Chapter 102

It has to be said, Qi Qian'er moving into the city drew a lot of eyes.

The Prince Hui mansion was so grand that even sitting empty, it never stopped drawing eyes. No end of people wanted it.

In the end it went to the bond-slave who kept the gate, as some said. She Qingling was She Qingling and Chen Dasheng was Chen Dasheng, and the deep feeling between father and son was their own affair. People who want to look down on you will always dig up old scores to mock your roots.

Look at the man who'd become Emperor. The scholars still judged him a rascal and a rogue, a lecher and a filthy sort. The good he did for the country and the people they wouldn't deign to mention.

Their jeering was only to show they held a view a cut above the rest.

And Qi Qian'er had spent two years at Qingfeng, with no dealings in Yanjing. She'd kept to herself so long that people took her for one who looked down her nose, and wanted a chance to jab at her a few times and let off their pent-up breath. But once Qi Qian'er was in the Prince Hui mansion, she simply never went out again.

That made certain people wild.

At New Year, at festivals, at weddings, your house never gets so much as a decent card. Don't you feel the shame of it?

Not at all. A certain young madam only feared being disturbed.

In a blink, high summer gave way to early autumn, and Cui Erdian married one of the Chai girls. Then came the hundred-days celebrations for the babies of Li-shi, Kou-shi, and Chen Dingxiang. The two Chen wives had two more daughters between them, and Dingxiang gave the Cui family a fat son.

With three babies born, the old lady fell to running herself ragged. Her favoring was plain to see. She'd go to the granddaughters-in-law's once a day, ask was the milk good, what had they eaten, did the babies fuss, and then she'd go. She wouldn't stay half an incense-stick longer.

It wasn't that she minded two granddaughters born. The old lady didn't hold with that. She simply favored Dingxiang, whom she'd raised with her own hands.

If this had been an ordinary mother-in-law, the two granddaughters-in-law might well have been cross. But she was the family's own grandmother, and when she came to look in on you, you still had to be grateful and couldn't take it to heart.

Luckily the Chen house had means enough. They hired wet-nurses and kept servants to call on, so all was calm. But the old lady and the Cui house were anything but calm. She all but planted herself in the Cui house on Quanhou Street, and would almost have waited on her granddaughter's confinement herself.

What a figure she cut now. A court-titled lady, a woman of wealth with a train of servants at her heels.

She had wealth, but in her bones she was still a country old lady. She understood nothing of what she ought to notice, and found fault everywhere with petty household trifles she shouldn't have bothered with.

Now the Cui old lady was a harsh, willful one. A pity she lived under another's roof now, in her daughter-in-law's dowry house, and under the eyes of her daughter-in-law's brothers. Her son's promotion leaned on the brother-in-law, and the meat and greens and fruit the house ate were topped up time and again by Dingxiang's brothers.

She couldn't take on the old Chen house, so she turned into a nag, setting herself against the old lady every day. She doted on her grandson, but her temper was crooked and she wouldn't say a kind word. The first thing out of her mouth was always, what woman can't bear a child? That line galled most of all.

Would the old Chen lady let her take the upper hand? Not a chance! After hearing a few of these barbs, the old lady, who'd been going a little muddled, turned sharp of a sudden. She was somebody now, and carried herself with the swagger of someone who'd driven the baggage-carts and cracked the whip for the army across ten thousand li.

She gave over the whole second half of her life to the Cui old lady.

She had to know exactly how many eggs her granddaughter ate a day. She'd take the bowl first, fish them out with chopsticks, and count them herself. If one was missing, she could sit in the Cui courtyard and badger the whole house until no one dared come out.

And the Cui old lady was a marvel too. She plainly knew she was beaten, but she wouldn't give in, and fought all the harder the more she lost. Dingxiang's confinement ran two months, and the two of them quarreled the whole two months.

The Cui old lady wanted nothing else in this world anymore. She only wanted to beat the old Chen crone once before she died.

Would the Chen old lady oblige her? No chance!

Luckily Dingxiang had a big temper and Cui You was an easy soul, or there'd have been no living with it.

The two old ladies were like fire and water. In the last life, or before coming to the capital, Qi Qian'er would surely have stepped in to smooth it over for them.

Now? She was busy to death, and didn't want to touch it.

She was afraid the old lady might overdo it and harm herself, and didn't want to trouble Master Cheng, so she hired a doctor who tended old folk to stay with the whole family. She had the maids and women wait on them closely, in case the old lady quarreled herself into a collapse, or wore her voice out.

