Chapter 120

The old lady was a formidable woman, and once she set her mind to command everything, there was little anyone could do to stop her.

By the old rule, when the house's elder rose, the daughters-in-law of each branch should be waiting beforehand, and once the old one was dressed, go in to pay their respects.

Mm, it was so at first, but later the old lady said, how other houses did it was their affair, our house has no such rule, and not to sleep a little longer when the days are good is the act of a fool.

So she led the way, and the Chen daughters-in-law could always sleep a good quarter-hour more than those of other houses.

But today the old lady was up early, and had kicked up some business with the little fourth branch.

The woman on duty got wind of it and went to the back street to spread the news. Li-shi, Chen Dazhong's wife, was the eldest sister-in-law, and hearing the woman's murmured report she was so startled she didn't stop to wash, and cried out, "Oh, isn't this sheer nonsense?"

The woman, still wearing the look of a fright, said, "Who says it isn't! And the fourth mistress too, whatever the old lady says she goes along with. The old lady talks nonsense and she won't breathe a word against it, does whatever she's told. But a thing this big, surely she ought to have told you?"

Li-shi had been about to slip on her shoes and go down to the old homestead, but the instant her foot went into the shoe she hesitated, and after standing dazed a while said to the woman, "But, how is one to step into this?"

The young aunt wanted to go up the mountain to consummate with the young uncle, and the cousin's wife was to say no?

It was too awkward by half.

Li-shi was only a woman just past twenty, with no elder of the family at hand to guide her. She was anxious at heart, and afraid too of showing herself at a loss.

The woman, quick-witted, murmured, "Mistress, the old lady and the fourth branch are no ordinary close, they go back far longer than we do, don't they? How about I ask Aunt Dingxiang next door to go over? She's blood kin after all, so whatever's said, good or bad, won't fester with her... what do you think?"

Li-shi looked up at once. "Yes, yes, that's the sense of it, go and fetch Aunt Dingxiang..."

The woman made some noise leaving, and the eldest girl asleep next door began to wail fit to break the heart.

The wet-nurse couldn't soothe her, and Li-shi, not wanting to hear the child cry any longer, slipped on her shoes, reached out and scooped up her daughter, and walked circles with her in the next room.

As she saw it, after all it was the cold wind of the twelfth month, and the old lady was being foolish with the fourth branch, insisting they go up the mountain. It was a bit unreasonable.

She got on straight enough with the fourth branch as sisters-in-law, no tangles over money or grain, and in their dealings each gave the other full measure. They weren't as close as those few in Guard Lane, but on money and housekeeping there was no quarrel, and that made them as good sisters-in-law as you'd find anywhere.

With the old lady acting foolish, for her not to come forward and say a word or two, that... wasn't right in the end.

At this, Li-shi handed her daughter, asleep again, back to the wet-nurse, and called her maid Xiliu to help her dress.

In Guard Lane, the old lady went into the little hall, kowtowed to the ancestors, murmured a great string of grateful words, and at last found a wrapping-cloth and gathered the tablets up one by one, and carrying them out stopped short.

At the old homestead gate.

Qi Qian'er wore a kingfisher-feather phoenix crown, a titled-lady's wide-sleeved jacket of gold-woven phoenix satin, with a cloud-collar hung at her breast, and in her hands she held a red veil strung with pearls. Her face was painted thick and rouged.

Aiya, how lovely Qian'er looked like this. Three years, and the plainly dressed young wife she'd always been was suddenly so bright and striking. The old lady couldn't help all kinds of feelings rising in her, even the feeling of a natal family whose tender daughter had grown up?

How, how had it come to this, that she couldn't bear to let her go?

How, how, in the blink of an eye, had she grown into a woman?

She felt something off, but didn't dwell on it, and went over and said to Qi Qian'er, "I, my child, here, hold the ancestors first, and remember, tonight you must bow to the forebears."

Qi Qian'er dared not move much, and could only nod slightly. She handed the veil to Fourth-Moon, took the great bundle of ancestral tablets, and set it with her own hands in the wedding-cart beside her.

The wedding-cart too had long since been made to order, red flowers tied at its four corners, red satin hung within, red brocade laid underfoot, all of it red through and through.

