Chapter 2

Back in the modern world Zhuo Siheng had no feel for Chinese literature. He was clever enough to memorize the texts and learn the standard way to answer questions and write essays, which got him decent marks. Choosing the science track was true to his own taste. Even his outside reading was dinosaurs and the cosmos. For the assigned classics he memorized a synopsis and a theme and left it there. Now he was learning the humanities from scratch. His father had placed tenth in the nation in the second rank at the palace examination, but conditions were what they were, and it went slowly. Still, his head worked. In the past year he had finished the primers, and this year he had started on Enlightenment on Tone and Meter. By now he could begin on the Erya, the entry point to exegesis.

Zhuo Yan saw his son concentrate on his books in circumstances like these, quick and sharp, and Huiheng only six and just as bright, with the family's gift for study. It hurt him all the more that they were in the convict registry, and he put more of himself into teaching them. Most days at his labor he was working out which passage to teach that night, and how to teach it so his son would understand.

They had only the spoken word, not even brush and paper. Afraid the two would find learning by ear dull, and with no reason to be as strict as an academy, Zhuo Yan often told them the livelier stories from the Zuo, Gongyang and Guliang commentaries, and unpacked the well-known anecdotes in Dragon-Script Whip Shadow.

The stories in the Three Commentaries were said to be important exam material too, but they weren't as dry as the Four Books, so Zhuo Siheng liked them better. Even on the way to fetch food he was going back over the night before.

"To attack Xu without punishing it, and to let it go once it submitted; to weigh one's virtue and act on it, to measure one's strength and proceed by it, to watch for the moment and move with it, and to leave no burden to those who come after — that may be called knowing propriety."

"Brother, is that the Zuo Commentary story Father told us yesterday? What's it about?" Huiheng was five. Her health was poor and she had to rest partway through lessons, but her memory was as good as his. She couldn't recite it, but she could name the source. Beyond that she didn't know.

He found his siblings endearing and never minded being interrupted. He softened his voice. "It means you should do what your own strength allows, and pick the right moment for the things you have to do. Don't rush at them."

"Don't wush at them. Wush." Xiheng was about two, the age when a child who has just learned to talk loves to chime in. He repeated it from his brother's back and couldn't say it clearly, which was both sweet and funny.

Ciheng saw her brother slow down and registered her dissatisfaction with the whole conversation. "Brother, I'm hungry!"

Each of the three had a temper of their own, and all three were endearing. Huiheng was quiet and gentle. Ciheng was restless and blunt. Xiheng's character wasn't clear yet, but he already had a few small schemes in him and would probably grow into a little demon king. Given how things were, character was no bad thing. You can only swallow the bitterness of life if you're living as someone in particular.

Ciheng told him to hurry, let go and ran ahead, and he hurried after her. It was early spring. April in Shuozhou was barely warmer than deep winter, the snow along the road hadn't melted, and there was no green in the waste ground or the trees. Afraid she would slip, he stayed at her heels, and only caught hold of the live rabbit again at the place where food was handed out.

Then he saw that today's distribution looked different.

Old Clerk Zhang, who handled the portions, the roll and the records, wasn't there. In his place stood Zhu Tong, the camp-household supervisor, belly out, impatience and irritation crowded in among the slabs of flesh on his face.

"Take your own and write it down yourself! Take too much and you'll get a hiding!" He tapped the whip at his waist, its leather grip split all over, and bellowed at the line of old and frail.

The Zhuo family's camp held fewer than a hundred households. Shuozhou's cold was hard to endure, and many of the old and weak died within a year or two of arriving, so only fifty-odd dependents came to collect food. Old and young alike were quiet. They took their bitter-herb steamed cake, ladled a spoonful of broth that was much the same as water, and went off to the earth bank at the side to eat alone.

