The next morning, at dawn, Fan Changyu sent Changning to stay with Aunt Zhao, then went out carrying three hundred or so wen and a silver hairpin.

That hairpin had been bought for her by her parents the year she came of age—it had cost more than two taels of silver.

If she pawned this hairpin, she should be able to gather enough money to buy a pig.

She entered the pawnshop, but the shopkeeper, after squinting at her hairpin for quite a while, only held up three fingers. “Three hundred wen.”

Fan Changyu nearly lost her breath; her eyes widened. “This hairpin is pure silver—only worth three hundred wen?”

The shopkeeper said, “The hairpin is silver indeed, but it’s light in weight and the style is outdated. I know your family’s in hardship, so how about this—Uncle will give you five hundred wen, no more than that.”

“One tael,” Fan Changyu said. “I won’t pawn it for a single fen less.”

The shopkeeper placed the hairpin back on the counter. “Then you’d best take it home.”

Fan Changyu had counted on pawning this hairpin to buy a pig; she hadn’t expected this black-hearted shopkeeper to press the price down so hard. She didn’t waste more words with him—she picked up the hairpin and turned to leave.

The shopkeeper hadn’t expected the girl to be so stubborn; since she refused to haggle at all, he could only shout after her, “Hey… come back, come back! One tael it is! Just think of it as Uncle pitying you, losing money to take this hairpin off your hands. Early in the morning—doing this bit of business counts as opening for the day!”

When she left the pawnshop, Fan Changyu had an extra tael of silver on her.

To inquire about the market price of lu meat¹Lu meat (卤肉): Meat simmered slowly in a savory soy-based spiced broth, typically made with soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, and aromatics like star anise, cinnamon, and ginger., she first went to the street that sold cooked foods.

Today happened to be market day. Though it was still early, the fair was already bustling. Many farming families from the countryside had brought mountain goods to sell, exchanging them for money to buy New Year goods to take home.

Fan Changyu strolled around and found that most cooked-meat shops mainly sold roast chicken and roast goose. The ones selling lu pork sold mostly pig head meat and pig ears; pig offal was the least sold.

A plump auntie saw Fan Changyu eyeing the food displayed outside her shop and called out, “Girl, want to buy some roast chicken?”

Fan Changyu asked, “How much is this pig head meat?”

The plump auntie said, “Good eye, girl! This pig head meat was lu-braised just last night, simmered all through the night—it’s fragrant! Five wen per liang. How much do you want?”

That was fifty wen per jin, but merchants often deliberately called out higher prices, leaving room for bargaining.

To test her, Fan Changyu deliberately said, “So expensive…”

The plump auntie immediately said, “It’s the New Year season—what meat hasn’t gone up in price on market day? Mine’s the most affordable you’ll find! If you really want to buy, I’ll count it for nine wen per two liang²Liang (两): A traditional Chinese unit of weight, equal to one-tenth of a jin, approximately 50 grams..”

Fan Changyu guessed that most of the time it must actually be sold at that price; that meant lu pig head meat was about forty-five wen per jin.

Using this method, she then went to other cooked-meat stalls to ask about the prices of lu pig ears and lu offal. The lu pig ears were the most expensive, sixty wen per jin—but since a pig only had two ears, it was precious by rarity.

By contrast, lu offal wasn’t worth much at all—twenty wen per jin.

Hardly anyone ate pig offal. The rich disliked it; the poor didn’t know how to prepare it, and if handled poorly it reeked terribly.

The butcher shops didn’t sell such things. If you really wanted to buy, you could take home a whole bucket for less than ten wen.

Now that Fan Changyu had an idea of the prices, she left the street of cooked-food sellers. Beyond it lay the meat market, and further over, the tile market where livestock were bought and sold.

The meat market was even livelier than the cooked-food street. Fan Changyu’s family had a pork shop in a prime location here. At present, all the other butcher shops were open, with slabs of pork laid out on chopping boards and iron hooks—but her family’s shop was tightly shut, and the space in front had already been taken by other peddlers.

Fan Changyu couldn’t help feeling a twinge of bitterness. She stopped and stared at her closed shop door for a moment, telling herself that soon, she would open it again.

