Chapter 101

Moonlight lay on the lotus pond. The birds had gone quiet and the frogs were calling. A thin, lean wind carried the cool mud-smell of a summer stream-bank slowly into the room.

The day had been hot. But the Prince Hui mansion was broad and grand, and the winding bridge and running water on either bank had been tended for years, so the place had its own magic. They used no ice, and it was still cool and pleasant.

The Chen house had ice enough. But ice is a hard, cold thing, and they only used a block or two on the fiercest days. Any house with a good garden, if it had a spot near water and shade, would build itself a cool court to pass the summer in.

The Prince Hui house's summer court was called the Qinyuan. It curved around half the water, a fine spot, cool and easy to set in order, and Qi Qian'er had taken it to live in.

When his wife came to Yanjing, Chen Dasheng of course came too. He'd only said his backside hurt and taken leave again, and once here he happily clung to her and wouldn't go.

He was used to a wooden bed. A pity, then, that he'd barely snored a few comfortable snores before his wife tossing and turning woke him.

These days Qi Qian'er carried too much on her mind. She was a skilled hand now, but skilled or not has nothing to do with a worry that sits in the heart. She'd been churning through this maze of a mansion less than two days, and already the poor young wife had a mouth full of blisters, her inner fire so high she could eat nothing.

Before, when she kept house, she'd open her mouth and it was ten cash, a hundred cash. When the old lady went out to give alms, a thousand cash! In Guard Lane, spend as high as you liked, and a few hundred taels made you a grand, respectable house.

Now, though, just clearing out the few watery spots in the mansion ran to three or five thousand strings. And a sorry pond was still a sorry pond, no fine fish, no shy half-opened lotus, only toads lording it, croaking all day to grate on the ears.

Every day she opened her eyes it was a thousand strings, two thousand, three thousand. The money wasn't even counted. They hauled it out of the house in great baskets, and there was no telling who got it.

Chen Dasheng opened his eyes in a daze, and asked in a daze: "Mm... what is it?"

Someone beside him sighed, low and mournful: "Ai, go to sleep, I'm all right."

Chen Dasheng believed her, said "oh," and meant to sleep on, and was kicked awake by Qi Qian'er.

Damn it, this thick-headed toad, hadn't he heard her sigh? Couldn't he ask?

Helpless, Chen Dasheng forced his eyelids up and murmured: "Mm?"

What kind of a block of wood was this? Qi Qian'er, cross now, yanked the thin quilt off the both of them, and kicked again: "Keep off, you're hot!"

Chen Dasheng did as told and moved away, and closed his eyes, and a moment later felt cold gusts coming at him. He opened his eyes with a start, sat straight up, and asked into the dark, in earnest: "Wife? Are you hot?"

"No."

"Not used to this place?"

"No."

"Missing Granny?"

"No!"

"Thirsty?"

"No!"

"Then, then why won't you sleep?"

"Can't sleep!"

This, this was a big problem.

A jolt went through his heart, and to show he took it seriously Chen Dasheng called for someone. The night-maids Qiyue and Bayue answered quickly from the outer room and came in to ask what he wanted.

Chen Dasheng opened the gauze bed-curtain and hooked it up, had them light a lamp, and had them bring a bowl of a cooling drink.

In the wavering lamplight Qi Qian'er sat in a thin plain jacket of pale silk, her whole face unhappy. She said nothing, and left Chen Dasheng to guess.

Guess he could not. Chen Dasheng couldn't have guessed a woman's heart in eight lifetimes.

But he did well enough. He kept her patient company. He'd eaten this loss often, and had experience of the hits and pinches too, so he understood there was no getting out of it. If he dared sleep tonight, he could forget a good life ever after.

Sad to say, his was a hard lot. People always say, what's a wife for? To light the lamp, blow out the candle, and whisper sweet nothings. In our house, it's light the lamp, blow out the candle, and take a beating and a scolding. And yet he didn't feel it was bad.

