Chapter 41

Recorder Liu, all in a muddle, led the Jinwu Rear Guard off to Yanlan Hall.

An hour or more before, the Emperor had ordered him to gather every off-duty rear guard, and bring them, with spare everyday clothes and shoes, to Yanlan Hall to await orders.

The rear guards who could serve in the palace mostly came of some background. Off duty, who would sit dutifully at home waiting for his call?

So it cost him great trouble, over an hour, to scrape together two or three hundred men at last.

It was a funny thing. Every man's family was placed differently, and the order from above was vague. It only said, bring spare clothes and report, so some came already wearing them, some clutching three or five garments, some with only a string of shoes at the waist, and some had their families drive them over in a cart loaded with three or four great chests...

In the open ground, the guards clustered in threes and fives, heads together like cloth-pedlars at a market, some showing off, some swapping clothes to try on, a buzzing, in short, no different from a swarm of bluebottle flies.

Recorder Liu's head ached to hear it, but he didn't dare delay. He took what he had, formed them up, and hurried them all the way to Yanlan Hall.

Yanlan Hall was the old dynasty's third inner-palace storehouse, generally used for textiles. Because the old dynasty had had several great fires, all of which started here, the place was named Yanlan Hall, meaning peace, with water. The old emperors fussed themselves to death: not content with renaming the palaces several times over, they'd even built a Zhurong Temple to the fire-god here, a sign of how much they cared for their property.

Not like the Emperor now, who to this day, speaking of any place, still said the hall on the left, the pavilion out back...

Reaching it at last, Recorder Liu braced on the wall and panted a few breaths before he looked up. And he saw that behind Yanlan Hall were three courtyards. The outer court roared with voices, and all eighteen of its doors stood open, with over a hundred little eunuchs cradling and hugging out furs of every beast, satins, cloth, and other weaves, and piling them in heaps in the ground before the Zhurong Temple.

The Emperor, in a cloak, hands tucked in his sleeves, stood smiling on the steps of the Zhurong Temple, watching the show.

And standing below the steps were the Seal-Holding eunuchs of the inner palace's twenty-four directorates, old officials who usually met him all smooth warmth. Today, oddly, each stood there cradling an account-book, grave and eagle-eyed as Ministry of Revenue lords, very earnest indeed.

Recorder Liu's eyes darted about, and after a look round he found his man.

In all the yard, besides these two, everyone was hard at work. Only those two ambled about like old hands at a temple fair, strolling to and fro at their leisure, and picking and choosing besides.

Eunuch She walked ahead, hands behind his back, and that Chen Dasheng who'd vanished at a run had his hands behind his back too, trailing after Eunuch She, his eyes bright as bright.

Where had he ever seen so much cloth?

The boy was stunned witless just now.

It was like how he'd once thought Chang Lianfang had several changes of clothes he could wear a whole life. Only when he found his granny and his wife did he learn he too could have many changes of clothes, and even then he'd thought that fine enough, that those clothes would last him a lifetime.

Well now! For his idea, the Emperor had turned out eighteen storehouses of cloth for him.

He was dumbstruck! Asking closely, he learned these were all things the old dynasty didn't want, heaped in the storerooms and left to rot.

And this place called Yanlan Hall wasn't one courtyard, but three behind the hall and temple, each with eighteen doors and eighteen storerooms, all of them full of just such things.

Chen Dasheng could hardly bear it.

Crying poor every day, you've three courtyards of cloth and you're still poor? That's a swindle!

So Gate Marquis Chen Dasheng stared hard at the Emperor a good while, with a look of pure envy, disbelief, scared-to-death-and-back, you-truly-are-a-sinner, muttering all the while.

Eunuch She stole over to listen, and it set him laughing again.

Later, gone numb to it perhaps, Chen Dasheng came round and started ambling after Eunuch She, picking up some knowledge along the way.

All he knew was cloth, and cloth not like this.

Recorder Liu quietly edged over to trail them, and heard Eunuch She actually giving Chen Dasheng a lesson.