When Zhuo Siheng's turn came he was thinking about last night's lesson and was a little slow. Zhu Tong, already in a foul mood, cursed him along. "Reciting some damn book, mumble mumble mumble! Keeping me from my dinner! Seed of a convict, not even allowed to sit the examinations, and still putting on airs every day. Think you're a young gentleman from the capital?"

The family had been in the camp nearly three years and knew most of the officers. Zhu Tong was an old hand here too. The story went that he'd been a petty squad leader under the Yanhe Army command in Weizhou, and after drinking at night and breaking regulations he was thrown out here to run a labor camp. Zhuo Yan had had some seasoning at court and was good at reading people, and he said Zhu Tong — Zhu the Fifth — only had a bad temper and liked to shout, but was decent underneath. He wore that whip all day to frighten people and had never once taken it down to a woman, a child or an old man. If he hadn't been too blunt and got on badly with the camp officers elsewhere, he'd never have been pushed out to a camp like theirs, in charge of the workers' dependents.

Their camp was mostly demoted officials and their families. Easy enough to manage, but the women and children were weak and more of them fell ill and died than not. By statute the food for the old and young was half a worker's allowance, so there was little to hand out and little to skim. Idle work and poor work. Zhu the Fifth had come out of the army and had even been a petty officer, with a big temper and a rash streak, and naturally he wasn't pleased. But he didn't get on with the men who bullied the laborers either — he'd come to blows with them — and having offended officers with backing, he had less chance than ever of getting ahead.

He always wore a sour face at the food line. Today he was cursing besides, and his mouth was anything but clean. Zhuo Siheng would have liked to cover his siblings' ears; this was hardly the early education a scholarly house had in mind. But he was also puzzled. Where was Old Clerk Zhang, who normally tottered about calling the roll and doing the sums? Surely Zhu the Fifth wasn't out of sorts over that?

Zhuo Siheng was observant and not hasty, so even spoken to like that he stayed polite and biddable. He collected the food in silence and took his siblings to a quieter spot at the side. Xiheng was small, so he had to crumble the cake and soak it soft in the broth first.

They had just settled when Zhu Tong came over, brows down and eyes glaring. "Did you take short on the cakes for your brother and sisters?"

Zhuo Siheng shook his head. He had taken exactly the number due. Zhu Tong lifted his head and shouted at the people still eating behind him. "Is there anyone here who deserves to starve who took less than his share?"

It was a kind thing to say and it came out sounding thoroughly unkind. Everyone was frightened of Zhu Tong at the best of times, and today they could see his temper was off, so nobody dared answer. Cursing, Zhu Tong tore the two spare cakes into five or six pieces and handed them to the nearest old people and children. Zhuo Siheng got a small piece too.

Xiheng had eaten his fill and gone to sleep, so Zhuo Siheng split the piece in two and pressed it on his sisters.

"You eat it, sister. You're thin." Ciheng was only four but already as tall as six-year-old Huiheng, and as she saw it her sister had always been the sickly one and needed to eat more.

Huiheng shook her head slowly. "Brother has to recite tonight, and his stomach growls every day. Let's give it to Brother."

Zhu Tong heard the two girls and some of the hardness went out of his face. He rubbed both their heads roughly with his big hands and snorted. "You two eat your own. Your brother's a half-grown man, he won't starve. Studying's not worth a damn. Better to know accounts and tallies — then you could help this soldier check his ledgers."

Zhuo Siheng, who had had no intention of making trouble, suddenly had a flash of brilliance.

Accounts? Tallies?

That was mathematics.

Just when he had studied Chinese literature until he was sick of it, a maths problem out of nowhere was like a shaft of light. It knocked open the long-sealed heart of this terrifying humanoid problem-solving machine, this merciless trampler of exam-oriented education, this drill-master of maths, physics and chemistry known across the city and the province.

"Does Supervisor Zhu need help counting and keeping accounts? I could try." He hid his eagerness well, all obedience and honesty, and much more likeable than the average nine-year-old.

