Chapter 60

"The talk is done; there's still the courtesy of seeing you off if you go now. But if you mean to go on talking nonsense, then swim back to your own boats, the lot of you."

The cabin-hall's chill air was truly uncomfortable; even Jin Jia could think of no soft, pretty words to smooth it over. Zhuo Siheng, for once, found Yu Yong well-spoken, and his aversion to the man's overweening arrogance faded a few parts.

At first the three had also thought the other side come to give thanks; Jin Jia had even sent word that there was no need to stand on ceremony — meeting on the river, one dares not cheat the water, and how could a gentleman see others in peril and not care. Handsomely said indeed; yet soon another messenger came, saying the Qingzhou merchant family were not there to thank, but seemed to have a most serious matter to speak of in person.

So the family were let in to talk; at their head was the white-haired old man who'd given thanks on the boat, but his face now was not so kindly and benign, and he said with bitter grief: "This old one is a merchant of Qingzhou, surnamed Shao; years of toil have built up my family's little property. On this homeward trip, thanks to you gentlemen who saved my household old and young, I owe you gratitude; yet, at the risk of death, only because an important thing has been lost, and the matter touches my womenfolk, I must come specially to ask. This trip is an offense, to be sure, but were it not the last resort, an old man of my years would not so cast off his own face and grow so shameless."

Zhuo Siheng and Jin Jia, being of examination background with a three-year term of civil office behind them, though most patient, were a little wearied by his round-and-round roundabout talk; still more Yu Yong, gone to the frontier army at fourteen — his long brows already slanted like a blade's edge, looking at the old man with his peculiar down-from-on-high gaze, his voice colder than his eyes: "You've come all this way; say what you want to say."

The old man surnamed Shao, perhaps not expecting the man to be so harsh as to spare him not one courteous, yielding word, went red then white in the face before recovering his composure, and, squeezing out a woeful look, said: "Among those who fell in the water today was my young daughter; she was saved, but the jade pendant she wore close against her neck has somehow gone missing. That pendant was left her by my late wife, and means much; if any of you who saved my daughter chanced to pick it up, its return would be richly repaid."

Zhuo Siheng glanced at Jin Jia; the man's face had all but gone white.

In truth saving people and losing a thing were no great matter; lives were what counted then, and to snap a cord or pendant by accident in the pulling was surely no intent. But the crux was: it was a young lady's close-worn jade pendant, and if the three men said they'd seen it, that would be a big problem. The old Shao's move was truly suspect; if he'd really traded for years he'd surely know the ways of the world — and if he truly doted on his daughter as he said, would he so abruptly come asking three grown men where his precious daughter's close-worn pendant had gone? There was only one explanation: the old man had learned the identity of this boat's owner and of those who'd rescued them, and meant, by such means, to attach himself; pendant or no pendant didn't matter — so long as one of the three admitted saving this Miss Shao, a cap of "honor and reputation" would surely drop from the sky, forcing them to marry his precious daughter.

This new form of extortion-scam-cum-forced-marriage-social-climbing truly opened Zhuo Siheng's eyes.

Zhuo Siheng's mind was ever a step ahead of others; in an instant he had his answer, and said to old Shao with a smile: "Old sir, this is a shallow flat, and the boats have none of them moved off yet; a pendant fallen in the water can surely still be found — while the light holds, best to look for it quickly."

Jin Jia at once caught the spirit of his old same-year's words, and said with a genial smile too: "If you're short of hands, our boat has some boatmen who swim very well, and they can help from the side."

Only Yu Yong said not a word, listening coldly, watching the old man and the seven or eight richly-dressed clansmen behind him.

"That pendant did not fall into the water..." The old man, planting his cane, said with bitter grief: "After my daughter came ashore she wept to me: it was the one who saved her who, in the pulling, snapped off her pendant — only, terrified then, she dared not speak. It's by no means so simple as the pendant falling in the water..."

Zhuo Siheng was about to turn the topic aside again, but Yu Yong suddenly said, in a frost-cold voice: "You mean to say one of us tore open your daughter's clothes and pulled off her pendant — is that it?"

Though that was the man's meaning, there was no need to say it so bluntly... Zhuo Siheng sighed within.

Beside him, Jin Jia was struck dumb.

