Yan turned a discarded batch card over and drew a house on its blank side. The paper was small, so the first wall tilted toward the edge. He added a narrow kitchen, a wash basin set away from the smoke, and a shelf with room for Ning’s herb jars.
Ning sat across from him with a pencil. “Where will the drying rack go?”
“Beside the kitchen window.”
“That is where the smoke will blow.” She erased the first rack and moved it to the courtyard wall. “It needs sun and air, but not furnace air.”
Yan sketched a bench by the front window. “You can sit here and talk with the neighbors without leaving the shade.”
“The bench should face the street.” Ning turned the paper slightly. “I want to see the market, not the back wall.”
He changed the bench angle and added a low sill. The drawing became crowded. He used a second card and began again with a wider courtyard, a kitchen on one side and a wash basin in a corner where smoke could not reach.
“Now the kitchen is too large,” Ning said.
“It needs a stove and space for hot pots.”
“It needs a smaller stove that doesn’t fill the room with smoke.”
“I can add a vent.”
“You burned two meals this month. A larger stove gives you more room to burn them.”
Yan looked at the pot beside them. The rice had stuck to the bottom again. “I was learning how much water it needed.”
“You were stirring it like medicinal broth.”
“I stopped doing that.”
“After I told you twice.”
He crossed out the oversized stove and drew a smaller one beside a vent. “There. More room for the table.”
“And a place to set the pot away from the edge.” Ning added a shelf with a raised lip. “I don’t want the herb jars next to the cooking ingredients.”
“Then we can have two shelves.”
“Two shelves with labels.”
The first card had a crooked wall, but the second looked more like a room someone could use. They marked the kitchen, wash basin, drying rack, bench, shelves, and courtyard gate. Ning added a small patch for greens. Yan measured it with the pencil and made it large enough for herbs but not large enough to take the whole courtyard.
“Do you need a separate room for the medicine?” he asked.
“I need a cool, dry place for it. It doesn’t have to be a room.” She drew a cupboard high on the wall, away from the stove. “And the wash basin should have a drain.”
Yan added a line to the courtyard side. “That can run out here.”
“If the ground slopes away from the kitchen.”
He tilted the drawing to examine it. “Then the door needs a threshold so rain doesn’t come in.”
They began arguing over the entrance. Yan wanted the gate to open toward the market lane. Ning wanted it turned so the doorway did not face the wind. They tried both versions, then added a short wall beside the gate to block dust.
“That takes space from the bench,” Yan said.
“Only a little.”
“Then the bench can be shorter.”
“It needs to fit two people.”
“Two small people.”
Ning laughed and lengthened it again. “You can sit on the step if you want more room.”
The drawing was becoming a list of needs rather than a promise. They noted which things mattered most: less smoke, dry herbs, a place to sit, a gate that did not catch rain, and enough room to cook. There was no estimate for the land or the house. The paper could hold their choices before they knew what the choices would cost.
Ning looked at Yan. “Do you imagine leaving Ashfall alone and sending for me later?”
Yan paused with the pencil over the courtyard. “I did once. I thought I could find a safer place first and bring you after.”
“That means you would choose the place and the time without me.”
“I thought it would protect you.”
“I want a say in both. I may choose to leave with you, but I may want to stay until the treatment is settled. I don’t want to be a parcel you send for when you’re ready.”
Yan set the pencil down. “You’re right. A courtyard only matters if we both choose it.”
“Good.” Ning pointed to the empty corner of the card. “Put the savings goals there. Treatment first. Deposit next. We can change the order if the work or the clinic changes.”
He wrote two lines. Ning added a third: “Keep enough for food.”
“Should the coat repair be on the list?” he asked.
“After the treatment and the deposit, if there is anything left.”
“I’ve set aside one coin for the seamstress.”
“That comes from your own savings. You can keep it.”
He left the coat off the family list. The one-copper repair was a separate choice, not money they had already promised to the house.
A few days later, after the small soup-pot burn had stopped stinging, they walked along the ridge path above the labor quarters. The skin had remained intact, and Yan no longer needed a wrap. The wind carried a faint smell from the furnaces. They stopped where the slope opened toward the market road and looked down at the rows of roofs.
“If you could choose the door direction?” Yan asked.
“Toward the market, but angled away from the strongest wind. I want to see people coming by.”
“I would face it away from the accounting office.”
“You can’t see the office from here.”
“I know. That’s why the plan is good.”
Ning pointed toward the market lane. “I want a door that opens to neighbors, not a ledger.”
They returned to the quarters with no money saved that day. The drawing had not bought them land or a house, but it showed the things each of them wanted and what they would need to discuss before making a move.
Yan and Ning folded the paper along its edges and placed it in the savings jar, separate from receipts. The jar held only a few coins. Yan tapped it gently. “The drawing is worth more than the copper today.”
“It is worth enough to keep us from forgetting what the money is for.”
He turned the drawing over and saw the old batch card’s faded number. It was not one of the current pill lots. He wrote “discarded paper—house sketch” on the margin so it would not be mistaken for a record of a test, then put the card back in the jar.
Ning closed the lid. “When we have more money, we can ask what a courtyard costs.”
“And when we know what it costs, we choose together.”
They left the jar on the shelf, where the drawing would stay dry. The house was not built, the treatment was still underway, and their savings remained small. The paper held the plans they had made together, with enough blank space for them to change their minds.