Chapter 42

Half a month later, the willows still green and the river-blossoms not yet red, the surveillance commissioners returned in force and submitted their findings and inspection results in memorials. The emperor put on the very air of one who meant no partiality at all, summoning all the officials who'd been in the Chongzheng Hall the day Gao Yongqing made his charges to hear the results together.

All but Zhuo Siheng.

He'd received the decree to keep clear of this matter, but his heart was like a just-oiled squirrel mandarin fish, sizzling and squealing; kept in the Hanlin Academy, he pretended to copy in earnest, while his heart had long since flown to the Chongzheng Hall.

Seeing that, deeply entangled in this as he was, he stayed composed, others couldn't help admiring him; only Zhuo Siheng himself knew what it was to be on pins and needles and still feign it's-no-concern-of-mine.

Compared with him, the surveillance commissioners' task this time was harder. But since ancient times the Censorate had held the "hardest" offices, because justice in this world is exceedingly hard to make plain — the wider a thing reaches, the more it's hemmed in; impeaching the lawless and cleansing within and without is easy to say, hard to do. Rather than force everyone to be an official of the pure stream, only to end in disappointment, better first to right oneself and be a gentleman, not to sink into the mire with those who scheme for gain, and then to weigh how men's social nature might shape one's strategic choices, and turn it to the ends one means to reach.

This was the methodology of court officialdom Zhuo Siheng was working out for himself.

However little the surveillance censors dared offend either side, the one they least dared offend was the emperor. If they made the trip in person and came back with the same lukewarm middle-of-the-road line, the emperor would surely be displeased, and might vent his anger on them, punishing them for fence-sitting. But the Tangs were truly not to be offended either — Tang Qifei's maternal uncle was none other than Shi Yu, Remonstrance Secretary of the Six Bureaus, and the Surveillance Bureau and the Six Bureaus both belonged to the Censorate, meeting each other coming and going, very hard to keep clear of. Yet Gao Yongqing's fighting power and death-defying spirit were plain for all to see too.

If among this batch of surveillance censors there were sincere, capable officials wholeheartedly for the people, they'd simply tell the truth — report what they saw, without exaggeration, without touching either side's stance, reporting fairly only on the situation of the Junzhou people.

That was the best case.

The bad case was that the Tangs feared no investigation at all, because the locality had been squared away and the surveillance censors all owed favors; everyone gives and takes with a tacit understanding, and a single memorial replying with the four words "no such thing whatever" would do.

But neither of these two was very likely; the likeliest content of the memorials was to dodge the weighty and dwell on the light, disturbing neither side.

As for the locality — there truly were some problems: fields gone to waste, population displaced, dikes much damaged, refugees to be seen; these matched Inspector Gao's memorial, and the causes too were as Prefect Tang said. Neighboring prefectures had frequent disasters, and Junzhou spared no effort to relieve them, wearing itself to exhaustion, so that now many of its people were scattered to other places and could not soon recover. The first three charges could all be written up at length; but the truth of clan-cabal among the great houses — hard to state in a sentence in a field investigation — was the easiest to skirt and erase. Even if Tang Lingxi were punished, it wouldn't be severe; and even if Gao Yongqing succeeded, there'd still be the suspicion of exaggeration and false accusation.

Amid these thoughts, the Hanlin men returned. Grand Academician Bai, his head all hot sweat, called for tea the moment he entered; Academician Zeng close behind, brows locked deep, as if woken short of sleep by a din. The attendants who'd gone along were either pale-faced or wearing alarm — even the ever-boldest, most outspoken Peng Shihu had a wandering, unfocused look.

Bad — something had happened.

Zhuo Siheng dared not ask much, and stood to bow to the two officials; Grand Academician Bai waved a weary hand: "All of you go about your work; His Honor Zeng and I have something to discuss."

