Chapter 18

Chang Lianfang sat there thinking privately: whether I lose out or not I couldn't say — but you've scared me half to death today, believe it or not?

While the two of them were still crossing swords in their minds, off in the distance came a fine troop of horse. Never mind the numbers of them — one look at the assorted flags at the head of the column told you these were no ordinary people.

Bar a royal marshal's tooth-banner, they had it all: streamers of blue and scarlet, red, white and black, command flags, battle-array flags, tiger-and-leopard flags, and a great banner with the word "Chang" — all of it snapping in the wind, one grand sweep of martial splendor. It set Qi Qian'er clicking her tongue: this was a far more dignified sight than that tattered flag flapping outside the Tan army's sick-and-wounded camp.

Ai — just how imposing a man with real power in his grip could be, even she couldn't have pictured. Look at the array of it: one leg steps out and a thousand legs go scrambling after. So this — this must be Chang Lianfang's founding-earl father, Chang Mianshen, arriving.

Which reminded her — just now Qi Qian'er found Chang Lianfang a little easier on the eye. He'd come from a house like this, and later rose to be a man above men; yet in the end he still remembered to kowtow and burn offerings at the old lady's grave. That much breadth of heart, that much cultivation, was worth praising.

At that Qi Qian'er stood and said to Chang Lianfang: "Uncle, call over those men who were with us just now, and the carts too, and come along with me."

Chang Lianfang asked, dumbfounded: "Go where?" My father's arrived over there — what are you running off for?

Qi Qian'er said: "To Master Huo's ancestral hall, of course! You don't know it, but I reckon my Madam's sure to have put the good things over there..."

At her words Chang Lianfang went weak at the knees and stumbled. First she digs up the ancestral graves and now she's off to knock over the ancestral hall? What kind of woman was this! She wasn't about to spare even the ancestors!

Heaven above! Open your eyes, won't you! He'd had enough of living — shock upon shock, no end to it; the way she'd rob her own ancestors was downright terrifying.

Seeing him rooted there, Qi Qian'er urged him on: "Come on, let's go."

Go? Go where? Chang Lianfang, finger trembling, pointed at the assorted grave-pits in the ground: "It's already come to this, and you still want to dig? Dig any more and I'm finished. Sister-in-law, do a kindness — let me off. A to-do like today's, I can't live through another one."

Seeing the foolish boy driven to such a state, Qi Qian'er cheerfully gave him a slap and said: "What are you thinking! It's nothing like that. I'd thought Madam's hidden things were buried down here, but they're not — so they're bound to be at the ancestral hall..."

Chang Lianfang said, with no little rancor: "I — today I've had my eyes opened, all right. Your family's plainly a pack of bandits in the flesh... your family's... really..." He pointed at the ground, then off toward Yanjing, in his vexation.

Qi Qian'er brazened it out: "We're already here, it's already dug up — what's there to be angry about? What are you on about! These aren't my family's, they're all yours! And where's that place over there? My family could never reach so high!"

Chang Lianfang, more helpless still: "Fine, fine, fine! My family — my family can't swallow it either! I beg you, little sister-in-law, have a heart, and give this little brother half a road to live and a breath to catch. One more round like this, and tomorrow not even my father could protect you — believe me?"

Qi Qian'er pursed her lips: "Believe it! Course I do — but you're dreaming, uncle. Another round? There won't be one! You think the God of Wealth's gone soft in the head with drink? Over at the ancestral hall it's likely just some rag-ends and old clothes the stewards and overseers wore — torn padded jackets, worn-out skirts, and the old sheepskin coats handed round the estate in winter, the sort the overseers used for bedding... I used to help the aunties from the back court with the storehouse intake, so I've laid eyes on it. Master Huo doesn't want this stuff, and Madam can't carry it off either..."

The more Qi Qian'er talked, the more something felt off: she watched Chang Lianfang's eyes gradually light up. So she asked, testing him: "Don't tell me... your old earl-lord wants this too?"

Chang Lianfang nodded like a pestle pounding garlic, without a moment's thought: "He does! If he wants it, I want it — however much you've got, I'll take it!"

