Chapter 131

On the first of the fifth month, Qi Qian'er's belly had risen to a swell, and these days were harder to get through. Grown delicate in body, perhaps, she'd begun to be fussy about food, not wanting to look at this and not wanting to eat that, and for a spell, no telling why, she couldn't bear the sight of Master Cheng's face, and one look at it and she'd weep for no reason.

Which got to where Master Cheng would dodge her on sight.

Carrying An'er in her belly, Qi Qian'er feared she'd bear him thin and small as in the last life, and her morning-sickness was fierce, never mind eating meat, truly any smell at all made her retch.

Even so, over and over she sicked up and ate, sicked up and ate, and for An'er's sturdiness put whatever was good into her mouth, and this hard usage of herself the whole family couldn't bear to watch, feeling only that this Qi Qian'er had it hard and could endure so very much.

Anyone else like this would long since have gone thin as a bundle of kindling.

But she'd raised herself up into a fair, tender, round little egg.

And one thing more Qi Qian'er didn't tell anyone: she rather wanted to hit people, Chen Dasheng especially, and every bout of misery sent her into a towering rage.

She'd even gotten a little notebook, and every time she sicked up and suffered she'd set it down to his account, only waiting for him to come back to pin him to the floor and set her foot on his head, and if she didn't beat him half to death her name wasn't Huo!

Life gains its harvests through endless fretting over loss and gain, as, for instance, this morning, when Lu-shi came over smiling to tell her that in the afternoon the city would hold the Lady's temple fair, a great three-day fair, trading in old goods.

She'd just the chance to clear out the old stock from the family's shop, and at so great a market had invited all Guard Lane's mistresses to go to the fair, and booked besides the finest feast in Qingfeng prefecture for noon.

Only before she'd finished the basket fell from Qi Qian'er's hands to the floor, her whole face aghast. Yes, that's right, our Fourth Mistress was truly aghast today.

"What, what temple fair did you say?"

Not knowing her meaning, Lu-shi blinked. "The fair of the Lady's temple?"

Qi Qian'er's very soul went drifting off, and she stammered, "What, what Lady?"

Lu-shi slapped her thigh. "The Elm-Tree Lady's old-clothes fair! I tell you, the Elm-Tree Lady is the most answering of prayers, I went and burned incense before I carried my eldest girl, and was with child not half a month after..."

Yes, yes, is that so? And how did I never know you'd prayed to me?

In an instant, every thunderbolt there was in the world struck down on Qi Qian'er's head, and she felt as if she'd gone black and smoking. There was no dodging the ancestors setting the mountain ablaze, and it had burned, come what may, from the old home right up onto the crown of her head.

She knew plainly enough that every temple fair had its great market, but that in this world there should be a temple fair belonging to her?

And what, then, was there to say?

Qi Qian'er's heart grimaced a long while before she asked Lu-shi with a strained face, "But isn't the Elm-Tree Lady a living person? How has she a temple fair?"

Lu-shi blinked and was about to speak when Zhang Wanru, a fruit-basket on her arm and half a fruit in her mouth, came into the garden holding her belly.

"This is the Lady's temple's old custom, and has nothing to do with the Elm-Tree Lady of this generation."

"What's that you say?!"

How did I never know, and which generation am I then? Qi Qian'er, her face black with scorch, stared at this world she didn't understand.

The garden was Chang Lianfang's house's, and since he never tended it himself, Qi Qian'er had had it cleared out and some flowers and plants put in, somewhere to go out and see a bit of green each day.

The prince's mansion was big, but there was no little companion there to talk and play with. And the back mountain couldn't be gone to this spring, and least of all by a woman.

As said before, Quanhou Street was home to a crowd of petty officials, and across the way on Quanqian Street had come the old dynasty's sour scholars, driven out of Yanjing by the court. This lot had lived on Yanjing's Scholar's Lane, rather out of step with the times, and had meant to sell their book-learning to the imperial house, but the Emperor wouldn't buy, finding them too dear, perhaps?