High summer in Yanjing was livelier still. There was the mad nun too. No one knew where she hid, and the Jiusi Hall would have dug Yanjing up three feet to find her, but when the appointed day came she slipped in like a ghost and carried off one of Tan Shiyuan's eyes. The Emperor flew into a rage this time. Meng Dingchen was docked three months' pay, and the Jiusi Hall sub-wardens took the board again.

And this time the capital's great offices all stood clear. They were all second-rank offices alike, and since Meng Dingchen had scorned them at the start and wanted none of their help, they'd not come either.

At the root of it, who loves a case that slaps the court's face and earns no thanks for the work? Whoever wants it can have it.

Early one morning Chen Dasheng, having dodged leave as long as he could and been cursed by the Emperor's men, went off to his night-watch at the Great Liang palace, much against his will. Qi Qian'er saw the pest off at last and let out a long breath.

Some people are of little use in this world. With him home you could get nothing done, you only circled round him.

When he'd gone, Qi Qian'er took the bamboo sedan the women carried and went to the side storehouse. She had a heap of accounts to settle too.

She came into the court and saw Ge Sansu in a rough hemp coat, her hair done up in a man's knot with a rough twig of a pin, her face burned coal-black, squatting on the ground like a man and bickering with a supply-manager without a care.

The Prince Hui house was rich, and in the old days the garden paths were laid with pebbles the size of pigeon-eggs, worked into patterns of every sort.

Now, with the houses being set in order, Qi Qian'er looked over the old buildings, saw many of the flower-paths broken and gone, and thought to buy some materials and have a craftsman mend them properly.

But she never dreamed the pebbles would cost the least bit high. The stuff wasn't to be had locally, and had to be hauled to Yanjing by river from ten thousand li off.

So the Yanjing merchants who sold pebbles didn't go by the jin, but by the stone. The cheapest ran two or three wen each, and a rare, scarce color could sometimes fetch fifty wen a stone.

That matched the price of a big meat bun. Sometimes one little stone for a path's eye was worth a steamer of all-meat buns, and spending the money was enough to make your heart sink.

In the small side court Ge Sansu held up a stone to measure. White at three wen, black at two, red at twenty, they all had to be this size. She didn't mind the work, and truly went over them one by one, and any with a nick the size of a mung-bean she threw out as waste.

The pebble-manager complained, his face all woe: "Young master, go easy. It's stuff to lay in the ground. Do a kindness, let the old craftsman mind the nicked bits, bury them underground, won't you?"

Ge Sansu rolled her eyes at him: "A three-wen thing, and you won't even take two and a half!"

Look close, and this eye-roll already had Guan Si'er's style to it.

The manager went quiet.

Qi Qian'er came over smiling: "Hard work, Third Lad."

The house was always taking on new people. The maids close to her knew Ge Sansu was a woman, but the new ones truly took her for a man, and for a young master from the madam's kin at that.

Qi Qian'er called her Third Lad in fun, and the rest called her the cousin young master.

Ge Sansu had never thought she'd have such freedom in this life. She wanted to pass the time anyway, so she spent her strength hard at the work every day. Guan Si'er came to see her every day off duty. She was black and plain, and he didn't mind at all. They were a battered pot and its broken lid, just right for each other.

Ge Sansu lifted her face to Qi Qian'er, and pointed smiling at a basket of chosen pebbles: "This is the last basket. You've come at a good time, sister, so settle his account quick."

At the word spend, Qi Qian'er's mouth twitched. She took the account-book, and her soul near flew off. Mother of mine! A few sorry paths, and there went another few thousand strings.

What she didn't know was that of the great houses in Yanjing with pebble paths, there truly weren't many. This was five generations of the Prince Hui house's hoarding.

The house couldn't afford rare flowers, so they'd bought a mass of trees to fill the garden. They couldn't afford grown trees, and transplanting those was a great undertaking, so they could only buy saplings: magnolia, red maple, ginkgo, osmanthus, pomegranate, camellia, and flame-tree.

Ping Shen found a good source. The dearest, the flame-tree, was fifty wen a sapling, the cheapest the pomegranate, a little shoot at twelve wen. This came to more than five hundred strings, and only then were the house's bare courts filled. But it would take at least five years before they grew to any grandeur fit to receive guests, and every one had to be kept alive, which needed several gardeners tending them with care.

Hand on her heart, Qi Qian'er sent out several more baskets of copper cash, and sat in the master's seat numb, all hope gone. How was it money didn't feel like money anymore?

She was worn out like this, and on top of it, a few days back Jixiang's wife had come whispering that the household mistresses of Gourd Street called her small and stingy.

That galled. They weren't small and stingy, then? Let them spend out of their own purses.