His own command ran to two thousand horse and foot and more, and his father's was more again; the sort of thing where, deep in winter, you heard your men's toes had frozen and rotted off — that he never wanted to face again.

What of it if a sheepskin jacket was torn, what of it if the cloth clothes were old? Made over, every one was a life-saver — good things, at that.

But Qi Qian'er was taken aback: "How's your father short of everything?"

Chang Lianfang, at a loss: "My father's the least of it — even the Emperor's own guard is short of these finer things. All the fighting laid the workshops to ruin, and nobody makes such stuff now; the men's boots have rotted till they're past all decency. We're in no place to be picky."

Qi Qian'er, a touch resentful: "But now I don't want to give it."

Chang Lianfang pleaded helplessly: "Don't be like that, sister-in-law — if not, then sell it to me. You say farmland, it's farmland; you say shopfronts, whatever you like..."

Sell it? She'd never use it all up anyhow — that would do well enough.

Qi Qian'er, decisive by nature these days, thought it through and nodded: "All right, then. But I get to pick out the good ones to take — my own household's got to get on its feet first, after all."

Chang Lianfang was overjoyed: "Done — sister-in-law, pick first, by all means."

With both their masks torn off, Qi Qian'er's tone eased and she said with a laugh: "Ai-yo, let me tell you, there's no shortage of good things! The Huo family's got two hundred years and more of stores behind them. The well-crank and rope for drawing water — does your father want them? And ceramic chamber-pots of every kind, winnowing baskets, water vats, earthenware pots — your earl-lord's bound to love them..."

Chang Lianfang, annoyed: "My father does not like them! You — you — what do you take my father for?"

"An earl-lord! A most honorable personage~ the sort of honorable personage who wants everything~!"

Qi Qian'er's words were sour, and Chang Lianfang never wanted to lay eyes on this person again. He waved her off, set men to bring the carts along after her, and begged this eyesore to be gone quick. A few more words with her — up one minute, down the next, her mouth never coming off worse, sour-tongued and sharp-toothed — and his own span of years would be cut short...

---

Only once Qi Qian'er was well away did Chang Lianfang stride over to the other side, where he first paid his respects to his father, Chang Mianshen; then father and son looked over the salt and the iron together; and at last they found a quiet spot at the edge of the graveyard, where Chang Lianfang told his father, point by point, just what the day had been about.

Founding Earl Chang Mianshen, hands behind his back, listened for a full half an incense-stick's burning; when it was done he looked off at Huo Manor in the distance, then at Baiquan Mountain with its salt well, and at last the old earl coughed a few times, cleared his throat, and said to Chang Lianfang — of all things with envy written all over his face: "This woman, you say? That family's old lady really traded her away for ten strings of cash and fifty jin of grain?"

Chang Lianfang caught no other meaning in it and simply nodded: "That's right. Didn't I tell you? That old lady, what she cares for most is reading and letters..."

Earl Chang shot his own son a cold glance: "Your house has an old lady too."

Chang Lianfang was briefly at a loss, then lowered his head and mumbled: "Yes~ that family's old lady, she takes a private pride in knowing her letters. I've told you their story — Chen Dasheng even saved my life, and the old lady's shown me kindness too."

"Mm! So that's how it is..." Earl Chang nodded, gazed off into the distance a good long while, and at last, a notion taking shape in his mind, he sounded Chang Lianfang out: "If — by your own account — this young woman has a marriage contract, then hasn't she still never set eyes on that sworn brother of yours...?"

Never mind fifty jin of grain — two thousand would do just as well; with a bit of scheming and squaring away, to bring home a good daughter-in-law would be a stroke of fortune for the house.

At first Chang Lianfang didn't take his meaning; then, thinking it carefully through, the color drained from his face, and he all but bawled aloud: "Dad! What are you thinking! Dad?"

Earl Chang, scorn all over his face, began cursing him the way you'd rail at iron that won't turn to steel: "You know shit! I sired a whole pack of you, and you're the only wretch who gives me no peace. Bawl, bawl, bawl — beyond that, what do you know? 'A mother of a hundred years frets ever for her eighty-year-old child.' If you won't grow a brain yourself, then I've got to go and fret one up for you. Have you not even looked at what times these are?

