Chapter 123

Qi Qian'er said she'd stop keeping the accounts, and sure enough handed them over cleanly.

Once the accounts were in hand, each household had its own case, and the most dumbfounded was Guan Si'er. He received three manors, some fifteen hundred mu of good land in his name, four street-front shops in Qingfeng, and over three hundred strings of silver left over.

In all his life he'd never held so heavy a sum. Guan Si'er could only spend to the figure of five hundred cash, and more than that he truly didn't know what to do with, and the lad was wretched past all bearing.

Truly, a man put off by having too much money.

In fact Guan Si'er had a new name now, Gong Yan, and the name was formally entered in the Gong genealogy. He wasn't used to it, and when people called him Marquis Gong he sometimes didn't register it at all.

The weather this day was passable, and when Guan Si'er came off duty a young eunuch came to summon him, to keep the Emperor company in the imperial garden and stretch his limbs a little.

Calling a guard in to spar a few rounds was the Emperor's way of passing his dull hours, but it wasn't an honor just anyone was called in for.

And why was it Guan Si'er so often called, and not Chen Dasheng? Because the Emperor had a fat son, and only with Guan Si'er called in to play with him would the boy stir himself a little. Set anyone else to make him move, and there wasn't a window or a door of a chance.

At the edge of an open space in the imperial garden, Consort Xiao earnestly wrote the character yan with a brush to show Guan Si'er.

"'That man there, the realm's fine talent.' A goodly man is a yan, a yan among men a sage. It's a fine character, worth ten thousand of 'Guan Si'er.'"

When the Sixth Prince came, Consort Xiao too would sometimes watch the sparring from the side on the pretext of seeing her son. She wasn't vying for favor. She was one of the few in the palace who lived at her ease, coming when she liked and going when she liked.

Guan Si'er looked at the name he'd privately traced out a thousand times at the least, his face full of satisfaction, and scratched the back of his head, and carelessly a few rolls of sheepskin deed-paper dropped out of his sleeve.

Fat as the Sixth Prince was, his hands were quick, and he snatched them up and opened them and looked them over and over. The characters he knew, but what a deed was he didn't, and he asked, "Little Seven, what do these say?"

Consort Xiao glanced over and said teasingly, "Say what? They say immortals! Don't you crumple them for Little Seven. I did wonder why the child's cuffs hung so heavy today, not knowing what he'd stuffed in them. How is it you shove something so important about your person? Aren't you afraid of losing it?"

Guan Si'er was troubled at the very sight of the things, and told the consort about his sister-in-law's splitting of the accounts.

Consort Xiao heard him out, looked at the heap of things again, and fell to praising the sister-in-law to Guan Si'er. "I often hear the Emperor praise the worthy wife of Qingling's house, and this sister-in-law of yours truly earns the name. A fine rake, that one, to have earned you brothers so great an estate in just three years. Hereafter you must honor her as you would your own mother, for your own mother... might not have been as good to you as this sister-in-law."

"A-duo? Good at what?"

The Emperor came back from working his halberd in a cloud of white steam.

Consort Xiao rose at his voice, went smiling to the Emperor, took up a cloth and wiped him from brow to neck, and before her the Emperor was meek as a child.

Consort Xiao said with a smile, "Why, it's that Dasheng's wife is expecting, and says she'll not keep Little Seven's accounts anymore, and look how it's worried the child, you didn't see..." She covered her mouth and laughed. "The child runs all over with a cuffful of deeds, and not a bit afraid of losing them."

"Oh? Take them all out and let Us have a look..."

Guan Si'er, helpless, had to take out every deed and spread them one by one for the Emperor to see.

The Emperor looked at them in deep earnest, and even pointed at the manor outside the capital. "How'd you come to buy land all the way out at Xiaonan Mountain?"

Guan Si'er looked down at it and said with full confidence, "Answering Your Majesty, land's cheap out there! On my bit of salary, Xiaonan Mountain land was all I could buy. Lucky my sister-in-law moved early and bought old fields that had gone to waste, and it was the second year before they yielded. My sister-in-law says Xiaonan Mountain's risen to three hundred and fifty cash a mu now, and you still can't get any."

