Chapter 108

Lan Zili stood at the edge of the crowd, craning his head, and watched the train of lavish carriages come in splendor and go in splendor.

Everyone wondered the same thing: who was that? How came they by such grand state?

The envy on the faces around him, and the open awe, proved it all to Lan Zili: these were people from the circle of power and wealth.

Though no one had got a clear look at the young lord's face in the carriage even now, ask anyone around and they'd all say they'd seen him clearly, and knew who he was.

Some even swore up and down to a few names and houses, and were sure they'd glimpsed him many times at this or that fine gathering, only too ashamed of themselves to go up to him.

And others, full of scorn, gave the lie to it, pointing toward the Great Liang palace. "That's all rot you're talking. What house could it be? Think about it and you'd know."

And so, moving through the crowd, Lan Zili grew more and more certain that the young lord must have deep ties to the imperial house. By the look of that retinue and state, he was at the least a prince, or a clan-son close in blood to the throne.

In all his years he'd seen wealth in Ziye, and heard of wealth without end, but never had he come so close to true wealth as today.

He even thought a moment: if one day he had such horse and carriage, what a figure he'd cut going back to Ziye?

Seeing him so envious, the hanger-on named Wang Dengke came over all pleased with himself, chin in the air. "Brother Lan, see that? I didn't lie to you, did I?"

Lan Zili, his face grave, thanked him at once in earnest, bowing very low. But as he bowed he was looking the other way from the crowd, for fear a single wandering glance might lose him the man who mattered.

His thanks done, he straightened and pressed the little bundle in his hand into Wang Dengke's arms. "Listen to you, Brother Wang. Of course I believe you. I'll not hide it, I asked about you in the streets, and even the beggars, when your name came up, had nothing but praise, not one with a bad word to say."

Wang Dengke took the fee, tucked it away, and his brows rose with pleasure. "Hai, it's only a reputation in the world, that's all. Brothers as we are, why go to such expense? Brother Lan, I'll beg off for today, the weather really is wretched, so shall we two set another day?"

The words weren't out before Lan Zili caught hold of him, and with a face full of reluctance put a lambskin-sewn pouch into his hand.

Wang Dengke, startled, bent and opened it, and drew out a yellowed old deed. It was a large sheet, the old yamen's seal-ink still seeping at the edges, and a few lines along the margin were enough to show it was the deed to an old shopfront on Yanjing's east street.

Oho! An unlooked-for joy. Who'd have thought the Lan family had such a thing laid by.

Wang Dengke was taken aback, but his hands were quick enough to fold the deed, put it back in the skin pouch, and tuck it away.

He smiled. "What, what's this for? You're too open-handed, Brother Lan. No merit, no reward, they say. Brother Lan, you're, you're too generous by half."

Time was short, and Lan Zili stood on no ceremony, but dragged him off toward the city, saying as they went, "Brother Wang, short as our acquaintance is, we took to each other at first sight. You know my house has met with great disaster, and my pockets are bare enough. But I've no way back now, so today, come what may, I'd ask one more thing of you..."

Lan Zili's mind was racing. The two of them trotted along, and his high clogs sent the thin mud of the west gate flying, to the endless curses of the passers-by.

After chasing on a while, Lan Zili saw Steward Qian, dawdling along, looking this way and that, who knew at what.

He breathed easier, pulled Wang Dengke into a corner, and with eyes gone red, as if coals burned in them, looked at him. "In a moment, I beg you, Brother Wang, help me once more!"

Wang Dengke gave a rascal's smile, every inch the greased-up Yanjing idler, and shook Lan Zili off. "If you've got some wild notion, Brother Lan, don't drag me into it! How much have I earned off you? I'd counsel you to cool your heart. Think, this is Yanjing. What am I, and what are you?"

His eyes turned, and without a pang he took the skin pouch out of his coat to give back to Lan Zili. "Brother Lan, never mind that I live easy every day. What do I live by?"