Mostly he didn't dare feel it.

Chen Dasheng didn't understand his own thought, and looked to his wife's face for a cue, but Qi Qian'er went on by herself: "These few days, I keep feeling it's all a dream. The more I help clear out Foster-father's place, the more uneasy I am inside."

Chen Dasheng was puzzled: "Uneasy?"

"Mm, uneasy! Just think. We were fine in Guard Lane, and then all at once you've a father. Owning a father, I had no quarrel with. I'm proud by nature, and I thought it was only a matter of waiting on an elder, and our father was just someone who waited on people in the palace, so what of it? But slowly I came to see, who isn't waiting on someone? Only waiting on one person and waiting on another aren't the same thing. And in a blink, he's a commandery prince? It's like a dream, and my heart goes hollow with fright."

Mostly it was that from here on she'd be spending by the thousand strings, and that made it worse.

Chen Dasheng dropped flat on his back as if spent, and put an arm over his face and groaned: "All this for that?"

Qi Qian'er shook her head: "Not only. The more I set things in order, the more it feels wrong."

And she thumped him once.

Chen Dasheng's body went stiff: "Wrong how?"

Qi Qian'er couldn't see his eyes, so she gave his arm a hard shake, and looked down at him: "The more I turn it over, the worse it tastes. Look at us. We were living fine in Guard Lane, and all who came and went were our own kin and people.

"That place can't match Yanjing, but at least it was ours! And you take on a teacher, and he turns out a father. They said Foster-father was a poor soul with no one to lean on, and I thought then, well, we'll keep him, we can afford it!"

Chen Dasheng could only sit up and rub his face, and said, rather weakly: "Mm, we can afford it. And then?"

Qi Qian'er hugged her knees, her whole face wistful: "Look at you. I've told you. In a blink Foster-father's a prince? In a blink the Emperor gives this huge mansion? It's all too easy! And the She house over there I haven't even been to see, another heap of trouble, I'm sure.

"From yesterday I've sat over there thinking. People truly are cheap bones. Give an old man his keep, so what! Keep him! We've money, and if nothing else I can give him silk and good food. But this rank of our foster-father's, I turn it over and over and I daren't take it. Everyone says we've struck it rich, everyone says our luck's blazed up. But I feel..."

She looked at Chen Dasheng in earnest: "I feel it's hollow. This wealth and honor shouldn't be ours."

However many lives she'd lived, Qi Qian'er's bones were honest bones. She trusted only what her own sweat bought. A bead of sweat fell in the mud and broke to pieces, and only the grain that grew from it was truly hers.

Anything that came too easy left her hollow inside. She trusted the street saying too, that anything touching money and power is no good thing, and always comes to a reckoning.

This was a commandery princedom, one rank below a prince of the first degree, and a wealth that passed three generations before it stepped down a grade. By what right did Chen Dasheng hold it, and by what right did she, Qi Qian'er?

As the old lady said, the old Chen graves were soaking underwater. So where would a blessing like this come from, to a house like theirs?

Before long Bayue brought in the cooling drink, and the two of them sat on the edge of the kang and drank.

When he'd taken his wife's empty bowl, Chen Dasheng picked up a broad robe from the side and handed it to her: "Well, we're not sleeping anyway. Let's go out and walk a bit."

Qi Qian'er took the robe and nodded, low: "Mm."

A walk, then. She didn't want to sleep, and no one else was going to either.

The night wind blew cool, and the little couple, robes thrown on, strolled round the pool. The water wasn't clear. The weeds and fish and shrimp in it had just been cleared out. Two days of burning mugwort had kept the mosquitoes thin at the water's edge, but moths came now and then to bump the white lantern in Chen Dasheng's hand, with a small dry sound.

They'd walked a stretch when Chen Dasheng said slowly: "I did say this very thing to Foster-father. It's like the Ge girl with her million strings. However clear our hearts are, the world outside will say Si'er took her for the money. People's tongues are a fearful thing. However good we are from now on, folk will still say we took our foster-father's wealth."

