Chapter 122

Yanjing hauled in more than three hundred remnants of White Stone Mountain. Called remnants, they were a crowd of physicians who felt pulses and treated the sick.

White Stone Mountain had been a school for several hundred years, and most physicians in the world who'd studied medicine had some tie to it. The sovereign carried a grudge against White Stone Mountain from his years of campaigning, but this great crowd had scarcely been dragged into prison by the Jiusi Hall a few days before people were pleading for them on every side, from the old-dynasty ministers down to the inner palace.

What physician alive hadn't saved a life or two in his time?

But in the one battle of Qingfeng alone, how many Great Liang soldiers had been lost to White Stone Mountain's poison powder?

Tens of thousands of them.

And so, for the first time since Great Liang's founding, the military and the civil ministers stood opposed.

The generals' stand was simple: since the poison came from White Stone Mountain, let them pay with their lives.

The civil officials feared that to wound the physicians' hearts would leave the realm without a healer from then on.

Chen Dasheng had his own hatred too, but took no part in this quarrel. He only stood quietly outside the hall and listened, waiting for a verdict like any other of the wronged whom the poison had harmed.

The Emperor, his head aching these days from the ministers' wrangling, sent for She Qingling to the Great Liang palace, not to reach any decision, nor to ask his opinion, for ask as he might She Qingling wouldn't give one, and having said he'd withdrawn he truly meddled in nothing.

The Emperor only wanted to vent what was on his mind. He himself dearly wished to slaughter every last White Stone Mountain remnant.

Listening to the Emperor's muttered grievances of every kind, and seeing the hour grow late, She Qingling set down his teacup, unhurried as ever, even with a touch of a smile. "Your Majesty vents this temper with no good cause."

The Emperor flung the memorial in his hand irritably aside, snatched up his prayer-beads and began telling them, and said as he told them, "No cause? By your reckoning, then, did our people die for nothing?"

She Qingling said, "Not for nothing, but your hatred has the wrong target. Consider: White Stone Mountain's tie to the old dynasty went back to that dynasty's very founding. Generation on generation they ate the imperial house's keep, were supported from the state treasury. You and I in those days were only paltry rebels, and their poisoning us was no more than following the great loyalty. To judge an old-dynasty crime now by a new dynasty's law, that doesn't quite hold up."

"Oh?" The Emperor sat up and looked at She Qingling with an odd face. "I say, Qingling, you've been out of the palace only a few days, so how is it your tone's gone and fallen in with those back-palace people?"

She Qingling laughed softly. "I only fear that if this one blade comes down, the healers of the realm will carry a grudge against Great Liang from then on. Think it over, isn't that the sense of it? Say nothing of the rest, just look at the records of the few able men in our Imperial Medical Bureau. They don't count as White Stone Mountain's people, but of the prescriptions they use, how many came out of White Stone Mountain's outer hall? By the rule of it, White Stone Mountain counts as half a teacher to them. And do you dare swear you'll never catch a chill or a cough hereafter? If it's all handled your way, I ask you this: when your body's out of order, will you dare take their medicine?"

Stung on a sore spot, the Emperor lay back with a huff and wouldn't say another word.

She Qingling rose to take his leave, and this time the Emperor did not keep him.

Father and son should by rights have gone back to the prince's mansion on leaving the palace, but She Qingling said to Chen Dasheng, "You go back to Qingfeng. Your wife's handing over the accounts to the branches today, and for the head of the house to be away, that really won't do."

Chen Dasheng laughed softly. "You're mocking me now. From the day your daughter-in-law came in the door, when did she ever let me run the house? Me, head of the house?"

She Qingling rolled his eyes at him. "Much idle talk. Off you go, quick. They're close brothers after all, so give way where you can. We're not short of these few household coins. Don't let money put a knot between brothers' hearts, that would be a sorry thing."

So Chen Dasheng saw his father back to the prince's mansion, then rode hard for Qingfeng himself.

The turmoil in the palace hadn't touched the common world, and Guard Lane was all rejoicing still. After all, this was Qi Qian'er with child, and that weighed differently than anyone else's.

Only no one expected that over this one pregnancy Qi Qian'er would at once call together the other six old-saber households and say she meant to hand over the accounts in her keeping.

At that, everyone balked.

In truth she'd long wanted to hand over these accounts, had meant to ever since Ding Yuniang came to the capital, and had said a few words of it to Yu Qingguan at the time, but Yu Qingguan had declined on the grounds that Ding Yuniang was unwell.

These three years, going on her memories of the past, Qi Qian'er had bought a good deal of farmland in the outer commanderies, and when Qingfeng moved its walls had traded the farm income of each house for street-front shops.

She ran the household to everyone's satisfaction, of course, but these were a pack of full sixth-rank lords now, and for them to take a few hundred cash a month from her hand, outsiders didn't know it, and if they did it would be a great joke.

