Chapter 15

The Prefect of Ningxing being ill in bed, the Deputy Prefect stood in for him and held a banquet at the prefectural yamen for the top three of the prefectural exam.

It was the first banquet Zhuo Siheng had ever attended — if the wedding and funeral feasts of the villagers he'd been to didn't count.

He wore the same old cloth robe Fan Xiliang had sent the family. In truth the robe was very well made, of good material, its lining quilted with cotton — warm, thick and hard-wearing — only the cloth looked a touch worn and coarse, not fine or elegant enough. But had it looked expensive, then, given the long road from the capital to Shuozhou, it would surely never have reached his back at all.

But perhaps because all three of the top prefectural candidates came from humble stock, on the day of the banquet Zhuo Siheng saw that the other two, like him, wore dark cloth robes with no fine embroidery. The second-place holder, a youth named Tong Shipei, looked younger than himself, forever wearing a brimming smile in conversation, widely learned, genial and talkative; the third, Yao Ke'an, was around thirty, and a good deal more steady and grave.

At the banquet Deputy Prefect Liu was a warm, sociable sort too, asking them much about the customs and character of their home regions; when Zhuo Siheng spoke of the scenery of Xingshan Township and his father's village school, Deputy Prefect Liu remarked with some feeling, "That such a bleak and lonely place should have such a tradition of learning handed down!"

A banquet like this held no great interest, really; only Zhuo Siheng found it a little odd that Deputy Prefect Liu was especially fond of putting questions to him — about his family, about his township. His own and his father's status were written plain on his household statement for anyone to see; the man clearly knew he was the family of a once-condemned official from the exile district, yet he never mentioned it at all. Was he perhaps leaving Zhuo Siheng some privacy in front of the other two?

Even Tong Shipei, the second-place holder, seemed to take a particular interest in him.

Zhuo Siheng was no drinker; the village brew was sweetish and cloudy with little kick to it, and at a banquet he'd been afraid of being plied with drink — but as it turned out he had no time to drink at all, busy the whole while answering questions.

At parting, Deputy Prefect Liu gave each of the three men three Mishan brushes from Qingzhou to encourage them, hoping they'd send back good news from the departmental exam and even the palace exam, and urging them not to let the splendor of the New Year season in the capital tempt them into neglecting their studies.

Reckoning up the days in his head, Zhuo Siheng judged it was about time to set out.

But after the banquet came three straight days of snow, and the Yunzhong-City stretch of the Jingning Canal was choked with surging ice, so that neither passenger nor cargo boats could pass; many travelers, scholars and merchants heading home were stranded, and the passenger boat Zhuo Siheng had booked had to delay its departure too.

The first thing he'd done after placing as top graduate was go to the postal station to send a letter home, and he'd also restocked plenty of daily necessities; with nothing else to do while he waited, he took the chance to settle in his room and read in peace.

Only once the Ningxing Transport Office had assigned men specially to break the ice and clear the channel did over a hundred boats large and small set off from the two canal-transport wharves inside and outside the city, sailing south.

The passenger boat Zhuo Siheng rode was a broad-bottomed, flat-prowed two-decker with some twenty-odd cabins, every space aboard that could hold anything built into a hold; the upper deck on top could only serve as open deck, and on the nearly twenty-day voyage that was the only place they could take the air. Luckily, though Zhuo Siheng's cabin was a cheap one near the stern, it had a wooden porthole that could be propped up and hung open, so that rising early in the morning he could sit by the window, enjoy the snowy scenery along the banks, and read.

There were in fact roomier, more comfortable passenger boats to be had, but thinking of the jade-dear, cassia-priced cost of living in the capital, Zhuo Siheng really couldn't bear to spend the silver on travel. At his destination he'd have to report to the Ministry of Rites, then spend the New Year in the capital, with the departmental exam not opening until after the first month of the coming year — over so long a stretch, board and lodging alone would cost quite enough.

The tea-stove aboard was crude, and meals were supplied all together by the boat's cook. Zhuo Siheng reckoned the taste was practically criminal, worse than his own dry rations; but the meal fee was included in the fare, and however bad it was, it was money spent — so, on the principle of never wasting anything, he finished every meal on time and to the last bite. After two days of this, the boat's cook had come to look at him with a kind of admiration whenever he cleared and washed the dishes.

