Chapter 26: Writing the Couplets

Wu Wei woke to the tantalizing aroma of sweet potato porridge bubbling away. Second Lady Liu had cooked it up, and the sugary scent of the potatoes lifted everyone’s spirits and set mouths watering. The porridge paired perfectly with crisp, refreshing pickled vegetables, while dense cornmeal pancakes filled them up.

Second Lady Liu first carried a portion to the east room. By the time she had set the table in the west room and they were ready to eat, she pulled two boiled eggs out of nowhere, like a magician’s trick. She handed one each to Wu Wei and Embroider Maiden. “Eat up—one for each of you!” These were fresh from the Zhang family hens, just the two of them, and Old Madam Liu hadn’t noticed yet. Second Lady Liu had boiled them on the spot for Wu Wei and Embroider Maiden.

Once the eggs were peeled, Embroider Maiden slipped the yolk into Second Lady Liu’s bowl. The two sisters tugged back and forth over it for a bit until the yolk ended up back in Embroider Maiden’s bowl anyway. Second Lady Liu looked at her and said, “Back when we lived with our parents, Eldest Sister would always take your egg and give it to Liu Dahu from her family. You never said a word against it. But you’re on your own now, with your own household. You need to learn to treat yourself a little better.”

Embroider Maiden quietly sipped her porridge and nodded.

After the meal, the sisters cleared the table and wiped the kang table until it gleamed. Second Lady Liu gathered up the eggshells and tossed them into the stove before calling Zhang Shuisheng over.

The four of them divided the work clearly. Second Lady Liu and Embroider Maiden folded the large sheets of red paper and cut them to the size for couplets. Wu Wei ground the ink and wrote the couplets, while Zhang Shuisheng hung the finished ones up to dry before taking them down.

But first, they needed to fetch Zhang Cheng.

He arrived quickly this time, bringing his own set of Four Treasures of the Study and a small box—like a rouge compact—filled with something else.

Zhang Shuisheng had already explained Wu Wei’s idea on the way, and Zhang Cheng was full of admiration for her sense of righteousness. He agreed wholeheartedly.

Once they reached the west room of Zhang Shuisheng’s house, Wu Wei and Zhang Cheng sat facing each other. He pulled a round box slightly larger than a copper coin from his robe and slid it across to Wu Wei. “Do you recognize this?”

Wu Wei twisted off the lid and raised an eyebrow at the contents. “Gold powder?”

“Not bad—you’ve got a good eye.”

“You’re planning to dust some of this on the couplets?”

“Exactly. The wealthy families in town all use couplets sprinkled with gold flecks. Plain old ones won’t catch their eye. What’s the point of identical stuff everywhere? You have to stand out from the crowd to hook the big fish, right?”

Wu Wei nodded and handed the gold powder box back. The moment she said “gold powder,” Second Lady Liu and Embroider Maiden craned their necks to look, while Zhang Shuisheng frowned deeply. To families like theirs, silver was a rare sight, let alone gold—this seemed like an outrageous waste. He opened his mouth to object, but Zhang Cheng cut in: “It’s called gold powder, but it’s not made from actual gold.” Only then did the three of them relax their stares.

The room fell quiet, save for the snip of scissors cutting paper and the soft grinding of ink by Wu Wei and Zhang Cheng. Wu Wei asked for a scrap of paper and tested the ink—it was perfect.

“Embroider Maiden, the red paper.”

“Right here.”

Embroider Maiden passed sheets to Wu Wei and Zhang Cheng. The two shifted positions to avoid bumping elbows.

Wu Wei already had the couplet contents mostly figured out. Before she started middle school back on Blue Star, her family had lived on the seventh floor of a walk-up apartment building—three units per floor. Those days, the New Year spirit was thick in the air, with every household pasting up couplets. Whenever Wu Wei went downstairs to play, she’d recite the ones that caught her eye, over and over. Kids had endless energy and time for that sort of thing.

Wu Wei thought for a moment and pulled a couplet from memory. She wrote: “Spring graces the earth, a hundred flowers ablaze; the festival arrives, the world renewed in every way.” Horizontal scroll: “All Wishes Come True.”

Embroider Maiden watched intently as Wu Wei finished. Kneeling behind her, she whispered, “Weiwei, what did you write?”

Wu Wei read it aloud. Embroider Maiden, Second Lady Liu, and her husband all clapped and cheered—except Zhang Cheng, who let out a scoff. “Common as dirt.”

Second Lady Liu shot him a fierce glare. Embroider Maiden’s fine brows furrowed, her teeth grazing her lower lip. Wu Wei just shrugged it off. “This isn’t a couplet-writing contest. As long as the meaning’s good and it flows right, we’re golden.”

“Weiwei’s right!” Embroider Maiden mustered her courage and shouted. All she got in return was Zhang Cheng’s cold snort. He dipped his brush and wrote: “Pine, plum, and bamboo endure the bitter winter; heaven, earth, and man rejoice in spring’s delight.” Horizontal scroll: “Welcoming Spring, Embracing Fortune.”

Wu Wei read Zhang Cheng’s couplet and saw right away that the man had reason to be arrogant. Never mind how much more refined the wording was than hers—his calligraphy alone put hers to shame.

Wu Wei’s handwriting was neat and passably pretty. But Zhang Cheng’s flowed with effortless grace, each stroke carrying its own unique style. No wonder—a decade of grueling study had forged that skill.

What she’d picked up in hobby classes couldn’t compare to the depths someone like him had reached by betting his future on it.

Zhang Cheng gave Wu Wei a smug tilt of his chin. She cupped her hands toward him and said, “Impressive.” Then she got back to the next couplet.

