Chapter 23

After that conversation, Zhuo Siheng felt both relief and puzzlement; but being another's guest through his kindness, he could hardly press too aggressively to question what he didn't understand. Tong Shipei really had worn himself out — every day he woke to eat, ate and then slept, his mind muddled throughout. Once Zhuo Siheng was a little better he looked in on him a time or two, and then, worried that his cousin might wake and not find him at Xishi Temple, took the initiative to take his leave of Tong Duo. Tong Duo knew he had his reasons, and did not press him to stay, but sent a carriage to see him off.

Time was peaceful and the days long at Xishi Temple. Zhuo Siheng was still tired, and slept two days without any word from Fan Xiliang; he supposed his cousin was probably in much the same state as Tong Shipei, and took the chance to rest all the more himself.

Only he didn't know that while he was, for once, lying abed all day in deep sleep to make up his spirits, the examination compound had descended into utter chaos.

The dynasty's departmental exam usually had over a thousand candidates, three sessions and three subjects in all, the papers together numbering more than three thousand; the nine grading officials, marking day and night without rest, were worn to exhaustion, and now, seven days on, dawn was at last in sight. The transcription officials outside the curtain passed the last few stacks of poetry papers, their names pasted over and freshly transcribed, in through the curtain by way of the Imperial Guard; and the guardsman, bearing the locked document-case, had not yet reached the grading hall when he heard, inside, a quarrel.

And a fierce one at that.

"This paper's argument is refined and correct, its diction impassioned — in what respect is it unworthy of the championship?"

His Honor Wang Peilin, in charge of marking the policy-essay papers, was a newly promoted Hanlin Academician of forty-odd, whose voice carried great force, so that he always seemed puffed up with temper; but this time he really was in a great rage, all but ready to forgo the image of a gentleman and the courtesies due a colleague and point in the very face of Xu Rushu — Editor of the Hongwen Academy, who marked the policy-essay papers alongside him — to curse him.

"I grant this fellow's writing is clear and fluent, but you call his argument refined and correct — where is it correct? If we let the scholars of the realm believe that one need only pick some old matter of state governance at random, bring it up again and attack it, in order to pass high, what will the departmental exam become? Is selecting talent for the state merely a matter of listening to such biased, ingratiating cleverness? Is this the 'diction' His Honor Wang speaks of?" Xu Rushu, refusing to be outdone, launched spittle onto the other's face even as he set forth his view.

The other grading officials, seeing them quarrel so, all came to remonstrate, but the two only grew more heated the more they spoke, and roared louder and louder.

The guardsman was dumbstruck. He'd seen his share of street peddlers and porters quarreling in his time, and these gentlemen now were hardly a whit behind them — as if the examination compound were livelier than a vegetable market. Just then someone came up behind him; making out who it was, the guardsman hastily saluted and made way. "Administrator Zeng."

Zeng Xuandu, as the examination administrator for the Zhenyuan-ten session, had for his work chiefly the setting of questions; and once the marking was done, the two co-administrators and the other seven grading officials would report the judged papers and the assigned rankings to him for the final decision. Which was to say, only after they'd finished quarreling among themselves did his turn to come on stage arrive. But Zeng Xuandu had been locked in the compound two months and was thoroughly out of temper just then; hearing the great row in the grading hall, and wondering what paper could possibly drive men to abandon all decorum to such a degree, he simply came to see for himself.

He signaled the guardsman delivering the transcribed papers to be silent, and stood quietly at the door to go on listening.

"In reasoning, in law, in diction — this paper excels in every one; it comprehends the ancient and masters change. Where is there any error in this essay? His Honor Xu says its author speaks opportunistic, wild words — that's nothing but clinging to the worn-out and the incomplete, unwilling to see fresh and incisive language!"

Wang Peilin had abruptly raised a dispute of opinion to a personal attack, and Xu Rushu flared up on the spot: his office was higher than Wang Peilin's to begin with, and now to be pointed at and cursed by a junior beneath him — if this could be borne, what could not!