He pointed at his own face. "By this smooth-talking mouth, by these two eyes that read a man's rank at a glance better than any. Never mind one shop, give me a whole street. Why would I go stirring up what shouldn't be stirred up for you?"

Lan Zili pressed a hand over his, half begging, half urging. "Brother Wang, would you live your whole life like this? I'll not hide it. When my Lan ancestors were at their height, they sat before the Son of Heaven, they feasted to bells and ranked cauldrons. Our granaries held grain we couldn't eat in ten years, we had hundreds and thousands of oxen and horses, and once a thousand retainers to guard the house, and shops in Yanjing, and in our home country, mountains, and a thousand qing of good fields..."

But Wang Dengke said with scorn, "And what of it? Among the names that count in Yanjing, what house hasn't some such ancestor? If not for such ancestors, who'd come to live in this wretched place at all..."

The words weren't out before he was startled to see the man before him sweep up the hem of his robe and kneel bolt upright in the mire.

These past days he'd often sponged off the fellow, but he knew well enough in his heart that to Lan Zili he was no more than an idle rogue, kept for amusement and company.

Lan Zili had mischief in his heart and urgency in his face. He shot a glance at the street, and seeing the eunuch Qian had not gone far, turned back and said quickly, "Time won't wait for us, Brother Wang. These days in Yanjing I've heard a tale."

Why bring that up now?

Wang Dengke blinked. "Eh?"

Lan Zili said, "Brother Wang, do you know a Gate Marquis named Chen Dasheng?"

Wang Dengke choked on his own spit, and steadied himself against the wall. "What, what, what do you want with him?"

Lan Zili, still kneeling, hid none of his envy and showed his scorn. "That Gate Marquis was nothing but a contract-slave, yet he took the Seal-Holding Eunuch of the palace, She Qingling, for a foster-father, and from then on his whole house leapt the dragon-gate into wealth, and now he dares call the imperial clan-sons brother.

"Brother Wang, the road to the clouds is one step before you now. If you dare take that step, leave what comes after to me. Give me time to arrange it, and in a few years..."

Afraid Wang Dengke wouldn't do it, he added at once, "No, no, two years at most, and I'll help you change your whole house's standing! Wealth to fill your gate from then on."

The man talked big, and it set Wang Dengke's liver quaking. He caught his breath a long while, then said, "So, so what is it you want to do? Tell, tell me in full, and I, I'll think it over..."

And having said it, Wang Dengke turned his face to the wall and let it twist violently a few times.

Seeing him take the bait, Lan Zili sprang up at once and laid it all out, so and so.

And the fabled eunuch Qian, in a bamboo rain-hat, hands clasped behind him, was strolling along in the rain.

On and on he walked, until he came to the Huajin brothel in the west market, and a few steps into the thick of the flower-scent he heard a great commotion.

Seven or eight prettily made-up, good-looking brothel-women leaned on the second-floor railing of the flower-house, all of them loudly cursing across at the Qiuyue house opposite.

"Yan Lanxin! Come out here! You weigh no more than one ivory hairpin, three cash's worth, and so light-boned you've thrown the rules away! Breaking the trade's rules door to door like this, you're selling fans in the twelfth month, that's the losing bargain you're making! Did the Qiuyue house set off fireworks in the privy-vat out back and blast out a stinking thing like you to show itself? If you want to sell yourself, go and do it far off. Stealing another's custom, what skill's in that?"

The moment the fight was joined, the crowd filling the street, rain or no rain, came swarming round, every head tipped up to watch.

Eh, the folk who hung about such an old pleasure-street were no upright sorts either.

The Qiuyue house kept its doors and windows shut tight and made not a sound, and the Huajin house cursed fouler and fouler.

The eunuch Qian smacked his lips and sighed. "Ai! What sort of people used to frequent this street, and what trash now? There used to be no end of women of fine, elegant character, each a master of the qin, chess, calligraphy, and painting. And now? How has it come to this?"

You, an old eunuch, how is it you know the place so well? Lucky for him Lan Zili didn't hear him grumble it.

