Nuvem Delicada

Laizhou City.

“Bong— bong, bong, bong—”

“The dawn arrives at the hour of Mao, rise at the crow of the rooster, the paths are frozen over, snow yet unmelted, take care, the roads are slippery—”

Reclining on the grand carved bed, Yun Jiao listened as the watchman’s clapper faded into the distance. She turned over, still with her eyes closed, pulled the apricot-red brocade quilt more tightly around herself, and stretched out her foot to kick aside the foot-warmer at the end of the bed. After a night, the foot-warmer was icy cold.

Half-asleep, she thought she saw someone standing by the bed.

“Jianjia?” Yun Jiao assumed it was her personal maid. “Did you go check on Grandmother at the hour of Yin?”

The figure remained silent at her bedside.

Yun Jiao sensed something amiss and opened her eyes—only to blanch in terror. It was not her maid, but her cousin-in-law, Shen Changdong, standing there. The room was empty but for the two of them.

Her two maids were nowhere to be seen.

She had no time to ponder this. Clutching the brocade quilt to her chest, she sat up. “Cousin, I am alone here. There should be propriety between men and women. Your presence is improper—please, I beg you, leave at once!”

Her grandmother had taken gravely ill of late, confused and unable to recognize anyone, often wandering about until recently, when she somehow broke a leg and was now bedridden, muddled, and without a single devoted attendant.

Yun Jiao had been raised by her grandmother until the age of five before returning to her own famil