The four accountants in the next room clacked their abacus-beads, and the sound was all money going out and none coming in, and it was wretched to hear.

She was still lost in it when Jixiang's wife came in smiling: "Madam, the Chang house's old Earl's lady is at the gate."

The old Earl's lady usually meant Chang Lianfang's mother, Chai-shi.

Qi Qian'er was taken aback: "At this hour? What brings Foster-mother?"

Jixiang's wife answered: "She's brought no few things."

This was proper kin, so Qi Qian'er quickly changed her clothes and went out to meet her, and brought her in by the side gate.

In the court, Chai-shi refused the sedan and only held Qi Qian'er's hand, warm and close: "Good child, your house is run off its feet, I'll not add to it. Let's find any spot by the gate here, and we two sit and talk. I'll say my piece and go."

In the end, because the birth-characters didn't match, only one niece had married in, but Chai-shi was grateful past telling. A start had been made, and such a fine match too.

She'd brought a good deal. A dozen and more page-boys unloaded at the gate a good while before it was done.

The Chang house had moved into a granted mansion in Yanjing too, and had had their own great works, with much material left over, like good wood the carpenters hadn't used up. They were honest folk, and whatever the house had going spare they'd carted over, and Chai-shi had come to deliver it herself.

That was thoughtful indeed. Never mind how much or little, it was all true, honest feeling, and she'd come openly, caring nothing whether the house was in mourning or not. Qi Qian'er was grateful past telling.

She brought Chai-shi into Quzi Court. Chai-shi didn't know who Quzi was either, and strolled round half of it full of envy: "A fine place, a fine place! Bear ten or eight sons and two or three generations of grandsons, and you'd never want for anything after!"

That said, she turned to Qi Qian'er, not hiding her envy: "My house's sorry patch, if it were only a little bigger than this, you'd not have had to fret over our third son."

Qi Qian'er helped Chai-shi sit, and poured her tea with her own hand: "Listen to you, what's to fret over? Our Scabby and Little Flower are only a mother's belly apart, and Little Flower never thought so much about looking after us before."

Chai-shi was glad to hear it: "That child's been so since he was small. Give him one part of true feeling and he'd give half his life to fill it. His father and I used to fear he was too open-hearted. But now I see the old saying's true, in this world it's true heart for true heart that wins out, more often than not."

That said, she looked round, and asked straight out, hiding nothing: "Good child, this has cost no little money, hasn't it?"

Qi Qian'er's face fell at once, and she held up nineteen fingers' worth: "All this time setting it in order, and only now is the front gate side done. A few days back it rained and we looked it over, and half the roofs need new tiles. And these tiles are half again bigger than an ordinary house's, so a kiln has to be fired on purpose. And it's still not fit to live in, and still wants money!"

Chai-shi was startled too at a hundred and ninety thousand strings. She was a household mistress herself. After reckoning it over in her head, she said, helpless: "It's only a house like ours that can hold up such a drain. My child, do you know how folk outside live?"

Qi Qian'er shook her head, puzzled.

Chai-shi made a rather broad gesture: "An ordinary clerk in Yanjing earns five or eight strings a month. Your foster-father has such men under him. Of his salary-silver, a man first takes a string a month to keep his parents, sets a string by for a bottom, and lives the household on the three left. And a ranked lord daren't spend over a hundred wen a day at the office on food and drink and dealings. You tell me how hard a life that is."

Qi Qian'er nodded numbly. When she kept house at Qingfeng, she'd never imagined it could be so. Who could afford to live in this Yanjing?

A good while later this ever-proud young woman said at last: "Foster-mother, how could I ever have foreseen this day? Now even moving a mouse-nest in this house has to be reckoned to the copper."

Chai-shi smiled, and said close and warm: "Every house is so! I'll not hide it, I'd long meant to come, only it didn't seem right. These days we wavered over whether to come or not."

Qi Qian'er was surprised: "You're no outsider. Come when you like, Foster-mother. But for the mourning, I ought to go to your house and bow to the old lady. What's there in it?"

Chai-shi curled her lip: "What's in it? Your house isn't what it was. Dasheng looks to do hard labor out in the wind and sun now, but by and by he'll be a commandery prince at the least. Before, we'd have dared send whatever my house had, straight to your Guard Lane. Now, I'll not hide it, I turned about the house eight times, afraid folk would talk, that I'd the face to send broken tiles and scrap wood to a house like this."

That needed no explaining. The two of them knew where the trouble lay.

Qi Qian'er bowed her head, a little low: "This while there's not been a day's peace. I'd give anything to go straight back to my Guard Lane. Life there was simple, and I could manage it. Foster-mother, I'm afraid now I can't do it well, and the world outside talks of me."