He was still sighing when all at once he heard the wooden door on the Qiuyue house's second floor open, and out came a lovely, alluring woman in peach-pink, her hair loose, her face all springtime.

This must be that Yan Lanxin. She came to the railing unafraid, leaned against it lazily and bewitchingly, held a fan over half her face, and gave the rain-soaked onlookers below a charming smile.

A beauty was a beauty indeed. A great clamor rose below, and the ones opposite grew angrier still.

"Yan Lanxin, you've patrons enough, but up and down this street, ask anyone and every soul knows Young Lord Wu is our Caizhou's patron. Just you wait till we report it to the guild-head, and wait for your house's license to be pulled!"

The one called Yan Lanxin, knowing she was in the wrong, called back into the room, "You wretch, you've been the death of me! Come out quick and explain to Dame Tang and to all my sisters, it was you who forced yourself on me, I'm wronged to death..."

As she finished, a dissolute laugh came from the room, and someone jeered carelessly, "I'm not going out there, out there's death. How many ounces of flesh has your lord got for you all to share and eat? Why waste so many words on them? Your young lord's not taking a wife or a concubine. I lie with a girl once, and must I keep chaste for her now?"

It was a sickening thing to say, and the crowd below roared with laughter.

Yan Lanxin's face turned bitter. "You wretch, you've made me suffer. If you'd no heart, why lie with her at all? These are our rules here. If you don't fancy her and want to play, then go and play far off. Why come and bully me? Now I'm in the wrong whatever I do! And door to door, you leave a body no face at all!"

As she finished, out of the room came a young lord barely clothed, in nothing but a gauze robe before all those eyes.

This one, all unconcerned, not minding the shame of it, put his arm round Yan Lanxin and called across the way, "Don't be angry, Zhou'er! When you first said yes to me, you should have known my name was bad, that I'd come to a rotten end sooner or later! The whole street knows that besides a few stinking coins, your young lord's no good man at all!

"What you want I don't understand, and anyway, I've nothing. But if you blame Yan'er, there's no sense in that. Sisters door to door as you are, don't go spoiling your friendship over an outsider like me, eh?"

From across the way came a soft, sweet-faced young woman, her eyes swollen, perhaps from hard crying the night before. She came out with a kerchief and wept, looking at the rake.

The rake grew a little ashamed at last, and leaning on the railing with a grinning face he said, "Sweetheart, wait for me a few days. I'll tire of it over here sooner or later, and come back to your side sooner or later! Ai, ai, don't cry now?

"Here's what. Just dry your tears today, and your young lord will let you take your sisters to spend at the gold shops at the six-markets crossing. Whatever you fancy, just take it! Tell the keeper there to charge it to my house later. Pleased now? There's your face restored for you..."

At the gold shops of the six-markets crossing, any pearl hairpin ran to twenty or thirty strings as a matter of course.

The street heard that this patron, shameless though he was, was open-handed, and ringed by such beauties besides, and fought over this way and that. In all their envy, the onlookers could hardly keep civil tongues, and a general anger rose.

The young lord surnamed Wu, helpless, and having drawn every eye in the west market with this business, leaned over the second floor and called down to his page.

When his page came out, he tossed a bronze token down from above and grumbled and cursed, "Sharp enough now, aren't you? Last night you saw me go in the wrong door, so why didn't you warn me?"

Hearing this, the weeping Caizhou pursed her lips. She looked at the lady Lanxin, and Lanxin winked at her. It was all a play. They made their fuss, but it was to give this Wu Xiu face, to make him feel grand.

The page caught the token and asked with a smile, "How much shall I change, young lord?"

The lord cursed back, laughing. "Blind thing, need you ask? A basket each for your two little mistresses, of course!"

The day was not yet dark, the red lanterns not yet hung, and already a girls' patron had sent whole baskets of bright golden coppers for them to scatter for sport.

The eunuch Qian was old, and seeing the commotion he didn't dare go up front, but meant to slip away round the crowd. He'd just reached a bit of high ground when some reckless fool knocked into him from behind and sent him sprawling flat, a very hard fall indeed.