Qi Qian'er sighed softly: "These few days clearing out the Prince Hui junk, Jixiang's wife said find a room and just dump it. But I thought, that only takes up space, and what's no use we may as well sell! Jixiang's wife said selling it wasn't seemly. Tss, what's unseemly about it? It's all stuff sat four or five generations, and to a great house it looks like junk, but out the gate it's an antique!"

Chen Dasheng laughed despite himself: "You sent for Ping Shen. I know."

Qi Qian'er nodded: "Mm, he's the only one I know. Look at those old shops, a scholar's desk-set of thirty or fifty years can fetch a price. These whole storehouses of things, and plenty of them gifts from the old dynasty's throne, and your father only gave fifty thousand strings. It's plainly a test of me. Pah, I'm not his to teach, so what's he testing me for?"

Chen Dasheng laughed low: "You turned a heap of junk into two hundred thousand strings and more. The truth is, even Foster-father got a fright."

Qi Qian'er saw him laugh, but wasn't glad: "Mm. Early this morning, four whole cartloads of money heaped in the court. Jixiang's wife and a dozen people counted it three hours. They're all smiles now, hmph! Two days back they said I was selling junk! But I thought, a great house like this, sweep the corners and it's tens of thousands coming in. And this is with Ping Shen and several appraisers looking it over, and the really valuable things I didn't dare touch."

Chen Dasheng understood now what she meant to say, and asked: "You're afraid?"

Qi Qian'er nodded: "Afraid. Broken glass lamp-shades, some old clothes. I didn't even know old embroidery was worth money, and sold off a good deal of it. Dasheng, our child, he has his own father and mother, his own road he was meant to walk. Honoring Foster-father is one thing, but this estate of his is too big. I dreamed last night that our grandson couldn't make a living, turned into a wastrel, and hunted the whole house for junk to sell, and got to your granny's chest, and dug out a heap of old cotton socks."

The truth was Qi Qian'er didn't know herself what she was saying, and set Chen Dasheng off in a fit of quiet laughter.

Chen Dasheng didn't answer the question, but reached out and pulled Qi Qian'er off a soft, seeping patch of mud at the bank's edge onto solid ground, and smiled: "Watch your feet. Go on."

Chen Dasheng gave no answer, and Qi Qian'er's heart sank to the bottom. She walked on, turning it over. Since coming into the Prince Hui mansion, some things could no longer be hidden. Her ability had shown its limits at last. But she and Chen Dasheng had been wed only two years. Think it over honestly, and what was she, after all?

A wife the Chen house got for ten strings of cash and fifty jin of grain. Just as the old lady and Madam Qiao had cursed her in the last life, you were bought for ten strings, and if you don't behave we'll sell you off!

She hadn't the confidence to say it to Chen Dasheng one more time, let's not want this wealth and honor, I'm afraid we're alone and weak, and that for this rank we'll be envied all our lives, life after life.

When the child was born tomorrow, one careless step into someone's trap, and she might regret it to the end of her days.

These two years she'd grown more sure of herself by the day, always feeling the days were in her palm and people were in her grip. But that grip held no sky-high fortune, and never dared reach for a princedom.

Hand on her heart, truth be told, they hadn't even consummated. By what right did she talk him out of wealth and honor? Chen Dasheng could get An'er with her. Leave her, and there were high-born young ladies glad to be his wife, who would keep his house and take a dozen pretty concubines for him and bear him children in droves.

She could live without Chen Dasheng. Couldn't Chen Dasheng do the same?

She thought of An'er, and her heart gave a stab of pain.

Chen Dasheng walked a way, then shifted the lantern to his other hand, and took Qi Qian'er's with the free one: "I've thought about what's on your mind."

Chen Dasheng's hand was dry and rough, and there was even a firmness in it there hadn't been before, steady and large and unafraid.

