At the third quarter of the *mao* hour, the Banxian Medical Hall was filled with the fragrance of osmanthus. Huwa squatted on the threshold, carving a "mouse-repelling ghost-face" on a newly arrived medicine cabinet. His blade slipped on the nanmu wood, carving the ghost-face's eyes into the shape of abacus beads, while its tongue crooked toward a gap in the cabinet: "Brother Fan! If the rats dare to chew the astragalus, I'll make the ghost-face spit abacus beads to smash them!"
Zhang Yifan emerged from the accounting room, clicking his abacus, the beads stuck with osmanthus petals Huwa had scattered earlier: "You little rascal! Osmanthus fragrance attracts butterflies, yet you use it to drive away rats?" Despite his words, he noticed a new wooden carving resting on the medicine cabinet—sculpted precisely in the likeness of Su Wanyue leaning against the cabinet, her horsewhip tip entwined with a string of abacus beads.
From the front hall came the sound of bamboo baskets colliding. Li Niangzi, the tofu vendor, stepped through the door carrying a basket lined with a cloth patch embroidered with a ghost-face: "Director Su, I've brought you a block of gypsum tofu. Huwa's 'paste-protecting ghost-face' is truly miraculous; the bean milk doesn't spoil for three days!" Su Wanyue took the tofu, noticing a tiny pattern of the Old Cyan Ox embroidered in the corner of the cloth patch, identical to the tattoo on Zhang Yifan's cuff.
Chapter 68