He stepped forward and said angrily, "That every fresh and incisive phrase makes a good essay — that I rather doubt! Many a man uses just this path to fish for fame; how do you know that the handed-down meaning of the ancients is not the equal of some new voice? Could it be that His Honor Wang, only just named a Hanlin Academician himself, sets such great store by this one word, 'new'?"

At this the door opened, and Zeng Xuandu's appearance stopped the two, who were nearly at the point of coming to blows.

He'd meant to listen a while longer to the two men's views, but who'd have known that the more they cursed the less of views there was, until nothing was left but the quarrel itself.

Everyone greeted Zeng Xuandu, who during the departmental exam was responsible for the management of the entire compound; he seated himself unhurriedly at the head, suppressed the vexation in his heart, and said gently, "Everyone sit. I didn't hear the beginning of it just now — who'll tell me what this is about?"

One man stepped forward to explain the whole matter: the policy-essay papers had all been marked, but the two chief judges had fallen into a dispute over one particular essay. His Honor Wang Peilin held this paper the finest at the departmental exam in recent years, and that it should be named for the championship; His Honor Xu Rushu had chosen another essay to name champion, and held that the paper Wang recommended, seemingly a fine piece, was in fact strained and ingratiating, not the proper path of selecting candidates — and that if this essay were named, the whole realm would surely rush to imitate it hereafter, and it would then be hard to find solid, steady, genuine talent again.

Having heard this out, Zeng Xuandu gave a smile, had tea brought, said a few more soothing words, and then returned to the matter at hand: "Where are the two essays?"

Wang and Xu each presented the essay he'd named for the championship and stood aside, awaiting Zeng Xuandu's final decision.

Zeng Xuandu read quietly through the two papers, and an answer was at once clear to him; but the emperor's words on the day he'd been personally named examiner suddenly flashed through his mind, and he hesitated.

He picked up the two pieces to compare again. The one His Honor Wang Peilin favored was worthy of the championship without question — its bearing towering and out of the common run, its diction brilliant yet not flaunting florid extravagance to catch the eye, but rather antique and elegant, clear and fine, with the old flavor of Tang prose. Above all, this was a policy essay — a policy essay had to argue the present governance and the historical sources on the same footing, and this paper's precision in gripping the topic and its ruthlessness in breaking it open had no equal; it entered by way of history, yet every line came to rest within the affairs of court.

But of all things, what it came down to was the treasonous-heir case of those years.

The other essay, for diction, was not beneath the first, and its historical exposition was resonant and forceful too. But in the end its bearing of writing and its bright, striking strength of character fell a shade short. Still, this man too had a view of his own on the affairs of court: he held that the establishing of the Eastern Palace should be taken as an occasion to bring in able ministers rather than intimates, using the current situation and governance as examples to instruct the crown prince, so that he might look up and grasp the larger picture, know the emperor's strategy and toil, and understand the difficulties of both the common world and the court.

He also had the discourse papers and poetry papers of the same numbers as these two authors brought over; they were, one might say, hard to rank one above the other — and how the ranking was to be decided from the policy essay was already, in his heart, self-evident.

Only...

Zeng Xuandu was a close minister of the emperor's; apart from state business, after the daily private consultations on governance at the Tianzhang Hall he often attended the emperor to discuss the essays of the classics-lectures and the anecdotes of the histories, and knew better than most how the eddies of the present court were secretly churning.

After long deliberation, he set his brush down firm, and circled the champion of this departmental exam.

But of all this that happened in the examination compound no one knew; on the day the results were finally posted, all anyone saw was the outcome.

It was at the posting of the results that Zhuo Siheng saw Fan Xiliang again. His cousin had grown a good deal thinner, but his spirits were especially high and his smile especially bright; he said that pass or fail today, he'd go and celebrate with his cousin. Yet as the hour drew near, Fan Xiliang was visibly nervous, the nails of his fingers pinched white; Zhuo Siheng thought to tease him, but seeing him like that couldn't bring himself to.

