Chapter 6

Early the next morning, Su Fuling discovered yet another remarkable feature of the System. She had stayed up late the night before studying it, yet when she woke she felt completely refreshed — brimming with energy, the kind that usually only comes after a long, dreamless sleep.

It seemed that time spent immersed in the System did not tax her body at all. If anything, she felt better than she would after a full night's rest.

In effect, she had gained hours of extra time for thinking and learning without paying any price for it.

She needed to earn Merit Points quickly, buy books — and then every night she could spend reading medical texts to her heart's content.

The Su Jueming household rose early too; two children had school to get to. Su Fuling made herself useful at once, staying close to her aunt-in-law and helping prepare breakfast, learning her way around the unfamiliar kitchen appliances as she went. Zhou Huijuan watched her quiet industry and gave a small, silent nod of approval.

After breakfast, David Xiao Wei headed off to school, and Su Jueming took Su Fuling to apply for her identity papers.

They went to the immigration office. The document hall was packed — queues stretching back in long, winding lines. Ever since the border had opened, the number of people coming to Hong City to visit relatives or settle permanently had grown steadily larger.

With nothing to do but wait, Su Fuling found herself instinctively scanning the crowd for potential cases. Young as she was, her clinical experience was anything but thin — she had accompanied her grandfather on countless house calls, and had absorbed a solid grounding in the four diagnostic methods: observation, listening, inquiry, and pulse-taking. She could not claim to read a patient perfectly, but she could manage three or four parts out of ten without difficulty.

Even so, after a full sweep of the hall, she had to admit the truth: she could spot minor ailments here and there, but she had no way of knowing — the way the System somehow knew — exactly when any of these people might fall ill. If she ever developed that kind of uncanny ability herself, she thought, that would be something.

'A-Ling, do you want to change your surname?'

Su Fuling had been turning over in her mind whether to try the System's free daily function when Su Jueming spoke up beside her, catching her off guard.

'What — change my surname?'

'To your father's surname,' he said, a little awkwardly. 'I know the family agreed to it back then because everyone thought I was gone — the first child would take the Su name, the second would follow his. But I'm still here, and your father isn't, and you don't have any younger siblings...'

'...' Her little uncle's thinking was rather old-fashioned.

Still, Su Fuling shook her head. 'There's no need, Little Uncle. Whether it's me or my father, we were both raised by the Su family. There's nothing wrong with the name Su.'

'Besides, I don't want to change it.' The Liu family were strangers to her — she had never met them. It was her grandfather who had raised her, who had held her in the palm of his hand and shaped her into who she was.

Seeing that she was decided, Su Jueming let the matter drop.

He had only raised it because the old man had mentioned it in a letter — how his sister had never truly wanted to marry Rendon Shixiong, how she had done it only for the sake of the Su family's continuation. And how, on his deathbed, the old man had been full of regret, feeling he had sacrificed his daughter's and his disciple's happiness for the sake of lineage. The sins of one generation should not be laid on a child's shoulders; the child deserved to choose for herself.

Now that Su Fuling had chosen, Su Jueming felt a quiet relief settle in his chest. 'Better not to change it, then.'

The residency registration went smoothly — policy was lenient these days, and arriving was enough. Once the identity certificate was in hand, Su Jueming finally relaxed.

'From now on, you live here in peace. Your uncle won't let you suffer.' He pressed a hand to his chest as he said it. Life might be a little lean, but there was a roof overhead and food on the table — nothing like the hardship he himself had once known.

Su Fuling felt a small knot loosen inside her too. In the fate she had been born into, she would not have stayed here long before being sent back home. But now she had registered in Hong City; she could stay indefinitely. She had bent the course of destiny, if only a little.

'Little Uncle, I want to find work outside.'

If she was going to earn Merit Points and convert them into money, working at her uncle's clinic was out of the question. Too many secrets — she could not afford to let him know too much about her affairs.

Su Jueming waved a hand. 'No rush. You just got here — settle in for a few days first.' Finding work in Hong City was not easy, and he had no intention of letting his niece do hard labour. He was already quietly thinking about enrolling her in school. That would have to be discussed with A-Juan first.