Zhuo Siheng didn't get seasick, which spared him a good deal of trouble. For the first two days after sailing from Yunzhong, the Northern Capital, the weather was clear, the clouds thinner than the snow; but who'd have thought that on the third day another heavy snow would come, freezing fast a number of fishing boats halted along the riverside, so that the channel suddenly grew narrow and hard to pass, and a cold fog rose off the river in the mornings. The passenger boat had already been forced to halt four times; on the fifth there came a single enormous crash, and the hull lurched violently — Zhuo Siheng was practicing his composition, and his inkstone went sliding right out the window into the river. It was the one Brother Xiao Yong had brought back from the south, and, sick at heart, he leaned out to look; but for the sloshing river water, there wasn't a shadow of the inkstone to be seen.

Looking ahead, Zhuo Siheng broke into a cold sweat: his boat, swerving to avoid the drifting ice, had collided with another that had changed course to dodge the floes. The boatmen of both vessels were racing to the prows to work the oars and push apart, checking whether the hulls were damaged or breached, their anxious shouts rising one after another, now and then with a curse or two of quarreling mixed in.

At the boatmen's call Zhuo Siheng too came up onto the flat top of the boat's awning to take the air. It was cold now, with a light snow falling, and a blurred freezing fog drifted over the canal; had his teeth not been chattering with the cold, the scene would have been quite beautiful.

Just as Zhuo Siheng was wondering whether to go back down and put on his bandit-perfect three-piece fur-and-hide outfit, he heard someone call to him.

"Brother Zhuo!"

Following the voice, he saw, on the boat they'd collided with, Tong Shipei — the second-place holder of this year's Ningxing prefectural exam — standing with hands clasped in salute toward him.

"Brother Tong." A little surprised, he returned the greeting across the distance.

Just then the boatman came running up to tell the passengers that the hull was undamaged, but the collision had broken the dinghy at the bow and two of the oar-shafts; the neighboring boat had offered to send its own boatmen to help with emergency repairs, so for now they'd moor at the bank and rest — about four hours to mend, after which they could go on.

The boatman had the passengers go back to their cabins to rest; the boat drew slowly to the bank and its cables were made fast. Zhuo Siheng looked again at Tong Shipei — his boat had come ashore too, and seven or eight boatmen had come down from it, laid a plank, and jumped across onto their boat. Tong Shipei followed them over, and coming up before Zhuo Siheng said with a smile, "Brother Zhuo and I are fated to meet, sure enough! A long wait is dull — why don't the two of us go over to my boat, sit by the fire and drink some tea?"

Zhuo Siheng had meant to decline and go back to his cabin to read, but he felt Tong Shipei's warmth made the invitation hard to refuse; away from home, always turning people down seemed not quite right, all the more so with a fellow candidate from the same roll. So he agreed, and went back with him to the neighboring boat.

This boat was a little smaller than the passenger boat, but everything aboard, down to the placing of the odds and ends, was neat and orderly; in no time someone had set out a tea table and thick blankets for them, and the brazier was licking out red-hot tongues of flame. Open to the air though it was, it was even a touch warmer than his own cabin.

The boatman's skill at warming their tea was practiced too, a whole flashy routine the like of which Zhuo Siheng had never seen. He wondered at it — did the boatmen's skills differ to match the boat? Or were these people Tong Shipei's own attendants to begin with? There were no other passengers aboard, so he'd surely chartered the boat, and the boatmen, waiting on him specially the whole way, had come to know his ordinary tea-drinking habits so well.

The fragrance rising from the hot tea wound between the two silent men; Zhuo Siheng took the cup Tong Shipei offered as host to guest, sipped lightly, and at once felt a sweetness bloom on his lips and teeth.

It was the best tea Zhuo Siheng had ever drunk, rich in fragrance with a pleasant sweet aftertaste. To have such a boat to himself and drink tea as fine as this — Tong Shipei was certainly no man of humble birth.