The girls up in the flower-house laughed sweetly and scattered the money handful by handful, and the onlookers surged forward, trampling the eunuch Qian so that he couldn't get up.

He was about to cry for help when he heard someone curse loudly in his ear, "In broad daylight, it's not decent! Shameful, truly! Can't you see there's an old man here? Aiya, aiya... you're treading on a person!"

Dazed and muddled, the eunuch Qian was helped up, and before the poor man could even take it in, Lan Zili had hoisted him onto his back.

Lan Zili ran off at a mad pace with the eunuch Qian on his back, shouting as he went, "Make way, make way! There's an old man hurt here, make way..."

The eunuch Qian, slung over Lan Zili's back, goggled at Wang Dengke by the roadside, asking without words: wasn't the plan to lead him back to that place of ours, and set the trap bit by bit?

Wang Dengke, tossing the skin pouch, spread his hands at him with an odd look and gave a parting wave, as if to say: serves you right! Taking a shortcut, and what's a eunuch doing on a pleasure-street? Ai! It's only that our Marquis is such an inspiration, and the man wants you for his father!

The to-do in the pleasure-quarter became a joke in the mouths of Yanjing's wastrel young lords. This Wu Xiu, once he had money, had turned dissolute, and sure enough the ones who'd looked down on him and shut him out before now even faintly envied him.

Who doesn't want to spend money by the fistful, who doesn't want to be ringed and fought over by a crowd of girls, loved as a sweetheart?

Even knowing it was false, what of it?

Leave Wu Xiu for now, and Lan Zili too. Guan Si'er and Hu Yougui, working with the scouts under them, had first put on a great show and handed the watchers a good act, and then, without going into the flower market, rode their carriage through it and away, farther and farther from Yanjing.

They'd meant to go out to the far suburbs anyway, with nothing else on, and take a turn by Sangou to buy some good wine to lay up at home, which wouldn't be bad.

Only, a pity, when they'd gone some ten li out, a troop of silver-armored riders on black horses suddenly came, a good hundred and more of them sweeping up, and without a word hemmed them in.

What was this for?

Guan Si'er and Hu Yougui looked at each other, and Hu Yougui called out low to those outside, "No rash moves, or you'll spoil the lord's business!"

With that he stood up inside the carriage and opened the hidden compartment under the seat, and Guan Si'er, without a thought, hid himself in it.

Someone outside shouted, "Hold! Who goes there? Do you know who sits in this carriage..."

Mm, the challenge was never finished before the man was yanked off his horse, and a neat punch to the back of the neck knocked him out.

Then the men dressed as a noble house's servants, naturally unwilling to be surrounded, put up a little resistance, and in a few moves were cleanly dealt with by soldiers fresh off the battlefield.

Hu Yougui's head was in a whirl, and he couldn't make head or tail of it, until a soldier lifted the gauze curtain with a riding-whip and looked at him.

He went rigid.

He looked at the newcomer, saying nothing, showing no feeling, and all in all, to their eyes, there he sat, sweet and meek and altogether lovable.

This soldier was a woman too, and seeing him so she smiled, and coaxed him with gentle words, "Little lord, don't be afraid now, we're not bad people!"

Someone laughed outside at once, and she quickly dropped the curtain and cursed out, "Put away your dog-faces, the lot of you! This is our mistress-to-be. Frighten him, and tomorrow the young general will flog you to death!"

And with that she lifted the curtain again and poked in a face in a fierce beast-mask, coaxing gently, "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, see? I've scolded them for you. We really aren't bad people, truly!"

Hu Yougui thought, Damn it! I'll believe you when hell freezes. The Yuwen lot, is it? This isn't the first time we've dealt with each other.

Four great reverses he'd suffered in his life, and one of them was at Boyi Pass. That day, when the gong sounded the retreat, the Tan army was short of supplies as ever, and the chief then was still Brother Quan.

Brother Quan was craftier than the big brother. He'd say, no food to eat, so we'll go and steal it. If the big brother were chief he'd say, you wait here, I'll go steal it for you.