"Everyone's off to Yanjing now — you go home and see what your grandmother and your mother are up to. Our house is a pack of rough boors too; your grandmother, your mother — which of them could go out and hold her own in company? If they don't make fools of themselves talking rot, I'll thank the Buddha for it!

"Don't tell me that family's old lady has her worries and I've none of my own? Look at your mother: when she's not reaching for the rolling-pin, she's reaching for the wok-spatula; she doesn't talk with her mouth, all day long she settles things by those crude, slapdash ways of hers — she, she, has she any sense at all? Can't she use her head to think a thing through? I'm not the man I once was, am I? Can't she reason a matter out with her mouth?"

Poor Earl Chang had a whole bellyful of woes he didn't dare tell outsiders, and could only recite to his son.

Only, worse luck, his son was no clever one, and hearing it he felt hard done by too: "My mother's beaten me plenty as well — what are you bringing this up for?"

Earl Chang was at his wits' end. He reached back, took the horsewhip from his belt, gave the tree trunk beside him a lash, and said bitterly: "Ai — a man's luck is fixed by Heaven! It's their good fortune, right enough. Don't you listen to all that rot outside — a woman ought to be gentle and demure and quiet, pah! Do you know, finding a wise wife with sense like that could keep this branch of the family rising for three generations..."

Chang Lianfang was near to wetting himself with fright: "Dad! Are you trying to get me killed? That — what sort of person is that? That's a person just like you! Strip off the woman's skin and she's a second father to me! I'd have to be mad, marrying a father home..."

Before he'd finished, his father sent him flying with a kick; luckily he was used to taking them, and the way he dodged was a fine sight indeed.

Earl Chang pointed a trembling finger at him: "You — you're nothing but a fool!"

In front of his own father Chang Lianfang dropped all his airs now; he squatted on the ground and muttered, sulking a little: "So I like being one!"

Earl Chang shook his head helplessly, envious past all bearing. He'd seen plenty of fine women; a woman raised in the back courtyard, even a lettered one, was in truth of limited experience.

But what kind of woman was this he'd come across now? She'd suffered great wrongs and eaten great bitterness. Your ordinary woman, once a knot formed in her heart, would carry it a whole lifetime.

But this one — given a new road to live, she could cut loose at once and set about the life in front of her. She could read and write, she could read the times and weigh a situation, and she kept her debts and grudges clear-cut. And the most fearsome thing of all: this was someone who could give money away... Such a fine person — how had she fallen in with a house like that?

Looking at his son's spineless, at-death's-door manner, Earl Chang couldn't help sighing up at the sky: "Whatever god has that family under its wing, that a woman like this should turn up for them... Son! You really don't want to? The truth is, grit your teeth and it's a life either way. I tell you, son, I've half a mind to it now — look at your mother, will you..."

Chang Lianfang looked at his father with the expression you'd wear watching a simpleton and put in: "Dad! My mother's just fine. All those raggle-taggle folk who used to turn up at our house, eating their fill and carting things off — did my mother ever say a word against it? What are you thinking of! That's my sworn brother's wife, Dad. Take it as my begging you — could you please not let your mind run wild, and just talk about this well..."

Earl Chang cut him off at once: "The well belongs to the Second Prince."

Chang Lianfang gave a cold laugh: "I knew it..."

---

Qi Qian'er knew nothing of that father-and-son squabble, nor that she'd come within a hair of being made a young bride of the Founding Earl's house — and had she known, she'd never have agreed.

It wasn't that she cared so deeply for Scabby. In those decades of her last life, the first thing she'd seen through was all this love and romance. Short-sighted as she was, a demon in her heart half her life, she'd come to feel that without a child there was nothing left to hope for; that love, that longing, all of it was false.

Now she watched, well pleased, as the soldiers passed the things up from under the ancestral hall, load by load. Yes — this was what she wanted, wasn't it.

Gold and silver, pearls and gems, fine silks and satins, antiques and paintings — there could be none of that here; Master Huo and Madam Wang were nobody's fools.

But two hundred years and more of a steward family's hoarding was no small thing either.