Zhu Tong had heard that everyone in his camp came from families of scholars and officials who knew nothing but sour literature. What would they know of practical business? But he truly couldn't read or do accounts, so he sized the boy up twice and said, half believing him, "You can? Then go and look. If you can't, don't rummage through it — put it back properly."

Full of anticipation, Zhuo Siheng opened the record book, expecting at minimum something like the second-to-last problem on a national exam paper. It was plain addition and subtraction.

Such a waste of his talents was a real disappointment.

But he soon saw why Zhu Tong found it a nuisance. The entries were impossibly fiddly, because the mess didn't issue the allowance per person per day. The whole month's expenditure was listed in advance, and each day's draw was struck off against it.

In the northern winter the old, the weak, the women and the children fell ill every few days, and if someone was sick and didn't come, food was left over. Collecting food by the rules was also a roll call, a way to check whether any convict household had absconded, so only the gravely ill, with a note from the camp physician, could have food taken home. Which meant that if fewer people came on some days, extra was entered over the last few days of the month. Whatever was issued at the start of the month was what got counted, the accounts were balanced, and nothing was carried back. What was left over went into the pockets of each camp's officers. A paltry profit, but pluck a feather off every passing goose and you can eventually make a coat.

All of which made life hard for whoever below did the reckoning and the roll, since they had to work out the daily averages and reconcile them against the earlier shortfalls. Zhu Tong couldn't read a character, and even if he could manage simple sums in his head, he hadn't the patience to sit there adjusting figures one stroke at a time.

A quick look back suggested there wasn't much to make up this month, so Zhuo Siheng did only today's. The head count and the food figures were tallied in moments, and he handed the book back. "Fifty-three cakes, drawn by fifty-three people, all discharged. Broth one dipperful each, roll call complete. I haven't counted the two spare — there's still half a month, and month's end will do. Yesterday's broth entry wasn't filled in properly either, so I've done that. Clerk Zhang was probably taken ill and never got to it. Oh, and today's the last day of the ten-day period, and the totals space was blank, so I've done that too. For this period it comes to five hundred—"

"Stop, stop, stop! You're like a monk chanting scripture!" Zhu Tong's ears felt full of droning mosquitoes, and he made the boy stop. He looked him over again. "You're that eldest Zhuo boy, aren't you?"

"That's me."

"I'm checking these figures against the mess shortly. If they don't match, the difference comes out of your rations."

Some of the old people still there looked frightened, but Zhuo Siheng was composed. "If I've made a mistake, of course I should take the punishment."

"And if they match, there's no reward!" Zhu Tong snorted.

---

The next day, though, Zhu Tong was in a much better mood. He still spoke without any grace, but he had Zhuo Siheng do Clerk Zhang's old job off to one side, and when it was done he gave Huiheng and Ciheng half a cake each. He also told him to go and draw brush, ink, paper and a record book after eating. Spring was coming, coarse clothing would be issued to every household by head count, and Zhu Tong wanted the count worked out and handed in tomorrow so he could collect the issue.

So that evening Zhuo Siheng came home with the four treasures of the study from the camp stores.

Zhuo Yan and Song Liangyu asked how this had happened, and both marveled at their son's nerve and care and his gift for accounts. Zhuo Yan was much comforted. "I've heard Clerk Zhang was also a man under sentence once. Later the camp was short of hands, and since he could write and calculate they gave him a minor post. Now he's come through to old age safe and fed. If our Siheng can do this, he'll suffer less in future, and the three little ones will have an easier time too."

"Since there's paper and brushes, why don't you and Mother teach us to write?" Zhuo Siheng hadn't taken in a word of his father's hopes. His head was full of curiosity.

When Zhu Tong first mentioned the clothing accounts, he'd seen a chance to get hold of brushes and paper. Reciting everything aloud forever wasn't quite the thing. That was why he'd taken the job on, and since his parents were pleased he no longer minded doing accounts at night. The sums went as far as multiplication at most. Absurdly easy.