"...This is juan, plain silk, from the four commanderies of the two-rivers. When the Ministry of Justice sentences a thief, if what he stole was textile, they reckon it all in this juan, and set the punishment by the juan-price..."

Chen Dasheng studied it earnestly, and asked what he didn't follow: "Set the punishment? What's reckoning in juan?"

Eunuch She taught with great patience. He picked up a bolt of gauze from the side: "Say a thief steals five bolts of gauze. If the crime's in Yanjing, you reckon by this year's Yanjing gauze-price. Weave and origin differ, so prices are mixed. Yanjing goods like this run about one string a bolt, so five bolts come to five strings. The law has a fixed juan-price of two strings a bolt, this conversion isn't the market's, it's only a standard.

"Five strings makes two and a half bolts of juan, that's exile five hundred li, the heavy cangue, five years' hard labor. Reckoning stolen silk-goods into a juan-value is called converting to juan, so you can work out the measure of punishment. Setting the punishment is the weight of the sentence, light or heavy. Understood?"

Chen Dasheng stood and thought a while, then nodded: "Mm, understood."

Hearing him say so, Eunuch She began to laugh. He didn't believe it, of course, and put a hard question to him: "If you've understood, then let me ask you: an official embezzles, and from his house they turn up stolen goods, ten bolts of top-grade satin. What's the sentence?"

Chen Dasheng answered almost without a thought: "Reckon it into the juan-price and pass the punishment."

Eunuch She was amazed, and pressed him further, smiling: "This is an official's embezzlement case, not a commoner's theft."

Chen Dasheng, still without thinking, said: "An official taking bribes and a thief stealing, isn't it the same crime? Or does an official's wrong get called something else?"

Eunuch She praised him inwardly. To grasp the root of a thing at a single hearing, such a gift was rare indeed.

The boy wasn't wrong. The crime was the same, the conversion the same. Only, a pity, the way the punishment was passed was not.

An official's background and standing differed, and so the sentencing had complicated distinctions.

But this boy, his thoughts always went straight to it, blunt and yet to the point. Truly a delight.

Seeing Eunuch She silent a good while, Chen Dasheng reminded him in earnest: "Truth is, I think the way you asked it wasn't right!"

Recorder Liu, eavesdropping behind, stumbled and lurched into a heap of fine silks.

Do you not know your luck! Eunuch She is teaching you, just listen quietly, that's all! Where do you come by all these opinions?

Eunuch She was stopped short, and, thinking it deeper, nodded, well pleased: "Yes! My fault! I put it too broadly."

Recorder Liu climbed up, and fell down again.

You, you're Eunuch She, the Eunuch She the Emperor himself dares point a finger at! You, you'd even own yourself wrong to this boy?

Chen Dasheng's mouth curled with a little smugness: "Truth is, I roughly follow what you mean. As a boy I went with granny to hear the operas, and the clear-sky great lord up there said: to know the law and break it is to have your black gauze cap struck off and your crime raised a grade!"

Eunuch She was taken aback, then roared with laughter again.

Laughing done, he led Chen Dasheng on, and said with a sigh as they walked: "Just the opposite. What they sing in the operas is all the little folk's fond dreaming, never believe it."

Chen Dasheng blinked a moment, then asked: "The operas lie?"

Eunuch She tucked his hands into his sleeves too, and nodded as he walked: "Except for the ten unpardonable great crimes, take you: you're a man with a merit-title and rank, and a ding besides. That ding can offset one crime for you. A further crime can be met by rank, or bought off with money..."

Chen Dasheng's step checked slightly. He looked up at the Emperor.

Eunuch She walked a few paces, looked back, saw he hadn't kept up, and saw him looking at the Emperor. He beckoned, smiling: "Come here."

Chen Dasheng went over, and heard Eunuch She murmur in his ear: "Your Emperor is not like the old ones. He made the ten unpardonable crimes eleven, embezzlement, in our Liang, is unpardonable!!"

That said, he clapped Chen Dasheng's shoulder and walked on.