"You wild boor! How can you speak so lightly! Is my sister's good name nothing to you?" A man of about thirty stepped out from behind the old man, brows raised in fury.

"Good name? What has her good name to do with us?" Yu Yong gave a cold laugh: "Is your sister's chastity somehow unlike other women's, lost the moment a man fishes her out of the water?"

True as far as it went, but you can't say it like that... Zhuo Siheng's skull throbbed; glancing sidelong, Jin Jia's face was white as if he'd faint on the spot.

The Shao clan were all enraged, a word from each, every word full of fury, as if to tear Yu Yong apart; but Yu Yong stood unmoved, and said sternly, with his no-speck-of-dust-worthy arrogance: "The talk is done; there's still the courtesy of seeing you off if you go now. But if you mean to go on talking nonsense, then swim back to your own boats, the lot of you."

His voice wasn't loud, but it rang firm; for a moment the Shao clan were cowed by the chill in the words, and the cabin-hall fell silent.

But Zhuo Siheng felt this family, having set their minds to it, wouldn't let it drop; how to handle what came next? He couldn't really let Yu Yong go on venting like this — if the Shao had some court connection and afterward impeached the three of them, to be wronged over such a thing would be too unjust.

Thinking so, a bright rose-pink flashed at the edge of his sight; Zhuo Siheng took it for the second Miss Yu come out, but looking closely saw it was his own precious sister.

Zhuo Siheng had never seen his sister in so bright a pink; to wear a soft, tender color into a pretty, striking, spirited youthful brilliance — in all the world only this sister of his could do it.

He shook his head slightly at Ciheng, meaning her to go back first; but Ciheng showed no sign of going, not so much as glancing at her brother, only standing quietly behind them all, listening.

"Relying on your official standing to bully the people — may a good girl of a common house be freely dishonored?" the self-styled elder brother of Miss Shao said angrily.

"Whether your sister is a good girl is not yet known; but for your family to call yourselves good commoners is rather a laughingstock — where do good commoners, to attach themselves to the powerful, put a daughter's good name on their lips to bandy about?" Yu Yong's look was severe, his whole person like a drawn crossbow poised to loose, his harsh tone like an arrow: "Listen: I don't know how you learned this boat's origins, but since you've conceived this notion, you'd best think whether you've the ability to finish saying your say and still get off the boat whole."

Hearing threat already in his cousin's words, Jin Jia, heedless of the sweat on his nose-tip, made himself look composed: "We three truly never saw nor rescued your daughter; there's no talk of a pendant, and no cause to speak of good names. Let the gentlemen know when to advance and when to withdraw; we sail the same river, and after this likely never meet again — a meeting is a fate; why must you knit everyone's brows?"

By now Zhuo Siheng too had weighed his words, and, all spring-breeze smiles as if the company were in warm accord, said gently: "That you gentlemen are anxious over your womenfolk is understandable. But this was truly an accident; seeing people fall in the water, from seven or eight boats around people jumped to help, and even we rescuers don't know whom we saved — yet you come to this boat so positively to demand an accounting; in reason it seems wanting, and in feeling too it wants more weighing."

Handsome and courteous on the surface, but underneath basically jabbing a finger and cursing the Shao for their bad intent — knowing the boat-owner's rank, and so shamelessly using a daughter to run an extortion-scam. Even Yu Yong turned his head to glance at Zhuo Siheng, sizing him up as if in thought.

The young Shao clansmen could rage and bluster at Yu Yong, but facing two slippery soft blades they could hardly get a grip even with all five fingers spread; so the old Shao had to come out himself, edging a little forward, neither angry nor hateful, only reddening his eyes and sighing heavily: "If you won't own it, how would we plain folk dare contend with the vermilion gates and imperial kin of the capital? I'll swallow this loss... but that pendant means the world to my daughter and me; if one of you three officials took it up on a whim, I beg its return."

The old was wilier after all; this made the three of them out like shameless rogues. Zhuo Siheng had his rejoinder ready, and Yu Yong gave a cold laugh and stepped forward — but both were cut off by a clear voice bright as an oriole:

"Is the pendant your daughter lost in the water a green-jade one of the Jade Rabbit pounding medicine?"

