Chapter 12: When the Mountain Breeze Delivers a Message

The wild silkworm thread pressed against her skin like a steady, rhythmic heartbeat.

Shen Guilan touched the cloth pouch at her waist, which contained the wild silkworm thread she had cut and half a piece of embroidery sample—on the sample was a pine needle, with the character for “exchange” stitched subtly within the needlework.

Yesterday, when Granny Wang left the village carrying her bamboo basket, she had deliberately tucked a handful of fragrant roasted pumpkin seeds at the bottom, then gently placed the pouch on top.

“Mountain goods for embroidery work,” she had pondered for three sleepless nights.

Gu Changshan’s hunted pelts could serve as padding in the embroidery workshop; the mountain mushrooms and medicinal herbs could be traded for silver, and her embroidered handkerchiefs could be exchanged with the hunters for salt and cloth—this was no charity, but commerce.

Yet, the hunter was cold and hard in nature; if she approached directly, she feared rejection.

On the first day, she waited; the locust tree branches at the gate swayed in the wind, but no figure appeared. On the second day, the sweet potato porridge on the stove was reheated three times, and Xiuwie lay on the windowsill counting ants, yawning at the thirty-seventh. By the third evening, Shen Guilan was squatting by the stove adding firewood when sparks popped onto the back of her hand, and she suddenly smiled.

“He’s no hunter, but an old mountain cat protecting its cubs,” she said, wiping her hands with her apron and turning to call Xiuwie. “Good child, come with your mother to gather kudzu vines on the mountain.”

Xiuwie grabbed her hand, her little boots stepping over the frost-covered earth ridge.

Shen Guilan deliberately detoured to the pine forest slope—a place where the hunter often set traps, the pine needles thickly blanketing the ground like cotton.

She crouched, pretending to stumble over a kudzu vine, and casually hung half the handkerchief on an old pine branch at the fork in the path.

The handkerchief was embroidered with half an eagle, its beak slightly open and its eye directed toward Gu Changshan’s small cabin.

“Mother, the handkerchief is falling!” Xiuwie reached up on tiptoe.

Shen Guilan pressed her hand down, gently stroking the gold thread on the eagle’s wing. “Let it carry a message to the mountain wind.”

The next morning, Shen Guilan opened the courtyard door just as Xiuwie came bounding over, holding something shiny. “Mother! There’s a mountain partridge on the old pine tree!” The bird’s feet were tied with hemp rope, its belly swollen; when cut open, a piece of maple wood rolled out—carved with an arrow piercing through clouds, the arrowhead pointing east to the mountain.

She laughed softly, clutching the wooden piece. Gu Changshan had responded.

On the eighth day of the lunar month, Shen Guilan wrapped ten embroidered pieces in a blue cloth bundle.

Xiuwie squatted at the doorstep, helping her tie the knot; her little fingers were red from the cold. “Mother, can I come with you to the county town?”

“When the embroidery workshop earns money, I’ll buy you sugar paintings,” she kissed her daughter’s forehead and turned to leave.

—

The backyard of Chen’s Embroidery Workshop was fragrant with jasmine.

Shen Guilan had just lifted the cloth curtain when a loud bang echoed—the door was kicked open by Zhao San, flanked by two constables. The iron ruler at his waist struck the doorframe, shaking dust from the beams above.

“Confiscating illegal embroidery samples!” Zhao San sneered, his scar twitching. “Widow Shen, you think we’re blind using official thread to imitate the county magistrate’s wife’s star embroidery?” He lunged to grab the bundle, forcing Shen Guilan to step back, her waist pressing against a bamboo basket filled with mountain goods—Gu Changshan had sent it last night as the first batch of their trade.

“Wait!”

Suddenly, the sound of donkey hooves came from the alley.

Gu Changshan squeezed in, leading a gray donkey laden with a basket full of wild mushrooms and dried venison, topped with several glossy fox pelts.

The scar on his left ear gleamed in the morning light; his voice was like chopping wood. “Mountain goods for Shopkeeper Chen, half a day late.”