Chen Dasheng stood rooted, until Recorder Chen, coming up behind, gave him a kick: "What are you thinking? Are you a fool, brother? Keep up!"

All the scholars of the realm revered Eunuch She like a Sima Qian, and here the man was willing to teach him, and the fellow went and stood there in a daze? Truly not enough wit to go round.

So Chen Dasheng let himself be pulled along after Eunuch She, and got an earful of odds and ends about cloth.

"...In the sages' day, officials drew no salary-silver, and there weren't so many kinds of weave. In those days a petty sixth-grade unattached fellow like you would draw a hundred bolts of silk a year, and four hundred hu of grain..."

"A hundred bolts is plenty already, enough to clothe my whole house for a lifetime... and besides, sixth grade's no small thing!"

"Pft... no small thing, no small thing! Eh? Where's he gone?"

Walking along, Chen Dasheng had dropped off again. Eunuch She looked back and found him standing stock-still by a heap, half a man high, of brocade, jumbled rolls, none of them full bolts, half a roll shining and half gone yellow, odd lengths of a few feet, of a few inches.

Chen Dasheng stared hard at the ground, and after a long while forced out: "I know this. It's called brocade, palace-made. You can't buy it outside for money now. Never mind full wide bolts. Even a narrow roll goes for two hundred taels of silver and up."

Hearing this, Eunuch She understood. He was the one who'd had that brocade found, after all. He nodded, smiling: "Right! This is palace-woven brocade. I know your house has some." Then, thinking of something, he asked, startled: "Outside, one bolt costs, two hundred taels?"

Chen Dasheng looked up with a bitter smile and nodded, forcing it: "Mm. My wife said, never mind now, even in good times there was nowhere to buy it. Common brocade is common brocade. The palace's is the palace's. The palace weaves without counting cost, so it's dear."

Thinking of that one roll of brocade, Chen Dasheng's heart ached, ached so that he'd tossed sleepless that night. The thing had become a sickness in him.

Eunuch She was no fool. Seeing the boy off-color, he asked, most patiently: "Is there some story in this?"

Chen Dasheng nodded, and told of taking the extra five-tael sheep at home, and hid nothing of how in the end his wife had paid the burial-brocade for it and read him a great lecture besides.

His head was good. He repeated it word for word, and grew sadder as he told it: "...and so my wife's brocade was gone. Today I borrowed the Emperor's money and ran up a great debt, and no telling what year or month I'll ever set my wife by a roll of brocade like that again..."

He hadn't finished before someone beside him cut in: "Hmph! You wretch, I lend you money to repay? You deserved the lesson! Just so you should be schooled! Good!! Well done! And you needn't set her by any, it's only brocade, isn't it? I'll grant it her! You, you've married well!"

Everyone turned to look, and it was the Emperor, who at some point had come ambling up behind them to listen too.

The Emperor looked round, waved Zhang Minwang over, pointed at the hill of old brocade heaped on the ground, opened his mouth, hesitated, and asked Chen Dasheng: "...What's your wife's surname again?"

Chen Dasheng said, blank: "Huo, Huo Qiqian, don't you know?"

The Emperor paid him no mind. He stood there, his face all admiration and gladness, and at last said to Zhang Minwang: "Have the Ministry of Rites draft an edict. Raise Huo, seventh-grade Gentlewoman, to sixth-grade Lady of Peace. Huo is virtuous and kind, a fair wind and a good influence, deeply understanding of what is right, skilled in teaching her husband, I..."

The Emperor truly wanted to give more, but his whole estate was these cast-off odds the old dynasty left. Ashamed within, yet an emperor can't lose his air.

So the Emperor said, in a subtle tone: "I! Ahem, grant Huo a mountain of brocade!" He put out a finger and swept it vaguely over the ground: "This, all of it, give it her!"

And then he walked off, a touch fast.

Chen Dasheng didn't know what had happened. He looked front and back and side to side, and wherever his eye fell, there was nothing but envy.

