Chapter 55

The Xiaoqin Garden was a villa the Jiang family had been granted in Taizong's Yeping years, built on an offshoot of Cuitai Ridge in the capital's outskirts, ringed and embraced by clear green, drawing the living water of the Nan Creek into the garden to shape its scenes, its contrived natural picture like a self-made patch of pure sky and clear cloud.

The Jiang clan of Hanzhang was a renowned house of poetry-and-rites heritage; the Liangbi Academy their ancestors founded was famed in Bingzhou and reached far in all directions, running abreast of Qingzhou's Jiangxiang Academy — the "twin champions of the sea of learning," as the scholars said, "Liangbi in the north, Jiangxiang in the south," praising the two academies as bright pearls of the scholarly world, shining upon each other.

Zhuo Siheng, following the Jiang servant across a gallery-bridge to the inner garden, saw over the pure white-walled garden gate four characters in Taizong's own hand — de yin kong zhao, "virtuous fame shines bright" — and understood at once that this garden, named "qin" and titled with these four words, must draw on the allusion of the "Lu Ming" from the Lesser Odes of the Book of Songs.

The garden-residences of scholarly houses loved to use allusions from the Four Books and Five Classics for their names, mostly grave and solemn; but this garden's name and layout were both light and nimble, hinting at the gentleman's virtue of hospitality, yet without losing a graceful, refined beauty.

Truly out of the common run.

Entering the inner garden it opened wide, no more galleries or long bridges, all set off with wood and stone; amid the half-screening, half-shielding, a thread of fine stream wound out, half-circling a carved-beam, flying-eaved stilted cool-pavilion.

This cool-pavilion was a dozen times larger than his own family's, yet mostly hidden by flowers and trees, only the eaves and the purple-bronze eave-bells dimly to be seen.

Only up close, treading the stone path among the stream, did Zhuo Siheng see that behind the purple-bamboo blinds and light gauze curtains hung around the cool-pavilion someone already seemed to be there.

The servant saw him no farther in, and after bowing took his leave.

Zhuo Siheng slightly straightened his cap and robe; the cool-pavilion had no door, so he lightly knocked three times on the front pillar before slowly entering.

The woman within suddenly stood; watching him come in, as if beyond her control she gave an "ah," but seeing no one following behind him, for a moment she swayed like an autumn leaf about to fall.

The address Zhuo Siheng had pondered so long, in the end, on seeing Madam Jiang, he changed back to the old one:

"Third Aunt, your nephew comes late to call and pay his respects, and has left you to worry — it is truly undutiful of me."

Madam Jiang hadn't thought he'd use the old address; grief and joy warred in her heart, past all mastering, and she covered her face with a handkerchief and stood weeping.

Zhuo Siheng bowed low and long, a hundred feelings mingling in his own heart; he didn't know now whether to breathe easier or to go on burning with worry.

That day, Tong Duo had said the Director of Studies of the Imperial Academy, Jiang Wenrui, had come to him: knowing his own son was a same-roll friend of the Hanlin Attendant Zhuo, he hoped Tong might mediate to let his younger sister meet with the Zhuo family.

Hearing "the Jiang family," Zhuo Siheng had roughly guessed who it was; and at Tong Duo's word he understood this Lord Jiang was the maternal-clan brother of his former third aunt.

Tong Duo had looked troubled: "This is your family's own affair; unworthily as I stand your elder, I oughtn't to meddle; if you feel it improper, I'll decline it for you."

Zhuo Siheng knew the awkward spot Uncle Tong was in, passing along another's private old business; he thanked him for telling it truthfully, still with his family's interest at heart. The grieving prayer before the Buddha he'd heard that day at the Great Xiangguo Temple had lingered long, and he didn't mean to refuse this invitation.

"I'm willing to meet her; only... whether my third sister and fourth brother are willing I must go home and ask — I shouldn't decide such a thing for them." Zhuo Siheng himself much wanted to see the aunt who'd cared for him so, but his sister and brother might not.