The Emperor nodded, well pleased. "Good, good. Can't get it is a good thing, it means more are farming. But your estate's grown fast too, you've shops even?"

Guan Si'er answered, "Answering Your Majesty, this is from selling my manors' yield these two years. My sister-in-law had bought empty ground near the charity-pavilion on the Qingfeng highroad, meaning to start a little garden to grow our own vegetables, since it was close to home. Who'd have thought Qingfeng's streets would be built longer and longer, and after the family talked it over we put up shops there instead, all in a row, and now... you can't find a tenth of a mu of ground out there."

The Emperor nodded. "Heh! That I know of, your teacher bragged of it to me several times last year. A good sister-in-law is a blessing to you all. Speaking of which, do you know why I called you in today?"

Guan Si'er paused, and gestured with his hands. "Wasn't it to keep you company at this?"

The child could be friends with the Sixth Prince, and truly they were of a kind, simple of head, never thinking a thought more than needed.

The Emperor laughed, cast a glance at Zhang Minwang, and seeing him move off, said, "The suit between your house and the Zhao house is settled now. Have you, no thoughts on it?"

Guan Si'er was taken aback, and after a good while scratched his head. "Evil's, evil's been repaid with evil, and the anger in my heart's been let out, what else is there to think? I've not thought anything, really?"

Zhao Changxi had hanged himself, Zeng-shi was sentenced to be cut in two at the waist and her body cast out in the wilds, and the rest implicated to be sawn apart. The season just now was one of all things coming back to life, and the sentences would wait till autumn to be carried out.

And because Guan Si'er's case couldn't be made public, to comfort the wronged party the Board of Punishments had passed these seldom-used cruel sentences, and the Emperor had approved them without even going to question the accused.

Consort Xiao sighed. "Your Majesty mustn't bully an honest child. Whatever you have to say, say it to him straight. This fellow and our Sixth are both simple, straight souls, and you'd have them take a turn in their thinking?"

The Emperor laughed, and reached out and patted Guan Si'er's shoulder. "Ai, your brother's like this, and so are you, so honest sometimes that even I fret for you. Tell me the truth, do you not hate them?"

Guan Si'er answered earnestly, "Answering Your Majesty, I do hate them. But sometimes when I can't sleep I think, I lived through it after all, and without that one stretch of suffering... I'd never have known my brothers, nor, nor met you, Your Majesty. For those few things, I... don't hate them!"

The Emperor nodded with a smile. "Mm, well said, you've come on. It's a good thing you can think so. You few brothers are all good lads..."

As they spoke, Zhang Minwang came over with three young eunuchs bearing boxes, set the boxes on the table, opened them one by one, and quietly withdrew.

Guan Si'er glanced over, and seeing the boxes full of sheepskin deeds, was a bit stunned.

The Emperor took up a deed with a smile and showed it to the Sixth Prince. "Come look, Little Six. In old times this was called a zhiji, used as proof of a sale or trade. Later the ancients, fearing the contracts might spoil, carved the words onto bronze vessels for a warrant. Now we use sheepskin instead, and it's sturdy enough."

To the Emperor these things were no more than a lesson for his son, and after turning them over a while and showing the boy the land-deeds, the forest-deeds, the shop-deeds all through, he said to Guan Si'er, "Take them, they're all yours! These are what the Zeng and the Zhao families paid you with the whole strength of their clans."

Guan Si'er's eyes went round, and when it sank in he waved both hands over and over. "No, no, I won't, I won't, I can't take them."

Just as if dodging poison, he wished he could sprout wings and dodge away that instant.

Everyone laughed helplessly, and Consort Xiao put in from the side, "Child, what's got you so frightened? Given them, you take them. You suffered the great wrong. If you hadn't let go this time, Zhao family or Zeng family, having bred such a poisoner, the daughters of both clans would have had but one road from birth, born and at once dead, and that's not even the end of it, for one has to fear the men of letters would color the tale, and the stain would go into the histories from then on."

The Emperor closed the box offhand and said with a smile, "Take them. You've given the Hezhao Academy's whole line a way to live, which is a great many favors. These are only outward things."

Guan Si'er pursed his lips. "With Your Majesty, with the teacher, and my big brother and the rest, what do I want their favors for?"