Oh, that was no matter, and Lady-of-Peace-this or Gentlewoman-that no matter either! What mattered was: the things on the ground were all his wife's now?!

Chen Dasheng pointed at the ground, his voice shaking a little: "This, this? All of it, given to my wife?"

Eunuch She held in a laugh and clapped his shoulder: "Yes! A whole mountain of brocade, all your wife's now!"

Chen Dasheng, overjoyed, knelt to the Emperor's retreating back and cried: "Your servant! kowtows his thanks for the imperial grace, ten thousand years, ten thousand years, ten thousand times ten thousand years!"

And knocked his head hard three times.

The Emperor stood at the door of the Zhurong Temple, and after a good while said to Zhang Minwang, in an odd tone: "This wretch, this time he didn't get a single word wrong!"

Zhang Minwang held in a laugh and nodded gravely, yes.

All this fuss brought them to the westering sun, and the eighteen storehouses were emptied out at last.

Zhang Minwang called for quiet, begged pardon for standing higher than the Emperor, and climbed onto a square table in the middle of the ground.

"Silence!"

The Emperor was here, so the guards dared not clamor. The ground went still at once.

Zhang Minwang waved a hand, and a little eunuch handed up an old garment of his.

Finding the hem of the old garment, Zhang Minwang said to the guards in his rather thin, high voice: "Little generals, all of you, take up your clothes, and do as I do!"

He gripped the hem in both hands, wrenched left and right, rrip, and the hem tore in two.

What was this for?

The guards looked at one another, blank, then heard a second tearing of cloth. All eyes turned: it was Recorder Liu, holding up the new clothes his wife had made him, ripping them clean in two on the air.

The fellow was strong. Ripping done, he gave the Emperor a sweet smile, copying Chen Dasheng.

The Emperor silently turned to look at the face of the fire-god.

Zhang Minwang cried out, stopping him: "Ai, ai! No need for that! Just one garment, seven or eight rents in it, enough for a patch, so there's mending-work for them. Ai, not so hard, you're spoiling good things..."

A ripping of cloth rose all over the ground. They didn't understand what it was for, but the Emperor was here. Never mind tearing cloth, tear flesh and they'd not balk.

When they'd torn about enough, Steward Zhang waved again, and a row of little eunuchs ran in with trays full of cloth pouches, one to each man.

The moment a pouch was in hand, a man knew: there was a hundred taels in it, at the least.

Silver dealt out, Steward Zhang pointed at the silks and furs in the yard: "Little generals, you've all seen what Yanjing is now. The registers say sixty myriad souls. I say more, with the old dynasty's grinding ways, plenty went unregistered... They're just frightened, that's all, daring not trust us...

"These households have lived in Yanjing generation on generation. The records say a third of the city's families lived by a stall or a shop. What it's been like out there these days, you little generals know. Our Emperor, the old lords, have tried every means. No use. They simply won't come out.

"So now, driven to it, we can only trouble you little generals to run an errand for the court, and put out some strength for our Emperor, and the Emperor won't short you for it..."

Zhang Minwang paused, and shot Recorder Liu a glance. Recorder Liu at once cried out: "Only say it, Steward Zhang! Never mind an errand, even take up the blade as a flesh-shield for the Emperor, and we Jinwu Rear Guard would not flinch!"

At that the blood went up behind him, and a hundred voices answered.

Zhang Minwang smiled, satisfied, and raised a hand for quiet: "No need, no need! Little generals, you see the cloth on the ground? Come, come, take it, all you like! As much as you can carry, it's all the Emperor's free gift! Come, take it...!"

Heavens, was there such a good thing?

Take it freely! A splendid phrase, truly enough to send the blood up and set the heart leaping.

The things on the ground the imperial house cared nothing for. But they cared! Have some at home they might, but they were new-risen gentry just come into money. And anything with a palace mark on it, a rag on your back, worn out, was still the Emperor's own honor granted.

But, they didn't quite dare, and all looked to Recorder Liu.