Seeing how much he considered and looked after his siblings, Tong Duo's tone gained a touch of feeling: "I know this is hard for you too, but Lord Jiang begged without cease, and in the moment it was truly hard to refuse outright... I thought, after all, I should ask your view; you are now the head of the Zhuo house, and some decisions ought to be yours. Your meaning I'll tell Lord Jiang; make some preparations too. His sister has remarried, and has a five-year-old daughter at her knee — these things you and your family had best know..."

In a few days, Jiang Wenrui, hearing the Zhuo family was willing to send someone to meet his sister Jiang Wenyao, hurried to make ready the inner garden of the Xiaoqin Garden for a private talk, and arranged the carriages to and fro; Zhuo Siheng felt that, as an elder brother, this was about as considerate as one could be. Yet he hadn't brought the two the aunt truly wished to see — her own son and daughter.

Back home, Zhuo Siheng told the three siblings the whole of it plainly, saying only that he'd force no one; say what they truly thought, and he'd handle the aftermath.

Zhuo Yan and Song Liangyu had never hidden or veiled the truth of the four siblings' different parentage; the four had been raised at the Zhuo-Song couple's knee from childhood, never with the least rift over blood or no. So Ciheng and Xiheng both knew who their birth parents were, and hearing now that their birth mother wished to see them, showed themselves utterly calm.

"I won't go." Ciheng always spoke fast; her refusal showed not a trace of difficulty or awkwardness: "I can't clearly remember her face; there's no need to meet or not; even seeing her I wouldn't know what to say, and if we're cold and distant it'd only be the more awkward and rankling for everyone. Better not to meet — it's simpler so. Elder Brother, tell her to take good care of herself, and not to fret over me and my brother."

"Third Sister doesn't remember; I've even less impression — no need to meet." Xiheng said in his peculiar cool tone.

Zhuo Siheng had long foreseen Ciheng and Xiheng wouldn't agree; he knew his own siblings' tempers. Still, a matter this important had to be put to them in the end, out of respect for their wishes.

So he neither pressed them to stay nor said much to persuade, only had them go about their own business, and charged them that, having made up their minds, they needn't overthink it.

But Huiheng, after the two left, stayed behind of her own accord.

"Elder Brother... if you don't want to go alone, I can go with you." Huiheng, ever considerate, never wanted Zhuo Siheng to be in a hard spot.

But Zhuo Siheng shook his head, not taking up her words, and asked something else: "A-Hui, do you still remember Third Aunt?"

"I do." Huiheng's tone was low and soft yet her manner crisp: "I still remember, when Third Aunt was carrying Fourth Brother, she was always afraid the two of us didn't get enough to eat, and every time would share a little of her food with us. In those days I'd take a fever nearly every few days, and, afraid Mother would lose sleep tending me daily, she offered to take me to sleep at her place, so Mother could rest. At night when I coughed and couldn't sleep, she'd sing to me; if I wanted water, she'd first put the icy well-water in a clay jar and warm it in her own arms before feeding it to me."

Zhuo Siheng listened in silence; before his eyes seemed to rise Shuozhou's whirling wild snow: "Third Aunt was six months gone then, Third Uncle not yet fallen to disaster; in her free time she'd trace with her finger in the snow and teach me many characters."

"Elder Brother surely still remembers — Third Uncle and Third Aunt were always smiling; even in those bitter labor-camp days, they never once complained..." Huiheng's tone lifted lightly, then in the end came down in one long sigh.

So it had been before Third Uncle died; but from then on, the impermanence of the world tore a lone, forlorn woman's drifting life to shreds.

"I'd like to see her too — to see whether she's well, and to let her see that my health is much better now, that I can even help the family with things..." Huiheng turned aside and quietly wiped the damp from the corner of her eye.

Zhuo Siheng rose to comfort her: "All right; but let me go see Third Aunt and her brother Lord Jiang first — else if the two of us go, and neither of us her own flesh and blood, I fear it would grieve Third Aunt for the moment. After I've seen her, I'll arrange for you to meet her alone; you can talk freely in the inner rooms, your own private words."

So this time only Zhuo Siheng came.

Jiang Wenyao ought to be not yet forty this year, yet the lady now standing and weeping seemed a withered person, her old smiling bloom all fallen away; but the fine, glancing long eyes still showed the source of Xiheng's handsome looks.