Fourth-Moon brought a cushion, and Qi Qian'er, steadied by others, knelt solemnly, held her phoenix crown in place and kowtowed to her granny. "Granny, your child is going, and tomorrow I'll be back."

At her words, the old lady's tears fell all at once.

That early winter, that thin girl the madam had dragged stumbling before her, and now she was a bride. How was it she could so little bear to part with her?

Her own whole life had passed in a daze, kept going through the world's torment on nothing but one unwilling breath. Wasn't she tired? So tired she'd think, if I died tomorrow I'd be eased of it.

Only on meeting this child had she learned the taste of being alive. And remembering how the girl had held her and counted out her grave-clothes, how they'd squatted on the flagstones gnawing dried taro together, how she'd carried the big basket on her back, the old lady sobbed, "You tell me, in your last life, just how much money did you owe my house?"

At once the old lady's words brought Qi Qian'er to tears, and she thought, I wonder that myself, two lifetimes and I still can't pay it off.

By the time Dingxiang, Li-shi, Kou-shi, and Luo-shi came trotting into Guard Lane, Qi Qian'er over there had already put on the veil, thrown on a floor-length cloak of dazzling red-ground gold-woven three-color brocade, and climbed into the cart.

Early-winter fine snow, cold wind on the face.

A red felt carpet was laid along the ground of Guard Lane, and every door and household had hung a neat row of red lanterns for the occasion.

The managing mistresses of each door stood waiting at their gates, hardly believing it, hauled up out of nowhere, told the big house had laid red carpet and hung red lanterns down the lane, and all rushing out learned only then that today Qi Qian'er was going up the mountain to consummate with Chen Dasheng?

This, this, this was a bit much, surely?

But to look at the show of it, how long must this have been in the preparing?

In truth, two whole lifetimes.

Dingxiang was with child again, big-bellied, breathing white steam as she was helped before the old lady, and said with some reproach, "Granny, what are you up to, day after day?" Her voice came near to tears. "A day this cold, and you've let my little sister-in-law go out?"

But the old lady was deeply moved. She looked at the whole street decked out, all things Qian'er had prepared three years, and yet the girl had gone along with her foolishness, and was going up the mountain just like this, without a single guest?

She dared not speak of the dream. As the old saying goes, tell a sweet dream too often and it breaks, dreamed for nothing.

Unable to share it, she propped her triangle-eyes wide and put on a mean, overbearing look. "What? You can't even sort out your own family's affairs, and you'd come meddle in mine?"

Dingxiang's eyes went red in an instant, her heart all for the wrong done to her little sister-in-law.

Li-shi and the rest, seeing the show of it, had no way to back out either, and could only cluster round the old lady and hold their tongues.

It was Qi Qian'er, settled in the cart, who called out through the curtain, "Sisters-in-law, don't blame the old lady, an adept was asked to pick the hour, and the word was it mustn't be spoken, it has to be stolen..."

Put that way, everyone understood. Put that way, it all made sense.

Folk custom held much store by such things. A woman fated to be childless, however she prayed to the Child-Giving Goddess, got nowhere, and had to pick a good hour and steal a clay baby home. A woman who could never find a husband had to go to the house of some lucky old matron of many blessings and steal a flower. And a couple whose birth-characters clashed somewhere with the year's fortune had to find an adept to point the way and break the clash. That was "stealing."

Just so, three years in mourning, and barely out of it, and if the birth-characters clashed again with the year and the hour, then stealing it was.

And truly it could be told to no one.

The old lady, under great strain a moment before, eased at once at the words.

She tipped her head to look at the weather, put out a hand to catch the scattered snow, then patted the cart door and said with full conviction, "The hour's about right, off you go, quick! Don't, don't miss the lucky time."

From inside the cart, Qi Qian'er said steadily and firmly, "Granny, then I'm off."

The old lady gritted her teeth, her voice doubly firm. "Go! My child, go! Go, then!!"

She wasn't having it otherwise. The broken-limbed old Chen house had been down on its luck three generations, and today, if she had to stand on her head to do it, she'd bring this Star-Lord home.

The wedding-cart began to move slowly, and only when it was out of sight did the old lady say through her tears, "Aiyo, ancestors, one thing comes into your heads and that's that, but the living have it hard. Lucky my child is so good, does whatever she's told, and however wronged she feels inside, still humors my wish..."