Qi Qian'er looked at him, and didn't pull free, but let him lead her.

Chen Dasheng said: "I've had thoughts like yours too. I did. Who am I? No more than a man whose luck turned, who Heaven opened its eyes and sent a wife to. With those six words of yours, I became Chen Dasheng."

Qi Qian'er bowed her head, her mouth tugging. She wanted to smile, and held it back.

Chen Dasheng waved off Qiyue and Bayue following behind, and when they'd gone went on: "After that it was all a muddle. Study, wait on the Emperor, rise in rank in a muddle, and then get pushed, I don't know how, to this place. And my wife's heart isn't at ease." Chen Dasheng stopped walking, turned, and looked at Qi Qian'er in earnest: "But we can't go back now."

Qi Qian'er's mouth opened a little: "Can't go back?"

Chen Dasheng nodded: "Can't go back! We have to walk on. I have to climb, I have to climb high, before I can hold what I want. A big estate is nothing. One day I'll grow the strength to guard it. Besides, it's not that anyone forbids me to go back. It's that we've walked this far, and the only way left is forward. When the Emperor was born, some clever fortune-teller said, this child will hold high rank and rich pay, and be wealthy all his life. See, a man's fate has nothing to do with what others say. It depends how hard you try."

Neither spoke. This time Qi Qian'er wanted to pull her hand from his, but Chen Dasheng wouldn't let it go. He held it tight and walked on, and on, and on, until there was no more road, and before them stood a rockery.

Only then did he turn and look at his wife: "See, wife, we've run out of road."

Qi Qian'er stared blankly at the rockery and murmured: "Mm, no road."

Chen Dasheng let her go at last, stuck the lantern into a hole in the rockery, tied up the hem of his robe, and climbed up. When he was steady he reached back a big hand: "Come, it's an easy climb, and the view's good up here. Come see!"

A few fireflies circled nearby. Qi Qian'er looked at Chen Dasheng's big white teeth and his bright eyes, and at last put out her hand. Before she'd even pulled, she was flying up. Chen Dasheng hauled her lightly onto the rockery and half-carried her to the top.

When she was steady, Qi Qian'er saw that two steps off was a winding little stair, buried in wild grass.

She looked around, and saw clear at last. From the top of the rockery, the mansion was really not as big as she'd imagined. This one corner, at least, came to only so much.

At a glance, the lotus pond was black, the houses low, the moon fine. Far off, the neighbors' roofs to left and right lay a solid black, and the world was silent, as if only the two of them were left alive in it.

The rockery was high, built of five layers of stone. Chen Dasheng found a ledge and sat, and pulled Qi Qian'er to sit on his lap. He said nothing now of his backside hurting, but only looked with her at the world's view.

They were quiet a good while, until Chen Dasheng sighed softly: "The two of us, it's as if we've never talked like this before."

Qi Qian'er was taken aback. She thought it over, and it was so. Before, she'd always wanted to rein him in, to school him, afraid one wrong step would lead to the next and in the end drag her An'er down with it.

But now he grew stronger by the day, like a new Chen Dasheng, more and more unlike the last life.

These two days people had come and gone at the house, and those who came to ask after his health were all careful and respectful with Chen Dasheng.

They spoke to this man with respect, read his face, courted his favor. And because of it, even for her, his wife, who'd started selling off junk and lost all propriety, they said she was a woman who knew how to run a house, and that in all Yanjing you'd not find another head-wife so able.

And all this ease came from this new Chen Dasheng. He could give her standing, could be leaned on. But what could she, his wife, give him?

She knew nothing of his life outside. What did he do, who did he know? What new things had he learned, how many books had he read?

Without waiting for an answer, Chen Dasheng said: "Let me tell you about our foster-father."

Qi Qian'er blinked: "Foster-father?"

Chen Dasheng smiled: "Hai, never mind foster or not, just father, our father. He's good to me."