The one who spoke, Zhuo Ciheng, stood there meek and mild, blinking at old Shao with slightly guileless, innocent eyes.

Yu Yong turned, startled, and was for a moment taken aback.

"Just so! The very one!" Miss Shao's brother owned it.

Old Shao shot him a quick sidelong glare, then at once lowered his eyes: "It is indeed a pendant of that pattern; did the young lady see it on the boat... or somewhere, with someone? Pray tell us..."

Jin Jia, afraid this innocent, dear, unworldly colleague's sister would be trapped by the wily old fox, hurried to speak, but was cut off, just so, by the old man's weeping: "My daughter is of an age with you, and, poor thing, lost her mother young; a girl gentle as an orchid and pure of heart, who understands this lonely old father's grief — I beg you, tell me truly!"

One knew one's own sister: Ciheng could bear "pure of heart," but as for "gentle as an orchid," Zhuo Siheng thought this old man would learn only after his own bad luck.

Ciheng smiled, and with a dignified step walked to a few paces before the old man, gathered her sleeves in a bow, and let down from her hand a green-jade pendant, asking: "Is it this?"

The pendant swung down; the old man saw it blurrily, but Yu Yong beside him saw it clearly, and looked at the smiling Ciheng as if suddenly understanding.

"The very one!" the old man's son cried.

"That's right, a green-jade Jade Rabbit pounding medicine." The old man, dizzy, swayed twice, and steadied himself: "But where did the young lady come by it on the boat? Or who gave it to you?"

"From your daughter's neck." Ciheng smiled: "Because it was I who saved her."

The Shao clan were aghast, all turning to look at her.

"Impossible!" one cried: "You, a girl — and a young lady at that — how could you go into the water to save people?"

Only now did Ciheng show her usual faintly-edged mischief and free ease, and said outright: "Even a woman can't watch people die unhelped; and besides, a good many girls fell in the water too — had I not lent a hand, wouldn't they all be in a hurry today to find husbands?"

Zhuo Siheng heard Jin Jia nearly laugh aloud, and shoot him an approving look, as if praising how truly capable their family's girl was.

That was true enough.

He felt he needn't step in at all.

The old man's face went green and white, and he said: "You are a lord's or marquis's daughter; do not jest with us common folk... A body of gold and jade like yours — how would you rashly enter the water? Even a lord's daughter who could swim is under strict maidenly discipline; how could such overstepping be allowed? I beg the young lady make no more such wild talk about my daughter's lifelong matter."

Yu Yong took a step to half a pace before Ciheng, like half a wall screening her behind him, his voice no longer so cold and hard as before: "This is a guest from a neighboring boat; for her valor in the rescue my sister admired her and invited her aboard to change and dress and talk a while. Her family has not the least connection with any lord's or marquis's residence."

"'Honor the fine clothes first, the person after' — that too is only human; the clothes are indeed a lord's daughter's clothes, but the person is not, so one can't blame the old man for the mistake." Ciheng smiled into curved brows and eyes, but there was no smile in her gaze.

Zhuo Siheng truly felt that snideness too was a hidden option in their family's genetic code, and his own sister and brothers had all quietly ticked it.

"Then you tell us — how did my sister's pendant come to be with you?" Seeing his father run dry, one of Miss Shao's who-knew-which brothers played the tactic of muddying by main force.

Ciheng's gaze passed over the old man and fell openly, generously, and she said slowly: "My hairpins and rings caught on it in the rescue; a moment ago I didn't even know whose it was, and was just in the room asking my sister — only, a glance told it was a girl's close-worn thing, so I didn't ask the three brothers and the lord on the boat whether they knew it; of course they knew nothing of it."

With that she turned her head and called, smiling: "Sister, you were just asking whether some maid had dropped it by accident — now we've found the true owner!" And with that she actually hung the pendant on the top of old Shao's cane.

Zhuo Siheng knew this pendant meant the world to Ciheng; seeing her do so, his heart too grew anxious with an ache of pity.

Yu Fu, who at Ciheng's first words had come to stand gracefully behind them, felt her heart stir, and nodded with a smile: "Just so; at last it's returned to its owner." Her face composed, her heart faintly grieved — to solve her family's difficulty, Ciheng had brought out so precious a pendant of her own...