Hearing Guan Si'er reel off a whole list of people he leaned on, and pointedly leave out the Gong house, the Emperor asked with a smile, "They tell me you seldom stay at home either?"

"No?" Guan Si'er's tone was full of bewilderment. "Every day when I've done my work I'm at home?"

The Emperor set him straight. "I mean, your birth parents' house."

At this Guan Si'er grew awkward instead, and hemming and hawing a good while, bowed his head and said, "Your Majesty, I... I'm not close with them, I, I've stayed a few times, but I'm just not used to it, mornings are so awkward... and it's not only me who's awkward, the, the household's awkward too... it feels even worse than before. Before, I could still shamelessly cadge a meal at Master Gong's, but now I, I see, I see Father, and my chopsticks can't find my mouth..."

"Pfft..."

Everyone laughed again despite themselves, but thinking it over, it was true. For such a child to spring up all at once would be awkward for anyone. It wasn't that they weren't close, only that they didn't know how to be close.

When everyone had done laughing, Guan Si'er's eyes lit up suddenly, and he pointed at the box. "Your Majesty, why not give this to the..."

Before he'd finished he got a cuff, and the Emperor drew back his hand and scolded, "Give it to whom? Your head's not big enough. This is yours, they have their own..."

The Emperor couldn't well scold him to his face: your parents haven't split the household from your brothers and sister, so take this over and does it count as the common accounts or your own? Your father and mother are good to you now, but when they kick off and the house divides, your brothers take seventy percent, and won't you have suffered for nothing?

It wasn't that the Gong family were of poor character, but that this was the way of the world and the ancestors' rule.

And besides, the compensation had been one whole sum to begin with, and only after the Emperor conferred with Master She was half of it held back for Guan Si'er. The Gong family didn't know this. It was purely his own people favoring their own.

The Gong family had taken their share of the compensation the better part of a month ago, and from their not coming to Guan Si'er to say anything of it, one could tell how things stood.

A great house has its own difficulties, and Gong Zhiyi was a most proper man. Dote on his youngest son as he might, and give him more property later, he'd still have to divide the household's goods fairly among the three sons, with the daughters-in-law all looking it over, and would need their consent.

And that put more than one pair of hands, more than one heart, in between.

Well, then. Look at the boy's air of not caring a whit, and the Emperor couldn't contain his vexation.

Seeing how dull Guan Si'er was, Consort Xiao said to him with a smile, "Take these back, hand them to your sister-in-law, ask her how to arrange it, and don't decide for yourself."

At the consort's words, the sour, worried face of Guan Si'er's broke at last into a smile.

He gave his thanks, murmured a while head to head with the Sixth Prince, fixed a time to meet next, and only then left, carrying the scalding-hot box.

Once Guan Si'er was far off, the Emperor said, flat and dry, "Satisfied this time?!"

But Consort Xiao said with a smile, "Then I thank my lord for his great favor. I'd not dare hope for anything more. Only with our Little Six's temper and nature, the one who might keep him company and play with him into old age this life is likely just this child. The child is simple and clean of heart, as you've seen, and his character can be trusted."

The Emperor nodded, with a touch of pride. "Just so. That day at the Tan house, one look and I knew, this one's mine. And not him alone. Look at Dasheng and Jintai and the rest, every one a steady, solid good lad... In all Yanjing, how many have come into wealth, and how many have been changed by it? But these keep their patience, go about in plain cloth day after day, simple as can be..."

The two of them talked of household things like man and wife, and the guileless Sixth Prince came ambling in from outside, clung to Consort Xiao's side being coy and playing the fool, rolling about the while, more like a piglet than ever.

This mother and son, bound together late, asked for little, and could always win a measure of Yang Zao's favor, and the Sixth Prince having been raised by Yang Zao's birth mother, the Dowager Jiang, was more set apart still.

But Yang Zao did not know that this plain favor, by the fourth year of Yong'an, had already begun to breed envy.

Not far from the Half-Face Pavilion, the Fifth Prince Yang Ying stood in silence, a row of young eunuchs behind him clasping flower-vases, each holding apricot branches he'd gone out of the city and up the mountain before dawn to choose for his royal father himself.

How long Yang Ying stood there he didn't know, and he left in silence, and reaching the garden entrance met Yang Zhen coming in the other way with a presentation-box in his hands.

