Exquisite dice with red beans

After Zhou Ziliang closed the door, Tang Feng was already sitting on the edge of the bed. "The doctor has arrived?" The wedding dress was rather elaborate, and Tang Feng, sitting on the edge of the bed, smoothed out the hem and sashes. "This wedding dress is too heavy to wear. Why are there two tassels on the collar?"

“The tassels symbolize the endless longing between the two parties and their sincere love of loving only one person for life. Yan Yun has enlightened laws and advocates monogamy; the tassels sewn onto the wedding attire are only worn by the people of Yan Yun.” Zhou Ziliang sat down next to Tang Feng. “If you think it’s too heavy, we won’t wear it. Bao’er will go get you some clothes.” With that, Zhou Ziliang untied the belt around Tang Feng’s waist and neatly folded the elaborate clothes, placing them on the table. Just then, Li Bao’er entered carrying the clothes. “I’m sorry, it’s inconvenient for me to knock while carrying these clothes. I hope I didn’t scare you by coming in directly!” Li Bao’er handed the clothes to Tang Feng and Zhou Ziliang. “The doctor has been waiting outside for a while; I’ll go call him later.”

Once Tang Feng was dressed, the doctor came in. "Young master, the neck injury can be healed with some ointment, but your ankle is quite badly injured! A simple sprain would be fine, but this may have broken the bone. You'll need to wear a splint for a month and avoid strenuous exercise, otherwise the bone won't heal properly and it could leave lasting problems."

Zhou Ziliang frowned. It seemed quite serious yesterday, but he hadn't expected it to be this serious. He took out some silver from his pocket and said, "Thank you, doctor. Please take this silver. Could you prescribe a few more doses of good medicine?"

The doctor nodded, taking the money, and said, "Of course, of course. Who from your family will come with me to the shop to get the medicine?" Zhou Ziliang quickly followed him out, instructing Li Bao'er to look after Tang Feng before leaving.

"Your husband is so good to you," Li Bao'er said, taking out the bamboo she had chopped that morning and starting to split bamboo. Tang Feng sat in the yard basking in the sun. "Good to me...?" Actually, Tang Feng was talking to himself, but Li Bao'er heard him and stopped what she was doing. "Anyone with eyes can see that! How come you can't see it?"

Tang Feng picked up a twig and started drawing in the sand, "No, he's been very good to me."

“That’s right! You all seem like very nice people, well-mannered and refined young men. You can stay at my house and recover properly. Besides…” Li Bao’er blushed at this point, “Besides, we’re getting married in a few days, and I hope you can come.”

Arriving in Yanyun, this was Tang Feng's first time attending a wedding, especially one between two men. Tang Feng smiled and said, "Alright! I'll help you into the bridal sedan chair then."

Li Bao'er put down her sickle, found a small stool, and sat down next to Tang Feng. "We're poor, we don't have money for a sedan chair. Just help me through the door. I see I'm a few years older than you, so I'll call you 'brother'! Don't think I'm rustic! I'm a rough man. Even though my husband is a schoolteacher, I can barely read a few characters."

"I heard him call you 'brother' yesterday. Aren't you two husband and wife?" Tang Feng recalled that when Cheng Yitian insisted on making ginger water for them and told Li Bao'er to get her clothes, he also called Li Bao'er 'brother'. He couldn't help but feel a little strange. Who calls their wife 'brother'?

"Well, this is a story! I'm six years older than Yitian. My family was poor; I had three older sisters and two older brothers. When my sisters were getting married and my brothers were getting married, the family needed money, so they sold me to the Cheng family as a child bride. Yitian was only four years old then; what could he understand? They didn't even go through the proper wedding procedures. They just tied a red sash around his waist, and that was it. Later, his family fell on hard times, and his father wanted to send me home, afraid I would be a burden. But what would he do if I left? So I stayed, cultivated a few acres of land, and supported his education. I didn't understand what he was learning, but I was happy to see him teaching the village children to read. Little brother, you know, last year he held my hand and said, 'Brother, let's get married!' I remember being so happy then. I've suffered for most of my life, and I don't know what I did wrong, but for the first time, I had the thought of getting married."

Seeing Li Bao'er's gentle expression, Tang Feng smiled as well. It turned out that their childhood misunderstandings had led to their current loving and trusting relationship. Tang Feng patted the dust off his hands. "Hearing you say that, I think I believe in love again."

"What? Is your husband treating you badly?"

"No, he's fine. It's my fault. I can't get over this hurdle in my heart." Tang Feng fidgeted with the twig in his hand, staring blankly at the sand on the ground. Seeing Tang Feng's low spirits, Li Bao'er said, "I knew it! Did you two have a fight? If you ask me, couples always make up after a quarrel. Don't take it to heart. Your husband is handsome and caring, isn't that great? Besides, everyone has their share of family troubles. You can't always let this hurdle hold you back! How can you live your life like this?"

Tang Feng looked up at the sky without speaking. After a long while, Li Bao'er spoke up, "Brother, are you hungry? I'll cook for you. Doctor Meng's pharmacy is several miles away! Your husband won't be back for a while, so it'll just be the two of us for lunch. I'll catch a chicken and make you some soup."

Tang Feng immediately shook his head, "No, no, your family isn't well-off to begin with. Those chickens are for laying eggs to sell, right? Don't kill them for my sake, I'd feel terrible about it." Li Bao'er chased the chickens all over the yard with a cleaver, grabbed a bamboo basket, covered the chickens with it, stopped, and panted for a while before saying, "Listen to your brother, broken bones need to be healed. How about this? You teach me to write, and I'll stew chicken for you, okay?"