He could use the Hezhao and Fengwu scholars of the outer commanderies, and wouldn't use these, and so they'd had to move to Qingfeng prefecture.

Though the court had given them houses on Academy Street, that side had no water, and so one way and another these old pedants bought land over here and began building big houses alongside Quanhou Street. At least they weren't cut off from the officials' circle, and their company wasn't quite common folk.

And from then on, it put a crimp in the Quanhou Street women's digging of wild greens.

For the scholars would go treading the spring green in the hills, would compose poems in the hills, would paint in the hills, would roar in the hills, would sob in the hills, would pour out their grievances against Yanjing in the hills... In Wan-shi's words, a pack of old beggars with nothing better to do than carry on, every one like a live monkey, and not fed enough they'd go making mischief, a frightening sight indeed.

The back mountain couldn't be gone to, for the madmen had even thrown up no little thatched huts, and ever since those reed-huts went up, chanting monks came, wandering Daoists came too, and anyone who could knock out a few sour verses took a hermit's name and loafed about on the mountain, and when they weren't making poems they followed the sages of old in drinking wine and picking lice, and at the least excuse stripped off their clothes and such, and we're women of decent houses, and anyway a heap of old spareribs is nothing worth looking at.

Brother Quanzi put it well: the feng-shui here was so fine that dig any old pit, pour in some water, and a whole crop of famous monks would spring up. And for saying it he took a beating from the old lady.

Disrespectful! Served him right!

Though the court had bestowed this place on Qi Qian'er, and bestowed a temple besides, the land-deed hadn't been given, so Qi Qian'er couldn't well raze the reed-huts, and could only, sighing and groaning, retreat to the little garden of Chang Lianfang's chessboard court to amuse herself.

The Tang house's Li-shi did come over, eyes full of worship, and named some names, this and that great master, and what topics they'd debated, such as where exactly the gold-slip jade-character texts had been found, and who the devil Boyi was. On astronomy alone, the nine heavens, the three lights, the seven governors, the seven weavers, the twenty-eight lodges, the five-phase pitch-pipes, curse it all!

...I'm a back-quarters woman who'd even read books in my last life, and damn it, what do I do when I can't follow a word?

A surfeit of scholars taught Qi Qian'er one lesson: above the Thirteen Classics and the Eight Rules of Governance there were the cosmos and the stars, and their knowledge forever leapt across your former and future lives, and you'd seem to understand, but in truth you were a know-nothing half-measure still, which was rather humbling.

Not even able to follow it, she didn't know how to answer, but that Li-shi understood, and even tried disguising herself to sneak in among them, and sneak in she did, just in time to catch a pack of the famous men she worshipped picking lice against the reed-wall, and those famous men stood on no ceremony, and when pressed within would undo their belts right before her and, turning their backs, water the ground for manure, which was truly inconvenient.

And she too was driven to come to the little garden to chatter idly.

Today Li-shi hadn't come, and a ring of wives sat in the little garden, Qi Qian'er, Lu-shi, Pan Baqiao, Chai-shi, and Huang-shi, all with their needlework, listening together to Zhang Wanru tell an old tale.

It was usually so, and as the telling went on the people grew more, coming and going as they pleased and bringing their own food to share, all of them with money and power and leisure, and the Huang-shi they thought the most pitiable had two serving-women now and had bought a hundred-odd mu of land out by the thirty-li charity-pavilion.

Qi Qian'er, badly frightened, poured Zhang Wanru water with a trembling hand, and Zhang Wanru, cup in hand, told the whole company, with a frank smile, the Elm-Tree Lady's story, her eighteen generations of forebears.

"...This Elm-Tree Lady's family was surnamed Yu by birth."

The teapot dropped heavily from Qi Qian'er's hand. "Eh?"

But I'm surnamed Huo?

"Mm!" Zhang Wanru nodded firmly at her. "Her mother's family was surnamed Yu, and the Elm-Tree Lady of the generation before was a maid who tended the fire and fed the wood to the elixir-furnace at Lord Lao's side, and everyone called her the Yu fire-maiden."