Sore at heart, he said sourly, "Oho! Second Brother? They're having their family reunion, what do we want getting in the way for!"

Yang Zhen was taken aback by it, and only when Yang Ying had gone off did a young eunuch come and murmur a few words to him.

The Second Prince heard him out, smiled faintly, and carried the box on into the imperial garden.

What was Consort Xiao's favor to him? Before Great Liang was even founded he'd been helping his royal father with this and that, and the Empress having no son, he for his part only wished his father would favor the palace consorts the more.

He walked a few steps, then said to those about him with a sudden smile, "Fifth Brother's the clever one. Apricot blossom's just right now, so send someone up the mountain quick to break off some good branches for the old matriarch, the Empress, Consort Xiao and the rest to arrange in their vases..."

Guan Si'er carried the box out of the palace. His sister-in-law was expecting, he couldn't take his big brother's fists, and all this he wouldn't know how to manage, so he set his teeth and went straight to the prince's mansion, found the teacher, dumped the things on him like a scalding hot potato and left, saying only that it was for safekeeping.

Which vexed She Qingling no end. He cared nothing for managing even the imperial treasury, and well, one show of favor and he'd made trouble for himself...

Never mind how She Qingling fumed, and how he hunted out Chen Dasheng for a scolding, and how Chen Dasheng, with no help for it, found a few experienced accountants and from then on drove Guan Si'er like death itself to learn to keep a household and its books.

As for Guan Si'er, having flung off the hot potato, he went back light-hearted to the old garrison, only to reach the office gate and see the Gong family's old steward, one Lu Runnian, waiting there for someone.

Lu Runnian saw Guan Si'er and came over smiling. "How is it the Third Young Master's only just back? This old servant sees the other lords all came back long ago..."

Guan Si'er tugged at his court robe and said without looking up, "What do you ask that for?"

He was an imperial guard, and held confidential scout matters besides. But ever since he'd had a family, it was hard to speak of.

It wasn't that they weren't close. It was that his mother worried too much, wanted to know everything, ask everything, and he couldn't tell her, so he could only slowly bring those around him round to learning not to dig for things from him.

The old steward Lu flushed and quickly apologized. "Don't take it amiss, Young Master, this old servant's tongue ran on. You see, you've not been home some days, and the madam does miss you so."

Mother was missing him.

At this Guan Si'er's fretful mood lifted instead, and he raised his face and smiled. "In that case, wait here, I'll just go back and change and come out."

But the steward Lu said, "Young Master, the family's clothes ready for you, no need to change."

Yes. He had two homes now.

Guan Si'er called the gatekeeper over, had him go in and tell his brothers he'd be going over to Scholar's Lane tonight.

That done, he didn't ride in the Gong carriage, but rode his own horse alongside it.

At the Gong house on Scholar's Lane, Li-shi had begun getting things ready from noon, waiting only for her son to come home from duty to eat.

Counting Guan Si'er, the Gong house had three sons. The eldest, Gong Xian, had married Ren-shi and had two sons, Quanzhi and Yongzhi.

The second, Gong Zhi, had married Huang-shi and had a son, Yaozhi, and a pair of five-year-old twin daughters, Ziqi and Ziyi.

And there was a daughter, Xinghong, milk-name A-mao.

The Gong house's ways were good, a great family living together in peace and gladness, and splitting the household was a thing never so much as mentioned. The old master Gong Zhiyi came of a merchant house, had money to spare, and kept the whole family on the ancestral estate.

Gong Xian was twenty-nine and Gong Zhi twenty-six, and both held the licentiate degree, but father and both sons were of one unstriving temper, bent single-mindedly on study and letters, caring little for rank and honors.

Li-shi looked at the gate, her face a little abstracted, and said, "Our Third's heart is a coarse, coarse thing. More than ten days gone now, and why won't he come home? Scholar's Lane isn't far from the old garrison, so what's so good about that office he stays at?"

It wasn't the first time she'd said it, but her eldest daughter-in-law Ren-shi didn't find it the least tiresome, and said with a smile, "Third Brother's just not used to it. Mother, take it slow, we'll take it slow, mustn't rush... It has to be taught."