Zhuo Ciheng's speech had wholly cleared the three men on the boat of any suspicion of impropriety; the Shao clan could no longer hold their faces up. But, having come with their minds made up, they wouldn't drop it; so that elder brother, in shame turned to rage, thrust out his red neck and said: "'Returned to its owner'! Fobbing my family off with a pendant of this sort of stuff! Look how big a business the Shao of Qingzhou run — half the fine northern silk-brocade going up to the capital is our family's goods; would a girl of ours wear a thing like this?"

Before Yu Yong could flare up, Ciheng's eyes blazed, and she said coldly, sternly: "I truly took it for a doting mother's love, a filial feeling too strong to refuse, that you'd do such a thing — heedless of black and white, casting off propriety and shame to come search a rescuer's boat for 'stolen goods' — and thought, well, filial duty first, it's only human. Now, seeing this, what filial duty, what dead mother — it's truly a laughingstock!"

"The thing you owned with your own mouths a moment ago, and now say it isn't; putting your dead mother on the tip of your tongue to bandy at will — that truly violates a child's filial duty." Yu Yong at once took it up.

"Who says it isn't!" Ciheng gave no one else a chance to speak: "Forever taking a late wife's and dead mother's last words to frame the very gentlemen who did you a kindness — is this the family-way of a great Qingzhou house?"

"The old lady's soul in Heaven, hearing such unfilial words, would grieve — who knows how bitterly."

"More than that — I fear she'd die with eyes unclosed, and come back by night to ask these unworthy descendants and this unloving father what they mean to do with her daughter."

Zhuo Siheng, Jin Jia and Yu Fu were all struck dumb.

Especially Zhuo Siheng, who felt more and more that his third sister's not being able to enter officialdom was a loss to the nation's judicial world.

The year his worthy brother Yongqing impeached the Tangs — had he had Ciheng and Yu Yong at his side to chime in and back each other up, it would likely have succeeded long since.

The Shao clan, choked past speech, faces each swelling liver-purple, still had one or two unresigned, making as if to throw a tantrum and go down with the ship.

Just then the beaded curtain on the other side of the cabin-hall parted trailing to both sides; four maids with whisks swept the drapes open, and out came a splendidly-dressed lady, pearls and kingfisher-gold shining in her raven hair, her whole person of noble air.

One needn't guess this was surely Jin Jia's birth mother, Commandery Princess Shanrong.

The commandery princess was a woman of about forty, yet with no worn look, still radiant; her bearing and manner made the cabin-hall seem for a moment some palace-chamber of the imperial house.

Not so much as glancing at the Shao clan below, she received everyone's courtesy and took the seat of honor, her gentle gaze roving over Zhuo Siheng and Zhuo Ciheng, and said softly: "So there are guests aboard — no wonder it's so lively; come, let me too look at such good children, so filial in manner and clear in reason."

Yu Fu smiled softly, went to take Ciheng's hand, and led her before the commandery princess; just as she made to speak, the princess raised a hand to stop her, and looked at the row of red-necked, red-faced Shao clan at the back of the hall: "And these people are...?"

"Mother, someone fell in the water a while ago; we saved several of this family, old and young, and they've come to give thanks." Jin Jia said easily.

The commandery princess nodded, and knit her brows slightly: "Why go to such trouble? To save people in peril is a gentleman's duty; only petty men take another's kindness and wag their tongues over it, using it as a pretext for their own doings — the children of our house must not learn such things."

"We heed Mother's teaching." / "Aunt instructs rightly." Jin Jia and Yu Yong said together.

Though this seemed to school her own children, it was aimed at the Shao; yet the princess spoke still mild and kind, without the least displeasure, even most warmly: "The hour is late; best see the guests off — tell them they needn't thank us."

Hearing this, Yu Yong turned and said calmly to the family: "No need to see you out."

Zhuo Siheng and Ciheng took great pains to hold back any hint of a smile — one composed, one dignified in bearing — but one glance at each other told each the other had long been near breaking.

But when the Shao clan had slunk off, Ciheng's gaze softened, only watching their backs from afar, her eyes following the jade swinging on the old man's cane.

So too did Zhuo Siheng.

Yu Yong and Yu Fu both quietly took in the two's expressions.