The posting of the departmental results was a step higher: it was posted by the Department of State Affairs, the office above the Ministry of Rites. The compound gate was nearly packed solid with people. Many official families didn't come to look themselves — the government would get the list first thing and inform the residences of officials at court whether their household's candidate had passed high — but ones like Zhuo Siheng had to come on their own two legs to look.

Once one made the departmental list, one would be taken up by the Ministry of Personnel — only rank and office had still to await the palace exam, where the emperor examined the candidates himself and fixed the three of the first rank and the several of the second, third and fourth ranks, sent back down to the Department of State Affairs to be assigned and deliberated further; only then was the whole thing truly, completely over. But the palace exam had no failing: at worst one's rank was lower and one's starting office a little humbler. So to pass the departmental exam was to have truly passed and won a degree.

Fan Xiliang had failed once already, and the taste of it now was naturally different for him than for Zhuo Siheng. Zhuo Siheng was a little nervous too, but in his heart he felt that being able to write that essay was already his very best.

To do all a man can and leave the rest to Heaven was itself, sometimes, a way of mastering one's fate — for besides doing one's utmost, what better represents the power to be master of one's destiny?

Several sheets of gold-flower placard paper were spread out together on the compound's posting wall by the officials of the Ministry of Rites, and the whole long street fell into a clamor. Zhuo Siheng and Fan Xiliang were standing near the front, and he saw the top of it with ease:

Champion of this departmental exam — Peng Shihu of Taizhou.

The same fellow who'd cursed everyone out at the Fengle Tower? A high level of cursing, it seemed, and a formidable essay to match.

Then, in the second place, Zhuo Siheng saw his own name.

"Cousin! Cousin, you're second in the departmental exam!" Fan Xiliang reacted even more strongly than he did, seizing his collar and shaking it hard, until Zhuo Siheng's very brains felt as if they were being stirred smooth — though through the evenly stirred brains, boundless delight was madly bubbling up as well.

When the prefectural results had been posted he'd had no one to share the joy with; now, with his cousin at his side, he felt doubly comforted.

He must send word of this to his family early, too.

And console the spirits of his parents.

There was other business to do just then: Zhuo Siheng and Fan Xiliang looked on down the list — apart from the top three, the successful candidates after them were no longer listed by rank, so one had to read from the top all the way down to hunt for a name.

Zhuo Siheng didn't spot his cousin first, but spotted Tong Shipei first.

Fangze was clever to begin with; passing high was really no hard thing for him.

The capital's second month was no longer cold, but a west wind still swept through, chilling one all over. Yet the tip of Fan Xiliang's nose was already beaded with sweat, his hands trembling with nerves.

At last, in the back few rows, the cousins found Fan Xiliang's name.

"Cousin! It's me! It's me!" Fan Xiliang caught Zhuo Siheng's hand, so excited he was almost in tears like a child, saying it over and over; Zhuo Siheng, glad for him, gripped his arm in return.

It really was wonderful!

The joy of two young men whose ambitions had been rewarded was not to be doused by cold weather; they walked and laughed nearly the whole way, and found a wine-house to celebrate.

Inside the wine-house, the families of scholars who'd passed high were already setting out wine to celebrate in the private rooms upstairs, and there were those who'd failed drinking to drown their sorrows too; the talk of the whole capital just then was this grace examination.

Passing through the hall, Zhuo Siheng heard many people saying that Peng Shihu had taken both the prefectural and departmental championships in a row, and might well achieve the feat of the triple first.

Hearing this stirred a strong fighting spirit in him for a moment, and he suddenly very much wanted to try again at the palace exam, to see whether his essay really was inferior to this new champion Peng's. That craving to win that comes only at an exam suddenly seized his very soul.

Fan Xiliang didn't notice his cousin's thoughts, and cheerfully pulled him into a small room. Zhuo Siheng didn't much drink — he disliked the taste — and by nature, until the final palace-exam result was out, he didn't count the thing finished, nor would he relax. But he was glad for his cousin from the heart, and satisfied with his own result, so he drank cup for cup with Fan Xiliang all the same, each wishing the other's name onto the golden roll.

