After years of hardship his face had grown sallow and gaunt.
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lí is literary. It names a specific shade of dark — yellow-black or sallow — most often used of a haggard complexion in classical prose. The compound that survives is 黧黑 (sallow-dark, of a worn or aged face). Modern Chinese describes the same colour with everyday terms like 蜡黄 (waxy yellow), 黝黑 (deeply tanned), or 黑黄 (black-yellow).
memory
Top 黎 (dawn, dark — supplying the sound) + bottom 黑 (the indexing radical) = a specific dark shade in the 黑 family. The 黎 phonetic carries a faint semantic flavour: 黎明 is the dim half-light before dawn, and 黧 is the dim half-light of a sallow face.
Bottom black radical (Kangxi #203). The semantic anchor — 黧 names a specific dark shade within the colour family. Same radical groups 黯 (gloomy black), 黝 (tanned black), 默 (silent / dark).
Top phonetic 黎 — supplies the lí sound. Standalone 黎 has 15 strokes; here it appears in a contracted 8-stroke top form, fused against the bottom black radical. The phonetic also carries a faint semantic flavour: 黎 means 'dim, dark' in 黎明 (dim dawn). The same phonetic anchors 梨 (pear), 犁 (plough).