Qi Qian'er looked up: "Eh?"

Chai-shi pointed at her own face: "Look at me. My birth was only so-so. Back then it was your foster-father marrying above himself with my house! Who'd have thought then we'd follow the true dragon and all at once be grand folk? In a blink the children were grown, and we came to Yanjing with the whole brood, and you go and ask about your foster-mother's name out there!

"In all Yanjing I'm the only one who takes up a blade and now and then chases the men of the house onto the roof. What name do I have for it? I keep a whole household's food, clothes, and spending too, and I don't dare shirk what I ought to do, not for a moment.

"They're off at war, and I'm home with my heart in knots. Today one wife's not content, tomorrow another's not satisfied! Do I do it badly? But when they speak of me, they never say good. Mention me and it's a rude, coarse woman, and in the end it even kept my natal niece from marrying."

Chai-shi took Qi Qian'er's hand: "Good child, but for your saving me, I'd have given anything to part from that old wretch, and it still wouldn't have eased me. A person can't have one single fault. Even when Heaven lets you off, the world's tongues won't, and why? Only because you live better than they do!

"Mind your own self! If you try to live in others' eyes, trying everywhere to make folk say how good you are, that's flatly impossible. Set your heart at ease. There's no end of folk better than you, and no end worse. They scorn you to your face, but behind their own doors, who knows what their days are like!"

These were truly words from the heart, and Qi Qian'er had never thought Chai-shi so open. In two lifetimes of knowing the Chang house, only now did she feel a little of the warmth of real kin.

Chai-shi poured out her heart and taught Qi Qian'er no small amount, and sat till noon and ate a simple meal with her before she left.

Qi Qian'er took her arm and saw her out, and watched till Chai-shi's carriage was gone before she turned back into the mansion.

She needed an older woman to lean on, and Chai-shi had come at just the right time.

What Qi Qian'er didn't know was that while she struggled at home each day, that hateful foster-father of hers had done it on purpose.

Chen Dasheng ate his noon meal in the palace, and after went straight off to his foster-father's little court.

These days She Qingling no longer went to court, nor wandered the palace. He'd handed over the seal-eunuch's work too, and was all the more at leisure to go on tending this little patch of vegetables.

Chen Dasheng came into the court and sat himself down at the writing-desk set ready for him. Beside him the secret reports the scouts sent in from every quarter were heaped into a hill.

He had to do as his foster-father taught him, order the reports of every kind by weight and urgency, and in the end present them to the throne.

She Qingling had pulled a good deal of green leaves and put them in the basket by his side, for his son to take to his daughter-in-law. He'd eaten no little of the rice and flour his daughter-in-law had ground. Hai, in plain words, he felt guilty at heart for putting her in a hard spot.

He took the gourd-dipper from a little eunuch and washed the mud off his feet, and asked smiling: "What's your wife doing at home?"

Chen Dasheng looked up and chided: "You give her only that much to run the house on, and Qian'er's no immortal, and you've the face to ask!"

She Qingling waved it off carelessly. He sat on his little stool, arranged the leaves neatly, and said: "She has to leave Guard Lane sometime. She has to feel the hard spot a great-house head-wife is in. That wife of yours is better than others in every bone and grain, only she daren't take hold of anything, and that hesitating, wavering way of hers is past looking at. Without a push, how's it to change?"

Chen Dasheng, out of temper, dumped a heap of odds and ends into the basket, and took up another armful to sort: "How old is she?"

"However old, she still has to go out and meet people. Look at the wives she found for you few. Every one just alike, as if she'd shut the door and sit out her old age. I wondered at it, able as she is, where she dug up such a set, all of a kind. These children keep house with no trouble, but they've one great fault to mend, this not caring to go out won't do."

That was no false word. Chen Dasheng only grumbled on his wife's behalf, but his hands kept sorting deftly. Quietly, he slipped into the Emperor's folder the reports on Tan Shouyi, who, on his way to take up his post at Jindian, had lingered in the capital over trifles and drained the local post-stations' stores.

He placed these very cleverly. When the Emperor was in a good mood, he never put them in. When enough had piled up and the chance was right, he'd quietly slip in a few. And no exaggeration either. Where there was Tan Shouyi's, there was naturally some other unseemly official's too.

These days, being an official meant spending a little silver on the road was only common. What head official went out without a crowd of kin in train? Such sesame-and-mung-bean losses were usually tossed into the odds-and-ends basket and thought nothing of. The Emperor mostly never saw them.

Mm. What the Emperor ought to see is what someone with a purpose wanted him to see.