Lao Bingyi wasn’t joking about how much work there was to do. There had been deaths, and even as cheaply as life was reckoned in the riverlands, there were people left behind who needed to mourn and to figure out what came next. There were the wounded to tend and the dead to lay out, both the people of Betony Docks and the dead of the Hollow Hand. Even more difficult were the members of the Hollow Hand who had survived, the youngest around fourteen years old, and Chih was grateful that they weren’t in charge of what fate waited for them.

The work went on through the evening and into the night, and sometime after the moon was high, Chih was hastily given a bowl of rice with a piece of fatty chicken thrown on top and told that they could sleep at Khanh’s house. They collapsed behind a woven willow screen, and when they woke around dawn, they were snuggled up with Sang and Wei Jintai beside them. Wei Jintai’s head was bandaged up, the bandage drooping down to cover her right eye, and underneath the cloth wrap, her mouth was pursed childishly in sleep. She looked younger when she slept, especially with how she clung to Sang, and Chih was careful not to disturb them when they rose.

The morning mist rose up from the water, blanketing Betony Docks in soft gray, and even the calls of the early river birds were muted. In the water, the pavilion crouched over the wreckage of the hall and the enemies it had crushed, but besides that, there were no obvious signs of what had come the day before.

They walked down towards the water, and Lao Bingyi met them halfway there, a round basket of oil bottles and lotions balanced on her head and a towel thrown over her arm.

“There’s a good spot this way,” she said, leading Chih to the shore.

Chih followed her to a sheltered spot upriver where the sand led directly into the water and a spar of rock prevented too many sticks and stones from gathering. Lao Bingyi tsked and gave Chih one of the bottles.

“You got a little burn on your head. You should have covered up more on the walk. Here, rub this on.”

Chih obediently smoothed some of the cream on their tender scalp, and they watched out of the corner of their eye as Lao Bingyi matter-of-factly stripped off her clothes and waded into the water. Naked, Lao Bingyi was smaller than she looked clothed, wrinkled and soft over the muscle packed on her frame. There were two gold rings set with rubies piercing her nipples, another through her navel, and ringing her throat like a necklace was a terrible old scar.

She caught Chih looking, and she shook her head.

“Not all stories are worth telling, cleric.”