No sooner had he spoken than the door was pushed open again, and in came Shen Minyao, the Grand Councillor. He looked composed enough, but when he waved for the bowing officials not to stand on ceremony, the gesture flicked too fast, betraying the anxiety within.

The three court grandees ducked into the Hanlin inner hall and shut the door, no telling what they said; everyone else took their seats in silence, unwilling to say a word.

Zhuo Siheng grew the more anxious — could something have gone wrong with the memorials? By his analysis, whichever case it was, with the emperor's depth he wouldn't necessarily act rashly; yet everyone wore the look of a court cataclysm — could his forecast be off?

Time tormented Zhuo Siheng drop by drop; anxious as he was to know the truth, he could only sit dry and wait.

When the three officials came out again the lamps were lit; though the hour to leave for home had long passed, not one dared go. Before Shen Minyao went out his gaze swept, seemingly-not, across Zhuo Siheng, but his step was swift, as if he had other pressing business, and he didn't hesitate or linger. Grand Academician Bai, a little stout, had begun sweating without cease before spring was even out; unlike the cool-warm Zeng, he was always very kindly to his subordinates, and seeing the hour late told everyone gently to go home first and not be late tomorrow.

Then he turned to Zhuo Siheng: "His Majesty says your compilation is very well done; he wants you to add and cut some content and send it to the Printing Bureau to be block-printed. The particulars are for tomorrow — come into the palace and we'll discuss it; today's too late."

Zhuo Siheng had no mind to spare for those wretched Records he'd copied, but could only bow and assent.

Just then His Honor Zeng drew from his sleeve the compiled copy Zhuo Siheng had earlier handed the emperor — the Records of the past reigns' rulers and matters and cases relating to the Censorate — and shook it open: on it, plain to see, were vermilion-rescript marks and strokes, and ink-brush additions and deletions.

"His Majesty has already given his rescript, ordering me to add and cut with you; stay behind now — this is a task the emperor himself appointed, not to be treated lightly."

Zhuo Siheng knew a book-compiling matter needed no such detail; His Honor Zeng must have understood the bitter longing in his heart and deliberately made a way for him.

Before long the rest of the Hanlin men had dispersed, leaving only Zhuo Siheng and Zeng Xuandu; they didn't go to the inner hall but stayed in the outer room. His Honor Zeng told Zhuo Siheng to sit, but Zhuo Siheng wouldn't, and bowed to the side: "Thank you, sir."

"Helping you is helping myself; you needn't thank me." His Honor Zeng's voice too was exhausted. "Ask whatever you wish to know."

"What in the world happened today?"

Zeng Xuandu, neither making a mystery of it nor drowsing now, told Zhuo Siheng in one breath what had happened at court that day.

The Surveillance Bureau's special detachment had returned and given their answer: the first three of Gao Yongqing's charges against Tang Lingxi were true; the last two the locality could hardly verify.

Hearing this, Zhuo Siheng couldn't help wondering — wasn't this exactly the likeliest scenario he'd foreseen? If so, the emperor ought to have breathed easier, both sides given a way down; how had it left his colleagues looking like walking mental-workplace-injuries?

Seeing his puzzlement, Zeng shot to his feet, pointed at the door yet lowered his voice: "That fine old friend, that worthy brother of yours! He was truly afraid the thing wouldn't blow up big enough!"

Zhuo Siheng had never seen His Honor Zeng angry.

"When he was in the Hanlin Academy back then I never saw he was such a death-defying, formidable character. Very good! Gao Yongqing declared to the emperor that he'd long foreseen the officials would shield one another to this degree, all the more showing the Wanyang Tangs covering the sky with one hand, and that as a censor he could by no means let it rest — he actually... he actually drew a new memorial from his sleeve. Do you know what he meant to impeach this time?" His Honor Zeng, furious past fury, laughed, his trembling hand flung high: "He'd written the memorial in advance, impeaching every official on this Junzhou surveillance mission acting as the emperor's inspectors — and the officials who'd deliberated the recommended candidates with the emperor."

