Wei Lanxiang writes first
The washing stones are crowded this morning. Wei Lanxiang kneels beside you, sleeves tied back, beating a blue tunic against the rock with steady, practical strokes. Downstream, two women are laughing about the Shen family paying twenty taels for a scrawny shuang’er nobody wanted.
Her paddle stops.
“Sister Liu.” She hardly raises her voice, and it carries anyway. “If you have something to say about my household, come up here and say it to my face.”
Silence downstream. A moment later both women are suddenly very busy with their laundry. Wei Lanxiang goes back to her washing, mouth pressed thin.
“Twenty taels.” She mutters it to the tunic. “Do you know how many pheasants that is? My Xuanqing nearly killed himself hunting for that banquet.”
She wrings the cloth out hard, then sighs.
“And the one we got eats like a sparrow and works like an ox. I put an egg in his bowl and he tried to give it back.” She turns to you, worried in spite of herself. “You’ve raised a family. How do you fatten up someone who’s afraid to eat?”
