Chapter 43: Into the Snare

These days Huailou watched her very closely, like tending a precious bird in a gilded cage. Jiang Man thought even her care for that cricket couldn’t surpass this—day after day she fretted either over a leg left on some insect or over two chirps gone hoarse that should have been clear.

Jiang Man keenly felt herself confined in a cage—yet not in the dark, filthy corner where prisoners are kept.

Her confinement was more refined, more subtle, more laden with a falsified, beguiling kindness—and this illusion made her waver, made her feel she ought to be grateful.

Together with her stomach, Jiang Man was trapped—trapped within the Pavilion of Investigating Things, unable to step beyond it.

Jiang Man’s meals changed to three a day, with two tea breaks, and she was even occasionally urged to take dried fruits and pastries. The tea pastries of the Hidden Osmanthus Garden were the most exquisite she had ever tasted. Ordinary fine pastries, plain or slender in shape, mostly used fruit sweetness and rock honey to balance the tea’s fragrance, seeking equilibrium. Because of her oversensitive palate, Jiang Man’s standards for such balance had always been exacting; apart from the pastries made by the pastry chef her family employed, she had truly never enjoyed sweets where sweetness and subtlety were so well matched.

In the Hidden Osmanthus Garden—whether to suit Shen Wen’s habits, or because that was simply the fashion among Lin’an’s gentry—the various pastries set before her lately, whatever their aftertaste, were faintly bitter at first bite. Of the five flavors, bitterness was the one Jiang Man could best endure. The tea cakes were soft and yielding, melting on the tongue, and paired with that faint herbal fragrance and bitterness, they gave a surprising freshness.

The pastries mostly used seasonal flowers, dried or boiled and ground, mixed with rice and beans. Achieving that melt-in-the-mouth texture cost more than just ingredients—truly a rare feat.

Her Jiang family’s Snow Creek Wine owed its soul-stirring flavor, its power to make one forget sorrow, to standards strictly observed from the very selection of the Wine Ferment and the rice. The Jiang Family Brewery possessed a special rice sieve, a specification Jiang Rao had personally settled through repeated trials with the wine masters in his early years; among the sieves commonly used in Jiankang’s Wine Distilleries, there were still some Jiang Rao had overseen the making of.

Jiang Man was deeply curious about such things. Though she couldn’t conveniently visit the brewery often, someone at home had known how to weave them: her palate was too refined; ordinary flour sieves wouldn’t pass muster, so even the tools had been made from scratch. Having asked in detail and learned the tricks of the sifting, her connoisseurship of tea pastries naturally gained another degree over others’.

Shen Wen was indeed extravagant to the extreme. For the tea pastries supplied to the Pavilion of Investigating Things to be this fine, a dozen-odd stages of coarse and fine sieving must have preceded them—nothing less could produce this level.

But Jiang Man didn’t get to eat the pastries for long either.

Tea pastries were, after all, for staving off hunger—one or two at rest, each smaller than a thumb, and paired with tea, one didn’t feel hungry. Jiang Man truly could not eat any more; when she occasionally took the extra meal and left food over, she could only claim she had already eaten her fill at tea.

She was of gentlewoman’s upbringing; in the old days she ate to only seventy percent full. To say “already eaten my fill” was, for Jiang Man, an unspeakable shame. She had worked up her courage just to admit it honestly—and from the next day on, the tea breaks remained, morning and evening, but those various pastries were never seen again.

“This dried fruit, though bought outside, is no worse than what our garden makes. Have more, Miss.” Huailou half coaxed, half admonished, sliding the palm-sized shallow dish toward Jiang Man.

Meeting her watertight smile, Jiang Man knew that even resistance would be futile.

She didn’t know how long this feeding would go on. Since the day her heart ailment struck and Shen Wen summoned Physician Xie to examine her, the daily pulse-taking had never once been skipped. She thought that if Physician Xie would only soften, she might be spared this ordeal; sometimes she forced her spirits up, sometimes she seized the chance to complain, pleading that her stomach couldn’t take it.

But whatever she said, Physician Xie’s side only smiled faintly and let it pass. Jiang Man always felt she was using the wrong tactics—but she had never been good at this, had nothing to lean on, and certainly held nothing that could be used to leverage him.

