The Poison Cultivator Married the Crippled Heir novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Terms
She reads the contract aloud, bed not included, starts the first thorn with needles, and spends a fevered night with the heir sitting awake beside her.
"Read the contract aloud," Yuhang said. "Bao made a copy for each of us, and you haven't touched yours."
Wanqing unrolled the paper on her knee.
She had read it twice on the road, but she read it again, slowly, because he had asked.
"The heir of the Green Pine Sect takes Su Wanqing as his wife," she read.
"The sect grants her a full seat, the use of the Medicine Pavilion, and its protection."
"Go on."
"She treats the heir's injury. The marriage ends at the Autumn Gathering, when the heir's seat is judged."
She stopped and looked at the end of the page.
"There's nothing here about the bed," she said.
"No," he said. "There isn't."
He had rolled himself to the foot of the big bed.
He was working at the sash of his outer robe with steady, slightly impatient hands.
"I wrote it that way on purpose," he said. "Nothing in this contract is owed to anyone, in any room.
"You can leave tonight, tomorrow or the day after, and nobody pays anyone for it."
Wanqing folded the paper.
"That's an unusual wedding contract."
"I'm an unusual groom. Behind that screen is a second bed. It's yours, and Bao has put a good quilt on it."
"And this one?"
"Mine." He pulled the robe off one shoulder. "Don't help me up. I'll tell you if I want help."
She had seen men refuse help before.
She had not seen anyone do it so well.
He set both palms on the bed frame and swung his body across in one smooth movement.
His arms shook only a little at the end.
His legs came after him like loose rope and he arranged them with a brisk pat, the way he might have straightened a tablecloth.
"Three years of practice," he said, when he caught her looking.
"You can ask me anything about it. I'll answer, or I'll tell you to mind your own business."
"Good," said Wanqing. "Take your shirt off. I'm going to start."
His eyebrows rose.
"Now?"
"The first thorn is under your left shoulder blade. It's been there three years, so I won't make it wait a night longer."
He lay down on his front without another word.
His back was long and pale and strong, with swimmer's muscles from years of pushing his own wheels.
A faint blue web ran under the skin of his left shoulder, spidering out from a single point.
She lit a second lamp, laid out nine needles on a cloth, and washed her hands again.
"Warm hands," she said. "I'm sorry in advance."
"Mine are always cold. You'll be the first warm thing to touch me in a while."
His voice was dry, and she did not answer it.
She set the first needle at the base of his neck.
Then another beside it, and another, until a small curved row ran down his shoulder.
The blue web twitched.
She laid her palms on either side of the thorn and let the Thaw Needle method open in her wrists.
It was an old craft, Master Chi's craft, taught to her at eleven.
He had told her she was a better vessel than any he had ever known.
The cold came up into her hands in a slow pull.
It was bitter.
It climbed her wrists, her elbows, her shoulders.
She bent her head and set her mouth against the point where the thorn was thickest.
Palms alone could not take the last of it.
Yuhang drew a hard breath.
"That," he said into the pillow, "is warm."
"Be quiet. I'm working."
"I'm being quiet. I'm only reporting."
She gave a tiny laugh through her nose and kept going.
The thorn came out in one long cold pull, thin as a hair and sharp as a needle of glass, and dissolved on her tongue.
The needles dropped from his back, one by one.
His whole body let go.
Wanqing sat up.
The room spun, slowly, and then went hot.
"Wanqing."
It was the first time he had used her name.
"I'm fine," she said. "It's the fever. It comes every time. I'll be better by morning."
"You are the color of tallow."
"That's my usual color."
She tried to stand and got as far as the screen.
The next thing she knew she was on her back in the second bed, with a wet cloth on her forehead and her teeth chattering.
The lamp was low.
Someone was beside her, seated in a pine chair, with a rough hand around hers.
"Go to sleep," Yuhang said.
"You should be resting. You had a thorn out."
"I have not felt this good in three years. I'm not wasting it asleep."
His thumb moved over her knuckles, back and forth, once.
She fell asleep wondering when anyone had last held her hand without a reason.
Before dawn she woke to a low clatter in the corridor.
Bao was outside with a tray, and the old man's voice came through the door, too gruff to be gentle.
"Young madam. Soup, if you can swallow."
She could.
She drank it propped on three pillows.
Yuhang slept sitting up in his chair beside her, his head tipped against the frame and his hand still round hers.
"Bao," she whispered. "Where does the young master's medicine come from?"
Bao went still, with the spoon halfway to her mouth.
"The Medicine Pavilion, young madam. It's a restorative tonic, every morning for three years."
"And who brings it?"
"A Pavilion boy." His good eye slid toward the window. "The tonic comes at dawn. It always comes at dawn."
Beyond the paper window, the sky was just beginning to turn gray.
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