Take what was being carried up from below: whole wooden barrels of lamp oil such as ordinary households used, little kang-tables and stools of mixed wood, household implements carved from bamboo, wooden rakes for turning grain, winnowing baskets of every kind for holding grain, baskets big and small for odds and ends — and, most of all, old bamboo mats for laying over the big kang and drying grain, a good hundred of them, and seven or eight rolls of fine wool felt for keeping out the wind, all of it new besides...

These were the things of everyday living.

Qi Qian'er watched, delighted, and as she watched she cursed herself: in her last life, had she used her head even a little, she'd never have had to live so cramped and stifled — but back then she hadn't the nerve to touch so much as a needle of Madam's.

Just look at all this. When the troubles first began, Madam had at once sent people to gather back the dozens of old quilts and bedrolls. The Huo had their own weaving-house, their own sewing-room, and broad stretches of cotton field; so even the old bedding was solid, real stuff — one big mattress-quilt must weigh fifteen jin.

Watching the soldiers bundle it up and haul it out bundle by bundle, Qi Qian'er's head filled with the sight of her own child rolling about in a heap of cotton.

And there was new bedding too, seven or eight sets of it, and dozens of jin of white cotton besides — that would come in very useful. Later, when An'er started school and went to the finest academy, she'd make him satin-faced quilts with the best cotton, so nobody would look down on him.

There were a dozen-odd great water vats, tall as a person, for holding grain — those would go in the west room; and dozens of small kitchen vats of every sort — of those she'd give a good half and more to that thunder-struck old Chang lot. The chopping-boards came in a set, seven or eight of them, round and square; the huge boards for feeding scores or hundreds of men, though, were few — just two.

Enough, enough — more than enough to make do with.

Then there was the weaving-shed gear: spinning-wheels, whole sets of loom parts, winding-frames for taking up thread, reeling-frames for the cocoons, steaming-baskets for the cocoons, wooden stretchers for darning socks, a whole little wooden box packed with needles and thread-ends and small scissors and awls; a razor or two for trimming the livestock's hooves got raked out as well; the ox-sinew bow for fluffing cotton, and a heap of shepherd's whips and brass bells too...

Tallying it all up, Qi Qian'er found herself genuinely impressed with Madam now: a first-rate golden rake, truly — the woman really knew how to gather, really knew how to rake it in.

Madam was a thorough one. When she'd hidden things away, she'd gathered back even the mixed-wood chests of the estate servants' wives — dozens of hardwood combs, fine and coarse, new and old; open the chests and the hair-oil bottles were all half-full, and Madam didn't turn up her nose in the least, but tucked them all neatly away just the same.

As for the coarse cloth and fine cloth handed out to the underlings at every festival — new ready-made clothes, new shoes and socks, lined jackets, lined trousers, old robes pieced together from sheepskin — there was no counting them; loaded up, they filled four or five carts.

Fine cloth was the scarcer, some twenty-odd bolts of it, in dark blue and in camel; coarse cloth the more plentiful, fifty-odd bolts — a pity it was all narrow-width, likely woven on their own looms besides.

As the hauling went on, Qi Qian'er heard cheering from below, and a knot of soldiers came up all delighted, carrying twenty-odd baskets of coarse porcelain bowls and seven or eight jars of the kitchen's yellow wine.

One even pointed below and said to Qi Qian'er, quite excited: "Miss, there's black bean-paste down there too — seven or eight great crocks of it, this big."

Qi Qian'er patted her forehead — what was so much in that? The old Huo ran the imperial estate, and their own estate besides; the estate at full strength held a thousand people, and all of them had to be fed day in, day out. What were a few big crocks of bean-paste?

Back when the city was besieged and the whole family was hiding out, if only they hadn't left in such haste, too frightened to go out — with this bean-paste alone they could have held on a few more days, and not so many would have died.

And another thing — how long had this lot gone without so much as a proper bowl to eat from? A few baskets of chipped bowls, and look how happy they were.

Qi Qian'er could hardly bear to watch, thinking what a pack of know-nothings they were — they hadn't even picked out the best things here. Her elder brother's several chests of classics and histories for the examinations; and the family counting-house's dozens of quires of plain hemp-paper and xuan paper, the everyday unbranded ink-sticks, brushes of every kind heaped up — all of it, by the chestful and the bundle, tossed carelessly on the ground.

