Chapter 19

When Tong Shipei found time a few days later to come to Zhuo Siheng's meditation room, no sooner had he sat down than he was eagerly asking after the Constellation Banquet. Zhuo Siheng first ran through how it had gone, and when he'd finished Tong Shipei laughed aloud: "Just now, hearing that couplet of yours, I thought you were mocking everyone present as so many crucian crossing the river — fish before, and a dish once grilled."

This was something even Zhuo Siheng hadn't thought of; it did seem it could indeed be read that way.

Helplessly he said that he really had been praising the dish, and that in future, if he brought his sisters and brother to the capital, the very first meal he'd take them to the Fengle Tower to try.

Tong Shipei, who'd been listening and laughing all the while, saw his rare smile gradually give way to silence. Zhuo Siheng hurriedly asked what was wrong; he shook his head and smiled again, but there was a touch of sorrow in the smile this time. "My eldest brother used to love taking our second brother and me to try the new dishes at the capital's restaurants and taverns. But I was young then, and put off by how strict and stiff they were with me, so I was always finding an excuse to slip off and do something else."

Zhuo Siheng didn't know just what his family's situation was, but seeing Tong Shipei's expression felt he ought to ask a word of concern; only, in a flash Tong Shipei was smiling like a man with nothing amiss, and said, "Never mind that. I've heard a rumor there was a quarrel at the Constellation Banquet that day — what was all that about? Who fell out?"

Zhuo Siheng scratched his head, a little embarrassed. "Me..."

Tong Shipei was astonished. "You? I don't believe it! I wouldn't believe for the life of me that you'd quarrel with anyone!"

"I did it because I had no choice..." Zhuo Siheng told Tong Shipei the whole of that day's affair, in full detail, and then asked, "What I really find strange is this: since the Tang family are officials generation after generation, how could Tang Qifei have been raised to speak so recklessly on such an occasion? From childhood he'd surely have had official elders drumming it into him, and would know perfectly well in his heart which words may be spoken and which not. Yet he not only spoke them, he named me by name in doing it — it's genuinely bizarre. I keep feeling he was aiming at me, and not at any crown prince or Eastern Palace. But I know of no grudge between my family and the Tangs; my father never spoke of such a thing. Fangze, you've long been in the capital — do you know the reason behind it?"

Tong Shipei listened with keen interest at first, then his smile faded as he heard Tang Qifei's words; and at last, when Zhuo Siheng asked him the reason, his expression turned to that smug look with a young man's mischievous, wicked edge, and he said, feigning great profundity, "Of course I know. But if you want me to tell you a thing so confidential, you'll have to put up something in exchange."

Zhuo Siheng knew he wasn't after money — he was probably teasing on purpose — and asked with a helpless smile, "Then what do you want?"

"Nothing important — just that when you bring your sisters and brother to eat the silver-thread crucian at the Fengle Tower, you take me along to cadge a meal too."

"What's hard about that? I promise you!"

Hearing this, Tong Shipei lowered his head and smiled, then reined in the jesting and said in a low voice, "As far as I know there's no feud between the Tang family and yours, the Zhuos. But your instinct wasn't wrong — nine times out of ten, his words were aimed at you."

"But I never offended him either?" Zhuo Siheng was more puzzled than ever.

"His father is of a collateral branch of the Tang clan, and won his office through service in following Jingzong; for a time his family held real power and were close ministers of the late emperor, their glory outshining the Tangs' own main line. Only... each ruler brings his own ministers, and these days his family's lot isn't a happy one. Tang Qifei's father has been posted out to Junzhou; his rank and grade are unchanged, true, but he's far from the center now, which for his family is no different from a demotion."

To Zhuo Siheng, none of this had anything to do with him so far; when the court was changing hands, his whole family had still been up in Shuozhou drinking the northwest wind, barely able to keep themselves safe — where would they have found the leisure to trouble anyone else?

"That, really, would have been bearable; what's truly deadly is that three months ago, the top graduate of the Zhenyuan-nine examination came out of the Hanlin Academy, and His Majesty specially granted him a place in the Censorate, with the post of patrol inspector of Dengtai Commandery in Junzhou. Once this top graduate took up his post in Junzhou, he set himself squarely against the Tang family; in these three months he's impeached them three times running. The first two memorials were only over trifling improprieties, but the third pointed straight at Tang Qifei's father for neglecting the river-works and shirking the dike patrols at his post, and set out in fine detail which dikes on the Yu River had gone years without repair, which drainage outlets had been blocked and pressed in by farm colonies. His Majesty was furious, and a few days ago handed down a vermilion rescript ordering Tang Qifei's father back to the capital to account for himself."