Zhang Cheng froze, staring at the top of Wu Wei’s head for a long moment. He only snapped out of it when Zhang Shuisheng collected their finished work.

After that, the two stopped competing. Once Wu Wei had written over twenty couplets, she started getting clever—tweaking a word or two on ones she’d already done to make “new” ones. It fooled the others but not Zhang Cheng’s sharp eyes. This time, though, he held his tongue.

Zhang Cheng, on the other hand, varied every couplet’s content. He even adjusted his brushwork to match, writing faster too—three to her every two.

Soon, the two clotheslines in the Zhang Family courtyard sagged under the weight of drying couplets. Just then, Zhang Shuisheng’s mother came out to see what the commotion was about. “Ma, grab those grass ropes I twisted last night, and the bamboo baskets too!”

Old Lady Zhang stood dumbfounded by the sight. She’d never seen so many couplets at once—a brilliant sea of red, bursting with festive cheer. Hearing her son’s call, she hurried inside and returned with the baskets and ropes. Zhang Shuisheng did a quick count and realized they didn’t have enough rope. He turned to Madam Zhang. “Ma, help me roll these couplets up one by one. Tie them with grass rope and put them in the basket. The two before each horizontal scroll are the top and bottom lines—add the scroll, and that’s a full set. Just key off the horizontal scrolls, and you won’t go wrong.”

Old Lady Zhang nodded. “Got it—I’ll be careful.”

Zhang Shuisheng headed to a corner of the yard and yanked a huge bundle of dry straw from the stack. He took it to the east room and set it on the kang table. “Dad, give me a hand twisting some more grass ropes. Wu Wei and Zhang Cheng are cranking them out fast, and we’re running low.”

“Sure. How many more do you need?”

“Dozens, probably. This is just the first batch. Once we sell these, I’ll buy more red paper. Twist extra to have on hand.”

“Got it. Go on.”

Zhang Shuisheng hurried back to the east room. In no time, Wu Wei and Zhang Cheng had churned out more. Zhang Cheng grew more excited with each one, as if years of buried talent had finally found an outlet. His couplets even grew longer.

Wu Wei, meanwhile, slowed down noticeably. Modern Blue Star schooling hadn’t drilled this into her, and after dozens of couplets, she’d pretty much emptied her mental storehouse. She even resorted to a major holiday ad slogan from memory. In the end, she straight-up “borrowed” from Zhang Cheng—tweaking his couplets by a few characters and writing them out without a blush.

Zhang Cheng noticed immediately and called her on it. Wu Wei just chuckled. “My talents are shallow. I’ve already conceded defeat.”

It felt like punching cotton to Zhang Cheng. He stewed for a bit before letting it slide.

In two hours total, they used up all the red paper Zhang Shuisheng had bought—yielding one hundred seventeen couplets. Wu Wei let out a long sigh, tossed her brush aside, and flopped backward, landing with her head pillowed perfectly on Embroider Maiden’s lap.

Zhang Cheng set down his brush too. He gave Second Lady Liu a cupped-hand salute. “Sister-in-law Madam, I’ll leave my Four Treasures of the Study here for now.”

“Don’t worry.”

Zhang Cheng strode out without a backward glance. He didn’t offer to help bundle them—just flicked his sleeves and left Zhang Shuisheng’s house.

Zhang Shuisheng called after him to stay for a meal, but he just waved it off.

Once Zhang Cheng was gone, Second Lady Liu went out to help. That left just Wu Wei and Embroider Maiden in the room.

Wu Wei sighed again and held up her right hand in front of Embroider Maiden, all pitiful. “Embroider Maiden~, my hand’s killing me.”

Embroider Maiden took Wu Wei’s hand and felt the indentations from the brush on her fingers. She began kneading them gently. “Better now?”

“Nope. My wrist aches too, and my shoulders hurt, neck’s stiff, back’s sore…” Wu Wei couldn’t help but burst out laughing as she said it.

“What’s so funny?” Embroider Maiden gripped Wu Wei’s hand and started massaging her wrist and forearm.

The smile on Wu Wei’s face didn’t fade in the slightest. Tilting her head back, she looked up at Embroider Maiden and said, “When I was little—probably around seven or eight—my parents were always busy with work, so they had my grandma take care of me. Back then, I was such a bundle of energy that sitting still to study felt like torture. I’d barely read for a bit before coming up with all sorts of excuses to take a break. Every time that happened, my grandma would say, ‘When it’s time to study, you either have a headache or your butt hurts. But let you run wild outside, and suddenly nothing hurts anywhere!’ I laughed just now because the way I was acting earlier was exactly like that little kid… Though back then, I was faking it. This time, it was real.”

Embroider Maiden chuckled along for a moment before lowering her head to gaze at Wu Wei with a guilty expression. “You’ve worked so hard. Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can really do to help with this.”

Wu Wei twisted her neck from side to side until she found a comfortable position to lie back in. “How could you say you didn’t help? You and Second Sis cut every single Spring Festival couplet straight and neat, without wasting even a scrap of the red paper. Isn’t that the most important part? Truth be told, not many folks can actually read the words on a couplet anyway. Most people just want them for good luck. If they’re cut all crooked and uneven, it doesn’t matter what’s written on them—they’re not going to sell.”

Embroider Maiden pursed her lips and murmured her agreement with a soft “Mm.”

With that, Wu Wei rolled off Embroider Maiden’s lap and sprawled out beside her. She pointed to her own waist. “Embroider Maiden~ Right here~ it’s so sore. Give it a rub, just like the pressure from last time.”

“All right~.”

Embroider Maiden placed her hands on Wu Wei’s waist and began kneading it with the technique Wu Wei had taught her before. Wu Wei let out an involuntary hum of pleasure. “That feels so good~.”