Recorder Liu half believed it too. Seeing Zhang Minwang look at him, he looked at the Emperor. The Emperor nodded slightly, and he reached over and scooped up a few rolls of red gold-woven satin: "Then, then I'll not stand on ceremony. Really, really given?"

This was palace-made, not to be bought for money.

Zhang Minwang waved briskly: "Given! That's all you're taking? Then, then I'll not stand on ceremony either..."

That said, he climbed down off the table and made for the target he'd had his eye on. He even took a spill on the way. But, no matter, it was kesi silk-tapestry...

From the moment Steward Zhang began gathering kesi, someone, no telling who, cried out gleefully: "Grab it!"

The man rushed out like a breaking tide, and they all went wild with delight.

Eighteen storehouses, heaps to the ground? There were two or three hundred guards here. Clearing the ground was the work of a blink. There wasn't nearly enough to go round.

In an instant the ground held only Chen Dasheng's pile of brocade and some plain cloth nobody wanted. The rest, down to the satin scraps, was snatched clean.

Eunuch She stood by Chen Dasheng and asked: "Why don't you grab?"

Chen Dasheng looked at the cloth flung about in the distance: "Isn't that some, there?"

"That's plain cloth!"

Was the boy a fool, or wasn't he?

"Just so, plain cloth's what I want! My wife said, Yanjing will always have fashions we can't keep up with. Our little pay could never chase them, too wearing. So from now on we'll wear plain cloth, and that's all. A man's dignity rests on his character. Clean and neat, and that's enough... Oh, and my wife said, plain cloth though it be, have it cut by a top tailor. My wife says that's where the small things show your depth."

Eunuch She stood blank a good while, then said, hesitant: "Your wife? She's truly the one your granny got for ten strings of cash?"

At that Chen Dasheng was cross. He turned to Eunuch She: "What are you saying? There was fifty jin of grain besides!"

How could my wife be so cheap? Nonsense!

Eunuch She began to laugh again, and when he'd done, said to Chen Dasheng in earnest: "Hereafter, when something comes up, if I, and the Emperor, and the rest are all away, go home and ask your wife. She's cleverer than you, and wiser! Ai! Who'd have dreamed you had such fortune, truly a first-rate mistress of a house. You wretch, who'd have thought you'd such great luck..."

Chen Dasheng, proud all over his face, fell to telling Eunuch She his wife's virtues, the window-climbing, mutton-stealing business, out of pity for him, must certainly be trotted out to show off.

The man was a funny thing. In matters of office, in the ordinary talk and courtesies of the world, he was timorous. His heart had no grass, and speaking he'd stammer, his words half missing the mark, and sometimes when others spoke deep he couldn't follow at all.

But get him started on his wife, and it flowed in strings, and set the ever-cold-faced Eunuch She laughing till he split like a peppercorn.

The two of them murmured on, blind to all around.

Steward Zhang was setting things in order again over there: "Little generals, you've worked hard! From tomorrow, whoever's off duty, whoever's idle, whoever took the Emperor's silver and cloth, up early and out into the streets, into the wards and markets, and go knocking on doors!

"If they won't open, no matter! Knock a few more times, and someone will...

"But remember, this isn't for you to throw your weight about, to rob and frighten people! Do a kindness, little generals: those waist-sabers, those flying-hammers, leave them behind... more smiles, tip generously, and let Yanjing's common folk see the spirit of our Liang...

"In short, knock open the doors of the menders, the cutters, the dyers, the cobblers, the headscarf-makers, the hair-net-makers, give them something to do, get the trade going... Keep your wits, and keep accounts. The goods and money are a free gift, but where does it go? Spend one copper and you record it, the Ministry of Revenue will want its reckoning after...

"...Meet a fine hand, and praise him a few times more, and you may pay double! Then he'll be dumbstruck with joy! What it's worth, it's worth. Spend till it's gone. Count it the Emperor's thanks for your years of hard service...