Zhuo Siheng felt his brains cook through in an instant.

There were five who'd settled the traveling officials with the emperor: Grand Councillor Shen Minyao; Grand Academician Bai Cong of the Hongwen Academy; Vice-Minister of Personnel Yu Kan; Censor-in-Chief Wang Huixiao... and the very Hanlin academician before his eyes, Zeng Xuandu.

Gao Yongqing... did he know what he was doing?

That he'd impeach the surveillance censors, Zhuo Siheng didn't wonder — this result wasn't what Gao Yongqing wanted, and he'd surely have a next move. But to impeach several of the court's pillars was preposterous! What great face had the Wanyang Tangs, to drag these several men into shilling for them? Take no one else — Grand Councillor Shen alone, how exalted his standing now: among scholars or the pure stream, in office or among the people, he had wide repute, and being frugal by nature, never lavish — his residence with few servants and no storehouse — the emperor commending and esteeming him year after year; so wise a man would never sink himself into the mire of collusion with the great houses!

Take His Honor Zeng again: over this year and more of Zhuo Siheng's quiet observation, only Zeng, silent most of the time though he was, had his own political ideals and ambitions, by no means a mediocrity muddling along in office. Last ninth month, when the tea-and-salt tax sprang a leak and everyone wanted to make the big small, it was Zeng alone who overruled the crowd and memorialized again and again, saying only that the tea-and-salt revenues were vital to the state's coffers, and that the salt-folk's toil must not be added to; after several deliberations the local officials who'd squeezed the salt-folk were at last punished.

Many things in officialdom are indeed surface show; but when personal stakes are involved, whether one will risk oneself becomes the key test.

Grand Councillor Shen and His Honor Zeng were conclusions Zhuo Siheng had drawn from observation: men who fish for fame cannot bring themselves to sacrifice their own smooth career for politics and the people.

Gao Yongqing had been an attendant in the Hanlin Academy too — could he not know?

Zhuo Siheng didn't believe it.

Unless there was a deeper aim behind it.

Zhuo Siheng wanted to defend him, but knew how feeble words were now; and to apologize for him — what standing had he, a man shut out at Gao Yongqing's own door, to speak for another?

Truly, caught in the middle, in the hardest of spots.

His Honor Zeng had perhaps never been jabbed in the nose and cursed as "sullying the administration," "fit for nothing," and was truly enraged; he sat and worked his breath a good while, and seeing Zhuo Siheng keep his head down and say nothing, felt too that venting his anger on him was quite unwarranted, and after a silence said: "The imperial countenance was thunderstruck; Gao Yongqing has been thrown into the Court of Judicial Review's prison. The emperor wants him to think clearly about what he's doing — whether, for a private grudge, he's disregarding the realm, carrying rancor to bite and falsely accuse."

The Ministry of Justice's great prison held civil and ordinary criminal offenders; the Court of the Imperial Clan's prison held erring imperial kin; but the Court of Judicial Review's prison held specifically serving officials and the criminals of grave, great cases...

Gao Yongqing was in poor health — shut into the Court of Judicial Review, what life would be left in him? Zhuo Siheng's heart seethed as if boiling; the more so at such a time, the harder he forced himself calm, culling the key facts from His Honor Zeng's words.

"A private grudge?"

Seeing him seize the crux even in such anxious agitation, His Honor Zeng thought his own eye for men was good after all, and the knot at his brow and heart eased a little; he slowed his voice: "Yesterday Tang Lingxi's eldest son Tang Qifei had already memorialized a confession of guilt, saying that in his Jiangxiang Academy days he'd been wild, ignorant and unruly, and had much bullied his contemporary Gao Yongqing, so that the two families formed a feud — and now it puts the emperor in a hard place. He asked leave to go apologize to Gao Yongqing himself, and to have the emperor punish his father's lax discipline and his own past personal fault."

