Time flew by. Before anyone noticed, the imperial capital had already entered the third month, and the warm spring breeze was enough to intoxicate the tourists.
Peach blossoms flamed red, willows had turned green, and catkins filled the sky. By Reflecting Moon Bridge, ladies and travelers streamed past without cease, admiring famous flowers and meeting friends. On the streets, splendid carriages left fragrant dust in their wake, decking the capital in dazzling colors and saturating it with spring.
As more and more sightseers went out, Rippling Wave sold extraordinarily well. Lu Li stacked jar after jar of the medicinal drink on a broad elmwood table at the front of Huichun Medical Hall, arranging them in the shape of an antiquities display shelf, and then had Qingluan write out a poem to hang on the pinkwashed wall behind it.
Often, the scholars who came to buy the drink entered the hall and had not yet even laid eyes on the jars before they were first drawn to the calligraphy on the wall behind them.
One middle-aged scholar, dressed in the robe and square headscarf of a learned man, paused at the entrance and read the lines softly to himself:
"Sit at ease and no dusty guest fails to come;
Set a fresh bowl to boil and taste the new brew.
A few orchids bloom early to greet the spring,
While soft wind and fine rain watch the flowers drift."
After reciting the poem, he could not help but praise it. "Excellent hand!"
Lu Li looked up and saw a man in a washed-faded brown robe. The elbows were patched, and he wore an air of restrained embarrassment, as if not quite at ease standing in such a place. Blushing slightly, he asked her at the medicine cabinet, "Miss, is this where the medicinal drink for clearing the nasal passages is sold?"
Lu Li did not waste words. She merely pointed to the little mountain of jars and said, "Four taels of silver per jar."
The man was plainly dressed and carried the look of poverty in his face. To him, four taels of silver was surely no small amount. Yet after hearing the price, he only drew in a breath, reached into his breast, and pulled out an old purse so worn its original color could no longer be guessed. From it he shook out a heap of tiny broken bits of silver.
Xiaofu weighed them. The amount was exactly four taels, not a grain more or less. Lu Li handed the man one jar and instructed him, "Decoct it two or three times a day and drink it. One jar should last five or six days."
The scholar nodded, tucked the jar into his robes as though he were carrying some rare treasure, and slowly walked away.
After he had left, Qingluan looked after his retreating figure in puzzlement. "That man looked badly pressed for money. Why would he come buy something so expensive? Isn't he only making life harder for himself?"
Lu Li followed her gaze for a moment, then lowered her head and rearranged the jars. "Perhaps," she said lightly, "there is someone in his heart he cannot help worrying over."
...
After leaving West Market Street, the scholar passed the gate of the Eastern Mountain Temple and entered Fish Market Lane.
On one side of the lane stood dozens of fish stalls, and the air was thick with the smell of fish guts and blood. Trade was already over for the day. Stepping carefully around scales and filthy puddles on the ground, he turned into a little thatched house.
The house was already in a state of ruin, yet it had been kept remarkably clean. Hearing movement, a hoarse old woman's voice drifted from inside.
"My son?"
"Yes, Mother," the scholar answered at once, quickly setting the jar down and hurrying inside to help the person within sit up.
The scholar's name was Wu Xiaolian. He was a learned man of some talent, yet for reasons no one could explain, fortune always failed him in the examinations. Repeated attempts had ended in failure. Now he was already middle-aged and still had nothing to his name.
Wu Xiaolian had lost his father early, and it was his mother who raised him by selling fish. Years of toil seemed to have left her body worn through. Several years ago she had fallen gravely ill and had remained bedridden ever since. After the New Year this spring, her condition had worsened still more. Wu Xiaolian sought out every famous physician he could, only to hear the same verdict each time: the lamp was running out of oil; she was merely lingering on borrowed days.
He was a filial son. Once he had exhausted the first bitter burst of grief, he turned instead to satisfying whatever wishes his mother still had. One day he bought her a bowl of sweet flower jelly, the next he had cloth cut for new clothes. When he was not reading, he earned a little extra silver by killing fish. He had managed to save some money over the years, and lately he had been spending it in great handfuls, all for the sake of seeing his mother smile.
Her illness was heavy enough that she often drifted in and out of awareness. Sometimes she was lucid, sometimes confused. By now, the moments of clear consciousness were becoming rarer and rarer, and for long stretches she could no longer even recognize her own son. A few days earlier, though, she had suddenly said she wanted to go to the river embankment and watch the willow catkins.
Watching willow catkins was no difficult thing, except that Madam Wu had long suffered from severe nasal congestion. In previous years, every spring found her unable to put down her handkerchief. At just that moment, one of Wu Xiaolian's scholar friends returned from the Apricot Blossom Banquet and told him that a medical hall in West Market was selling a medicinal drink with remarkable effects on sinus blockage. Wu Xiaolian was deeply tempted. One jar cost four taels of silver, a painful sum for him, but if it could fulfill his mother's wish, then it was worth the price.