When she'd said it she grew sadder still, went back inside, sat cross-legged on the kang and wept a good while, and no one could soothe her. Her grief was near as much as if she'd married off a daughter.

The street-sweeping women at each door stopped their hands and watched, puzzled, as the row of wedding-carts passed slowly down the street, and only when carts and horses were gone fell to whispering head to head.

Only on leaving Quanhou Street and gaining the highroad did Qi Qian'er slowly lift her veil, open the curtain, and look at the few tall century-old willows in the distance...

Old plum below the hall sent out its scent. That year the harvest was good, and though they'd suffered greatly they could afford charcoal, and deep in winter An'er lay on his belly on the kang in a little dark-blue padded coat, writing his characters, nose running, his two little feet restless, rubbing one against the other...

The child doted on her, and after writing a while would turn his face to look at her, and grin, a grin no different at all from his foolish father's.

And she'd say, you little fool, what are you grinning at?

And An'er would say, Mother's so good, our house is so warm...

She let the curtain fall, and sitting in the cart drew a breath, opened her mouth, her eyes red as a rabbit's, and said to herself, "Child, wait a little longer, your mother's coming, coming to fetch you... Mother won't cry! My child doesn't like to see his mother shed tears, so from now on Mother won't cry..."

But she wept even as she smiled, cutting three channels through her rouge.

The cart reached Qingfeng, and not far from the dueling platform a dozen and more mule-carts loaded with materials turned out and fell in, unhurried, at the tail of the train...

Old Xin, in a shabby padded coat, leaned against the city wall and watched the train move off, and sighed, "A strange one, truly. From ancient times to now, only this one impatient bride. What's it all about, eh? Skill enough to fight her way to the Southern Gate of Heaven, and she's gone and grown herself a heart bent only on the bridal chamber. Heh heh!"

At the start of the shen hour, at the old camp six li outside Qianren Valley east of Baiquan Mountain, a lame old soldier watching the grounds stared in astonishment into the distance.

By now the fine snow had spread hills and rivers in silver-white, and against it the row of little red carts stood out bright and vivid.

The old soldier stared wide-eyed, then limped over, and only when the carts had stopped did someone get down and exchange a few words with him.

The old soldier nodded and nodded, and at last looked at the camp, at a loss. A camp was a sacred place, and ragged as this one was, only a few rows of earth dugouts, it was not for just anyone to enter.

But the people made no trouble for him, and instead handed him a big, bulging red bundle.

He opened the bundle, and it was two packs of wedding-cakes and a roast chicken wrapped in oil-paper.

The maid who'd greeted him, bright-featured and frank of air, said, "Rest easy, old man, we'll not break your rules. You just eat your cakes and watch the fun."

"Yes, yes! Then, then my thanks to the mistress for her kindness."

Inside the cart all was silent, but a burly man sprang down from the tail of the train, walked about first to look over the ground, and at last bawled into the valley, "Brothers... set to work, all of you..."

Voices answered, and together they gave a heave. "Hei-yo!"

In Qianren Valley, dozens of ropes hung down from the cliff-tops, and countless figures crawled like ants on the sheer rock. Chen Dasheng, hanging in mid-air, suddenly sneezed.

He looked left and right, saw Ma Ergu dozing as he hung in the air, braced his feet, swung across, and gave him a kick.

At the knock to his head Ma Ergu woke from his doze, put out a hand against the rock face, and looked at his chief, all bewilderment. "Eh? Brother... what is it? I wasn't asleep, truly, I just closed my eyes to think something over."

"Your snoring carried all the way to Yanjing, and you weren't asleep?" Chen Dasheng cursed him with a laugh, then turned an ear. "Listen, I think I hear a woman's voice?"

Someone came plunging down from the cliff, and only on reaching Chen Dasheng's side threw out a grappling-claw, caught a jut of rock and checked himself, and once steady Guan Si'er turned his face to Chen Dasheng with a grin and called, "Brother! Hungry? Want some of the dried meat my mother packed for me?"

Wind came and went in the knife-cut valley, and one shout went out and came back in echo on echo. "Meat... want some, want... some!"

Chen Dasheng waved him off hard, reached out and drew in his claw, and his body dropped at once, and when his eyes seemed to catch a stroke of red, he threw out the claw again and swung across.