In short, both were thieves anyway.

As it happened, by chance the Yuwen family's grain-and-fodder camp was pitched not far from the Tan army, and he thought at the time, since I'm stealing anyway, I'll make it a big one.

But who'd have thought, the Yuwen family was a novelty too, and had a pack of she-devils guarding the grain and fodder.

Ask around: what camp would dare bring in women? But the Yuwen family had guarded the pass for generations, and had known times when the men were all dead and the widows took command. Their house made no taboo of it, and over a century or two everyone else had grown used to it.

Those women, mixed in among the men, were sharp to begin with, perhaps from being used to night-raids, and the moment he got in he slipped up, and was chased and soundly beaten by several hundred of the women.

That night was a very din of gongs and drums, and they hounded him dashing all over the camp, and in the end caught him and strung him up in a tree.

And afterward, however he explained, they wouldn't believe he'd come to steal food, but would have it he'd come to steal a person?

Aiya! Let all the gods in heaven bear witness! He swore by Heaven and eight generations of ancestors that the women in there were every one of them black-faced, with waists thicker than his mother's old sauce-vat. Was he mad, or blind, that he'd go stealing she-devils?

Hmph! If he weren't an old saber, Tan the Second wouldn't have come in person to apologize. In the end he took a whipping among the she-devils, and then a flogging when he got back besides, and for the best part of three months he limped and couldn't walk right.

He'd never forget that name, Yuwen Xiaoqiao. Dainty, my foot. A fist that could kill an ox with one blow, and you call that dainty? She'd laid thirty and more lashes on him, and he'd nursed that grudge to this very day.

His head full of wild thoughts, Hu Yougui heard someone outside say, "Little lord, don't be afraid, we mean no harm, see, we've even got a little cart ready for you, so come out now?"

Damn it, I'm not coming out!

Hu Yougui didn't stir, steady as a mountain.

The curtain was opened again.

Outside the rain poured down, and his poor scouts had been stacked in two heaps, the men in one and the women in another.

The she-devil at their head dismounted, raised a gleaming great saber, and threatened him with a smile, "Little lord, don't be afraid, if you won't come out, I'll kill them, hack them to mincemeat, ever so nasty..."

Hu Yougui looked toward the city gate, afraid of spoiling the chief's great plan.

But they took it the wrong way.

She held the saber in one hand and reached out the other to him. "Come, come, let me help you down, little lord, don't be afraid, no one's coming to save you, come, be good and come along with us, there's a fine thing waiting for you, hee hee, a grand fine thing!"

The hell there is. Go, or not go, then?

Or how about a fight?

This close to the west gate, with the Ten-Mile Pavilion just ahead, Hu Yougui dared not act, and was so angry he couldn't bear it, and his face went whiter and whiter.

The one with the saber, seeing him so moving a sight, pressed a hand to the heart and sighed. "No, no wonder our general lost her heart. It's the old saying come true! Since of old, the hero cannot pass the beauty's gate! Can't pass it! Can't pass it!"

Pass your ancestors!!!

They looked at each other wordless a while, and as another gust of cold wind and rain blew past, Hu Yougui felt chilled before he knew it. Gauze clothes, after all, weren't as warm as cloth.

He flinched from it, and she coaxed with a smile at once, "Eh? The little lord's cold? Someone, bring the general's cloak and put it round the lord, lest he catch a chill. There now..."

She looked at how dainty and tender Hu Yougui was and said firmly, "A lord so pitiable to look at, if you took so much as a dose of medicine, our general would break her heart and die!"

Hu Yougui knit his brows and thought, Oh, be off with you. I'm not made of glass, and you needn't go breaking your heart to death.

A soldier obligingly brought a flame-red cloak, and she passed it into the carriage.

But our brother Yougui had long been trained by the sister-in-law into a fine clean saber who loved to bathe. However hard his day's work now, he had to have his bath, and a clean loincloth to change into.

A white one, at that!

