Many of the people who worked for her parents' estate on Dafan mountain did not come with her to Buyetian when her uncle spirited her away. She did not need a big household, it was only she and her little brother to care for after all. Her uncle would care for them. He had servants to spare.
Wen Qing said goodbye to Popo three days before she left. Popo had been A-yi then, and Wen Qing didn't mean to do it so early on purpose. She'd thought, hoped, there'd be more time. But Popo had been laid out with a fever and wen Qing's uncle had said she was far too busy to go visiting sick ladies, no matter how long they'd been working for her parents. She'd got one of the local children to take her medicine squirreled away from her parents stores. It wasn't enough for not saying goodbye, but perhaps it had been good enough as an apology.
She saw Popo again, much later. Popo had come to Buyetian. Wen Qing had never thought it polite to ask if she'd come just to see her, not without a letter to soften the conversation. It had been strange, Popo had aged in the intervening years. She was the same woman, but somehow smaller, more fragile. She was shrunk in on herself in the way that Wen Qing felt shrunk in on herself.
Wen Qing, of course, had not shrunk but grown. Grown physically, into a young woman, and metaphorically, into a talented doctor. Popo was so proud of her, she said, as her warm, weather-beaten eyes crinkled up into a smile and her warm, weather-beaten hands gently cupped Wen Qing's cheek. Her skin seemed thinner than before. Wen Qing could do nothing to save her. Of course, Popo would never ask for that.
Wen Qing never meant, really, to rescue anyone else from Qiongqi way. It was her brother, her one responsibility, who she had moved mountains to save. She didn't even know Popo was there, with them, until after their heedless, desperate flight into an open grave. She should have sent her away. If Popo had changed her clothes, if she had been willing to give them up, if, if, if. Too late now.
Besides, Popo had never wanted protection. Wen Qing had forgotten, as she grew, the hidden steel in the heart and spine of her Popo. When she was younger, Popo had seemed like a mountain fort. Then, as she grew, Wen Qing had seen all the crumbling facades and aging defences and thought them inadequate. But stone was still stone and steel was still steel. Even here, in this place of the restless dead.
"Wen Qing," Popo said gently, her voice was creaky with age, "I don't blame you."
Wen Qing looked at her. "I think you should."
"Child, what else could you have done? Should you have left us to be worked to death at Qiongqi way? Or killed to hide their crimes?" Popo reached up to brush a lock of hair behind Wen Qing's ear. "Should you have taken me to Buyetian, to become another of Wen Ruohan's mistreated servants? It is done, child, let it be."
A tear fell from Wen Qing's cheek, and another from her nose. Where had those come from? "Popo, I don't want you to die, I don't want any of us to die!"
Popo took a deep breath and then sighed softly. "We will all die some day," she said. Wen Qing noticed she was also crying.
"Popo..."
Popo brushed away a tear. "Let us die well, eh, Wen Qing, for someone we care about? Let no one say we were not proud to be Wens."
Wen Qing sucked in a breath and nodded quickly. "Yes."