Gu Shiyan arrives with Song Rouyi at his side and my aunt already reaching for the words that will make this my fault.
“Before you speak, Mingzheng,” Pei Shuying says, “remember that a woman’s reputation is easier to damage than to mend.”
I look from her to the couple in the doorway. Gu wears a dark silk robe with a subtle woven pattern. My family’s silk. Song stands close enough to him that their sleeves brush, her eyes lowered as if she has been brought here against her will.
I close the ledger on my knees. “All right. Let him speak first.”
Gu takes that as permission to begin. “This engagement was arranged before I understood what I wanted. Rouyi and I care for one another. I won’t pretend otherwise.”
Song’s gaze flicks up to my face, then down again. She does not look unwilling.
Gu continues. “You’ve always been proud, Mingzheng. You lack gentleness and consideration. I hoped you might change, but I can’t build a life on hope.”
There it is. He has brought his new love to my house to end our engagement, and he has dressed the deed in a judgment about my character. The old romance plot is apparently very fond of this arrangement. I am supposed to cry, forgive him, and leave everyone free to call me difficult.
I set the ledger on the table between us. “You can end the engagement. You can’t use it to cancel your family’s debts.”
Pei Shuying’s hand stills on the arm of her chair. “A young woman should not turn a private disappointment into an accounting dispute.”
“Then he shouldn’t have brought witnesses to my disappointment.” I tap the ledger. “Thirty thousand taels of silver lent to the Gu household over three years. Five shop properties belonging to my family and still held by yours. And the robe he’s wearing, woven from our silk.”
Gu’s face tightens. “You’re making a spectacle.”
“You came here with Song Rouyi to tell me I’m unfit to marry you. We passed ‘private’ several minutes ago.”
Song lifts her chin a little. “I never wanted to take anything from you, Miss Pei. I’m sorry if my presence has hurt you.”
“Then don’t stand here while he asks me to be gracious about what he’s taking.” I keep my voice level, though my fingers press hard against the ledger’s cover. “You can leave. Or you can stay and hear the accounts. Those are both honest choices.”
For a moment she says nothing. Gu looks at her, expecting her to be wounded enough to end the conversation for him. She stays where she is.
Pei Shuying draws herself up. “Mingzheng, we have to think of both families. If you insist on embarrassing him, you will embarrass yourself as well.”
“I’m thinking of the families. Mine lent his thirty thousand taels. Mine handed over five shops. Mine supplied the silk on his back. If you want me to put those things aside for the sake of appearances, tell me whose accounts you expect me to alter.”
Nobody answers. I open the ledger to the marked pages. The entries are clear: dates, amounts, names, seals. I do not have to raise my voice. The numbers are quite capable of making the room uncomfortable without my help.
Gu looks down at them. “My father handled the loans.”
“And his household received them.” I turn the book toward him. “You may bring your father’s answer later. You can’t say the debt is imaginary.”
He reads the page without touching it. The silence stretches. It is not a noble silence. He is looking for a sentence that makes the figures disappear.
At last he says, “The engagement can be ended today. The rest will be settled between our families.”
“Put that in writing.”
His eyes lift. “You want a contract for a broken engagement?”
“I want a record that you ended it, and a record that you received my demands for repayment and return of the shops. You can have your freedom without asking me to pretend you owe nothing.”
Pei Shuying exhales through her nose. “This is unnecessary.”
“Then it should be easy to sign.”
I take a sheet of paper from the ledger pocket and slide it toward Gu. I wrote it this morning, after the first rush of bewilderment passed and I realized that waking inside a tragic romance did not mean I had to follow its manners. The page says the engagement is ended by mutual agreement. Below that, it lists the thirty thousand taels and the five shops, and asks for a written response from his family within three days, with the shops to be returned within ten.
Gu reads every line. His mouth flattens at the deadline.
“Ten days is too short. The shops are under my father’s management.”
“Then he can write back within three days and give me a date he can meet. The debt has been sitting for three years. It has had time to get comfortable.”
“You would put my family under pressure over an engagement?”
“I’m putting your family under pressure over money and property. The engagement is a separate matter, and I’ve already agreed to end it.”
His fingers hover over the page. He wants the break to look clean, as if the only thing he has ever asked of me is permission to love someone else. I want the record to show what he is leaving behind. We look at the same paper and want different things from it.
Song turns toward him. “Shiyan, perhaps we should go. You’ve said what you came to say.”
He glances at her, then at the ledger. That is when I see him decide the signature is less costly than another argument in this room. He takes up the brush.
He signs the release. Beneath it, he adds that he has received my claims concerning the loan and the five shops, and that his family will respond within three days. He does not write that they will return the shops in ten. I notice. I let that part remain open for his family to answer.
The brush leaves a black bead of ink at the end of his name. He sets it down carefully, as though the care might make the words less binding.
I read the page twice, then hand it to Pei Shuying. “Please witness this.”
She looks at the writing. Her face changes by a fraction. She is unhappy, but she cannot say he never signed.
Gu starts toward the door.
“Your robe,” I say.
He stops. “What?”
“The robe is made from my family’s silk. It hasn’t been paid for. Take it off.”
Song’s face colors. Pei Shuying says my name, warning folded into every syllable.
I keep my eyes on Gu. “You can leave in your shirt. I’m not asking for anything you brought with you. I’m asking for the garment made from our silk.”
“I’m not stripping in front of your family.”
“Then you can stay here wearing it while we discuss the price. But if you walk out, it stays.”
The room holds still. His hand goes to the clasp at his throat. For a second, he looks as if he might refuse just to punish me for asking. Then he sees the ledger open, the signed paper in my aunt’s hand, and Song waiting beside him. His fingers work at the fastening.
He removes the robe and folds it once. The careful fold is a small attempt to keep his dignity intact. I let him have it. I take the silk from his hands and set it on the table, away from the ink.
The white shirt beneath it looks plain. So does his face.
“You’ve got your answer,” he says.
“I have the beginning of one.” I place the signed release under the ledger’s cover. “Your family has three days to respond and ten to return the shops, unless they give me a credible date in writing. The silver will be accounted for separately.”
Pei Shuying’s gaze drops to the folded robe. She had wanted me to be good enough to absorb the insult. Instead, she has to watch me keep what belongs to my family.
Gu and Song leave together. Neither of them looks back.
I sit down again and enter the robe in the ledger as returned. The engagement is over. The debt is still there, and now Gu has put his name beside it.
I close the book only after I have copied the deadline onto the page in my own hand.
Next
With Gu’s signature on the debt acknowledgment, Mingzheng has ten days to get five shops back from a family that has already kept them for three years.