Ciheng's looks were the more like Third Uncle's, spirited and bright; Xiheng had inherited eight or nine parts of his exquisite grace from Madam Jiang.

"I heard you took the zhuangyuan and serve in the Hanlin Academy; now, seeing you, you are indeed grown a fine figure of a man... Elder Brother and Sister-in-law, knowing it in the springs below, could surely smile content..." Jiang Wenyao slowly stilled her weeping, and showed a comforted yet grief-bitter smile: "From the day I learned the Zhuo family had returned to the capital I wished to beg a meeting like today's... yet back then I left of my own will, never shared the hardship; what face have I now to claim old kin?... But... the longing and worry in my heart broke me day by day, and after several illnesses my brother couldn't bear to see me so sunk, and cast off his own face to beg a meeting for me... That you'd be willing to come see me is already the height of generous mercy; this one word, 'Aunt'... I... am truly unworthy to receive it..."

"Aunt need not so wound yourself." Zhuo Siheng steadied the ever-toppling Jiang Wenyao into her seat, then sat below her: "I only hope you'll take good care of yourself."

Jiang Wenyao forced up her spirits, and said in a low, choked voice: "Is the eldest young master well in all things now? Is A-Hui a little better? Does she still cough and lie sleepless at night? Has she a good match? And... and my two... are they both well?"

"I've nothing wrong with me, all is well, and the family too. Since A-Hui came back to the capital her health's given no more trouble, only she must take more care in spring and autumn; hearing Aunt had come seeking us, she much wishes to see you — I'll arrange for the two of you to meet privately later; she has many a girl's words to tell you in private." Zhuo Siheng knew there was no avoiding the topic to come; he breathed in lightly, hoping both tone and wording might be as gentle as could be: "For this meeting I asked A-Ci and my brother Xi; they said to tell you to take good care of yourself. But you see I've come alone, Aunt... this is a thing that can't be forced; even as their elder brother I couldn't well wrench their wishes and haul them here to order — it would only wound the bond between you the more."

Jiang Wenyao listened dazed, and it seemed a long while, her tears wept dry, before very slowly she nodded: "It's my fault; don't blame them. I know myself unfit to be a mother, and never dared hope to be reclaimed as kin... now, hearing from your own mouth that they live in peace, one worry of mine is laid to rest too..."

"Aunt cared much for me and A-Hui in those years; if you've any charge for us, she and I still count you family." Zhuo Siheng would not and could not force his siblings, but he himself couldn't forget all that had been.

Jiang Wenyao was about to speak, when suddenly a childish, joyful voice came lilting into the cool-pavilion, and a small down-yellow ball rushed in behind the curtain and flung itself into her arms.

"Mother, who are you talking to?"

"Lingsheng, mind your manners... how did you come running here by yourself..."

"I didn't come by myself, Uncle brought me!" The little girl pointed behind her; and now, up the stone-and-wood steps, a figure slowly came, parting the curtain to enter.

Zhuo Siheng rose and bowed to Jiang Wenrui: "My respects, Lord Jiang."

Jiang Wenrui's office was higher than Zhuo Siheng's, his years and generation senior, yet he returned the courtesy too, and said softly: "You've had the trouble, Attendant Zhuo..." His words held much guilt; Zhuo Siheng offered him a seat, but he wouldn't take it, only watching his niece cling to her mother, his eyes half grief, half joy, and most complex.

Jiang Wenyao pushed her clinging daughter forward a little, and said: "This is my daughter Lingsheng; a child knows no manners — don't take it amiss, young master."

Zhuo Siheng had heard from Tong Duo before coming that Jiang Wenyao had remarried into a family surnamed Mei and had a daughter, nine years younger than Xiheng — surely this dear girl before him. In truth, by her very brows and eyes one could tell: had Xiheng at five worn down-yellow with two round buns of hair, he'd have been this girl's twin — even he and his brother, together day and night, couldn't have told them apart.

Hearing her mother introduce her, Mei Lingsheng hastily made Zhuo Siheng a clumsy little bow, echoing her mother: "Greetings, young master; Lingsheng pays her respects."