He portioned the drink carefully, then decocted a small amount for nearly half a day in one of the old porcelain pots at home. Once it had cooled to a warm temperature, he fed it to his mother spoonful by spoonful. After drinking it, she grew drowsy and fell asleep again. Wu Xiaolian went outside to finish cutting up the fish he had not had time to handle that day.
So it went for three days.
Early on the morning of the third day, Madam Wu woke in a lucid mood once more and immediately insisted on going to the river embankment to see the willow catkins. Wu Xiaolian carried her on his back, took a handkerchief to cover her nose and mouth, and brought her to the embankment beside Reflecting Moon Bridge.
There were pavilions along both banks for passersby to rest in. Wu Xiaolian carried his mother into one of them and sat down, letting her lean against him as he slowly, little by little, drew away the handkerchief that covered her face.
Madam Wu showed no sign of discomfort at all.
Wu Xiaolian's eyes gradually lit up.
Rippling Wave actually worked.
The bridge was filled with a steady flow of people. Ten thousand willow branches, newly green, swayed in the wind, and catkins drifted without direction through the air. For a moment Wu Xiaolian stared in a daze. Ever since his mother had fallen ill, his days had been consumed by selling fish and caring for her, while his nights were spent studying by lamplight. It had been so long since he had last had leisure to look at the scenery around him that only now did he realize another spring had come and nearly passed unnoticed.
"These are willow catkins..." someone murmured beside him.
Wu Xiaolian turned to see his mother gazing at the smoky willows along the riverbanks, her eyes clearer than they had been in a very long time.
His heart tightened painfully, and tears nearly spilled from his eyes. "Mother," he said softly, "yes, these are willow catkins."
Madam Wu slowly turned her head and looked at him for a while, as though only then remembering who he was. "You're Xiaolian."
She could actually recognize him.
Wu Xiaolian gripped her hand at once. It felt so thin that the bones seemed to show through the skin. Choked with feeling, he answered, "It's me, Mother."
The new willows on both banks were a bright clear green, throwing her silver hair into still sharper relief. Smiling, Madam Wu patted his hand the way she used to comfort him as a child after a teacher's scolding. "Thank you, my son, for bringing your mother out to see the catkins."
The words struck him straight in the heart.
His mother did not notice his expression. Smiling, she looked toward the distant willows and said, "Now that I think of it, when you were little you loved coming to the riverbank to fly kites. Every time we crossed Reflecting Moon Bridge, you would pester your father to buy you a flour figurine."
Wu Xiaolian answered through his tears.
Back then he had still been a carefree child. His father had still been alive, and though his mother suffered every spring from blocked sinuses and had to keep a handkerchief at her face, she would still come with father and son to the embankment, grumbling all the while but following behind them carrying his kite.
Later his father died. His mother went to work in Fish Market Lane, forced to live amid fish scales and the reek of blood. Wu Xiaolian vowed to study his way to success. He worked until his hair hung from the rafters and his thigh was pricked raw, and from then on no longer had time to roam outdoors. Only after hearing his mother speak today did he realize that more than twenty years had already passed since the last time he came to the riverbank with her to chase the wind and spring.
At last he could not stop himself from crying.
Looking at his mother's stooped and wasted frame, he sobbed, "It is all your son's unfilial fault. All these years, I have never won a rank or let Mother enjoy any blessings. Mother has suffered for me for so many years, but as a son I have repaid her with nothing. All I know is how to bury my nose in books, and even now I still cannot pass..."
A hand came to rest on his head.
The woman's smile was gentle and full of pity as she looked at him and said softly, "My son, do not speak that way. If anyone is to blame, it is your father and me. We were the useless ones, with nothing much to leave you. Study is your aspiration, but fame and rank are things outside the body. As your mother, all I wish is for my son to live in peace and good health. That alone would be a blessing."
"Your mother never learned to read, but even I know that good things come only after much grinding and delay. My son has talent. Sooner or later, you will win yourself a future. Why burden your heart with it now?"
Wu Xiaolian wept so hard he could no longer speak.
Then the woman smiled again. "Besides, why say you've given me nothing? Didn't you just give your mother a very fine gift?"
Wu Xiaolian stared blankly.
Old Madam Wu pointed at her own nose and sighed with a smile. "That medicinal drink you bought works wonderfully. In all these years, this is the first time your mother has come to the river embankment to look at flowers in such comfort. So don't be sad. Take a good look at the scenery. Tomorrow, come with Mother again, and we'll buy a bowl of braised pork hock to eat too!"
Wiping away his tears, Wu Xiaolian finally smiled.
"Mm," he said.