Her thinking was sound, but handing over the accounts proved a little hard.

They simply didn't want to take them.

Ding Yuniang, who seldom spoke, was in a sweat with urgency. Her hands moved fast, her words came broken, and amid a flurry of gestures she kept repeating the same few words, "No, no... it won't do, I, I don't know how."

Qi Qian'er, in a goose-yellow lined jacket, leaned on the kang and smiled. "Sister, you'll have to learn even if you can't. I'll not have it that once I'm laid up I've still got to see to all this. By then, willing or not, I'll have no strength for it. Get your hand in now, and I'll lead you through it myself these next few months, and besides, isn't there Dani and the others to help you?"

Ding Yuniang wouldn't have it, and turned her face away so as not to watch Qi Qian'er's lips.

The old sabers said nothing, only sat in the outer room and listened quietly. Their stand came to one thing: they didn't understand such matters, and the womenfolk decided them.

But in their hearts they were still quite willing to have Qi Qian'er keep charge of it.

Zhang Wanru, a basket in her lap as she made a child's Eight-Immortals cap, heard Qi Qian'er say this and asked carefully, "Sister, did you hear some gossip out there?"

Qi Qian'er shook her head at once. "What gossip. Since the day Guard Lane came to be, has there been any shortage of gossip about us out there? One day we're the watchdog lane, the next we look down on everyone. In this world, so long as you live well there's never a shortage of gossip, and it's got nothing to do with our household accounts... Each house to its own life, and these seven households all tangled together really won't do."

Back when she'd set up the manors she'd guarded against just this, buying truly a manor to a household, never mixing them, for fear it would come to a day like this and there'd be no telling one from another.

Before she'd finished speaking, the outer door sounded, and a floor-sweeping cold draft came through the room.

Chen Dasheng came in wrapped in cold air, and not daring to rush straight to Qi Qian'er, said with a laugh from the doorway, "I caught a few words at the door. What are you all thinking? Oh, split the accounts and you're no longer one family? You've overcomplicated it! It's only a matter of handing over accounts, so how's it become your little sister-in-law making things hard for you?"

Yu Qingguan took Chen Dasheng's cloak and said with a smile, "Chief, you've got it wrong. Hard or not isn't the point. The thing is, hand the accounts to us and we wouldn't know how to run them anyway?"

When he'd done, Hu Yougui sprang up. "Brother, whatever you say, I'm not taking my accounts. One man full and the whole family's fed. They've all taken wives, got someone to mind things, but who would I find?"

Tong Jintai stuck out a foot to trip him. "You tell me. The one who climbs your wall every day, I'd say she's keen enough to mind them."

At his words a snicker went round the room, and Hu Yougui, thinking of that madwoman, puffed up with indignation and turned to scuffle with Tong Jintai.

As it happened, there was no door-curtain between inner and outer rooms, and each family had brought its own little girl along. Tong Jintai's girl was just beginning to come out with words, and seeing Hu Yougui lay hands on her father, she let out a cry of "Papa" as if she were being slaughtered, and burst into tears.

Heart-rending it was, and one crying set the whole lot crying.

Tong Jintai loved his daughter as his life, and ran at once into the room and caught up his beloved eldest girl.

The girl wasn't raised for nothing. Held in her father's arms wasn't the end of it. She pointed her chubby little hand at Hu Yougui, and oh, how she pointed, complaining to the whole circle: this wretch hit my papa, get him, quick!

She'd point, turn back and hug her father and cry a few, then turn and point again, make her complaint round the circle, then turn back and cry some more.

Hu Yougui, a bit put out, hid behind the door. But the girl had a good head on her, and looking round the circle again and finding her enemy gone, set up a needle-sharp wail on the instant, hugging her father and crying, "Papa, papa!"

Ai, your papa's alive, the mourning-wail's a long way off yet.

Tong Jintai, moved to the quick, his eyes gone red, lost all shame then and there, and carrying his daughter behind the door chased Hu Yougui with a round of kicks and blows, until his girl felt her wrong avenged and burst out giggling, clapping her hands to show she was pleased, and only then did everyone breathe easy.

The things that went on, day after day!

The child truly wasn't raised for nothing. Taken with her, Chen Dasheng reached out to touch her cheek, but Tong Jintai, minding the thick calluses on his hand and fearing he'd scratch the girl's tender little face, dodged him.

"Tsk, as if yours is the only house with a child, I'm taken with her!"

Chen Dasheng, for once showing a childish side, felt that the cold had gone off him, and only then went into the inner room and said to them all with a smile, "There now, it's late today, and we'll settle nothing of it. Talk it over again tomorrow, how's that?"

Since he'd said so, everyone smiled and took their leave.

When all had gone, Chen Dasheng flopped down on the kang and, fondly stroking Qi Qian'er's belly, asked, "Did he give you any trouble today?"