"This..." Tang Feng hesitated, unsure whether to agree. After thinking for a while, fearing he might disappoint her, he finally agreed. "Alright! I'll have you write some words, and you'll make me some soup." Li Bao'er then smiled, lifting the chicken from the bamboo basket. "Let me help you up, then you can go back inside! I'm afraid you'll be scared if I kill the chicken. Looking at your delicate skin, you must be a young master from a wealthy family."

Tang Feng chuckled. What was there to be afraid of killing a chicken? He'd almost suffered even more than the chicken yesterday. "It's alright, I'm not afraid of killing chickens, Bao'er-ge. You don't need to worry about me, I'll just sit here." But Li Bao'er was still afraid of frightening Tang Feng, so she used her body as a makeshift cutting board, saying, "I'm terrified of killing chickens. When I was eleven or twelve, I went to the market to sell vegetables and bought him a live chicken to help him grow stronger. The result? He watched me kill the chicken during the day, saying it was nothing, but at night he was so scared he couldn't sleep. He ran to my room and finally fell asleep hugging me." Tang Feng laughed after hearing this. "So you were playing both father and mother back then?"

"That's right! They work from dawn till dusk every day." Li Bao'er put the chicken in the pot and started cooking it. She sat back down and said to Tang Feng, "Come on, come on! The chicken is stewing now. Teach me to write!"

Tang Feng picked up the branch he had just taken and handed it to Li Bao'er. "Let me teach you how to write your name first!"

But Li Bao'er shook her head. "You taught me how to write my name a day ago. I'll show you." Li Bao'er wrote carefully. Perhaps because the ground was uneven, the three characters "Li Bao'er" were written crookedly, but it was clear that she had practiced diligently in private.

"We won't write on the sand. Come on, I'll take you inside to get some paper and pen." Tang Feng was helped into the house by Li Bao'er. As expected of their poverty, Li Bao'er bent over and searched for a long time before finally finding two decent sheets of paper, which she handed to Tang Feng.

Tang Feng meticulously wrote down Li Bao'er's neat and straight characters, afraid he wouldn't be able to teach him properly. Tang Feng's handwriting wasn't bad to begin with, but he had never really put his heart into it, so his characters were always crooked and messy. When he got serious, however, they were quite noticeable.

"Brother! Can you tell me what you wrote?" Tang Feng put down his pen and saw Li Bao'er scratching her head and looking at him. He smiled and said, "This line is 'A delicate die inlaid with red beans, does the longing for you penetrate to the bone know?'"

"What...what does this mean?!"

"Red beans are the epitome of longing. In Xiling, dice were often worn by nobles. Some people would put red beans inside dice as a token of love for their lovers, keeping the exquisite dice with red beans close at hand, but they didn't know if the person wearing it truly held the same heart for him." Tang Feng spoke of this poem with a touch of sadness, recalling the unrequited love between the female poet Yu Xuanji and Wen Tingyun.

"That person must know. It's a small gift with a big meaning. How could they not know something so thoughtful? He said one day that as long as you like something with your heart, it's all worth it. He told me something about coming here... Good things are easy to buy, but it's not easy to get the person you like, hmm~ that's probably what he meant! He said it in a very literary way, I can't remember it all."

Tang Feng smiled and said, "Brother Bao'er, I think he meant 'Priceless treasures are easy to find, but a true lover is hard to come by,' right?"

"Yes, yes, yes! That's the sentence! Can you teach me how to write it? He said it to me, and I like it too." Li Bao'er crumpled the paper a little embarrassedly. Tang Feng didn't say anything, picked up the pen again and handed it to Li Bao'er, holding his hand as he wrote down the sentence Cheng Yitian had said to him: "Priceless treasures are easy to find, but a loving man is hard to come by."

Just as she finished writing, Zhou Ziliang returned. "Something doesn't smell right in this house! What are you two doing with the door closed?" As if startled awake, Li Bao'er slapped her thigh. "Oh dear! Look at my brain! The chicken soup in the pot is still simmering! It's been simmering for so long, it'll probably boil dry!" With that, she hurriedly ran out.

"Looks like you two had a good chat," Zhou Ziliang said, lifting his shirt to sit down and placing the medicine packet on the table. "This is your medicine for the next two weeks, once in the morning and once in the evening. I'll brew it for you after dinner tonight."

Tang Feng curled his lip. "Who drinks Chinese medicine for a broken ankle these days? Who would drink Chinese medicine for a sprained ankle? I don't think that old man is very reliable. You've probably been scammed."

Zhou Ziliang laughed, "I think you just don't want to take your medicine! Medicine may be bitter, but it can cure all kinds of ailments. See, I knew you were afraid of bitterness, so I bought you a bag of candy next to the pharmacy." He then took it out of his pocket and placed it in Tang Feng's hand.

"What were you two doing just now! Chatting so happily?" Zhou Ziliang picked up the poem that Tang Feng had just taught Li Bao'er to write and read it aloud: "The exquisite dice are inlaid with red beans, do you know how deep my longing is?" Then he looked at Tang Feng and asked, "Did Brother Bao'er ask you to teach him this line?"

Tang Feng shook his head. "No, I just wrote it down casually." Seeing that Tang Feng didn't speak, Zhou Ziliang didn't ask any further questions. After a long while, Tang Feng spoke up, "Could you go to the market in a few days and order a bridal sedan chair?"

"Okay, is there anything else you need?"

"Aren't you going to ask me what I need to do?" Tang Feng laughed. Who would be asked to do something without asking why?

Zhou Ziliang shook his head. "You naturally have your own thoughts, but you're not telling me now because it's inconvenient. Even if I inquire further, it won't make a difference."

"No, that's not it. Bao'er is getting married in a few days, and the two of them don't even have a wedding sedan chair, so..."

"I see! That's definitely something we should do. We've been staying with them for so long, it wouldn't be right not to show our appreciation. I'll take care of these things, so don't worry about it."