On both banks the houses stood white-walled and silver-tiled, the bare trees blossomed overnight with flowers of jade, snow fell into the teacups and melted away, and the fog on the river wrapped the boats and their passengers. Just then heaven and earth were still, and there came, of all things, a feeling of life snatched by good fortune.

But the feeling was very brief. Zhuo Siheng thought: when someone invites you to tea by the fire and you don't say a word, doesn't that seem rude? So he spoke up first: "I wonder which Han official Brother Tong chose in the policy-essay exam?"

Who'd have thought that Tong Shipei, hearing this, would laugh aloud, his smiling eyes fixed on him. "Brother Zhuo is no dabbler in borrowed refinement, sure enough — fine scenery and fragrant tea, and here you are calmly talking about the exam."

"I grew up in a hill township — even if I wanted to affect refinement, there was none to be had." Seeing that Tong Shipei laughed openly and heartily, without the least mockery in it, and that such frank speech suited his own temper well, Zhuo Siheng figured he probably really had spoiled the mood, and so said honestly, with a smile of his own, "The exam is just closer to my life than all this."

Hearing this, Tong Shipei's smile gradually took on a shadow of sorrow, and he looked slowly toward the southern bank, hidden in the fog. "I don't mind telling you, Brother Zhuo, and don't laugh — the happiest time of my life to this day was also my childhood, at my mother's family's home in the countryside. Back then I was forever scrapping with a few of the neighbor boys in the paddy fields before the rice was transplanted, rolling around covered in mud and scrapes; but I never once lost — truly a boundless glory."

"Winning a record like that, Brother Tong, is a good deal harder than passing the prefectural exam." Zhuo Siheng meant it sincerely; he'd never fought the children of Xingshan Township, and if he had, he wasn't sure he could have won bare-handed without his bow. And Tong Shipei, for all his refined, gentle, well-bred look, had been quite the fierce little fighter as a child — who'd have guessed.

His words set Tong Shipei clapping and laughing again. Looking now at this youth from the same roll, just one place below him, Zhuo Siheng felt for a moment that he wasn't the sort of rich young master he'd imagined either. That smile was much like the children he'd seen back in Xingshan Township — the kind of unrestrained joy that shows only in genuine happiness.

And Tong Shipei, for his part, had never met among the young people his own age in the capital anyone like Zhuo Siheng, so natural and unaffected in his every gesture — looking upon wealth with no wealth in his heart, set in a fine scene yet standing outside it, his whole person giving off a soft light that left Tong Shipei both puzzled and curious.

By now the two had lost all reserve, chatting easily, on and off, about their own prefectural-exam answers and the amusing things that had happened on the road to the exam — until the snow stopped and the tea went cold, and the boatman called them back to make ready to sail. Only then did Zhuo Siheng, who'd been talking away with great gusto, take reluctant leave of Tong Shipei; but halfway across the plank he suddenly smacked his forehead and turned back. "When the hull shook just now, my inkstone fell into the river... I wonder if Brother Tong has a spare he could lend me? I'll return it as soon as we reach the capital."

He had only this one inkstone, and with it in the river and nowhere on the boat to buy another, wouldn't he be unable to write the whole way? The chance that Tong Shipei had a spare was far greater than the chance of borrowing one on their passenger boat.

Tong Shipei at once sent the page beside him to fetch one, and specified that he bring only the one from his own desk.

When the inkstone was brought, Tong Shipei handed it to Zhuo Siheng himself, saying with a smile, "Brother Zhuo and I hit it off; I wouldn't even mind giving it to you, really. But I've so enjoyed talking with you this time — with a lending and a returning, we'll have a reason to meet again next time. Otherwise you'd surely settle down to prepare for the exam and refuse to see anyone — not like me, always looking to slack off and steal a little leisure."

Zhuo Siheng thanked him and said that after the exam he could look him up any time for a chat; but as he turned to go again, this time it was Tong Shipei who called him back.

"Is Brother Zhuo versed in the rhapsodies of the Han, Jin and Six Dynasties?"

Tong Shipei's question came out of nowhere. Zhuo Siheng could write such things, but it was like eating the passenger boat's food — a matter of staying alive. Not one to beat around the bush, he said what came to mind: "'Versed' is too much to claim; I can only say I can write them."