Li-shi, touchy, turned and looked earnestly at Ren-shi. "He needs no teaching, he's better than his brothers."

When Li-shi had spoken, her second daughter-in-law Huang-shi said with a smile, "That's so. The other day when our academy's students came to register at the Imperial College, your second son got into such a fluster, didn't even know where to register, and it was only by chance Third ran into him bringing something to the academy, and took a few of them to find the Vice-Director, and got the whole thing done smartly..."

At this Huang-shi laughed a while to herself, and seeing her mother-in-law and sister-in-law look at her oddly, held back a laugh and said, "Mother, you don't know, that Vice-Director Wang calls our Third 'brother,' then turns and calls your second son 'worthy nephew'!"

When Huang-shi had done, Li-shi blinked, and all at once the three women fell to giggling.

Awkward it was, surely. The father had come to teach a few years' lessons and held no official rank. But the son was a proper officer of the court, and counted the lords of the Imperial College his colleagues.

As they laughed, Li-shi's maid Caixiu ran in smiling. "Madam, mistresses, the Third Young Master's back."

Li-shi, roused, stood to go out, but Guan Si'er's stride was long and he'd already come through the second gate into the courtyard, and seeing Li-shi hurrying out, called "Mother" with a smile and took her arm to steady her.

Li-shi wept every time she saw this youngest son, and so she did now, taking Guan Si'er's hand and complaining, "Is there glue on your office kang, that it stuck you so you wouldn't come home?"

Guan Si'er greeted his two sisters-in-law, then helped Li-shi to a seat and explained, "Mother, over there I've to be up drilling before the dawn bell, and at home it would put the whole household to trouble, no end of inconvenience, and on grand-court days worse still, the whole family up and holding lamps."

At this Li-shi grieved the harder, and heedless of her two daughters-in-law beside her, sniffled, "Why is my son so hard put to it? Your brothers are this old and still lean on the family, and you have to keep yourself..."

The words left Ren-shi and Huang-shi feeling rather put out.

Guan Si'er laughed, first nodded apologetically to his two sisters-in-law, then said to Li-shi, "Mother, my two brothers are men of great learning, and I'm only a rough soldier, how would I dare compare myself to them? I just sell a bit of dumb strength, that's all."

Just as mother and son were talking happily, a troop of children came tumbling in from outside.

An uncle with a saber at his hip and a big horse to ride cut a figure ten thousand times more splendid than their own fathers.

The children, wanting to make up to their uncle, used the Gong family's way. The littlest, Gong Yaozhi, holding up a page of a fish-atlas, inched up before Guan Si'er, made his bow and greeting, and then asked, "Uncle, do you know what this is?"

Huang-shi widened her eyes to scold him, but Guan Si'er took one glance and smiled. "This one, with the faint ridge of bone growing on the crown of its head, is the remora, mostly born in the Southern Sea. It doesn't swim about on its own, but uses the thing on its head to stick to a big fish and travel all about. This fish is also called the cap-plate..."

Keeping company with the Sixth Lord, he never got to see a proper book either.

The children had failed to stump their uncle, and fell to worshipping him on the spot.

But Guan Si'er, stroking their heads, sighed inwardly. This kind of atlas, drawn with a thousand forms of living things, he'd seen in the palace and seen at the prince's mansion, a thousand sheets finely drawn in colored ink, and liking it he'd wanted a set of his own, but he'd asked all round the Yanjing bookshops and all said there was none for sale, and even to order one no master-copy could be found.

Never mind the cost, a set of such a living-creatures atlas took a dozen and more craftsmen three years to copy from a master-copy, and belonged to the private holdings of great houses. Among the common folk, never mind seeing one, they'd never even have heard of it.

Yet the Gong children could run about with the colored pages in their hands.

Huang-shi, not knowing what Guan Si'er thought, helped the eldest sister-in-law carry dishes to the table, and said as she worked, "Don't take it amiss, Uncle, these little rascals plague people with this every day, heh, and today they've met their match at last."

Guan Si'er washed his hands in the basin a maid brought, and Li-shi, saying little, elbowed the maid aside and with her own hands wrung out the cloth for her son and passed him the rinsing-water... working away busily and only getting in the way.

