Chapter 14: After the Cold Plum Burns, Who Watches the Smoke from the Hill?

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The veins on Shopkeeper Qian’s hand bulged as he gripped his teacup, his knuckles whitening with a faint creaking sound. His eyes fixed unblinkingly on Qinghe Street outside the Yue Lai Embroidery Shop’s window. A crowd had gathered on the street, clamoring loudly, their faces flushed with heated debate.

His fleeting pride had completely vanished, replaced by a burning fury, laced with a hint of unspoken fear. That woman—how dared she stake herself against him, fighting to the death!

“Shopkeeper! The widow… she really set it on fire!” Zhao San, the assistant, stumbled in, face ashen. “In front of half the street, she personally lit a fire and burned the ‘Plum Blossom in the Cold’ embroidery! The flames shot up with a roar, the finest Suzhou silk reduced to black ashes in an instant… But strangely, when the fire died down, the silhouette of the plum blossoms remained on the fabric, as if etched in—sinister, so sinister!”

“Silence!” Shopkeeper Qian slammed down his teacup, spilling scalding tea across the floor, shards scattering. Zhao San shrank back, hugging himself in fright.

“Sinister?” Qian sneered coldly, his eyes flashing with cruelty. “There’s no such thing as sinister in this world—just tricks to fool the gullible! She, Shen Guilan, burns one embroidery to seek fame? I’ll make sure she’s scorned by all as a crazy old hag!”

He paced back and forth, lowering his voice like a venomous snake slithering close to the ground. “Zhao San, you must immediately spread the word in the town’s tea houses and taverns. Say the Shen widow’s husband died, and she’s gone mad, practicing forbidden dark arts from the southern borderlands. She’s not just burning fabric, but people’s hearts! Even cloth has a soul—she’s angered Heaven and will surely be struck down by thunder! Find some gossip-loving old women, have them spread rumors that anyone who buys her work will be cursed, and their children will have nightmares at night!”

“Brilliant! Shopkeeper, this is ruthless!” Zhao San’s eyes gleamed, eager to please. “Cut off her livelihood and see how she survives! No matter how skilled she is, once ‘dark arts’ are attached to her name, who’d dare buy from her?”

Qian curled his lips into a cold smile. “Go. If you succeed, I’ll double your wages this month.”

Soon, the rumor that “the widow burns embroidery and uses dark magic to harm others” spread like a plague through Qinghe Town. At first, people came to gawk; gradually, fear and disdain took hold. The name Shen Guilan became a symbol of ill omen.

Yet, just when everyone thought she would hide away, afraid to show her face, Shen Guilan did something that stunned the entire town.

She neither hid nor explained but set up a simple “Burned Embroidery Exhibition” beneath the ancient locust tree at the village entrance.

Three bamboo poles held up a frame displaying three burnt embroideries.

On the left was “Wild Geese in the Snow,” the fabric scorched black but the shadows of geese still visible, as if ready to fly from the ashes; in the center, “Pines on the Rock,” with branches curved but unbroken, exuding a resolute spirit; on the right, “Boat under the Moon,” the boat and its reflection in the water clearly preserved.

Next to each embroidery hung a small wooden plaque inscribed with eight characters: “Fire Refines True Art, Ashes Reveal Form.”

She also enlisted the village’s only literate boy, who stood beside her, repeatedly reciting a phrase she wrote: “Fabric may burn, threads may char, but the needle in hand never breaks; poverty may oppress, widowhood may shame, but the will in the heart never dies.”

The boy’s clear voice resonated, penetrating the crowd’s ears.

At first, people came for a spectacle, but upon seeing these embroideries unconsumed by fire and hearing those words, their expressions gradually changed.

This was no dark magic, but an indefinable strength they could feel deep within.

Especially the phrase “the will in the heart never dies”—like a needle, it pierced the hearts of many struggling villagers.

A needle seller squeezed forward and bowed deeply to Shen Guilan, pulling out a few copper coins and whispering, “Sister Shen, I can’t afford a large order, but I want to order ten sachets in this fire-burned style. Is that alright?”

Shen Guilan’s eyes moistened; she nodded firmly. “Alright.”

This small order was like a stone thrown into still water, sending ripples far and wide.

That night, darkness thick as ink enveloped the hills beyond Qinghe Town.

For three nights, a solitary figure stood silently there.

Gu Changshan gazed at the faintly lit thatched hut below without moving.

He had seen Shopkeeper Qian’s thugs spreading rumors, villagers avoiding Shen Guilan, and her turning a dead end into her stage beneath the old locust tree.

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On the fourth night, after the village had fallen completely silent, he finally moved.

His figure flickered and slipped silently down the mountain to Shen’s woodpile.

Without alerting anyone, he gently placed a cleaned wild rabbit and a small bundle wrapped in oiled paper on the woodpile, then vanished into the night.

At dawn, Shen Guilan opened the door and found the offerings.

She picked up the rabbit, warmth flooding her heart.

Then her eyes fell on the oiled paper bundle.