When Tong Shipei spoke again his voice was a good deal softer and lower. "I hear the chief examiner for this departmental exam, His Honor Zeng, is fondest of parallel-prose rhapsody and likes an ornate touch. Brother Zhuo might look into it a little in his spare time these days."

So that was why he'd been called back. Zhuo Siheng gave a bright, open smile; grateful for the tip, he felt he owed this confidence a frankness in return, and answered: "Everyone knows what His Honor Zeng likes — and perhaps, precisely for that, His Honor Zeng won't do as everyone expects. There's really no need to guess at such things. All we can do is patch our weak spots and shore up our strengths a little in these two months. More than ten years of hard study at the cold window aren't to be shaken by a single guess. Brother Tong mustn't lose the greater for the lesser. Just now, when we discussed the prefectural exam, you spoke of the argument in your own policy essay — excellent, and boldly angled; I admired it in my heart. Such talent of mind is not something ornate phrasing can rival. With learning like that to lean on, Brother Tong truly needn't worry so much."

His words came straight from the heart, said just as he thought them — but the moment they were out he regretted it. Zhuo Siheng, oh Zhuo Siheng — how long has the man even known you? Why would he care to hear you rattle on like this? What if he thinks you're talking down and lecturing him — wouldn't that wound the fellowship of the same roll? He must have spent too long in a place of simple folk and simple ties; he mustn't do this from now on!

But Tong Shipei was neither angry nor strange about it; he only looked at Zhuo Siheng very quietly, and nodded gravely. "I'll keep Brother Zhuo's counsel firmly in mind. Until we meet again in the capital."

Once Zhuo Siheng was back on his boat and the two vessels had set off their separate ways, the page beside Tong Shipei craned his neck to look and look, and said anxiously, "Third Young Master, that was the antique Suzhou inkstone the master gave you! It's a fine piece from the last dynasty! If you weren't sitting the examinations the master might not even have parted with it! How could you go and lend it to some penniless scholar! What if he doesn't return it — what'll you do then!"

Tong Shipei smiled. "In others' eyes it's just an ordinary inkstone. And besides, Brother Zhuo is certain to return it to me."

However much the page grieved over the inkstone, hearing this he could only let it go. The plank was drawn up, the passenger boat drew farther off, and Zhuo Siheng stood at the prow taking his leave of Tong Shipei. The page, thinking back over what he'd said, found that though he'd understood little of it, the tone was familiar to him; something stirred in his heart, and his vexation drained away.

After the passenger boat vanished into the freezing fog, the page still couldn't hold the words in, and said softly to Tong Shipei, who stood where he was: "Third Young Master, the things this Master Zhuo said to you just now — they seem like what the eldest young master used to have always on his lips when he was alive, and the tone is very like his too..."

Tong Shipei only gazed in the direction the passenger boat had vanished, and for a long while said nothing.

On the other side, Zhuo Siheng did not return to his cabin until Tong Shipei's boat had disappeared.

That was close. Luckily Brother Tong was broad-natured and open-hearted; anyone else he didn't know well would probably have rolled their eyes clear to the sky at him. So thinking, he let the window down and fastened it shut, then carefully set down the borrowed inkstone, lest a thing borrowed from someone go flying off again.

Strange to say, this inkstone felt quite unlike the ones he used: its substance surpassed stone and was like jade, its coolness just right, to the touch like brushing skin, and grinding ink on it there wasn't the slightest drag. It surely couldn't be cheap.

As he ground the ink Zhuo Siheng reminded himself privately that he mustn't speak and act as he had before; now that he'd reached the capital, he had to be careful and cautious in all things, and above all not careless in his speech when dealing with people. He wouldn't every time run into relatives and friends like his cousin and Brother Tong, who suited his own character and temper and were sincere besides. It was like this boat traveling the waterway: collide carelessly with another vessel, and there was no telling whether the boat opposite would curse you for going about blind, or invite its passengers to sip tea at leisure and admire the snow.

It was time, too, for him to adjust the angle from which he looked at the world.