The early-winter snow was falling, and in a hollow of the rock face, smooth from afar but faintly dented up close, a cluster of bright, bright little flowers had quietly poked out a bit of green, and while winter wasn't looking, had even bloomed red.

Chen Dasheng drew a breath and pushed aside the grubby cloth over his face. In that grime-covered face the eyes were bright, the spirit soaring, the look of him handsome.

He reached out a hand. The flower bloomed so well, its leaves so tender, that he dared not touch it for fear of scalding it, and only looked at it, glad.

Tong Jintai swung over, saw the flower and liked it too, and waggling his head recited, "Bright traces everywhere in the world of men, and on the sheer cliff of Qianren a stroke of vermilion, the one touch of spring in all the world, the flower thin as a lovesick soul..."

You could tell at a hearing it was Tong Jintai's own verse. To please his wife the man spared no effort, no literary gift to him but all the nerve of a poet, out it came the moment he opened his mouth, and whatever he looked at turned to lovesickness.

Chen Dasheng laughed, covered his face with the cloth, stuck up both thumbs to his brother, drew in his claw and leapt down the sheer cliff, and on reaching the ground, seeing all was safe around, shouted up, "All clear..."

From the cliff-top came Cui Erdian's voice, unable to hold down his excitement. "Right-o..."

Before long the pig-killing, sheep-slaughtering, heart-rending squeals came down from the mountain.

Countless men, ropes buckled at their waists, were kicked down one by one by their officers, swinging through the air.

Chen Dasheng, Tong Jintai, and Ma Ergu watched the cliff-top intently, hands behind their backs... and watched until night fell, when the several hundred men, worn through, came struggling out of the mountains with ropes on their backs and great tree-trunks on their shoulders.

But the moment they came out of the mountains, Guan Si'er, walking at the front, suddenly stopped. The rope on his shoulder dropped to the ground, his fingers trembled, and pointing toward the camp he murmured to Chen Dasheng, "Chief, our, our old camp looks like it's on fire?"

Then he shook his head uncertainly. "But... it doesn't look it either?"

He stood there rubbing his eyes, and Chen Dasheng and the rest hurried over, looked into the distance together, rubbed their eyes together.

The old camp in the distance had been earth walls and wooden palings, a forlorn, run-down place.

When they'd come, the dugouts had all caved in, and it had taken everyone working together half a month to make it fit to live in.

But now, far as the eye could see, against the old camp's gray-brown walls was a single stroke of red.

Torches, were they? Pine-oil torches every few meters swayed in the night wind, a hundred and more of them together, as if the camp stood in flame.

No one knew what was afoot, and they walked over in a daze, and halfway there caught a noseful of the smell of meat.

Yu Qingguan swallowed his spit, looking at the twenty-odd whole roast sheep already turning and dripping fat on their stakes outside the camp, and coming close rubbed his eyes too, and said uncertainly, "This, what fairy-play is this..."

Smelling the savor, the rough men, worn out these many days, went weak at the knees and looked all around, looked in disbelief, looked in utter amazement...

Were they dead, and entered heaven?

Off some three hundred meters from the camp, on a rise, stood a red tent heaped with red brocade, from its mouth a roll of red carpet laid down to their very feet, poles newly raised to either side of the carpet with red lanterns hung from them, and behind the red lanterns the old camp draped in red cloth.

To either side of the camp, a dozen and more yellow-clay stoves were stacked with huge steamer-baskets, steam rising with the wheaten scent of white buns, mixed with the salt savor of the roasting sheep.

Qi Qian'er sat quietly waiting in the wedding-tent all the while. She had freshened her red bridal paint again, and lit two braziers of charcoal in the tent with her own hands.

Red candles thick as a child's arm burned on, and she waited and waited, and truly waited the man home at last...

Fourth-Moon's little face was flushed with excitement. She'd done a great deal of work today and felt not the least tired, only that it was fun and full of interest.

"Mistress, the master's back... they're all, all struck dumb, standing over there not daring to come near..."

Qi Qian'er lowered her head and smiled, rose slowly, turned a circle, and asked carefully from under the veil, "How, how do I look?"

Fourth-Moon said, "Lovely, mistress, lovely."

Lovely, then good, then good...