As for money — well, if it came to it, he could take on some grey-market work. Hong City was thick with gangs; fights broke out constantly. Someone always needed wounds tended.

He had never liked that kind of work before — disliked dealing with those people, was content as long as life was manageable. But the household burden had grown, and he would have to steel himself.

Though her little uncle had not agreed, Su Fuling had made up her mind: she would find work, and she would not waste a single day. Sitting idle and eating for free did not sit well with her — and she had tasks to fulfil besides.

'Oh, it's you again!'

Su Fuling and Su Jueming had barely stepped out of the hall when a familiar face appeared at the entrance. It was the woman from the boat yesterday — the one who had been seasick.

'You're here to register too, I take it. From now on we're both Hong City people!'

The woman was in good spirits. She had come to join family here, but everything still felt a little unfamiliar; running into someone she knew from the Mainland was a genuine comfort.

Su Jueming looked over curiously. 'And this is...?'

'This is Auntie Xia,' Su Fuling said with a smile. 'We met on the boat coming over.'

Zhao Hongxia gave a thumbs-up. 'Your girl is a good person — helped me out a great deal.'

Su Jueming laughed. 'Our A-Ling has always had a warm heart.'

The relative standing beside Zhao Hongxia was dressed in a Daoist robe and looked impatient. 'A-Xia, we need to go and sort out the paperwork — the office closes soon.'

'Right, right, I'm coming.' Zhao Hongxia turned back to Su Fuling. 'Let's exchange contact details — it's not easy to run into someone you know out here, and it'd be good to keep in touch.'

Su Fuling was of exactly the same mind; one could never have too many friends. She quickly gave Zhao Hongxia the address of her little uncle's clinic, and Su Jueming added the number for the shared telephone in the building. Zhao Hongxia in turn gave Su Fuling her own contact details — the address turned out to be not far from the clinic at all.

But when Su Jueming glanced at the address, a small frown crossed his face. The location she had written down was on the famous Fortune Street.

'When I have a day off, I'll come and find you,' Zhao Hongxia said cheerfully.

Su Fuling blinked. 'You've found work already? You only just arrived!'

'A hard worker finds work wherever she goes,' Zhao Hongxia said. 'There's a job market — go and have a look yourself sometime.'

Su Fuling nodded. She would do that.

No sitting idle and eating for free.

Once Zhao Hongxia had gone, Su Jueming steered Su Fuling toward the exit and lowered his voice. 'You're not that close to this Auntie Xia, are you?'

'We met on the boat.'

'Right. Well, be careful — the address she gave you is on Fortune Street, and that place has a reputation. Don't let yourself be taken in. Your aunt-in-law was swindled there once.'

Su Jueming himself had been swindled there too, though he did not say so.

'People here believe in fortune-telling?' Su Fuling asked. She had assumed a big modern city like Hong City would put its faith in science.

'Of course they do — the wealthy ones most of all.' He paused. 'But the kind of genuine master you'd never get to meet anyway. The street stalls you see every day — don't trust any of them. It's all a racket.'

Not only Zhou Huijuan had been taken in; he had been too. The experience had cured him of any faith he might once have had.

'I understand,' Su Fuling said. 'Honestly, I'm not much of a believer myself.'

'Good. Never be too quick to trust people out here.' He and A-Juan had learned that lesson the hard way.

'I'll be careful, Little Uncle. Though I do envy Auntie Xia a little — finding work so fast. Do you know how one goes about looking for a job here?'

'No rush. Come help out at the clinic for now.'

He still wanted to get Su Fuling into school — that was the better path to steady work. Since he had not managed to arrange it yet, he kept quiet about it for now.

Su Fuling, for her part, had quietly resolved not to go to the clinic. It was not only that business was slow — it was the System. With the System in her life, she would eventually have money; working at the clinic would leave her no room to keep her secrets.