And now this familiar, sickening reek of blood mixed with the salt-stink of sweat struck his nose... how long since he'd smelled it?

That was it. The frontier people had risen at Boyi Pass, and Yanjing's relief hadn't come in time, so it was the rough Yuwen who held out with her troops for half a month, and when the relief army arrived, the madwoman led her men chasing the enemy right into their lair.

This time, this lot coming from Boyi Pass, it was likely that the Emperor meant to make great use of the Yuwen army, to reshuffle the frontier garrisons, and to gather all the battle-generals he trusted to his side.

Looking at the flame-colored cloak, Hu Yougui remembered himself strung up in the tree, eyes bruised, belly empty, looking at her as she walked up to him step by step with the whip raised, and propped up his chin and asked, "Own up now. Who did you come to steal?"

And what had he said? Oh. I came to steal your moth—

The "mother" never got out before he took a whipping.

The cloak came nearer and nearer, and with the delicate scent Hu Yougui had put on going out today, it made the cloak seem a very shroud by contrast.

He covered his nose and dodged, and the she-devil laughed the more merrily. "Aiya, aiya, that's our fault. Bear with it a moment, little lord, and come back with us nicely. We promise you, back home you can wear what silks and satins you please, and turn our general's private stores upside down as you like. Ahem... well, it's getting late, so come down now! If, if you won't come down, then..."

She held herself in check a moment, thinking that this was Yanjing after all, and that this was, after all, the one the general, six-and-twenty years old, had wanted to marry the moment she saw him. So she bore with it.

So, making a show of it, she gave the saber a wave. "I'll, I'll really hit you now... eh?"

Hu Yougui let out a long breath and slowly stood, and holding the edge of the open cart he came step by step to the outside, and put out a foot to get down, but no one brought him his clogs.

He looked left and right, meaning to find someone to fetch his shoes, and saw his own trained scouts each playing dead in a faint, and the odd one whose training wasn't up to it, over there with his face all twisted, holding back a laugh.

A grand Long Saber guard, a proper Gate Marquis, carried off for a sweet little pet?

Afraid these scoundrels would break and laugh out loud, Hu Yougui stuck out his two snow-white feet to step into the mud, but he was a sweet little pet, after all, and his feet so tender, and the she-devil cried out again.

"Wait, wait, someone, everyone over here quick, for our, er, clean the road for him. Should these feet get the least scrape, mind the general flogs you to death when we're back..."

So the soldiers one and all sprang down from their horses, unfastened the fiery-red cloaks from their backs, and laid them on the road for Hu Yougui to tread on.

These were the cloaks of soldiers come home from the front. Hu Yougui had come from just such a place himself, and how could he ever tread on them?

He hopped straight down from the cart, planted both feet in the mud without a care, and walked, unhurried, to the little covered cart that was snug against the wind on all sides. But before he could climb in, someone lifted him from behind and set him into the cart as carefully as if he were porcelain, and even pressed a piece of fruit into his hand.

The cart began slowly to move, and he heard the she-devil say again, "You lot, go back and tell the lord and lady of your house that your young lord has been taken a fancy to by our general! We're of the house of Yuwen Chongde, the great defending general of Boyi Pass, and our young general is high in His Majesty's regard, Great Liang's foremost woman general, Yuwen Xiaoqiao.

"Whatever your birth and standing, she's more than a match for your gate. And our general is, er, as beautiful as a fairy besides. The wild geese would drop out of the sky at the sight of her... yes, drop right down! A whole great heap of them, clean out of the air!

"And our general knows how to cherish a person, and has her own salary in hand, so she'll eat none of your house's food and wear none of your house's clothes, we keep ourselves!

"And then there's the ten great storehouses of dowry our lord and lady and the young masters have made ready, and it's no boast, the general's good fields at Boyi Pass alone come to three thousand mu! So long as your young lord is sweet and coaxes our, ahem, keeps her happy, he'll eat of the best and drink of the best..."

In that moment, in the cold wind and bleak rain, miserable past bearing, Hu Yougui, his every hope dead, wanted very much to die.