Chapter 10: Weaving the Stars
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Shen Guilan clenched her purse, her back straight. “What I buy is none of your concern.”
Zhao San stepped closer and slammed his cudgel against the ground. “Master Zhang says a woman like you, who brings disgrace upon her family, is forbidden from entering the town’s embroidery-thread shop! With those few miserable coins of yours, you think you’re fit to touch gold thread? Go back to your wretched hut and mourn your husband!”
Shen Guilan did not retreat. Instead, she stepped forward. “My maiden family is the Shen family, and after marriage I took the Li name. I have observed widowly chastity and managed my household. How have I brought disgrace? The thread shop belongs to the public, not to the Zhang family! If I want to buy something, who can stop me?”
Zhao San’s expression darkened. He raised a hand, about to overturn the counter, when suddenly—
With a sharp whoosh, a feathered arrow skimmed past his ear and struck the door lintel with a crack. Its shaft trembled, and the imprint of an eagle was clearly visible upon its fletching.
The crowd cried out in alarm. Zhao San wheeled around and saw a black figure standing atop the roof at the mouth of the alley, cloak snapping in the wind. A scar along the figure’s left ear gleamed coldly in the morning light.
Gu Changshan’s eyes were sharp as blades. He still held the bow, and a second arrow was already nocked.
Zhao San’s face turned ashen. Gritting his teeth, he snarled, “Gu Changshan! You’re nothing but a mountain hunter. How dare you meddle in the town’s affairs?”
Gu Changshan said nothing. He only drew the bowstring slowly to its full length, the arrowhead aimed directly at Zhao San’s throat.
At last, Zhao San’s legs gave way. He spat out, “Just you wait,” then fled in disgrace with his men.
The shopkeeper collapsed onto his seat in terror. It took him a long while to recover. With trembling hands, he wrapped the thread and shoved it into Shen Guilan’s basket. “Go... go quickly. And don’t come back...”
Shen Guilan glanced deeply at the rooftop and murmured, “Thank you...” Then she turned and hurried away.
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When she reached the old locust tree outside town, she stopped. From the bottom of her basket, she took out the bundle of thread. Her fingertips touched something hard in one corner. Wrapped in oiled paper was an unexpected gift: half a jin of wild-silkworm thread, shimmering with a blue-gray luster. Fine yet resilient, it was the old silkworm thread most difficult to gather in the mountains.
Her heart shuddered. She lifted her eyes toward the forest path. In the distance, two sets of footprints crossed the snow, one deep and one shallow, leading into the depths of the woods before quickly disappearing beneath the fresh snowfall.
She stood in the wind, clutching the basket, and did not move for a long while.
Xiuwei murmured in her arms, “Mother, who gave you the thread?”
“It was... someone who guards the mountain,” she answered softly, a faint stir in her eyes.
That night, beneath the lamplight, Shen Guilan twisted and sorted the threads, laying the wild-silkworm thread beside the newly purchased lake-blue and gold threads.
She took up the pattern from the handkerchief’s hem and teased the needle through the cloth. Gold thread formed the structure, lake blue became the petals, and soon a plum blossom beaded with winter dew emerged beneath her hands.
As for the wild-silkworm thread, she twisted it into an extraordinarily fine strand and used it to outline the flower’s stamens. It was supple yet strong, gleaming blue beneath the light as though starlight flowed through it.
Outside the window, Gu Changshan stood amid the shadows of the snow, frost covering his shoulders.
He gazed at the window glowing with warmth for a long while. Then he hung a smoked-golden haunch of muntjac on the hook beside the door and turned away, disappearing into the forest.
Inside, Shen Guilan suddenly heard the door creak. She rose to investigate and found the haunch hanging there. Beneath the oiled paper lay a dried maple leaf, its veins clearly visible and its edge carved with an exquisitely fine eagle mark.
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She brushed it lightly with her fingertips and murmured to herself, “In this world, thresholds may rot and human hearts may grow cold... yet there is always someone who weaves stars into your thread.”
A spark burst in the lamp with a sharp pop, illuminating the faint ripples in her eyes. She began to think that if she ever opened an embroidery workshop, there was one person alone whom she would trust to guard it.
Several days later, in the rear hall of the Prosperity Trade House in Qinghe County, Shopkeeper Qian was turning through the account books when he heard a servant whisper from outside, “Zhao San has arrived. He’s waiting outside and says he has something important to report.”
Shopkeeper Qian looked up and said coldly, “Tell him to come in.”
Zhao San shuffled through the door, the bruises still dark across his face. Through clenched teeth, he said quietly, “That widow went to the embroidery-thread shop today. She bought gold thread and lake-blue silk... And that hunter, Gu Changshan, openly shot arrows to protect her. He nearly crippled me!”
Shopkeeper Qian tapped his fingers lightly against the tabletop, then suddenly gave a cold laugh. “Gu Changshan? Hah. A man from the mountains dares interfere with the trade house’s rules.”
He slowly closed the ledger and took a secret letter from the drawer. Holding it beneath the candle flame, he burned away one corner before murmuring, “Tell Master Zhang that the Shen woman is not content to remain within her household. She has begun dealing in embroidered goods for export and has allied herself with a hunter. She may become troublesome. From now on, if she enters the city again, cut off her thread supply, refuse to accept her handkerchiefs, and pay her not a single copper.”
He paused, a sinister light flickering in his eyes. “Also, quietly stuff the defective pieces from last month’s batch of official-style embroidered handkerchiefs into the back alley of the shop she frequents. Let the county authorities learn that someone in Li Family Village is counterfeiting official embroidery and plotting mischief.”
Zhao San grinned. “I understand. A brilliant scheme, Shopkeeper—kill with a borrowed knife!”
Shopkeeper Qian flicked his sleeve. “Go. Remember: Master Zhang lends his name, I provide the effort. We are grasshoppers tied to the same cord. No one gets to keep all the benefits for himself.”
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