Despite his warning about Fortune Street, Su Jueming took Su Fuling there anyway, walking her through the neighbourhood to help her get her bearings and to show her who to turn to if she ever needed help. She would be living here for a long time now; the sooner she knew the lay of the land, the better.

Su Fuling stared at the row upon row of fortune-tellers lining the street and felt a genuine surge of wonder. Nothing like this existed back on the Mainland — there, such things were done furtively, behind closed doors. Here, fortune-telling had become an industry.

What a strange place this was. Gleaming with technology on every surface, and yet utterly devoted to the mystical at the same time.

'See that?' Su Jueming murmured. 'All of them frauds. Where would you find so many genuinely gifted people in one street? Anyone with real ability would have been snapped up by some tycoon long ago.'

'I know, Little Uncle. I really won't be taken in.'

'Mm.'

Su Fuling looked more carefully at the stalls as they passed, and from the address Zhao Hongxia had given her she worked out roughly where Auntie Xia's place must be. But something else caught her eye: some of the stalls had products laid out on them — things that looked very much like Plaster.

On the way home she asked, 'Do these fortune-tellers sell things as well?'

'They claim to have secret recipes handed down through their lineages, and they say medicine and divination are one and the same art. Whatever line works, they'll use it — it's not just fortune-telling, they sell goods too. Some of them even treat patients.'

Su Jueming's voice had an edge to it. People would rather go to those charlatans than come to him — and all because he was too honest. If he could treat something, he said so; if he could not, he said that too, and never let a patient waste time on a lost cause. But some people, to save a little money, would rather swallow some quack remedy from a street stall. And when it did not work, they blamed him for delaying their treatment.

Take Ah Qiang's mother, for instance. She had been making good progress at his clinic, and then she suddenly started listening to some fortune-teller's nonsense about evil spirits entering the body, and had people come to her home to drive out ghosts. In the end she did not get better, and she turned around and blamed him — said he had wasted her time and let the evil energy ruin her leg, which was why it was so hard to treat now.

When Su Fuling heard the phrase 'medicine and divination are one art,' she thought of the old Daoist priests her grandfather used to visit — men who had come down from the mountains. She had actually learned a few things about healing from them.

'Little Uncle, it's not all fraud, you know. Grandfather used to spend time with Daoist masters who had genuine skill, and he learned from them.'

'That was just luck. And what use are country remedies anyway?'

Su Fuling fell silent.

After all these years, her little uncle had not changed at all — still looking down on folk medicine and barefoot doctors. No wonder he had left home without a backward glance. After years in a big city like Hong City, that prejudice had probably only deepened.

***

After walking Su Fuling home, Su Jueming went straight to the clinic.

Business was quiet — no need for extra hands. He had already asked his wife to take Su Fuling around the neighbourhood to get familiar with the area. He himself had no time to spare; the clinic could not be left unattended. The slower business was, the more important it was to stay put.

He also wanted to reach out to some contacts and see about picking up grey-market work. For a man who prided himself on being law-abiding, Su Jueming had to give himself a quiet pep talk.

Now that she knew Su Fuling had her identity papers sorted, Zhou Huijuan said nothing more on the subject. One more person in the household was simply a fact of life now, unchangeable. It would be dishonest to pretend there were no difficulties — the flat was small, and one more person made it smaller. Food, clothing, shelter, daily expenses: everything had to be reckoned for one more person. It was not as simple as setting out an extra pair of chopsticks.

Zhou Huijuan was anxious about money.

So when she heard that Su Fuling wanted to find work, she gave her support without a moment's hesitation.

'I'll take you to the job market and have a look,' Zhou Huijuan said.

When Soo San was carried out the door, she waved her arms and kicked her legs with delight, nearly squirming out of Zhou Huijuan's arms. Su Fuling took her and held her close, making faces at her until the baby dissolved into giggles. Zhou Huijuan seized the moment to shake out her arms and knead her lower back — years of carrying a child had left both her arms and her waist perpetually aching.

Su Fuling noticed. 'Auntie, when we get back I'll give you a massage. I brought medicated wine — it'll do you a world of good.'