Guan Si'er, helpless, could only accept his mother's kindness, and once seated asked Huang-shi, "Second Sister-in-law, this atlas they've got seems a bit different from the one in the palace. What edition is this?"

Ren-shi, surprised, lifted her eyes to look at her brother-in-law, her hands busy still.

Huang-shi, coarse-minded and not thinking much, said, "This is the Fengwu library's. Your brother copies books from it when he's nothing else to do."

Guan Si'er, impressed, praised it. "Second Brother draws well."

But Huang-shi said, "Not at all, this is what our father drew in the old days, your brother hasn't the patience for it. As for the edition, this one's likely neither as old as the palace's nor as complete, for the palace adds to theirs year by year, and only slowly does someone with a mind to it carry a copy out, and our academy then gathers and records it. This page your nephew showed you, our father drew a little volume of it with his own hand, for fear they'd ruin the big one. This is the scaled kinds, some dozens of pages of it. The book's the greatest fun, never mind the children love it, I love it myself sometimes..."

Li-shi, put off by her daughter-in-law's chatter, rolled her eyes at her. "He's hungry! Let him eat a few bites first."

Huang-shi, a bit abashed, held her tongue at once, but minded it not a jot.

So Guan Si'er sat down to eat, alone at it, his mother seated and picking food into his bowl, his two sisters-in-law standing and picking food into his bowl and refilling his soup.

A mouthful on a mouthful of it, and lucky he was a great trencherman, or he'd surely have choked to death.

And Li-shi ran on all the while, "...This spring when the house had clothes made, I had extra put by for you, and from now on when you're off duty you just come home to stay..."

Guan Si'er nodded. "Mother, no silks and satins, plain cloth is fine."

Li-shi drew a patient breath. "Good, we'll do as my son says."

Guan Si'er smiled gratefully and bent his head to keep shoveling it in.

"Son, let Mother tell you, you've a salary now, but they tell me the Emperor keeps you still?"

Guan Si'er nodded again. True enough, what he drew was still a low consort's allowance.

Li-shi sighed. "So Mother's thought it over. What you have is yours, but what the family owes you, you shall still have."

Guan Si'er shook his head at her, but Li-shi said, "This is your due, and your brothers' the same! Sweet child, I've told your brothers and their wives too, from now on your food and clothes and spending all go on our main accounts. What's yours is yours, and don't you fritter it, save it all up for yourself.

"Sweet child, if you've a big sum to spend, just say a word to your sister-in-law. Under a thousand strings, use it as you please. Over a thousand, tell your father and mother. Rest easy, our house can afford to keep you..."

Guan Si'er thought of the boast he'd made at the office that day and felt a bit abashed.

But Li-shi went on, "Your brothers' food and drink and socializing come from the common purse too, a hundred strings' allowance each a month. And your father's mind is that you've gone out to work and have the more to keep up, so we'll favor you a little, and from now on the house will give you two hundred strings a month... And if that's not enough, we have it, use all you need..."

Guan Si'er, feigning carelessness, stole a glance at his two sisters-in-law, and seeing them go on picking food into his bowl without minding a whit, felt a little easier. As for the Emperor's half, he truly paid it no mind. His mother and he had both been wronged, and here too were three generations under one roof.

This was very good.

Li-shi ran on and on about the things in Guan Si'er's room, what she'd added for him, where each thing had come from, truly favoring her youngest son and all of it fine things, and as she talked a string of hurrying footsteps came running from outside.

Master Gong had come the whole way from the school, and only at the door remembered a father's dignity, and holding the doorframe caught his breath a good while before clearing his throat. "Mm? So it's Yan'er come home!"

Li-shi, who deeply resented the old thing of late, scolded at this, "Look at that wretched name you gave him, it sounds like 'swallow, swallow,' no wonder he's out flying about all day and never folds his wings at home! You change that wretched name for me this instant..."

The two sisters-in-law looked at each other and bowed their heads laughing together again.

The children loved their grandfather and swarmed up, some climbing him, some clinging to his legs... a merry uproar.

Guan Si'er sighed inwardly and thought, well, never mind. This household was a hundred times better off than Little Flower's, whose parents, wanting to favor their youngest, had to send things to Guard Lane on the sly.

His own father and mother, the more he looked, the better they pleased his eye.