"Mm, go on."

Qi Qian'er was startled: "You've been keeping it from me?"

Chen Dasheng nodded: "Yes! Before, I always felt my wife was a hundred times better than me. But I never thought, how old is my wife, and already running the house, helping me honor Granny, fretting over my brothers' marriages. I keep your goodness in mind, and mean to be good to no one but my wife all my life."

Qi Qian'er, rarely shy, pushed him, her heart eased: "What are you saying!"

Chen Dasheng smiled: "That you'd be so uneasy is all my fault. Think of it, how many things has my wife been through? It's my fault for putting you in a hard spot."

Qi Qian'er grumbled inwardly that her own years, added up, were several times his. But how could she say that? She could only roll her eyes at him in the dark.

As luck had it, the moment she rolled her eyes a burst of frogs croaked underfoot, and Chen Dasheng couldn't hold it, and half-hugging her laughed out loud.

Laughing done, he turned serious: "Qian'er, the truth is, Foster-father has long been an inside man for the Great Liang army. To back the Emperor's rising, our father held a corps of scouts."

Qi Qian'er didn't follow the word: "Scouts?"

Chen Dasheng explained, holding in a laugh: "The spies, like in the operas. Scout-riders, that's the sense of it."

Qi Qian'er saw it then, and nodded: "That I know. Spies! The operas have them."

Chen Dasheng nodded: "Right, scouts are much the same. Don't ask too deep, and don't let it out. Out there I'm a Long Saber garrison headman scraping a meal at the Board of War, and in private I can't well tell you more. From now on, by our father's and the Emperor's wish, I'm to hold this corps, and from here on serve the throne alone."

Qi Qian'er sat stunned. A good while later she shivered, and tried to struggle up, but Chen Dasheng held her tight: "Don't be afraid!"

Afraid? There was nothing to fear. How could she be afraid now? A certain back-court woman was bold past all bounds. She'd ground men to pulp, and held the strings of hundreds of thousands of taels that weren't hers. What was a little troop of spies to that?

It was only that she couldn't stomach an honor that outran her worth. And she thought too, Heaven truly is a joker. One careless push, and in two short years it had sent Chen Dasheng all the way to this place.

She said at last: "I'm not afraid. But what do you tell me this for?"

Chen Dasheng rested his head against his little wife and sighed: "If not you, who would I tell? I have to let my wife keep house with an easy heart, sit in the main hall with a clear conscience!

"Our father says, now there's the Jiusi Hall, he thinks this work can go on. The dirty scout-work of the old days is all in Xie Wuhao's hands at the Jiusi Hall now. To only gather word, watch the army, keep an eye on the officials, that's nothing much. Besides, if I don't take it on, who will? The Emperor trusts no one else."

Qi Qian'er jeered: "And he trusts you?"

Chen Dasheng shook his head: "Hai! How many days have I known the Emperor? Right now the Emperor trusts only our father. This rank, this mansion, that's what they mean. Our father holds them with a clear conscience. When I've grown able, one day I'll hold them with a clear conscience too. Wife!"

He let Qi Qian'er go, and squeezed her cheeks from both sides: "Your man gives his ox-strength, and this whole life is sold to them. From here on, take whatever comes with an easy heart. The Emperor knows what he's about. I'm not as useless as you think. Will you trust me or not?"

Between husband and wife, honesty is what counts. Qi Qian'er knew nothing of state affairs, but hearing Chen Dasheng say it, she was glad. Yet back in bed she still couldn't sleep, still felt something was off.

She tossed and turned until the sky grew faintly light, then sat up at last, ground her teeth, and kicked Chen Dasheng off the kang.

Chen Dasheng crawled up, dazed, and looked at his wife. Jolted awake out of a dream, he was cross.

"Now what?!"

Qi Qian'er ground her teeth: "Chen Scabby! I said something was off. So after all this, you've sold our son and our grandson to them too, haven't you?"