Zhou Huijuan kept her expression neutral and shook her head. 'No need. Giving a massage is hard work.'

'I'm a Doctor — what's hard about it?'

'We'll talk about it when we get home,' Zhou Huijuan said.

She was not used to people being so kind to her. But she found, despite herself, that she was warming to this niece she had only just met. She and Su Jueming were clearly cut from the same cloth — both of them warm-hearted to the bone.

The job market was crowded, full of people who had come from the Mainland to settle and find work. Zhou Huijuan looked at the listings and felt a flicker of longing to be out there earning a wage herself.

Su Fuling worked her way along the boards, eyes dazzled by the sheer volume of it all. Plenty of jobs — but even more people competing for them. Some positions had demanding requirements; even certain waitressing roles asked for foreign language ability.

Su Fuling's foreign language skills were not good.

Not that she intended to be a waitress anyway. Waitressing brought in money, but it would not let her treat patients. What she really wanted was an assistant's position at a clinic — a source of income and a source of Merit Points at the same time. But there was nothing like that on offer here.

The two of them did a full circuit of the market. Noon was approaching, and Zhou Huijuan needed to get back and cook. 'Come again tomorrow. Work isn't found in a day.'

She would talk it over with A-Ming tonight — finding work through connections was the only reliable way; the job market alone was not going to do it.

Su Fuling nodded.

At noon, once Zhou Huijuan had the meal ready, Su Fuling volunteered to take lunch over to her little uncle at the clinic.

Tang Bo was there, chatting with her little uncle.

When he saw Su Fuling arrive with the food, Tang Bo took it as his cue to head home for his own meal. 'Ha! I'll be off then. I'll come back and keep you company this afternoon — it's not as if you have anything better to do.'

Su Jueming sighed. 'I did see a few patients this morning.' Ordinary colds and headaches, but still.

Su Fuling set the food on the table. 'Little Uncle, you're so close to Tang Bo — why not take his pulse properly? If the symptoms are what we think, you could encourage him to take the medicine. He might actually listen to you.'

It was rare to find someone this close to her little uncle whose condition was this legible. Su Fuling did not want to let the opportunity pass. And there was something deeply frustrating about seeing a treatable illness and being unable to treat it.

Su Jueming spooned up his rice. 'If A-Jing found out I'd been giving her old man medicine without asking, she'd come after me. She knows people in the gangs outside — if she sent them to smash the place up, even the police wouldn't dare get involved.'

'But if you cured him, surely she'd be reasonable about it?'

Su Jueming considered. 'And if you didn't cure him?'

'...Little Uncle, you don't believe in Chinese medicine either?'

'It's not that,' he said, eating as he spoke. 'My master was genuinely skilled — I saw him cure many people with my own eyes. But your grandfather, working out in the countryside...'

Ah. Her little uncle did not believe in Grandfather's medicine.

Su Fuling felt a flash of irritation. She sat there, cheeks puffed with indignation.

Su Jueming coughed. 'That's not what I meant. It's just — your grandfather never had the reputation my master had. And I had a senior fellow-student, my master's own son, the direct heir to the lineage, and his medicine was simply no good. So Chinese medicine is a mysterious thing — lineage doesn't guarantee ability.'

Su Fuling let the air out of her cheeks. A Doctor being doubted was nothing new. It was only that the one doing the doubting was her little uncle, which stung a little more than it should have.

'Little Uncle, you've been away from home for so many years — do you really know what Grandfather's medicine was like? He was a modest man, but he cured a great many people. How else would someone as young as me have become the village Doctor, and earned everyone's trust? I can't handle serious illness, but for minor ailments I have my methods.'

Su Jueming hesitated.

In his memory, his father had indeed gone from door to door treating people — carrying his sign, selling little pills, writing out prescriptions. But in his young eyes, it had all seemed like small-time stuff.

Su Fuling stood up. 'All right. I won't push it. I'll head back now.'

Su Jueming watched his niece go, and found himself thinking of Tang Bo, and then, unbidden, of his father long ago...