Then, clutching her money, she turned and headed toward the tile market to buy livestock.

The tile market on this side was much more chaotic.

Pigs, sheep, cattle, and horses were all being hawked together, and if one wasn’t careful with their steps, they might tread right onto some unknown animal’s dung—the smell was far from pleasant.

Most of the stall owners were middle-aged men in short coarse jackets, each standing beside a few pigs or sheep. Their bargaining cries were full of trade jargon that outsiders could hardly make sense of.

A young woman as pretty as Fan Changyu stood out sharply in such a place.

Several livestock traders called out to ask what she wanted to buy, but Fan Changyu ignored them all. She had followed her father here to buy pigs before, and she knew that buying from livestock dealers rarely ended well.

Since it was market day, there were also plenty of country folk who had raised their own pigs and were unwilling to sell cheaply to traders, so they had driven their pigs to town to sell themselves—their asking price was always cheaper than the dealers’.

But after looking around, none of the pigs caught Fan Changyu’s eye. Her father’s ten-odd years of experience slaughtering pigs had taught her: when choosing pigs, one must pick those with round haunches and thick, short tails. Such pigs had thick skin and rich fat, and when slaughtered, produced the best quality meat.

Just as Fan Changyu was about to head elsewhere, she spotted in the corner a thin, dark-skinned old man.

At the old man’s feet stood a plump, well-fleshed pig. A rope looped around its forelegs and neck—it looked ready to be sold. But the pig was filthy, and since it was still early, few buyers had arrived at the market yet, so hardly anyone came up to ask for the price.

The old man’s gaze followed the passersby with quiet eagerness, but he didn’t dare to call out; he seemed not good with words.

Fan Changyu went up and asked, “Old sir, how much for your pig?”

Someone had finally come to inquire, and the old man looked a bit nervous. He only said, “My family’s waiting to sell this pig to celebrate the New Year. The pig dealers who came to the countryside offered ten wen per jin. This old bag of bones of mine drove it here myself. If you want it, girl, I’ll give it for twelve wen a jin.”

Fan Changyu hadn’t expected the pig traders to press the buying price that low. Earlier, several dealers in the market were shouting eighteen or nineteen wen per jin for live pigs, and even after exhausting effort bargaining, one could barely bring them down to fifteen wen.

The old man’s offer—twelve wen a jin—was like a meat pie falling straight from the heavens.

Lucky that there weren’t many people at the market yet, or the pig would’ve been long sold. Fan Changyu quickly said, “I’ll buy it!”

There was a large scale in the tile market for weighing livestock. When the pig was weighed, it came to a full ninety jin. Fan Changyu paid the old man one tael of silver and eighty wen, then drove the pig toward her home in the west of town.

The meat market by now was already open. If she slaughtered the pig now to sell, she would only catch the tail end of the market—few buyers, and the price would be pressed down.

Better to go home today, make full preparations, and slaughter it early tomorrow morning to sell.

Once she left the tile market, Fan Changyu, driving a pig down the street, became quite a sight to behold. Many people turned their heads repeatedly to look.

Fortunately, Fan Changyu was thick-skinned. When she ran into acquaintances who asked, she could still speak cheerfully and use the chance to promote herself—saying that this pig would be slaughtered and sold at her shop tomorrow, and they should remember to come support her business.

By chance, she met the restaurant chef who used to buy meat from her father’s shop. He was on his way back with ingredients. When he heard that her family’s pork shop would reopen tomorrow and saw that the pig she was driving was so well-fed, he immediately preordered twenty jin of meat and gave her two hundred wen as a deposit.

When Fan Changyu returned home, her face was glowing. The alley was narrow, and she drove the pig with a bamboo stick—her shouts and the pig’s grunts echoed down the entire lane.

From her house’s direction, a nearly snow-white falcon took off, gliding high into the sky. Fan Changyu looked up in surprise.

In winter, with snow blanketing the ground, it wasn’t unusual to see falcons in the countryside stealing farmers’ chickens or rabbits. But in town, no one kept such animals—so what was that falcon doing near her home?

The houses along the alley were tightly packed—buildings the government had built uniformly years ago, each household having two floors.