Just as Zhao San raised his iron ruler, the donkey snorted sharply and shook its head, knocking over the tray held by one constable.

The embroidery pieces scattered on the ground—some embroidered with twin lotus blossoms, some with koi fish, and one with crooked plum blossoms.

Shen Guilan bent down to gather the handkerchiefs; her fingertips brushed Gu Changshan’s shoe tip.

He knelt, his voice softer than the mountain wind. “Left three pieces, swapped.”

Her heart skipped; she quickly slipped the leftmost three pieces into the bottom of the mountain goods basket, then pulled out three ordinary embroidery samples.

Zhao San grabbed her collar, yanking. “What are you looking for?”

“Evidence,” Shen Guilan said, holding up one piece. “The official star embroidery requires nine stitches, but mine has only seven. And you said I used official thread—but official thread should be pale blue, while I used wild silkworm thread.” She unfolded the handkerchief, holding it to the sunlight; the threads shimmered with a faint golden glow.

The constables leaned in, and Zhao San’s face turned dark red. “You... you’re cheating!”

“Cheating? Isn’t that Shopkeeper Qian at Yufeng who’s cheating with the official thread accounts?” Shen Guilan pressed the wild silkworm thread toward him. “This thread was gathered by Hunter Gu from deep in the mountains. If you want to investigate, why not check Yufeng’s accounts for their private withholding of official thread?”

The constables exchanged glances, kicked the embroidery pieces on the ground, muttered curses, and left.

Shopkeeper Chen wiped sweat from his brow, about to throw away one “ordinary” piece, but Shen Guilan stopped him.

She peeled back the embroidery surface, revealing beneath the genuine star embroidery with its shifting starlight—the outer layer was ordinary stitching, while the inner layer was the star embroidery. Viewed from behind, it was a complete “Star Weaving Dream.”

“This... what is this?” Shopkeeper Chen’s hand trembled.

—

“I’m not stitching official samples, but ‘Star Weaving Dream,’” Shen Guilan touched the embroidery. “Who says stars can’t fall on a village woman’s needle?”

Shopkeeper Chen’s eyes brightened. “Twenty pieces! No, thirty! I’ll pay five times the price!”

On the homeward donkey cart, Shen Guilan tied ten pounds of fine salt and two bolts of coarse cloth to the donkey’s back.

She pulled out a note, writing with charcoal: “Cold in the mountains, salt can cure meat; cloth can patch clothes. The eagle handkerchief received, owing you a live eagle.” She slipped it inside the salt jar.

When the donkey’s tether was tied to the wooden post in front of Gu Changshan’s cabin, she heard noises inside and immediately turned to descend the mountain—she knew he disliked face-to-face thanks and preferred to keep his dignity.

Late at night, Gu Changshan stood before his cabin.

Moonlight spilled over the coarse cloth on the donkey’s back; the note on the salt jar fluttered in the wind.

He reached out to touch the cloth corner—the coarse fabric still warm with Shen Guilan’s touch.

He polished the salt jar again and again in the cellar, folded the cloth neatly on the bedside—this was the first time in ten years he had received something “from a person.”

The mountain wind whipped snowflakes against the window paper, and he suddenly recalled the eagle handkerchief on the old pine branch at the pine forest slope.

That half eagle’s eye had clearly been embroidered facing toward his cabin.

Meanwhile, in the back room of Yufeng Trading Company in Qinghe County, Zhao San knelt on the tiled floor, blood seeping from his forehead. “Shopkeeper Qian, Widow Shen’s embroidery… Chen’s workshop has ordered an additional thirty pieces!”

Shopkeeper Qian’s hand clenched the teacup so tightly it cracked.

He stared out at the snow and suddenly smiled. “Interesting. Go, have Li Cuihua spread the rumor that ‘Widow Shen is secretly involved with the hunter’—make it spicy, the dirtier the better.”

On the snowy night, his laughter slithered like a venomous snake, carried by the wind into the alley at the entrance of Lijia Village.