Five years later
Xiao Tao considers herself a widow, and lives in the village. She runs a secondhand jewelry shop and does well for herself, also offering gold replicas of soldier's weapons as tokens for their lovers and wives. She could afford a bigger house by now, but uses her profits to help widows start their own businesses throughout Wei on condition of her anonymity.
Her mother stays with her on the seventh and twenty first of each month and they spend holidays with the Wei family at the capitol unless they take a special trip with Lord and Lady Wei's family to Yanzhou.
On the fifth of each month, General Wei Qu comes by. He never cooks, he never tends the garden, he never helps around the house. He also drinks Xiao Tao's best alcohol which she loves complaining about. He tells wild stories and Xiao Tao laughs. When he weaves his way home as the sun sets, he always pauses mid journey, clasps his hands, and speaks to the sky as if to an old friend: "I made her laugh today."
On the seventh of each month, General Wei Xiao comes by. Nanny Chun calls him "the talker" and counts his words at each visit, which often amount to none. He checks the house for work and does what work he can, and brings back supplies soon after if something is urgent like rain leaks, or next month if it can wait. He never accepts food or alcohol, but Xiao Tao gave him an orchid plant grown from a cutting of hers recently and villagers watched a Wei soldier cry his way home carrying a plant with the fragile care of an infant.
General Wei Duo already knew how to cook most of General Wei Liang's favourite things, and brings them by for Xiao Tao's memorial altar and to share with her. He always brings military rations as a joke, and she always leaves them on General Wei Liang's altar and says, "YOU eat it."