The old soldiers tramped back and forth over it, treading on it a few times besides — whether on purpose, who could say.

Ai-ya, what joy — all of this was hers now.

Qi Qian'er felt light all over, brimming with joy, and even her sulking over the loss of her hair was swept clean away. Right now she badly wanted to see Madam — to see the look on her face when the things she'd scraped together over thirty-odd years got carried off in one clean sweep.

The soldiers were big strapping men, and coming and going it took them a good two hours to pile everything from below onto a full dozen carts and more.

---

With nowhere to sit, Qi Qian'er could only walk along beside the carts; and when they'd come near the graveyard, she stopped, remembering something.

Her mother's grave — she hadn't yet paid her respects.

Looking around, she picked out the spot at a glance. Once, an auntie who'd gone out with her had pointed at the camphor tree over here and said: You know, your mother's just there, under the roots of that tree...

Qi Qian'er walked slowly over, and coming up before the camphor tree, she saw there was a grave to either side of its roots, one on the left, one on the right.

The graves had gone untended, the mounds worn low; and now the Huo had no grave-keeper left, so once next year's spring rains came on, and spring and summer had passed, they'd likely be washed down till you couldn't see them at all.

Unable to tell which was her mother's, Qi Qian'er turned back and asked a soldier for a spade, and built up both graves higher, so they'd at least look like graves with living descendants — graves someone would come to tend.

That done, Qi Qian'er knelt on both knees before the camphor tree. Not knowing whether to kowtow to the mound on the left or the one on the right, she pressed her palms together and said devoutly to the camphor tree in the middle:

"Mother! I'm sorry — I can't even be sure which one is you. But whoever lies here, it's a wrong Master Huo brought about; so whatever poor young woman lies beside you, let me make the offering to you both together. As it happens, once you've shared what I've offered, you'll have each other for company down below to ease the loneliness.

"Mother~ do you remember me? I'm that karmic wrong of yours. If not for me, Madam would never have harmed you... But there was no help for it — nobody asked me, you see; I just came, and dragged you down with me, and then went and forgot you afterward~ Mother, even if you hate me for it, there's nothing I can do. You saw how I used to be, dull and simple, with no one to teach me and no one to mind me; I didn't even know to come and honor you. I was unfilial — and all the things that befell me before, I suppose you were angry with me, punishing me. Mother, I was wrong, I've taken it to heart! Don't hold it against me~ Mother, from now on it won't happen again. You know it now, don't you — I've a family of my own..."

Like showing off a treasure, Qi Qian'er drew from her sleeve the string of paper money Granny had given her; but with the money out, she had no way to light it. As she was wondering what to do, someone beside her silently held out a fire-striker.

Qi Qian'er was briefly startled; she looked up, and it was Chang Lianfang. She smiled her thanks, bent her head to strike a light, and burned the paper money: "Mother! Here! Take your money, spend it, don't scrimp! There'll be more next year!"

That said, she stood and called out loud into the open air all around: "You who come and go, north and south — hear me true!! This money of mine is sent to Xiaojiao of the Huo house — you'd not dare rob it! Xiaojiao has descendants! Her name is Qi Qian! Her husband's family are the Chens, her man one Chen Dasheng — a man with office, of the seventh grade! A war-god come down from Heaven to earth! You'd not dare rob his mother-in-law!! You gentlemen who come and go, north and south — you who have spirit and power, when you see Xiaojiao of the Huo house, help watch over her; let no wild ghost seize my clothes, let no fierce ghost snatch my money! When the day comes round next year, I'll come again to burn offerings, and thank you with the thickest, heaviest coin!!"

Her shouting done, she kowtowed three resounding times, properly, to each of the four directions.

Outside Qingfeng, at Huo Manor, before the two fresh mounds of yellow earth, Chang Lianfang listened with his eyes brimming; but when Qi Qian'er turned round, he found this woman really was hard — how was it she wasn't crying?

Thinking so, he asked: "How is it sister-in-law isn't crying?"

He himself was grieved half to death.

At that Qi Qian'er looked at him and smiled: "You really are a fool. This is my mother. If I cried, it could only mean I was faring badly — and every mother frets over her child; she'd worry so for me..."