Fan Xiliang had more than this to be happy about. Beaming, he told Zhuo Siheng that ever since his cousin's scene on returning from the departmental exam, his life at home had suddenly grown much better: his stepmother was the same as ever toward him, true, but his father had sent someone a couple of days ago to ask how his rest was going, and hearing that his knees had been cold and painful in the compound, had specially called a physician to see him — which had almost never happened before.

Zhuo Siheng heard it, but it ached in the depths of his heart.

He had known his parents' love, and so knew this was still far from enough — perhaps his uncle didn't really love this son of his so very much at all. But Fan Xiliang had had no full measure of family affection since his mother died, and so this little scrap of concern could set him leaping with delight, as if he'd come by some treasure.

With the palace exam still ahead, Zhuo Siheng said nothing of it; he only remarked that he'd been too rash that day, and had worried afterward that he'd made trouble for his cousin — he'd never expected it might help mend things between father and son, so at least the scolding hadn't been for nothing. He didn't tell Fan Xiliang about being left unattended before the Fan gate, only said he'd hired a carriage afterward to take him back to the temple. Fan Xiliang, pure-hearted, noticed nothing amiss, and only apologized that he'd been too dizzy that day to be of any help.

Their talk and laughter done, they came to the palace exam, and neither knew quite how it went; Zhuo Siheng had only heard a few scraps from his father, knowing merely that the emperor set the question and examined the candidates himself, that the papers were transcribed on the spot and then read by the emperor himself, and that the rankings were known the very day of the palace exam — which sounded thrilling indeed.

And since the palace exam and the posting of departmental results were, by custom, never more than five days apart, their excitement was gradually swallowed by nerves at the true final test, and even the fragrant wine slowly lost its flavor.

"Then... is there anything else we need to prepare?" Fan Xiliang asked uneasily.

Zhuo Siheng shook his head slowly. "There's really no need. Sitting the palace exam while the hand's still warm from the departmental is no bad thing, in fact." He was a shade nervous himself, but didn't want to create a more anxious mood for his cousin.

"The palace exam is only one policy essay, but the time is much shorter than the departmental — I wonder whether one can even finish." Fan Xiliang buried his head in his hands, plainly exam-numbed by now.

Zhuo Siheng found him amusing, and with a smile poured a cup of wine, patted his cousin's head, pressed the cup into his hand, poured himself another and clinked it. "Over a thousand scholars sat the departmental exam, and a hundred-odd passed today — one in ten taken. That you and I made the list means we have what it takes to enter the hall and answer on policy; why fret now? When the day comes, there'll be a good strategy of its own!"

Hearing his cousin say this, Fan Xiliang eased a little, and drank down the warm wine in his cup with a smile.

The two drank in moderation and went back before getting drunk. Zhuo Siheng first went to the post station to send a letter home, and then, back at Xishi Temple, asked the abbot for some incense and burned it in the temple hall, offering to his parents the good news that he had passed the departmental exam.

In the Buddha hall his heart should have been at peace; but somehow the words he'd heard in the wine-house kept winding round his ears and his heart.

Second place really wasn't bad — but it was still losing to first. What was already done he'd not dwell on for now; what he was about to face was the true challenge.

He felt it too crass to ask the Buddha and the bodhisattvas to bless him with passing high — these two great powers had more important things to do — so instead he prayed that his parents, in the paradise beyond, might go on loving and of one mind, with no more hardship or suffering; and then, in passing — just in passing — that the Buddha might relay word to his parents, for them to bless him, and that would be enough.

...

Five days after the departmental results were posted, an edict set the auspicious date: the Department of State Affairs was to record the register of successful candidates before the throne, and the candidates were summoned into the palace, to be examined by the Son of Heaven himself in the Jiying Hall.

Long, long afterward, Zhuo Siheng could still remember the morning of the day he went to the palace exam: frost and dew filling the streets, the willow buds a fresh new yellow, and he going with a challenger's resolve and craving to win that he'd never felt before, to touch the last great gate of his brand-new life.

The feeling of opening a new life with his own hands was so very good.