Qi Qian'er, "Eh?!" She meant to inquire into this in earnest now. Was her birth truly so noble? Only, only a fire-tender, but a heavenly bloodline all the same?

So she asked, "Isn't it all boy-attendants at Lord Lao's side?"

Zhang Wanru's face was all scorn. "Sister, does your house use only servant-lads? At your own stove, at your needlework, is it women and maids, or servant-lads? So great an immortal as Lord Lao, and what if he has a fire-maiden?"

True enough, and Qi Qian'er, thinking it the sense of it, nodded and made a gesture of invitation with both hands. "Go on, go on."

Zhang Wanru cleared her throat. "Now, one day this Yu fire-maiden cut a bundle of firewood in the heavenly garden to take home and fire the elixir-furnace."

Qi Qian'er made another doubtful sound. "That's not right, doesn't firing the elixir need the true fire of the three flavors?"

Huang-shi, who seldom spoke, said with a certain face, "Aiyo, how young you are, what do you know? Let me tell you, Fourth Mistress, take our own house, the stove burns wood and straw to cook, right?"

Everyone nodded that it was so.

Huang-shi went on, pleased with herself, "Then why's your heating-brazier the finest charcoal? Each fire for its material. The Yu fire-maiden at Lord Lao's side mightn't know how to make a banquet, but seeing it done so often she'd at least know how to make a dumpling soup, eh? So she went to cut wood, this is for soup, a small thing not worth that three-flavor whatever..."

Zhang Wanru clapped. "Right! That's just how it goes. This day the Yu fire-maiden was boiling the little numinous elixir..."

Qi Qian'er cut in again. "Wasn't it a flour-dumpling soup? Where's the little numinous elixir come from... elixir, elixir... go on, go on."

The perfectly good story had only just begun and couldn't go on. This person was a real nuisance, cutting in all the time.

A courtyard of wives glared, and Qi Qian'er sheepishly covered her mouth. Little numinous elixir, let it be dumpling soup, then.

Seeing Qi Qian'er make no more trouble, Zhang Wanru huffed and went on, "This Yu fire-maiden had just raked apart her firewood when suddenly she found among the wood and straw a golden ear of wheat..."

Qi Qian'er wanted to ask something again, this being her own origin after all, but Zhang Wanru had long been on guard against her, and glared at her as she spoke.

Covering her mouth again, golden ear of wheat, let it be a golden ear of wheat, it was gold at least.

"...The Yu fire-maiden, seeing no one about, hid the golden ear of wheat away for herself..."

This, tsk! Not wrong there, it was gold, and if she herself found gold in the firewood she'd surely hide it too, alike, alike, the very likeness.

"...That year the lower world met with great calamity, the people with no way to live, and the Yu fire-maiden, seeing the lower world sell its sons and daughters and the starved dead all over the ground, could not bear it, and so that one night..."

Qi Qian'er tipped her head up to the sky. Why would there be a "that one night" in heaven?

"She tucked the golden ear of wheat in her bosom and came down to the mortal dust, and lit just here on Baiquan Mountain behind us, and as it happened, our Baiquan Mountain had a sprite too, taken shape from a thousand-year elm, and this elm-sprite was merciful of heart, and often came out to work its arts and save the people..."

Qi Qian'er, a fruit in her hand, crunched it loudly.

Zhang Wanru shot her a glance and went on, "That night, this elm-sprite was just going down the mountain when halfway he met the Yu fire-maiden, and on the instant was struck dumb. Aiya, a heavenly fire-maiden is a female immortal too, and her looks were truly lovely as the heav— ahem, anyway lovely, lovely, in such immortal robes, with such fluttering ribbons, and down she flew.

"The elm-sprite took to her at a glance, and came forward and asked, immortal maiden, have you some business in the mortal world? And the Yu immortal maiden, who knew nothing at all of mortal affairs, seeing besides how handsome and comely this elm-sprite was, the two of them became husband and wife..."

