This piece of white cloth was remarkable, serving as the dividing line between extre ugliness and extre beauty!
Juhua saw him staring at her blankly and called out softly, puzzled, "Doctor Qin?"
Qin Feng was startled by her voice. Looking at the poor little girl before him, a tragic combination of ugliness and beauty, a pang went through his heart. ’How cruel the heavens are,’ he thought, ’to make her endure such tornt at such a young age.’ A sudden, irrepressible urge rose within him—to restore this beauty to its complete form!
He gazed into her eyes and said softly but firmly, "I will heal you."
Juhua felt a flicker of gratitude, but she was also baffled. ’Why would he suddenly make such a vow? That’s not a promise one can make lightly.’
Behind Qin Feng, Juhua’s parents and Qingmu were also stunned by the mysterious, hazy beauty of her covered face. This sight was even more unbearable, more unacceptable, than when they had seen her mangled flesh after the ointnt was washed off!
Tears stread down Mrs. Yang’s face. ’My Juhua... she’s so beautiful, but...’
Zheng Changhe held her hand, inwardly screaming, ’My Juhua is beautiful, she’s beautiful...’
Qingmu clenched his fists tightly. ’My sister is even prettier than Liu’er! But why were the heavens so cruel? Why destroy half her face?’
The three of them could hardly bear it. Mrs. Yang was in a daze, and Zheng Changhe’s spirits were crushed. Only Qingmu managed to suppress his grief. He insisted that Qin Feng stay the night rather than travel back in the dark, so the doctor ended up sharing a bed with him.
For the rest of the night, everyone in the Zheng Family, except for Juhua, was dood to sleeplessness. The image of her beauty behind the mask was impossible to shake from their minds. This stark contrast between beauty and ugliness was a heart-wrenching pain.
Mrs. Yang cried until dawn, soaking her pillow and leaving her eyes swollen and red.
Zheng Changhe held his wife by the shoulders, constantly wiping her tears away. But they were endless, and his own heart was filled with misery. He couldn’t just break down and cry like a woman, so he bottled it up, which felt even worse. ’Why couldn’t the heavens have disfigured my face instead?’ he cursed silently. ’I’d trade it for my daughter’s in a heartbeat.’
* * *
The next morning happened to be the day Old Cheng, the carter, made his trip to the market to transport goods. Mrs. Yang had Qingmu carry the day’s vegetables to the village entrance and load them onto Old Cheng’s cart. She asked him to deliver them to Laixi at the Fuxi Grocery Store to sell. He was also to pass on the ssage that Juhua wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be coming to the market.
For the next few days, Mrs. Yang stayed ho to take care of Juhua, not letting her do any chores. She said the injury on her face was too severe and needed to be properly cared for.
When Juhua’s maternal uncle, Yang Defa, heard what had happened, he told Laixi to give his aunt his full support. Laixi was to handle all the business matters so that Mrs. Yang wouldn’t have to worry and could focus on caring for Juhua. Yang Defa even made a personal trip to see Juhua. Seeing her condition, he couldn’t stop sighing.
Juhua reluctantly followed her parents’ wishes, staying ho to rest and recuperate.
But having been busy all day, every day, she now found her hands itching for sothing to do. She picked up her needle and thread and made a small padded jacket for her parents to wear the following spring. She also made two pairs of shoes. They weren’t exactly works of art, but Zheng Changhe and his wife bead from ear to ear.
Once the sores on her face had ford hard scabs, she decided to make a veil to wear whenever she went out.
She rembered a saying from her past life: "Being ugly isn’t your fault, but scaring people with it is." It was a classic line, and brutally blunt.
’I shouldn’t go around scaring people,’ she thought. ’It’d be even worse if I frightened a child. From now on, I’ll just wear a veil.’
So she used so leftover fabric from a duvet cover to make a veil. It was much better than the plain white cloth. ’A white cloth over the face looks like a death shroud!’
The veil, patterned with light green bamboo branches, further accentuated her picturesque eyes and brows, lending her an air of elegance and serenity. Although her parents and brother had already glimpsed her beauty, they were once again left breathless. This wasn’t the beauty of a simple country girl; it was entirely different from that of Liu’er or izi.
They didn’t have the words for such an ethereal quality, and thus couldn’t describe Juhua’s unique aura.
Before, Juhua had just endured the ordeal of her skin peeling away. Her face had been covered by a stark white cloth, giving her beauty a desolate, rigid quality. But now, wearing the light green veil, Juhua was as serene as a swaying flower, yet brimming with life. She was as light as a butterfly, fluttering before their eyes.
They were both happy and sad: this beauty was so vivid, yet so illusory. They could clearly see it, yet it didn’t truly exist. It was all because of the veil and the ugliness it concealed!
This contradiction filled the family with a sense of injustice, regret, and misery. Mrs. Yang often wiped away tears in secret, and at night, she had to cry before she could fall asleep. ’I feel like I’m crying a lifeti’s worth of tears,’ she thought.
After several days, they gradually grew accustod to the sight of the beautiful, veiled Juhua, and the tumultuous feelings began to subside.
Having experienced this blow, Juhua stopped dwelling on her face and turned her attention back to her small business.
But as the weather grew colder, daily vegetable sales dropped significantly. Fewer people ventured out in the bitter cold. Though the country folk were poor, most preferred to hunker down at ho to wait out the winter.
The daily custors were now mostly people from Xiatang Market and the nearby villages; very few of the workers from Erli Village were buying anymore. For several days, they had a lot of leftover vegetables, which they gave to Little Shitou’s and Zhang Huai’s families. They also gave so to the village chief’s family a few tis.
Juhua cut the daily vegetable supply by more than half, pickling the leftover offal and pig heads. She had a feeling they would be in short supply co spring, so it was better to build up their stock now.
* * *
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