The next morning Lian woke early and checked the cart while Tang slept. There was a small bow and arrow inside that she used to hunt geckos and a snake for their breakfast meal. She saw he had never eaten a reptile by his dubious expression when he awoke to find her roasting them. But his expression was also tainted with memories of the night before. Lian, in spite of herself, was tainted with them too.

“Trust me, they taste better than they look. I’ll cut off the heads too, so you don’t have to think about what they look like whole,” she winked at him, and he blushed and smiled. As they ate Lian prompted him to tell her about himself – where he studied, why he’d stopped.

“I had an older brother, but he was drafted six months ago. My father and uncle – they were the two older ones… back there – they were getting too old and didn’t want my sisters to have to give up marriage, so they asked me to come back.”

“Did you want to?”

“I realized I… didn’t want to be a doctor,” he admitted, and Lian found herself waiting on each of his pauses, feeling a slight joy when the thought he completed matched what she had assumed it would be. At once she chastised herself, and realized it would be better if they reached Chongqing that day. Then they could go their own ways. “I don’t know what I’ll do now, but I don’t think I’ll stay in Chongqing. I think I need to find a new path.”

Before they finished packing up to leave, Tang stopped in front of her and bowed again. “Madame Zhao,” he implored a formal tone, “I owe you… a great debt. Not just for my life, but…”

“I had fun last night too,” she joked, causing him to blush and throw on that smile which softened her heart.

“I mean it,” he responded, looking her straight in the eye, “I wouldn’t be alive without you. I do owe you.”

She returned his smile and slapped him on the shoulder, “well maybe once you sell your goods you can buy me a nice meal. Something warm blooded.”

He nodded and they set off. It was five more miles to Chongqing, but they quickly joined a major road and were caught up in the swell of the city’s traffic as farmers and other merchants joined them on their way into the city. Just after entering the city gates, they pulled off of the main road and said their goodbyes.

“Well Mister Wei, I wish you the best.”

“And you too, Madam Zhao. And I’ll remember what you said. If I have enough money leftover from my sales, I’ll buy you a meal.”

“Perhaps I’ll have more than that for you next time we meet,” she said slyly, not meaning to, but finding herself unable to resist. Her desperation had returned much more quickly than she’d expected.

Tang just blushed again, before bowing formally and taking his cart to go. Lian went too, her heart a little heavy but her head much clearer as soon as Tang was out of sight. She asked a few locals for the way to the mayor’s office, and set off with her bag of severed hands, to try and find her reward.