Zhuo Siheng had two fatal weaknesses in this life: one his cursed curiosity, the other dear, innocent little children; seeing Mei Lingsheng, so like Xiheng, so biddable and endearing, his heart went soft by more than half, and he said: "Just call me big brother."

At this Jiang Wenyao's eyes reddened again; seeing it, Lord Jiang had her take the child off to play first, saying he had words for Attendant Zhuo.

Once mother and daughter were far off, Jiang Wenrui tipped his head back and sighed, the tail of it long as an autumn wind blowing through the hall.

"Your junior thanks the lord for arranging this meeting." Zhuo Siheng decided to break the silence first.

Jiang Wenrui smiled bitterly: "I've put your family in a hard place, and ought to beg pardon; only, you've now seen the state my little sister is in, Attendant Zhuo... we are both elder brothers; with one's own sister brought to such a pass, how could one bear it?"

His voice trembled faintly, and suddenly he made a long, low bow: "Thank you for fulfilling an elder brother's heart."

Zhuo Siheng hurried to reach out and steady him, saying urgently: "There's no need, my lord!"

Raised up, Jiang Wenrui already had tear-tracks on his face, his voice desolate: "How could I not know your hard spot? But A-Yao is my sister after all... When the Zhuo family fell from power, my parents wished her to slip free; but she and her husband were deep in love, and had a daughter besides, and I couldn't bear it, and could only, weeping, watch my sister go to the bitter cold of the far north... Later Mother passed of grief and longing, unable even to see A-Yao once before she died; and Father then fell gravely ill... my heart was scorched to the utmost... Learning my brother-in-law had died in Shuozhou, I sent, unknown to the family, a dozen-odd letters in a row, forcing her back with our parents and filial duty... yet since her return A-Yao never passed a single happy day; before our father died he found the Mei family for her — it wasn't that our house was heartless and forced a daughter to remarry, but that I too have been sickly since childhood, and had no heir then at my knee, and Father, doting on his youngest, feared that after his death A-Yao would be left forlorn with none to rely on, and so found her a family she could lean on and live... Attendant Zhuo, by no means blame your third aunt for remarrying; it was what our father, before dying, begged and begged of her, that she agreed only under duress..."

Zhuo Siheng didn't know how to explain to him that, though he was now the Zhuo house's head, he truly didn't mind whether Third Aunt had remarried, nor thought it any breach of faith; he only comforted: "The lord said just now that I too am an elder brother; the hard place in it I understand. Were it my own sister, I too could not bear to see it."

Jiang Wenrui sighed long and grievously: "In the end it's I who've wronged your family; if those two children hold a grudge in their hearts, let it fall on me... A-Yao is only a woman of bitter fate; her whole life's course was never in her own hands — she oughtn't suffer such torment..."

"Ciheng and Xiheng hold no grudge." Zhuo Siheng didn't want anyone thinking his siblings resentful, and said only calmly: "My parents raised them as their own, and they too took the two elders as their birth parents. So let the past be past; there's no question of grudge or no. Lord Jiang should counsel Third Aunt too, to hold on to this no longer."

The matter had been past all mending from the moment the Zhuo family was exiled and condemned, and he was fated never to force his siblings into a reunion; once calmed, for both sides to stop worrying at old business was the greatest release for everyone.

What's more, Zhuo Siheng truly wished the aunt might be sound in health.

Back from the Xiaoqin Garden, Zhuo Siheng was low in spirits all the while.

A matter in which, seemingly, no one was at fault had yet dealt nearly everyone an irreversible wound. He no longer dwelt on how the past had come to happen; his whole mind was on how, hereafter, to keep such a tragedy from recurring.

If the moment truly came when he had to fight to the death for belief and values, would he, like his grandfather, not hesitate at all?

At this time Zhuo Siheng didn't know whether he had a cleverer, more reliable answer.

He called Huiheng, and gave her a gate-pass to the Xiaoqin Garden in Lord Jiang's own hand; with it she could call at any time, needing no prior notice.

Huiheng didn't ask how the visit had gone, only told him some household trifles; and just before leaving to sleep, she at last, hesitating, ventured to probe: "Elder Brother, did you... ever speak any word of grievance against Third Aunt for leaving Third Sister and Fourth Brother behind?"