Having said all this in one breath, Tong Shipei took a great gulp of tea.

"But... I still don't see where any of this has to do with me?" Zhuo Siheng didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"Where it has to do with you is that last year's top graduate is quite the remarkable character. They say that even in the Hanlin Academy he offended a good many colleagues; he's a man of the coldest face and coldest heart, iron of mouth and without mercy. And this top graduate has one thing in common with you: you were both top graduates who transferred from Shuozhou to sit the Ningxing prefectural exam." Tong Shipei looked at Zhuo Siheng with weight in his gaze.

"That's regional discrimination! What's wrong with Shuozhou people? Did Shuozhou folk eat his family's rice? For Shuozhou to turn out two Ningxing top graduates, that's men of talent from a land of —" Zhuo Siheng was crying his innocence for all he was worth when it suddenly struck him something was off; and seeing the look on Tong Shipei's face, of wanting to speak and holding back, a thought flashed through his mind like a thunderclap, as if he'd finally understood. "This top graduate... did his family suffer the same as mine?"

Tong Shipei smiled. "Yunshan, close as we are, you can just say it straight. That's right — his family was one of the eight condemned in the treasonous-heir case, and now he's fought his way back. Whether he's going after all the late emperor's close ministers, or is simply too upright and impartial for his own good, there's no telling; in any case it's a delicate business. But that Tang Qifei loathes people of your kind of background — that's beyond doubt. So his making trouble for you with those insolent words was also to deliberately stir up a quarrel: if you'd talked back and fallen out with him over it, then supposing you really passed high one day, they might well take your past words and hold them up as the sprouting of factional strife, to use against that top-graduate inspector who's been troubling their family. So you did splendidly that day — you broke it up beautifully, and left not the least handle in anyone's grasp."

Zhuo Siheng felt no relief at it; he only recalled that his father had once said the emperor hadn't let their family return to the capital after the amnesty chiefly because he didn't want the late emperor's old ministers put in a hard position, or a struggle of court factions brewing. But from what he heard now, it seemed that whatever efforts had been made back then, the undercurrents were already stirring restlessly, a surging tide too strong to hold back.

"I've also heard that this newborn-calf of a top graduate, who fears no tiger, once studied together with Tang Qifei at the Jiangxiang Academy in Qingzhou — so there's no saying whether there mightn't be some private grudge in it too."

Tong Shipei added this casually, but it set a fragment of memory suddenly flashing through Zhuo Siheng's mind; he abruptly grabbed Tong Shipei's sleeve, his tone unusually anxious and urgent. "Let me ask you this! The top graduate of Zhenyuan nine — is his surname Gao and his given name Yongqing, and was his father, once an official, named Gao Bengu?"

"How do you know that?" Tong Shipei said in astonishment. "Do you two know each other?"

Zhuo Siheng was at once flooded by two feelings, joy and worry. The joy: Yongqing had not, after all, failed Uncle Gao's hopes — father and son of the Gao house, two top graduates between them, truly a boundless glory. The worry: did that frail, silent boy in his memory know now what he was doing? Was this at the emperor's bidding, or of his own doing? And what was the reason behind it — if it really touched off factional strife, how was young Yongqing to hold his own?

Seeing the worry written on Zhuo Siheng's face, Tong Shipei patted his arm. "You needn't fret so. Your own departmental exam is what matters now; I'll make some more inquiries about your friend's affairs for you. But don't you go contacting him yourself — he's at court, you're at the examination compound, and too much traffic between you would do neither your name nor his any good. And what he's been doing... in any case, don't be anxious for now."

Hearing that every word of Tong Shipei's was in his own interest, Zhuo Siheng was grateful, and set his worry aside for the moment with a nod. "I know what's at stake; I won't act rashly."

To dispel his friend's knot of worry, Tong Shipei picked out a few fresh happenings from the capital to tell Zhuo Siheng; and once the mood had eased, Zhuo Siheng's gaze at him grew deeper and deeper.

"Fangze... you told me no one in your family serves at court, yet you know all this. Were you joking with me back then?"

"No joke at all." Tong Shipei made an exaggerated gesture of swearing an oath. "Every word is true."