Qi Qian'er sat down again, and in an instant was startled to her feet by a cheer outside like mountains roaring and seas rising.

Chen Dasheng stood there half-disbelieving. Though Jixiang said it was the old lady's command, that today was his lucky day and hour, and once today passed there'd be no good day to consummate next year or the year after, he was no fool. Believe it? Or not?

Such a show of it, and brought right to his lips?

Well then, believe it!

He wanted to say something, but heard in his ears a chorus of swallowing throats.

His heart leapt, but he managed to hold down his joy and say, "Granny's being foolish again, coming all the way here to steal a lucky day?"

But Ma Ergu, beside himself with excitement, bounded over and grabbed Chen Dasheng. "Aiyo, at a time like this you're still saying such things? Brother, quick, go clean up in the camp. Look at the state of you, the water you'd wash off would manure two mu of field... Sister-in-law's kept the rules well enough, what more do you want?"

At this he leaned to Chen Dasheng's ear and muttered, "Brother, it's come to your very door, and whether you take it or not is one thing, but cross the little sister-in-law and, believe me, you'll never see a good day the rest of your life!"

Chen Dasheng coughed in alarm, sniffed, held his hand over his mouth a good while, and at last waved helplessly. "The meat's done, eat up! Aren't you hungry!"

At the word the several hundred ravening wolves behind him cheered as one and swept like a tidal wave to the roast sheep, officer and weariness and all forgotten... it was meat, meat...

The eating of it frightened the flock of live sheep waiting to be slaughtered outside the camp into a round of bleating.

Jixiang went about with a crowd of serving-lads, smilingly handing out red-dotted steamed buns and wedding-cakes. "Easy, masters, easy! No wine to be served today, but it's a great happy day, white buns aplenty, and this meat, eat your fill, masters, as much as you like, we've got it..."

Another sky-shaking cheer.

Inside the camp, a stove long since readied heated the bath-pot, and Chen Dasheng sat warm in the water, looking at the red robe laid ready on the table, dazed a while.

So, so the marriage was to be consummated.

A dream, surely?

All the dear faces of his young wife flickered before him, pouting, coy, laughing, odd, brow-raised, lip-curled, eyes rolled... not one of them anything but lovely... He scooped up the hot water and splashed it fast over his face, and in the end half-sank into the water, wanting to laugh and not daring, and started blowing bubbles, gulp, gulp...

But he did not know.

That year, the sixth of the twelfth month, the same snow, the same cold.

He'd come home from the frontier, a fool who didn't know where home was, and grudging the money to hire a cart, he'd packed ten pairs of thick-soled cloth shoes and trudged several thousand li, and by the time he reached home the last pair's soles were worn through to the flesh, so in the dead of winter he went barefoot.

He reached Quanqian Street, couldn't find home, and asked about everywhere, making himself a laughingstock to Qi Qian'er once again.

And when at last he found home, going into his fourth uncle's room the great bundle on his back shrank by half, and going into his granny's room the great bundle was left only its skin.

At last he saw the Qi Qian'er of that year, a person thin, small, withered, dry, her eyes dull, and seeing the big tall man she was so frightened she swayed on her feet...

It worried Chen Dasheng half to death at the time, and he thought, for a girl like this to be bound to me is a sin too... so small, could she ever hold up a household?

He didn't know what to say to the young wife either, and only stood there and said woodenly, "Well then, shall we sleep?"

That consummation hadn't so much as a pair of red candles.

But the two newlyweds thought nothing of it. To have a warm kang, to have a man, to have a wife, these were blessings beyond measure.

And set beside those already dead, those gone from this world... how would they dare complain, when they were alive at least.

Yu Qingguan, gnawing a leg of mutton, boasted to the soldiers beside him, "Hmph! Our sister-in-law... a capable one!"

Tong Jintai nodded. "That she is, and lovely too... you couldn't find more than a few in all Yanjing with more grand bearing than our sister-in-law..."

Ma Ergu picked a hole in it. "Brother, there's something off in that. What's looks got to do with grand bearing?"

Cui Erdian freed his head from a slab of ribs and muttered, "Heh! Our old lady acts foolish and our sister-in-law humors her, and you watch, by and by our brother'll go on humoring her too. A thing this big, won't it want a three-day open feast?"