Past all bearing, Qi Qian'er cut in at last. "That's not right, didn't she come down to save the common folk, have you forgotten? The Yu fire-maiden stole the golden ear of wheat and came down! How'd they become husband and wife?"

No such thing, surely.

Lu-shi, deep in the pleasure of the telling, sighed, "Ancestor now, can't you wait for Wanru to finish before we argue right and wrong?"

Qi Qian'er held her breath hard, and waved a wholly helpless hand.

Zhang Wanru snorted, crunched a bite of fruit, and went on. "After they became husband and wife, the Yu immortal maiden brought out the golden ear of wheat to save the people, and this golden ear being a thing of heaven, one planting of it and in a flash grew tens of thousands of mu of grain, and the two of them took this grain down the mountain to save the common folk... Only a pity, a year below is a day above, and this day Lord Lao fired up the elixir-furnace and found the fire-tending maiden gone, and reached out and reckoned on his fingers and inwardly cried, no good..."

This old man was always inwardly crying "no good," and once he did, he'd go stirring up some trouble.

The whole courtyard drew a breath together, and Zhang Wanru, a hand on her belly and leaning forward a little, looked round half the circle all mystery. "Everything in this world has its fixed measure. How many clothes you wear, how much grain you eat, how many are born and how many die each year, all have their rule.

"Lord Lao reckoned it out and reckoned up the world's calamity: this year hell should take a hundred thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine souls, but hell had taken only eight hundred and sixty-seven souls so far..."

Qi Qian'er lay on the low couch, pulled a soft cushion over and leaned on it, crunching her third fruit, and gave a grunt, and Fourth-Moon came to rub her back and knead her legs.

Curse it, where do you get these numbers?

"Ai! Now this was no good, coming down to the mortal world on her own was a great crime against heaven's law, an immortal maiden wedding a sprite wasn't allowed either, and on top of that the theft of a heavenly thing, and disturbing hell's cycle of rebirth was a greater crime still, and the upper world sent heavenly soldiers and generals to seize the Yu immortal maiden.

"The elm-sprite pleaded bitterly, and thanks to Lord Lao's mercy, he said to the elm-sprite, you two meant kindly enough, but the grain you gave out didn't belong to the mortal world, and those fated to die who ate this grain, there's no help for that, but their descendants were never in the mortal world's fixed measure, and the grain they eat you must give.

"And so the poor Yu immortal maiden was taken away by the upper world, and to atone, from then on the elm peels its bark to repay the grain, and that's how the elm-bark of this world first became fit to eat..."

Those around her, hearing it out, had tears in their eyes indeed, sighed without cease, and gave thanks over and over with their lips.

Qi Qian'er slowly opened her eyes and said feebly, "Weren't we on about the Elm-Tree Lady today? What's she got to do with elm-bark?"

Zhang Wanru glanced at her. "Ai, I'm just coming to that. Not long after the Yu immortal maiden returned to heaven she bore a daughter, and a child got of a lower-world sprite and an upper immortal naturally couldn't stay in heaven, and Lord Lao later sent people to deliver the child into her father's hands in the mortal world, and this child is the very person of our Elm-Tree Lady..."

"Ah! How did I, how did I never know?"

Qi Qian'er was greatly surprised. She knew all too well where she came from. Her mother was a mere maid, and her father's head had hung drying in the wind on Qingfeng's city wall before someone took it down and buried it, and it was she who'd quietly given Old Xin money to have it buried in the Huo family ancestral graves.

When had that old thing married a heavenly immortal, and peeled his bark to save the common folk besides?

Lu-shi jeered, "Our Fourth Mistress pushes the mill at home all day, won't even bring herself to go out and about, so how would you know? And a local too!

"Every local knows this, I'm Qingfeng city born, and I knew it as a child, my granny and great-granny told this old tale in their idle hours, no telling how many times I've heard it.

"The old folks all said the Elm-Tree Lady was our local immortal, living in the elm wood on Baiquan Mountain, and whenever someone starved to death below, she'd peel her bark and come down to save the common folk, and that great snow a few years back, you all remember it?"