How vicious the Tangs!

To pin the reason for the memorial and the root of this whole storm on a boyhood grudge... with this one memorial submitted, even his worthy brother Yongqing could not clear himself with a hundred mouths, no way to say whether he was avenging a private grudge; and with today's upheaval besides, the emperor would surely be alarmed, suspicious, and full of wrath.

"Though this way... I'd have half-believed the Tangs hadn't interfered with this inspection, but this memorial came in exactly the day before the surveillance censors returned; surely there's a fine relative of theirs among the censors too, to act as an informer." Only after lowering his head, closing his eyes, and opening them again could Zhuo Siheng speak calmly.

"If your worthy brother Gao had this much insight, he ought to know how to reply to the emperor and quell the imperial wrath." Zeng Xuandu nodded too. "Only — even if this fish is landed, what then? Stir up the muddy water and filth floods the court; even if Gao Yongqing scrapes through this pass, once the net breaks and the fish dies, the road ahead will be hard to walk."

Gao Yongqing had served under Zeng Xuandu as attendant for less than a year; Zeng had once admired him, but his cold, aloof reserve and distant indifference had made Zeng know well how hard this youth would be to make a pillar of the state.

But wouldn't it be fine to be an able official whose name lives a hundred generations? Why insist on courting death?

He couldn't fathom it.

Zeng Xuandu sighed.

Zhuo Siheng had stayed silent since Zeng finished, as if struck dumb, motionless; Zeng, with a little of the pity the talented feel for the talented, comforted him: "You're but a small attendant now; this is by no means yours to turn around. Go home early — your sister's still ill."

Zhuo Siheng nodded numbly, took two steps, then stopped, slowly turned, his eyes recovered — no telling when — of their light; only, to Zeng Xuandu, that brightness was truly strange, as if excited and astonished at once, even with something of fear in it.

"His Honor Zeng... have you ever fished?" Zhuo Siheng's voice was very soft.

Zeng Xuandu was taken aback too, thinking: this boy hasn't gone simple, has he? He'd finally settled on a junior worth real use — don't let him collapse over this.

Then he'd truly come to hate Gao Yongqing.

Zhuo Siheng ignored Zeng's are-you-all-right look, and went on as if in a daze, to himself: "In Shuozhou there's a fish called the taimen — its flesh tender and crystalline, fresh, fragrant, soft and sweet on the tongue; only, this fish lives where the water-plants gather thick and deep, and its nature is fierce and cunning. To angle it, two must work together."

Zeng Xuandu's heart went cold and alert — so a moment ago Zhuo Siheng hadn't been a soul knocked out of its body by shock, but pondering the truth behind the surface.

"Work together how?" He felt he half-grasped this unfathomable junior's meaning, yet couldn't wholly see through it.

"One coats the hook-bait with lard and trails it in the deep of a river-bend; the taimen eats meat, and smelling this rich scent will follow the bait to shallower flats."

"Why not angle it directly in deep water with this bait, or lure it to the shallows and net it?"

Zhuo Siheng slowly shook his head: "The taimen swims fast as thunder, and is wary by nature — it can't be netted. It ranges the deep water; a grown fish is six chi long, taller than a man, so its strength is enormous. Angle it directly with bait from a boat in mid-river, and it'll surely drag you into the water to drown."

Zeng Xuandu listened in thought, and motioned him to go on.

"...One can only lure it to shallow water first, and another person on the bank hangs fresh fish-meat on the hook and angles it on a long line; the moment it bites, tie one end of the line to a tree at once, and while the taimen hasn't yet broken free, the two cover it with a net-scoop and together drag and haul it to the bank — only then is it a success."

Having finished, he looked quietly at Zeng Xuandu, and Zeng Xuandu looked quietly at him.

An unprecedented tacit understanding was confirmed, over and over, in their hearts and eyes: the real big fish, perhaps, was about to take the hook.