Hu Yougui curled his lip to one side. "Eat your food, aren't you hungry? Three-day feast indeed. You've your fat wife in your arms, but our brother, think how old he is, and you're not anxious? The whole Chen house is anxious to death. Even if the Chen house weren't, what about our teacher? Don't forget, our sister-in-law and our brother have to turn out six boys at the least before the account's settled..."

Guan Si'er stared blankly. "Settle what account? Having children?"

At this Yu Qingguan looked over at the wedding-tent with sympathy. "Just so. Three surnamed She and three surnamed Chen at the least, to satisfy all sides..."

"Satisfy what?"

Chen Dasheng came up, a gold-woven red brocade cloth bound on his head, dressed in a bright-red wedding robe. He was hungry too, and thought his wife must surely be hungry as well...

So he had someone bring over the dishes, found a roast sheep himself that wasn't too far gone, and went over with a knife, meaning to slice off a few pieces of the crisp, golden-brown meat for his wife to eat.

Yu Qingguan hastily sprang up to help. "Brother, brother, brother... don't you lift a hand, the knife, knife, knife, put it down too, what sort of day is this to be holding a knife?"

The brothers swarmed up, took the knife, sliced the mutton for him, and pushed him toward the wedding-tent.

"Go on, go on..."

A little embarrassed, Chen Dasheng sighed with a smile, "You lot!"

He carried the dishes and walked in with a light step, and behind him... his six younger brothers, arms slung over each other's shoulders, faces all smiles, called their blessings...

"Brother, may a son come soon!"

"Brother, a hundred years of happy union!"

"Brother, grow old together to white hair..."

Another burst of laughter, and a few of them cursed again, "Even eating won't stop up your foul mouths! Eat your food..."

Another round of laughter.

Chen Dasheng carried the food, trod the red carpet, heard the blessings all the way, and the further he walked the higher his heart soared...

He'd made up his mind, that when he saw his wife he'd make her a proper bow and tell her, to have married Chen Dasheng was a hardship to her, a trouble borne! But he, Chen Dasheng, gave his word that for all else he might fail at in this life, he would be true with his whole heart, and labor to build up the family's fortune, and give her the best, the most honorable days in all Great Liang.

A thousand fine words in his heart, Chen Dasheng stepped into the wedding-tent, and first smelled the scent of a hundred flowers, and before the new wine could go to his head heard his wife ask him urgently, "What hour is it?"

Chen Dasheng stood blank, and stammered, "The hai, hai, hai hour, just begun... madam... wife?"

A roll of red cloud came flying at him, and Chen Dasheng found himself kneeling before the ancestral tablets.

Bow to heaven and earth, bow to the elders, bow to each other.

He hadn't moved, and yet moved of himself?

The whole sequence through, and at the end? Flung onto the kang?

Flung up?

Flung... up? When he weighed several hundred jin?

On the newly hung "hundred sons, a thousand grandsons" bed-curtain, a hundred children played to the life, setting off firecrackers, pitting crickets, chasing butterflies, picking flowers, playing hide-and-seek?

Fine embroidery, this, wasn't it?

What was happening?

The curtain came slowly down, and Qi Qian'er, impatient, threw a leg over his waist, bent her head, and commanded, "Lift the veil!"

Chen Dasheng truly meant to say something, but his hand was seized by his wife, and before he knew it the veil was lifted... and his wife's eyes, as though a river of stars were hidden in them, met his...

Rumble on rumble, thunder filled his ears... Chen Dasheng's mouth hung a little open, feeling that something was wrong somewhere, and yet everything was right...

The bright red lips came slowly near, soft, fragrant, lips meeting lips, and Chen Dasheng thought, I'm dead! Dead clean through...

Qi Qian'er very earnestly undid her husband's clothes, piece after piece of red flung aside, the red candles flickering, and he went numb all over, limp of hand and foot, able only to say, "Eh? Eh? Erk?"

Where, where had it gone wrong after all... why did it still feel not right?

But he did not know that in the deep of that night, snow flying across the whole sky... unmarked, a stroke of starlight came plunging down, broke through the dark clouds, and fell at last into the red tent...

A hundred children rioting at his ear, Chen Dasheng's senses swayed, and he thought, where had it gone wrong after all? Wrong? Wrong?

How was it I'd taken flight...