At this moment, in a loft at the end of the alley, a man half-sat on a bed by the window. He wore a dull gray old jacket, yet still could not hide his air of noble refinement. Beside the brazier at the foot of his bed lay a slender stick of charcoal, burned out.

The undergarment that had originally been on him was placed by the bed, one corner torn.

The window was half open, letting the cold wind blow in, lifting the man’s collar and long hair.

That face—clear as the moon, pure as new snow—who could it be but the man Fan Changyu had rescued?

The noisy clamor from the alley made him glance outside. The pretty woman with smiling brows and eyes walked down the narrow lane where the snow had melted, wearing the apricot-colored short jacket he’d seen her in last night. She looked like a small beam of warm light suddenly appearing in a quiet, timeworn painting.

But what she was driving with that bamboo stick was… a pig?

The pig’s squealing once again confirmed its own identity.

The man’s expression turned a touch peculiar.

He had seen noble ladies well-versed in poetry and books, and he had seen valiant, heroic women of military families—but a woman driving a pig along the street, that was indeed something he had never witnessed before in his life.

That woman had already walked this way; from the window he could no longer see her, but he could hear the delighted cry of her younger sister rushing out to greet her—“Elder Sister! Where did you get such a big pig?”

The woman’s voice was lively and bright with laughter.

“Of course I bought it!”

Noises rose outside; it seemed even the matron of the household had gone out to help drive the pig.

The man no longer paid heed to the clamor. Closing his eyes, he took a short rest—he needed to recover from his injuries as soon as possible.

· ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Fan Changyu knew nothing of this. After shutting the pig into the side shed behind the house, she carried the bucket of pig offal given by the Chen family yesterday after she had slaughtered their pig, and went to the well outside the alley to draw water and wash it again.

Pork was freshest when slaughtered the same day. The pig she had brought back would be kept until morning to kill; it was too late to make lu meat that night. For now, she would braise the offal in the bucket—she wouldn’t sell it tomorrow, only give it as a bonus to those who bought pork.

For every jin of fresh pork bought, she would give one or two liang of lu pig offal.

Fan Changyu had walked around the market that day and had seen plenty of shops selling cooked food. The number of shops meant the demand was high—but that also meant customers had many choices.

If she rashly began selling cooked meat, people might not be willing to spend money to try whether her family’s lu flavor was good—after all, the price was there in front of them.

After some thought, she found pig offal was cheap, and using it as a giveaway to attract customers was just right. This was something people might not spend money on, but would gladly accept for free.

That way, when the shop reopened, it would both draw buyers for fresh pork and build up interest for her lu meats later on.

Once people tasted this free lu offal, they would know whether her seasoning was good—then, when she began selling lu meats, those who liked it would naturally come again.

After washing the offal, Fan Changyu rolled up her sleeves and began to light the fire, filling the pot with water, taking out various spices and herbs, tying them into a clean cloth bag together with ginger and garlic, and tossing them into the pot to boil and make the braising stock.

Her kitchen was well stocked. Her mother had always been a refined woman who cared deeply about food; back when their family had been well-off, it had been easy to prepare such things.

Fan Changyu had learned many dishes from her mother, though most she did only passably well—except for lu dishes. Perhaps because she had loved gnawing on lu pig trotters since childhood, she had learned this one especially well.

When she raised the knife to cut the offal, her movements were broad and practiced from years of slaughtering pigs and chopping bones. The cleaver struck the chopping board heavily, each sound so fierce that if a thief came by, he would surely flee in terror.

An hour later, the kitchen of the Fan household was filled with the rich fragrance of lu meat. The neighbors on both sides sniffed from inside their homes, wondering whose stew smelled so wonderfully delicious.

The aroma drifted upward. The Zhao family’s house was right next to the Fans’, so the scent was especially strong in the man’s attic.

His Adam’s apple moved once; he shut his eyes heavily.

His body was far too weak. Since being injured, he had yet to eat a proper meal.

Footnotes

• 1
  Lu meat (卤肉): Meat simmered slowly in a savory soy-based spiced broth, typically made with soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, and aromatics like star anise, cinnamon, and ginger.
• 2
  Liang (两): A traditional Chinese unit of weight, equal to one-tenth of a jin, approximately 50 grams.