Qi Qian'er imagined peeling the bark off her wretch of a father, and gave a shiver.

Lu-shi pointed round half the circle, and no end of people nodded to witness it was so.

That year, bitter cold and frozen ground, snow knee-deep, and so many dead, and the Lady came down and saved a winter's famine-folk, and when our Emperor learned of it, moved that her house had it so hard, he opened his golden mouth and jade teeth and bestowed the temple, and let her be worshipped.

"Or do you think the Emperor, full and with nothing better to do, would give a temple for no reason?"

"Ha!"

What could Qi Qian'er say, she could say nothing at all.

Seeing her face all scorn, Lu-shi gave her a slap. "You're carrying one, and mustn't talk such nonsense. You live right at the foot of the Lady's mountain, and those far off can't hear, but look at your unwillingness, she can hear you."

Qi Qian'er pursed her lips, turned and sat up meaning to cry out, what, am I to be afraid of my own self?

But unexpectedly Zhang Wanru went on, "Why, just the other day the old head beggar who watches our Qingfeng city's Lady's temple said that the Lady had come to him in a dream, saying her house peels its bark generation on generation, and these past years especially it had peeled too hard, which had told a little on her cultivation.

"The Lady said, everything in this world comes and goes, and if the households around Qingfeng have old clothes and shoes and socks they don't wear, old things they don't use, let them bring them out and entrust them to Qingfeng's beggars to set out a stall and sell for them, and for every ten cash you get give the beggars two as alms, which is a thing of great merit. In truth there was this fair in the old dynasty, only the war came and it wasn't held. And now it's the first of the fifth month again, and by old custom Qingfeng is to hold the Elm-Tree Lady fair, and five hundred li around are to come into the city to sell their old things... it's a thing that lays up merit for the next life."

Lu-shi nodded with a smile. "That's just it, and lucky I'm quick, I knew the custom long ago, and sent my shop-hands out early to grab a couple of little beggars off the street to hawk old goods, and once noon's past we'll all go sit on the upper floor of my shabby shop, and I've booked two tables of the feast besides!

"I tell you, this year, thanks to the Elm-Tree Lady's blessing, our spring rains were rich as fat, and the prefect was so pleased he called up the local guilds and drilled a thousand drums to meet the Lady's procession through the streets, and my place is high and just right to see the Lady's spirit-tablet pass, so you mistresses must all come."

Knowing at last how things stood, Qi Qian'er swayed to her feet with a hand on her belly, and on Fourth-Moon's arm made to go home.

Someone behind asked where she was going, and she said home to sort out old things, and grab a beggar too to hawk them for her.

Chen Dasheng she couldn't get at, but that old head beggar, this time she'd beat him for the life of her, or she couldn't go on living.

Only, reaching the mouth of Guard Lane, she saw a woman from the old lady's side come to call her, saying the Jiangzhu Manor relatives had come.

This, this... this, a little temple fair, and how had it roused the Jiangzhu relatives? Rather embarrassing, that.

Qi Qian'er, on Fourth-Moon's arm, had just entered the courtyard when she heard a woman's wailing.

Mm, this voice too was familiar, often to be heard.

Hadn't the clan all been settled over at Jiangzhu, and these Jiangzhu relatives had brought the women and children of the old home over here to enjoy the good life.

The woman weeping was Grand-uncle's house's nephew's wife, come visiting her husband's-side kin.

In truth, by the old rule, she had mother's-side kin to visit, her cousin being the second branch's wife, that is Second Great-aunt, cousin Dayong's own mother.

Country folk all reckon their kin, but this one's kin had died, and she could only come over on Grand-uncle's connection, so she was sore at heart, and with the old lady a one to flaunt her wealth, every time the Jiangzhu relatives came she'd show off her gold hairpins, silver bangles, red satin jackets, old-silk trousers...

Her doing so, how could they not be jealous, green with envy to death, and no one could do a thing about it.