Fortunately, she could actually eat everything served in the Pavilion of Investigating Things, so it wasn’t truly torment—only her appetite suffered. These little matters of the tongue were truly marvelous: even the family cooks had studied and re-studied how to remove gaminess, how to select ingredients. If Jiang Man could truly have finished every meal, she wouldn’t have fallen to this state now.

Each day, besides taking the large and small meals, there were only two things to do: read and listen to lessons. If Huailou wasn’t busy with the shortfall investigation, she would take Jiang Man walking three circuits around the entire Pavilion of Investigating Things. Because the scenery was so unlike an ordinary garden, even views she saw nearly three times a day, Jiang Man could not help studying every detail as they strolled.

Sometimes she gazed too long; Huailou would indulge her, simply waiting at the side, never hurrying her. Usually it was Jiang Man who came back to herself, realizing with a start how much time had slipped away, and apologized blushing to Huailou before they continued their circuit.

Though in a cage, Jiang Man was living rather too comfortably. After so long without labor, she almost believed she had moved to Lin’an actually to recuperate.

If only she could forget that nightmare, forget her father’s sudden death, forget the search for traces of the time before her brother’s disappearance.

The pain—that long, slow pain sinking deep—would not let her forget any of it. Every breath that carried pain, every anxiety without origin, warned her, struck at her. Jiang Man had no room to fall into illusion. The time she had to think was simply too much; in a daze, her thoughts would be drawn, as if by unseen hands, back to the family feud, away from those sage books that could not be fully trusted, away from the human ways of the world she could not yet test by living.

In the end she thought of Shen Wen—as if this were the unavoidable final resting place of all her tangled thoughts.

If not for Shen Wen…

Jiang Man started, then—uncontrollably—thought of something more terrifying still.

If there were no Shen Wen…

She was truly like a visitor from beyond the sky.

The brewery’s operations were already stretched to breaking; even without borrowing from the Shen family, Jiang Rao would still have had to scrape together funds everywhere, barely keeping afloat. All the debts had been gathered into one person’s hand—she was, so to speak, a great creditor. Yet the one who had saved the Jiang family from the brink, who had saved Jiang Man’s life, was also her.

Fortune hides within it calamity.

The Jiang family had labored and built for generations, and their last measure of fortune fell upon Jiang Man alone.

She didn’t know which impressed itself more deeply: the scheming clansmen who couldn’t wait to devour a widow’s household, or Shen Wen bursting in that day. Jiang Man would probably never forget that day, yet because of Shen Wen’s intervention, her memory of it had grown blurred.

She could no longer tell which weighed more.

Jiang Man stopped by the window.

She was undoubtedly grateful to Shen Wen—but she feared her more. Shen Wen’s power was enough to make all good and evil retreat. In this city of Lin’an, who knew how many people like Jiang Man—duckweed, drifting grass—lived on by leaning on Shen Wen’s likes and dislikes. She and Shen Wen were truly as incompatible as water and fire; those heterodox ideas, that manner of conduct—Jiang Man wanted to fathom them, yet had no way to.

When had she ever met such a person?

In this world, when had there ever been a person like Shen Wen?

Fear made Jiang Man despise her own cowardice. Shen Wen treated her so well, yet she thought only of fearing her—but Jiang Man’s self-examination always stopped there. One step further, and she could only think of her own future.

A future as her Wind-Listener, a future as her informant, a future like a Beauty Gu Vase—held as a favor, delivered into another’s hands.

A future as her Personal Attendant, yet never at her side.

Jiang Man returned to her small desk. These days, with the storerooms opened, the pair of small desks and stools placed in the study’s inner room had been refinished in matching colors, no longer so jarringly out of place with the rest of the furnishings. Look wherever one would, everything in this room was as naturally placed as in the rest of the garden—as if this corner had always held such a desk and stool, as if her occupying this place were only right and proper.

She was special to Shen Wen.