The four treasures were poor quality, nothing like what the family had used in its heyday. The brush hairs splayed, the ink wouldn't grind evenly and had lumps in it, the paper was dull yellow with fibers in it and very coarse. But Zhuo Yan wrote carefully, all in one breath, and what Zhuo Siheng saw were two characters the size of fists: Reunion.

He knew nothing about calligraphy and had never had the chance to learn since arriving. Even so he could see the characters were upright regular script, the force in them strong but never spilling over, the bones dead true.

"Father, your writing is beautiful." His admiration was plain and sincere.

Zhuo Yan rarely held a brush, and praise from his son put him in an excellent mood. He smiled. "Your mother's hand is what you'd call peerless among gentlewomen. Full and supple, taut and loose by turns, free and high-spirited. Mine falls well short of hers."

She hadn't held a brush in three years either, and felt the itch. "Let me have a turn."

She wrote fast, adding four small characters below Reunion: Winter goes, spring comes. Zhuo Siheng watched as the layman he was, but even he could see the hand had had work put into it, the strokes broad, the structure steady. It had been too long, so many of the joins lacked strength, but no real harm.

"It's so much uglier than yours!" She laughed and sighed at once and gave Zhuo Yan a light thump. "Your fault, boasting in front of the children. Now I look bad."

"It isn't ugly. This hand would do for writing a policy essay at the palace examination." He pointed at her characters and laughed. "I've actually sat the thing. Won't you take my word for it?"

"More nonsense. You said my writing was full and supple, but the sage of poetry Du said that writing prizes the lean and hard; that is the way to reach the divine. Next to yours, mine is underdone."

"Lean and hard is one good, certainly. But who would say that the lady of the Xie house, serene and full of feature, has of herself the air of the grove isn't fine in its own right? If our four children learned a hand like yours and could write a spring breeze through the grove with feature to spare, there'd be nothing better."

Zhuo Siheng couldn't follow a single allusion, but the mood had reached a certain pitch, so he put in, "Father and Mother are both right!"

The two had been gazing at each other. Hearing this they laughed at him for being nothing but sweet-mouthed, and coaxed him into trying a few strokes. Zhuo Siheng was much put upon. At least his name was the same in traditional characters as in simplified. He steeled himself and copied the posture of a classmate he'd once watched doing brush calligraphy.

The three characters had far too many strokes, and 卓 is all flat horizontals and straight verticals and very hard to write. With no training at all, what came out was so ugly that even he knew it. Somehow Zhuo Yan looked satisfied, holding it up to appraise with his wife. "Granted the 卓 is like a dead snake hung in a tree and the 思 like a toad under a rock. Still, if our son trains up a hand later, who's to say it won't come out all long spears and great halberds with sweeping waves and broad strokes besides? He might take the road where the artless beats the artful."

Zhuo Siheng heard the teasing and the affection, and the pride and the praise too. For the first time he felt a strange confidence about the calligraphy chapter of his life in antiquity. He had no idea what "long spears and great halberds" meant, or how the artless beat the artful, but he'd work in that direction the moment he got the chance.

While he was swearing this to himself, his parents had passed the brush to Huiheng and were encouraging her to try. She was thin and had little strength in her hands, and tried several times before she could hold it steady, managing one faint floating horizontal. So Zhuo Yan took her hand in his and led her patiently through a 卓 as well. He was about to go on when he saw sweat on her forehead and her fingertips trembling, and told her to rest at once. But Huiheng was too proud to stop and insisted on writing her own name, so he took her hand again and saw her carefully through it.

In the end even four-year-old Ciheng gripped the brush any old way and scrawled something like a grotesque face, and the whole family doubled over laughing. Except for two-year-old Xiheng, fast asleep, the small battered goat-hair brush passed from hand to hand among all five of them. From that broken hut, with wind coming in on every side, warm laughter spilled out in waves.