Carefully opening it, she found a bundle of silk threads shimmering with a faint silver glow.

The light was soft, alive even, flowing like fireflies woven into thread under the morning sun.

It was moss silkworm silk, harvested from damp rock faces nurtured by moss—a rarity.

Embroidery made from it would glow faintly in the dark, worth a fortune.

She twirled a single strand between her fingers, feeling its texture.

This silk and the one she previously drew from wild cocoons shared the same origin, but this was stronger and the luster deeper.

She understood immediately.

This was that man’s response to her “Stars Weave Dreams” words.

He had understood and sent her true “stars.”

She said nothing, carefully storing the threads.

Back inside, she spread out new fabric and threaded her needle.

This time, she embroidered “Fireflies Lighting the Way Home.”

The scene was simple: a child carrying a lantern, walking along a rice paddy path home.

Throughout the embroidery, she used only three strands of moss silkworm silk, gently weaving a tiny glow into the lantern.

Shopkeeper Qian soon realized his rumors had failed to suppress Shen Guilan; instead, she had gained a reputation among the poor as “fearless of evil.”

Furious and desperate, he knew he had to strike decisively.

“Zhao San!” he barked. “Go to the county office and find the warehouse clerk Wang. He owes me a favor. Have him forge an official notice declaring: ‘The art of scorch dyeing violates the Heavenly Law and is banned with immediate effect. Offenders will be severely punished.’ Post it at the city gate!”

“That… forging an official notice is a capital crime, Shopkeeper!” Zhao San trembled.

“Fear nothing!” Qian slammed the table. “Once she’s ruined, I’ll have someone tear down the notice! Also, hire some thugs to pose as customers and cause a scene at her home, shouting she breaks Heaven’s rules by burning cloth and ruins the feng shui—she deserves to be drowned in a pig cage! With the government and ruffians combined, let’s see how she survives!”

The notice went up quickly. Though the black seal was fake, to the illiterate townsfolk, it was an official decree.

The hired ruffians also appeared on time, cursing and swearing outside Shen’s house.

Villagers dared not approach; even the needle seller vanished.

Shen Guilan stepped outside, facing the insults and averted gazes with a calm expression.

She did not lose her temper but invited the village head to witness.

Then, before the crowd, she unveiled a new embroidery—“Paper Lotus.”

Amid the crowd’s suspicion, she lit a firebrand.

“Burn again? This woman’s crazy!” someone whispered.

The flames consumed the lotus embroidery in moments.

But when the fire died down, she brought a basin of water and slowly soaked the burnt cloth.

A miracle unfolded.

The scorched fabric unfolded in the water, the burn marks dissolving like ink, revealing a living lotus flower rising from the mud.

A faint, clean fragrance like burning paper drifted gently.

“Heavens…” the crowd burst into restrained gasps.

Shen Guilan raised the wet cloth and declared loudly, “Neighbors, the government calls this the ‘art of scorch dyeing’ and says it harms Heaven’s laws. But let me ask—if painters use charcoal to draw and scholars use ink to write, burning wood and grinding stone, is that not harming Heaven’s laws? If so, then first burn all the brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones in the world!”

Her voice was soft but every word clear, striking like thunder into the hearts of the people.

Indeed, the logic was simple!

If burning cloth was a crime, then writing and painting should be banned even more!

The crowd murmured; the ruffians’ eyes shifted, now full of contempt.

Even the warehouse clerk sent by Qian broke out in cold sweat, turning to tear down the fake notice at the city gate.

That night, under the oil lamp.

Shen Guilan carefully rolled up “Fireflies Lighting the Way Home” and placed it inside a bamboo tube.

She cut a scrap of cloth and quickly embroidered a pig’s ear with a distinctive stitch unique to her, which she also slipped inside the tube.

She entrusted the bamboo tube to an escort heading to the prefectural city, adding a note: “If you recognize this thread, seek the moss gatherer in the mountains.”

Having done this, she blew out the lamp, gazed at the mountain shadows outside the window, and smiled faintly, whispering, “You sent me a thread of light, and I will weave a path for you—not repayment, but comradeship.”

At that moment, deep in a hidden cave within the distant forested mountains,

Gu Changshan, by firelight, polished an old waist token.

The token was made of black iron, its edges battered, with the words engraved on the back: “Night Patrol Guard, Seventh Squad, Gu.”

The firelight cast shadows on his cold, hard profile; his eyes were deep as an unfathomable pool, unmoving for a long time.

Back in the rear hall of the Yue Lai Embroidery Shop, Shopkeeper Qian listened to Zhao San’s report, his face pale.

He had not expected that his carefully crafted deadly scheme would be so strangely undone by that woman.

What frightened him even more was Zhao San’s final words: “Shopkeeper, now the whole town and even the neighboring village are spreading rumors that the Shen widow is not a demon but a reincarnated embroidery fairy, capable of setting fire to create paintings—truly wondrous…”

The purple clay teapot in Qian’s hand creaked under his grip as an unprecedented sense of crisis pressed heavily on his chest.