"Use it sparingly, all of you, the Emperor has only so much ready silver, so mind how you spend... Those with an old one at home, a wife, children best of all, take the whole family out and have several new sets made, inside and out... call it an early New Year!"

The people of Yanjing would never forget the winter of the first year of Yong'an...

That morning, early, Chen Dasheng rose early in the Long Saber Guard's courtyard outside the palace.

Up, he did as his wife had charged him: knocked door to door, roused his brothers, and first they washed their faces well, and rinsed their mouths thrice with green salt. When they were near ready, they let their hair down, each took a comb, brought stools, and sat in a row in the yard combing the hair of the man in front.

They'd tidied so carefully these days that the lice and nits on their heads were hard to find now.

Recorder Liu, who shared a courtyard with Chen Dasheng outside the palace too, had risen early today, and came bustling over with a few of his better men, cradling satin and leather.

Stepping into the yard, he was frozen by the row before him.

Mother of mine, ghosts out and about in broad day?

This was too damned eerie. The Long Saber Guard sat in a row, hair down like ghosts, combing the hair of the man in front, stroke by even stroke.

When near done, they'd turn round and comb the other way, not one of them left out.

Recorder Liu's man asked, his voice shaking: "L-lord, they... what are they doing?"

Recorder Liu cocked his head, and after a while forced out: "No idea. Some divine art, maybe? Perhaps it's how the Long Saber Guard tempers the spirit. Tomorrow, ahem! You, you must learn it too! We Jinwu Rear Guard fall behind no man!"

"Yes, understood."

When their long hair was smooth, they'd tie the man in front his queue and set his head-cloth. Tidied, the few stood, only smiled at Recorder Liu and the rest, then went each to his room, swept it clean, set everything in order, and each took a tool and did the yard over too.

When it was near done, the mute couple hired as the yard's help, Han the Mute and his wife, came in with food-boxes, smiling, signing that the meal was ready.

Chen Dasheng nodded, and only then hailed Recorder Liu: "Have you breakfasted, Brother Liu? Bring the brothers over and eat a little?"

Look at that spirit, that yard, and then their rooms! In this one short while, Recorder Liu, for the Jinwu Rear Guard, had lost to them who knew how many times over.

He gave a dry smile: "Brother Chen, a man of taste! That, ah... we'll go back, tidy ourselves up too, and see you at the market later..."

The party was a good way off, and you could still hear Recorder Liu saying loud: "Damn it! I give up! How did Tan the Second train his men? No comparison! No comparison... too damned fine, too fine... no wonder I smell them sweet every day, see that? They use hair-oil!"

"Isn't that a bit womanish?"

"What do you know! When a man goes out, folk don't look at what he's wearing, the better sort look at your spirit, see? From tomorrow, we Jinwu Guard do the same!!"

After a few wretched howls, it went quiet out there at last.

Chen Dasheng and the rest, faces blank, sat earnestly at table over breakfast. Chewing slow, they finished, rinsed their mouths, and put on the new everyday guard-dress the Emperor had granted them. Spirited, faintly fragrant all over, faces smooth and hair sleek, they went out in fine array.

Guan Si'er and the rest carried leather and plain cloth, a little excitement they couldn't hide in their voices.

"Chief, where to?"

Chen Dasheng looked round, and saw not far off, at a street corner, a knot of loafers and idlers squatting against a sunny gable-wall, talking and picking lice.

Chen Dasheng jerked his chin that way. Hu Yougui flung the few bolts of cloth in his hands up into the air and ran at the men.

Cui Erdian stepped up, braced the leather in his arms, and caught the falling cloth square and steady.

Recorder Liu, just coming out his gate behind, was stung again. He flung out an arm and ordered his men: "Back inside, the lot of you, five hundred more lifts of the stone-lock each..."

Amid the wretched howls from the next courtyard, Hu Yougui came back leading a hanger-on by the scruff.

The man was scared to death. Seeing Chen Dasheng, he made to kneel, crying: "General, sir, I did nothing, I was only sunning myself, only, only scratching an itch..."