Zhuo Siheng, as if suddenly enlightened, lowered his voice. "Could it be... could your family be..."

Tong Shipei unconsciously held his breath too, forgetting even to swallow the tea he'd just taken in.

"Are you... sellers of the court gazette?"

Tong Shipei spat out every drop of the tea in his mouth, and coughed a long while before he could get a word out: "If I didn't know your head worked frighteningly well, I'd really think you were playing the fool!"

Zhuo Siheng hurried to wipe the tea off him, and said, full of apology, "Other things I can just about handle well enough, but all these connections and standings in the capital give me a splitting headache..."

He'd heard his father say that official families sometimes received the court's gazette, which set down the important recent affairs and news; Zhuo Siheng reckoned this was the newspaper of the age, only ordinary people had no chance to see it, and he didn't know just how the gazette was circulated.

Tong Shipei seemed to enjoy the sight of a clever man like Zhuo Siheng at a loss, and said smugly, "Splendid — the meals you owe me are only going to keep piling up!"

Not long after seeing Tong Shipei off, Fan Xiliang came climbing up from the foot of the hill with Fan Yong, hauling bundles big and small, drenched in sweat.

"Cousin, these are for you to see the New Year in with!" he introduced them warmly as he wiped his sweat. "Here's some tea and pastries... this bundle is clothes — new ones this time! This is fresh ink; scholars here in the capital set store by changing to new ink at the New Year to bless the brush — you're newly arrived and wouldn't know, so I've got some ready for you! Oh, and this is charcoal I bought — the capital gets snow, if at all, only in the first month; it's nothing like Shuozhou, but it's still quite cold, so mind you don't fall ill from it."

"Cousin, I've come to the capital to sit the exam — there's no need to be so thorough; you've spent far too much." Though Zhuo Siheng had always known his cousin was attentive to detail, he hadn't known he was attentive to this degree; grateful, he hurried to draw him down to the fire, afraid that, drenched in sweat, he'd catch a chill and fall ill.

Seeing that Zhuo Siheng spoke of his spending too much yet was still glad he'd come, Fan Xiliang felt his heart at once grow warmer and brighter than the red-hot charcoal brazier at his feet.

He had to get home early and so couldn't stay long; before he left he said to Zhuo Siheng, "The New Year business at home is all seen to for now, so I can come once more before the year's end — I've written a few more essays for you to look over, Cousin. After that it'll be past the New Year; but the departmental exam is only a few days after the New Year, so I only hope there'll be less to do at home, and I'll have more time to come and study with you."

Three days remained until New Year's Eve, and Zhuo Siheng told him to stay home before the year's end so as not to draw his uncle's reproach; there'd be time enough to look at the essays after the New Year. Fan Xiliang agreed with a smile.

The day before New Year's Eve, Zhuo Siheng went into the capital to buy some supplies; thorough as Fan Xiliang's preparations for him had been, he wanted to buy some clothes and a few books to send home for Huiheng and Xiheng to read. But to his surprise, no sooner had he sent the things off than he received a letter from home.

By the date on the letter, it had been sent in the twelfth month — perhaps his family had only then received the letter he'd written home after settling at the mountain temple, leaving his address.

The letter was in Huiheng's own hand. She said the family had received the news of his placing top graduate and had offered incense to their parents; that they all missed their elder brother, but that he mustn't worry — he should prepare for the departmental exam in the capital with his mind at ease, only being sure to mind his health and not overtax himself. All three of them at home were well; her own health was much better than in years past; Ciheng's medical skill was steadily growing, and Xiheng studied very hard. Uncle Zhu the Fifth and his wife missed him greatly, and so did Old Huyan — this year Brother Xiao Yong had come back from the south to spend the New Year with him, but the old man still fondly remembered the New Years of the past, drinking and talking late into the night together with Zhuo Siheng.

The letter was all small household matters, every word warm and soft, soothing the loneliness of Zhuo Siheng keeping the New Year's vigil alone a thousand li away.

That night, his heart, longing for reunion and peace, could only be quieted by reading the letter over and over.

Zhuo Siheng knew that the loneliness he bore now was so that in future the family would never again be parted; and so, tormented as he was by longing, he still took it as sweet as honey.

This was the effort he made for the life he wanted; and in this perhaps not-so-comfortable process, he felt that he was, truly and genuinely, happy.