This woman, envious and resentful to the last degree, would sit in the courtyard and weep for her cousin, the house's Second Great-aunt, and everyone understood the gist well enough: I'm your house's real kin, and you'd better be a bit better to me, and this I must come and do once, remind you of once.

And so this one, every time she came, must sit in the courtyard and have a good cry.

"...my hard-fated sister, you married into the old Chen house, with nothing to eat that was yours and nothing to drink that was yours! You bore sons and raised daughters, a great merit, and lived poorly, cold and hungry, and I even made you a bowl of soup once, and you said it was good, said you'd come drink it again next time, and you never could come, my hard-fated sister gone up to heaven... just look, your son has become an official, and you got not a single good of it, my own sister!! My own sister grown up with me, heart stuck to heart and flesh to flesh..."

Qi Qian'er came into the courtyard with a sigh, and the woman, seeing her, took the handkerchief from her face and, without a single tear, lifted it and smiled. "Oh, the fourth house's wife is here."

Qi Qian'er's lips twitched, and she nodded and went on in.

The courtyard full of people, a good twenty or thirty of them, were all family kin.

Seeing Qi Qian'er about to go into the room, the woman called after her, "Fourth house's wife, will there be a meal for your auntie tonight, and is there meat?"

"There is!"

"That's settled, then, you're one with a conscience, we'll eat and go home after the fair... my sister, oh, my sister who was my heart's ache, your house eats meat every meal, and you couldn't get a thing..."

Qi Qian'er went into the room, where the old lady was as usual showing off her things, a fine brocade robe lately come to her, which she'd readied to wear innermost into the coffin when she died.

Qi Qian'er had thought the day already hard enough, but never thought the afternoon would be the real trial.

That afternoon Lu-shi fetched all the sisters-in-law, the old lady along with them, to her shop to watch the fun.

As for the family kin, they'd come into the city the once meaning to buy some old shoes and socks and clothes to take home to live on, and at most eat one meal of meat at your house, and the Chen house could well afford it, and most country kin in this world visited just so, as they pleased.

With kin in the city they'd a place to stop, but they'd not sit upstairs with the old lady, they wanted to go to the fair.

The upper-floor windows stood wide, the street a din of voices, and at nearly every shopfront stood one or two beggars, bone-clappers in hand, waiting for the procession to pass so they could start hawking for the shopkeepers, earning their winter's keep on the side.

Understanding Old Xin's meaning now, Qi Qian'er wasn't angry after all, and sat in a good seat leaning at the window, waiting... waiting for herself?

Waiting and waiting, at last from the direction of her temple on Baiquan Mountain came a faint crash of firecrackers all at once, and then the ground began to shake.

Before long a great gong-and-drum company, drumming fit to shake your heart and liver out, came down from the mountain into Qingfeng city, the people past counting, and if not a thousand drums then two hundred drummers, pounding away as they passed down the street...

When Qi Qian'er made out dimly the dark press of heads not far off, she rose with a hand on her belly, and before she could blink heard a heart-rending shriek at her ear, "Lady, bless me!! Bless me to bear my husband a..."

The ever-steady Chai-shi lunged to the window, and weeping and crying flung the string of cash she'd readied in her hand at the Lady's effigy being carried up at the street-mouth.

Qi Qian'er stared at her dumbstruck. Hitting me? You fling that great string of cash at my head?

The old lady pressed her palms together. "Bless us, bless us, bless us all!"

Amid the thunderous roaring at her ear, Qi Qian'er saw a hundred-odd sturdy lads, bare to the waist, bawling their work-chant, carry herself past... before her own eyes?

Seeing Qi Qian'er not stir, the old lady went half mad with urgency, and pushed her. "Aiya! Make your prayer! Quick, say it, the Lady comes out but once a year, quick, quick!!!!"

Qi Qian'er raised her stiff arm and cried at the self receding into the distance, "Er... I want to bear an An'er!"

Then, feeling this the same old tune, something came to her, her eyes lit up, and she leaned out the window and roared, "You tell me! Where did you hide that golden ear of wheat!!!"