He hadn't finished before a few coppers came flying at him. By long habit, he reached out and caught them, and out cracked a smacking clap of his hands!

Habit again: he sang out, ringing: "Joy to your brows, my lord, look up and joy be yours! Thank you, sir, for your gener, ahem, ahem, your gener, reward?"

Was this, was this money to buy his life?

His legs were going to jelly under him, when he heard the sweet-faced young general ask: "Jia Qianzhen's shop, in the West Market, know where it is?"

At that the hanger-on nodded at once: "Of course! Jia Thousand-Needles' place! Young master, little general, what an eye you have! His shop, in all Yanjing, is always the, the very best. From the old days the young ladies of the princess's mansion, the duke's mansion, all used his tailors..."

He'd have praised on, to show his worth, but got hauled round by the collar: "Enough talk, lead the way!"

"Ai! Oh, oh! Yes, yes, yes! This way, young masters, it's nearer this way..."

In the back yard of Jia Thousand-Needles' tailor shop in the West Market.

Jia Qianzhen's old mother sat on the ground, holding the family's skin-and-bones old dog, weeping, and pleading as she wept: "Son, let it be, son! Go out and it dies, stay home and it starves. Eat it, and how many meals does it stretch to? Feel our Red Thread's ribs, there's nothing left on her. What's the good of eating her? Sooner or later there's nothing to eat anyway, son... Mother begs you..."

The old dog knew people's ways, and seemed to know what was happening. Seeing Jia Qianzhen holding the cleaver in a shaking hand, she didn't flee. She wobbled to her feet instead, walked up to Jia Qianzhen, and slowly lay down beneath his blade...

Jia Qianzhen could bear it no more. He bent, held the old dog, and wept aloud: "Red Thread! This god-cursed world..."

He'd scarcely wept his fill when there came a knocking at the front.

Jia Qianzhen jumped, dried his tears, crept warily to the front, listened a while through the shop-boards, and only when he felt it safe asked: "Who, who is it?"

The one outside was young, his voice from elsewhere, and gentle: "Is Shopkeeper Jia at home? We've come to have clothes made..."

Eh? Have clothes made? This, was it safe outside? Customers daring to come? Was there a way to live?

Jia Qianzhen's house was starved to the point of killing the gate-dog. He thought nothing more of it, threw off the bar, and stepped out, and at one glance saw a crowd of soldier-lords.

Jia Qianzhen was terrified. He swayed twice and sat down on the ground.

One look, and Chen Dasheng knew: starved half-dead. Lucky he had the habit of carrying food.

He drew a dry steamed cake from the little ox-hide pouch at his waist, bent, and held it out, smiling: "Half-starved, aren't you? Don't be afraid, we've only come to have clothes made. Steady yourself first, eat a couple of bites and you'll be all right."

Jia Qianzhen took the cake, dazed. He swore, forty-odd years alive, he'd never seen so kind a smiling face.

The smell of grain rushed at his nose in waves. Jia Qianzhen swayed to his feet again, tears pouring, braced on the door, braced on the wall, and inched to the back, weeping as he went: "Mother! Red Thread! Wife! There's food, someone's come to have me make clothes... we can live..."

Chen Dasheng and his brothers stood quietly in the market street.

The market was still as if not a living soul were in it. But by his ear, Chen Dasheng could feel it: countless eyes were watching them in secret.

A bone-thin old dog wobbled out, walked to the middle of the street meaning to bar the way, and, unable to hold herself up, lay down on the ground.

Chen Dasheng said, low: "All of you, smile!"

Yu Qingguan and the rest at once put on smiles, gazing sweetly at the old dog.

The lead saber reached a hand back, and greedy Guan Si'er passed up a still-warm boiled egg.

Peeling off the shell, Chen Dasheng crouched, broke out the yolk, and fed the old dog piece by piece, saying with a smile: "Good, isn't it? Hard times, truly. Eat, eat, it's all over now. You won't die. Don't be afraid..."

And behind them, down the long street, no telling whose, a set of shop-boards was quietly taken down...