Oddly enough, after that one bout at the Tang house she could eat and drink and sleep, and carried the child as well as could be.

Qi Qian'er shook her head with a smile, and sent Fourth-Moon to tell the kitchen to bring the meal.

Chen Dasheng had shoveled down a couple of mouthfuls of hot food when word came from below that Master Cheng had come.

Chen Dasheng laid down his chopsticks and had the man shown in at once.

They were no strangers, so he received him on the kang.

Master Cheng came in wrapped in a disheveled air. He was wretched and anxious tonight too, with a guilty something inside him and nowhere to let it out, not daring to spread it about, yet wanting someone to lean on, some sure word to settle his heart.

So after circling Guard Lane a few times, and seeing Chen Dasheng's guards unharnessing the horses outside, he came in.

Coming in to find Chen Dasheng loudly at his food, he went paler still, and had to say with a forced smile, "Oh, you're eating, this, I've come at a bad time..."

Chen Dasheng jumped down off the kang, moved a stool for him with his own hands, sat him down, and said, "Hai, Master Cheng, you're too polite. What are we to each other? If you'd a trouble and called over the wall in the dead of night, you think I wouldn't come?"

Master Cheng sat down haltingly, and for a long while said nothing.

Shrewd as Chen Dasheng was, he finished his soup, set down his chopsticks, waited for the maids to clear the dishes, and then said, "Master, don't tell me you've some tie to White Stone Mountain too? And today you've come to ask a favor of me?"

At this both Qi Qian'er and Master Cheng lifted their faces and looked at Chen Dasheng in surprise.

Seeing all the color gone from Master Cheng's face, and afraid of frightening the man into some harm, Chen Dasheng soothed him. "Don't be alarmed, Master. The law doesn't punish the many, as they say. Never mind elsewhere, in Yanjing alone how many physicians have had White Stone Mountain's benefit? And what if your medical training does have a tie to White Stone Mountain? Your record is plain. From the day His Majesty raised his troops, you've been in our camp, diligent, never daring to slack a single day, and everyone can see it. So there's no need to panic. Whoever gets into trouble, it won't come down on your head."

Master Cheng hadn't thought Chen Dasheng would say this, and still in a fluster, he steadied himself a long while before saying, "That's, that's not quite it either. I only thought, thought I'd be bold and sound you out, if, if, if one truly were a White Stone Mountain disciple, and did bear a crime from before, then, then what's the court's mind on it?"

He looked at Chen Dasheng, his whole face pleading.

At this Chen Dasheng paused, and looked Master Cheng over carefully.

But Master Cheng bowed his head at once, his legs flustered and not knowing where to put themselves, only trembling.

Qi Qian'er set down the little trousers in her hands and tugged Chen Dasheng's sleeve. "I've some things to see to outside. You two talk."

With that she got down off the kang and shuffled off in her shoes to the old homestead.

Once Qi Qian'er had gone, Chen Dasheng sat there and thought: for Master Cheng to have said as much, there was likely truly some matter behind it he knew nothing of. As for knowing the court's mind on how it would be handled, that wasn't quite so either.

But by now he'd long since read through the minds of the old lords of every board, the old marshals of the Board of War, even the Emperor.

He could reason out a likely outcome, but couldn't say it plainly to Master Cheng.

But Master Cheng had been the matchmaker for him and Qian'er, and in the old days of Granny's wanderings they'd had no small kindness from the man. A person has to have a conscience.

Life in this world holds much that goes against the grain, but who'd have thought that once he held real power, the first trouble to come to his door would come from a man as unworldly as Master Cheng.

The lamp-wick on the table crackled, and Master Cheng jumped in fright and sprang up.

Chen Dasheng quickly soothed him, poured him a cup of tea, and said, "You, is it that you're caught up deep in this?"

Master Cheng quickly lifted his head to explain. "No, no, no, not me. You, you know me, it's not me, but someone, someone very dear to me."

Chen Dasheng breathed easier, thinking, now I know how the Emperor feels.

He turned it over a good while before saying, "Master, we've known each other long. The court's mind I'm not free to speak of, but what I can tell you is this: even the old Empress Dowager in the back palace has been roused by it now."

At this Master Cheng lifted his head at once and looked at Chen Dasheng with eyes gone round.

Chen Dasheng nodded. "Not just the old Empress Dowager, there are a great many pleading for them! If His Majesty pressed a strict inquiry, the realm of Great Liang might be left without a healer from then on. Rest easy, Master. By my own reckoning, at worst... if some head of White Stone Mountain's three great halls came forward to bear the crime, the rest... might just take some strokes of the paddle, some punishment, and that's the end of it. After all... what house hasn't its share of sickness and trouble... don't you think?"