Jiang Man knew she was treated differently from others. Huailou had reminded her; one need only look at how the whole Hidden Osmanthus Garden treated her for obvious proof. Thunder and rain alike are heaven’s grace—Jiang Man could not refuse it, yet anxiously she speculated much. Her heart had known no peace since leaving Jiankang. She knew she was special; she knew what Shen Wen valued in her.

But for someone so exalted as her, all of this was merely a matter of moving an eyelid, lifting a chin.

And besides, Jiang Man had no way of knowing whether she would be the second Song Ningning.

Only one thing she could not hide from herself.

She was special to Shen Wen.

She feared her, because she paid her especial attention.

Since being confined to the Pavilion of Investigating Things, every night Jiang Man had gone outside the study under the pretext of welcoming Shen Wen. She no longer merely waited beneath the corridor; once the lamps were lit she would carry a book to the bright open space before the hall—sheltered from wind, with a wide view—so that the moment the corner gate stirred, she would see it at once.

Shen Wen found this much to her liking.

If she paid her especial attention, how could she not notice the details in the shifting of her expressions?

This day Shen Wen returned early, perhaps preoccupied, seeming absent-minded, giving Jiang Man only a hurried glance. Jiang Man, hugging her book, couldn’t gauge her mood—then saw Shen Wen’s steps slow.

Jiang Man started.

Was she waiting for her to catch up?

Back at the Pavilion of Investigating Things, once the tea was set to boil, Sijiu rubbed her arms and kneaded her shoulders, all but writing “meritorious service” on her face. Shen Wen, expressionless, turned her book’s pages, clearly not intending to respond. Jiang Man knew Sijiu was stalling on that copying task. Originally given two days, because she had to go out with the Female Scribe every day, those “two days” had been extended day after day—who knew when she would finish the painting.

Jiang Man, fearing to disturb her, hadn’t gone to look, only occasionally heard from Huailou that the outlines had been roughly completed, but without three to five more days it likely wouldn’t be done.

She stole a glance toward the desk.

In small matters, Shen Wen was rather indulgent toward Sijiu.

Copying paintings, trivial chores—these were naturally small things, harming no one, wasting no time. But for someone of the Female Scribe’s standing, what kind of matter would count as one where she could not be indulged?

Jiang Man suddenly froze.

She had been caught in the act.

Shen Wen’s lips curved into a faint, flirtatious smile, her eyes seeming to tease, yet as if hiding several inches of tenderness deep within. Jiang Man wanted to flee—but she had offended first; where could she flee to? Those repeated trials Shen Wen gave her on her nighttime returns finally came into use. Jiang Man gathered her courage and, between fleeing and stepping forward, chose the one Shen Wen would more appreciate: she met her gaze without yielding.

Shen Wen’s brow lifted lightly. This time, she truly smiled.

“You two may go. Leave the tea; let Jiang Xiaojiu brew it.” Before the two could answer, her eyes turned—and looked at Jiang Man. “Less salt.”

“Yes, this humble one knows.” Jiang Man lowered her eyes.

How many times had this been said, and still it needed repeating? Jiang Man grumbled inwardly and went to take Huailou’s place. She truly wanted to add a few extra measures of salt to test Shen Wen’s reaction—but Heaven had only lent her the nerve to steal glances at her, never the boldness to defy her.

Sijiu and Huailou bowed and went out, pulling the door closed. When the footsteps had fully faded and only the crackle of charcoal remained in the room, Jiang Man ladled out a cup of tea and, head bowed, presented it to the desk.

Shen Wen leaned an elbow on the desk, tilting her head to look at Jiang Man, and said softly: “You have something you wish to ask me?”

The words had fallen, and Jiang Man still could not come back to herself. She almost thought she had misheard—or that the one being spoken to in this place at this moment was not her, and the one speaking was not Shen Wen.

Without meaning to, Jiang Man raised her head. Shen Wen was still waiting, brow slightly arched, her gaze cold, yet patient beyond all reason—so much so that one was driven to try to read her eyes, seeking only to separate the true from the false.

Jiang Man didn’t know which was real. What Shen Wen’s brows and eyes said, Jiang Man was unwilling to believe; yet what her lips pointed to, Jiang Man dared not believe.

That tone was gentle enough as if she would grant whatever she begged.