listening, there was something painfully familiar. It seemed the vagrant had struck a good deal: he handed over a large bundle of rabbit pelts and one deer hide, receiving payment in return. With a crooked grin, the man tossed the coin pouch, weighed it in his hand, then brushed his hair aside with the other, revealing his face.

  Xue stopped breathing.

  The world around her froze. The crowd vanished, everything disappeared except the shaggy vagrant. A deafening roar rose in her ears, swallowing the cries of the market and the noise of the vast city, until only the pounding of her heart remained, tolling like a warning bell. Her arms fell limp at her sides, her fingers loosening on their own. The hard-earned coins spilled from her hands, bouncing and rolling between the stones of the pavement.

  “Xue?” Mingzhu’s frightened voice called out.

  The girl followed the direction of her elder sister’s frozen, fixed stare and halted as well, as if struck by lightning. Both stood without moving, afraid even to breathe, as though any motion might frighten away this unreal mirage.

  Sensing the intense gaze upon him, the filthy vagrant fell silent mid-sentence in his conversation with the merchant. Slowly, with the smooth, unhurried motion of a weary beast, he began to turn his head toward them.