These words of Chen Dasheng's gave Master Cheng no comfort. He held up a smile, and went home in a daze.

Home again, he saw the supper laid on the main-hall table, each dish covered with a small bowl. By now Snow-aunt was no longer the pampered little grand-aunt of White Stone Mountain. She had earnestly set aside her pride and spent three years learning housekeeping.

The household's meals had been Snow-aunt's to make all along, while A-li nursed the child in her.

Having no appetite, he went to the back, and saw Snow-aunt and Su Bailian hard at work on the little clothes too.

He thought of the house next door hurrying at little clothes as well, but there every face was a whole family's gladness.

And in his own house, his wife had taken up her needle from the moment she conceived, as if she'd rush out the whole of her daughter's dowry.

The truth was she'd no wish to live at all.

Yes. She was Su Bailian, the wonder-handed soul-snatcher, and how many of White Stone Mountain's poisons had she made with her own hands? The battles that poisoned Great Liang's soldiers to death weren't hers to fight, but the poison, every bit of it, was hers to make.

Now Great Liang was a full three years founded, and the Jiusi Hall was seizing White Stone Mountain remnants everywhere. In truth it wasn't only this lot taken. In the Jiusi Hall's secret prisons, the White Stone Mountain disciples ran to far more than this number.

Sore at heart, Master Cheng looked at Madam Cheng's belly and silently began to shed tears.

Hearing his sobs, Snow-aunt only glanced up a little, then calmly went on with her work.

But Madam Cheng smiled, and looked up at Master Cheng. "You, now, you're like a man who in a panic over an illness grabs at any doctor. Are the lives of your own house lives, and other houses' lives no lives at all? Don't grieve. I knew this would be the end of it three years ago."

Master Cheng, in bitter grief, jerked his head up. "So you changed your face and your name and laid so great a scheme, you used me, Su Bailian, you used me!"

Madam Cheng touched her own disguised face, and said helplessly, "Cheng Wanning! That I love you, and you love me, is no lie. If you'd call it using, think back to the start instead. Had I not run off with you that day, I'd never have taken up the poison-making trade. That night you said, a stone laid down is not taken back... and only then did I go with you."

Master Cheng had come to regret it. A life may have its reckless green youth, but the thing most to be feared is to carry a whole life's fruit of that reckless youth, and he could not bear it. His heart tearing, he lunged over and held Madam Cheng and wept. "A-li, don't go, won't you? A-li, just stay with me, won't you?"

Madam Cheng slowly stroked his hair, now near all gray. "No, I won't. The dead soldiers of Great Liang say no. The inner- and outer-hall disciples of White Stone Mountain dragged down for it say no. The old masters of White Stone Mountain down the generations say no. Of the inner three halls' poison-makers, Su Bailian alone is left alive, and if I don't go, there's no one in this world to save them. We have to give that old emperor a way down, we have to give those wronged, wrongfully dead souls their reckoning."

Master Cheng sank to the floor, and after a good while laughed bitterly. "Heh. To think that I, Cheng Wanning, have helped more people in my half-life than I can count, and who'd have guessed it would end like this. Only my poor child... to be born and have not even a mother..."

"I'll be her mother!"

Snow-aunt's voice came suddenly from one side, and Master Cheng, startled, looked in astonishment at the just-grown face of his little grand-aunt.

By candlelight, Snow-aunt sewed away in earnest at a peach-pink little coat, and as she sewed she said with a smile, "This child's mother dies in White Stone Mountain's place, so she will be the sacred maiden of my White Stone Mountain hereafter, kept by White Stone Mountain's disciples. She won't be without a mother's love. After A-li is gone... I'll marry you, and be her mother!"

Madam Cheng thought it over in earnest, then nodded firmly. "Mm, that could be done, I think."

Master Cheng went wild again, and sprang up and shouted at his little grand-aunt, "Could be done? Have you both gone mad? I won't have it!"

With that he bolted out, and through the door left open rushed no end of cold wind...

Only when his footsteps could no longer be heard did Madam Cheng smile and peel a skin-mask from her face, baring a face with a high-bridged nose and sharp-swept brows, not especially beautiful, but of a keen, dashing air.

She handed the mask to Snow-aunt. "I'm being utterly selfish just now, I truly don't want my child, once she's born, to be called a motherless one. Take this and make up a few more on the pattern of it, and tonight I'll boil the glue for you."

Snow-aunt nodded in earnest, put the mask into her bosom, bowed her head in thought a while, then took a medicine-vial from the purse at her waist and handed it to Madam Cheng. "If it comes to a rush, and the court means one clean cut, there'll be nothing for it but to let her suffer a little and come into the world sooner."

Madam Cheng took the vial, gripped it in her hand, looked at her own belly and at last smiled bitterly. "My child, tell me, how much did you owe your mother in your last life... that you came to be born in this belly of mine?"