Chapter 45

Back home, none of them cared to trouble the little sister-in-law again. This time Yu Qingguan and the rest had all brought dry rations. They ate, then set to with a will in their own houses, tidying rooms and clearing the roofs.

Tile roofs though they were, still, men who worked in the palace had their advantages, and they all knew this snow would fall heavy, and fall long.

They'd hurried home, and coming into the lane saw that only the eldest brother's roof showed the color of its tiles. The little sister-in-law was capable past all reason.

As usual, Chen Dasheng had nothing to do, so he sat a long while with the old lady.

Neither grandmother nor grandson mentioned Chen Siniu.

In their talk, Qi Qian'er could plainly feel Chen Dasheng had grown. He'd learned to sort his words by his listener. He told his granny of Yanjing's streets and lanes, of the shops and the refugees, only the good news, and never a word of anything in the palace.

The old lady, for her part, asked several times over: is the Emperor well? Is the great consort well?

The old lady held toward the imperial house a kind of reverence, as toward gods. She truly, sincerely wished the Emperor ten thousand years.

Chen Dasheng of course said all was well, though in his heart he did not think so. Knowing too much of the palace's affairs now, he didn't speak of them, dared not speak of them.

Where he stood to see things was, in truth, unlike other people's. You couldn't even put it in an opera, the things he saw every day.

Such as which minister had the tougher hide on his backside.

The guards' work lay neither at court nor in the inner palace, and offended neither, and could move freely with both, which let Chen Dasheng, new to officialdom, breathe easier, and also kept one nerve of his always taut.

He knew a great many things.

Such as: the edict making Empress Cao mistress of the central palace still hadn't come down. Emperor and empress were at odds, and quarreled without fail on the new moon and the full. The Emperor in fact liked bedding young girls, and Consort Hui in the palace held more real power than the empress. But the palace was the palace, and the front court the front court. Whoever the Emperor bedded had nothing to do with the realm.

The whole court said the Emperor was an enlightened ruler, and an enlightened ruler he must be.

The inner palace held the life and death of only a few. The front court held the life and death of the whole realm. The two had to be kept clearly apart.

Day by day, a man grows. And then one day Chen Dasheng woke and found: Yangdan was suddenly no longer Yangdan. Yangdan had become a matter, a matter that might be filed under the Ministry of Revenue, or the Ministry of Personnel, or with a regional grandee, or even with the Bureau of Astronomy. He couldn't name the feeling.

He only felt that the places he now thought of were all of great weight, able to move fate lightly, to make or unmake ten thousand Yangdans, and himself.

And the palace, at a certain spot by the west-gate corner, every few days a body was quietly carried out: a little inner eunuch's, a palace maid's, and now and then several cartloads at once. At such times Recorder Liu would tell him that some courtyard in the palace was locked from then on.

Locked, meaning no one would ever live there again. A dead palace.

And the Emperor was still kindly, kindly to him, at the least.

Watching one such cart go, Recorder Liu had said, scornful: "Come to serve loyally only when they know the times are hard! Where was this before?"

A human life is sometimes cheap as the parting of lips, one sentence, and done.

And more people were brought in: newly steadied little boys, small girls sitting in the carts, sent in cartload by cartload from outside. No telling where they'd go.

In the Great Liang palace, a human life was worth less than a laying hen. Touch this place, and it was so even for the ministers' lives.

Now Chen Dasheng knew, past all doubt: the place he guarded was split into front court and inner palace, and the two must be thought of, seen, apart.

He didn't care to share such things with his family. So he talked of the courtyard he lived in now, how near it was to his work, and how well the mute couple cooked. Toward noon, Yu Qingguan and the rest came in to kowtow to the old lady, and called Chen Dasheng to go with them.

The Long Saber Guard's work was like that now, nothing much to do. But the Emperor would ask, of a sudden: where's Dasheng? Why not seen today? What's he at? Gone to the south-gate tower to look at the lion again?

And then the Emperor would stand there a while and smile to himself.

So the whole court and palace came to know: the Long Saber Guard's Recorder Chen was one the Emperor kept in his heart.

And Eunuch She, the old patriarch of the palace eunuchs, would call Chen Dasheng now and then to his little courtyard, to shift a flowerpot, or to tell of the old Long Saber days. From wanting only to live, to eating the Emperor's grain, to rising sky-high in one step, Chen Dasheng turned it over every day, sitting alone on the gate-tower turning it over.

Through the mask he watched the fast horses, the fast horses that carried news without cease from every part of the realm, and only so did he learn: he was the common people, and the common people lived in all sorts of places, and those places were not at peace. Every day there were earthquakes, and houses with no fire in the stove, and three years without rain, and six years without snow. A realm is large, and this is how it is. It has no day of peace. And the one place the common people can lean on is the very palace he feared.

Chen Dasheng dared not go far. He might not even get home for New Year. He could only snatch scraps of time and gallop back to look in.

And now, with a snow like this, until it melted there'd likely be even less time to come back.

Before the seven left, each pressed his accounts into Qi Qian'er's hands, the most a few dozen taels, the least twenty-odd.

They were officials now. No fat posts, but these small monies would keep dropping, out of nowhere, into their pockets. Often a guard garrison would ask them over to sit, no telling what for, just to sit, truly. In any case, the chief had said: eat plenty, say little, and you can't go wrong.

Go the once, and there'd be an allowance. None of them ever went home empty-handed.

And another thing: living and eating together, each drew the Emperor's ration, and among them they used up at most three men's worth. The rest they couldn't eat or use, so the other four shares they handed to Recorder Liu for cash.

Why only six shares?

Because Chen Dasheng had a household to keep, and nothing of his was ever left over.

Coming home, he handed his pay and goods to the old lady, but Qi Qian'er still gave him five hundred cash for pocket-money, which rode in the Recorder-lord's little ox-hide pouch and thudded softly as he walked.

Qi Qian'er saw him off, smiling.

But Chen Dasheng, walking, kept looking back at the old lady leaning in the gate, and only when she'd passed from sight did he pull Qi Qian'er aside, and take from his breast a brocade-satin pouch, and give it to her.

Qi Qian'er took it, puzzled, and knew at a touch what it was.

Gold again?!

She looked up at Chen Dasheng at once, a jumble of thoughts flashing through her head.

Chen Dasheng, schooled by experience, explained fast: "Don't imagine things! It's a private gift from the Emperor."

He signed to her to put it away quick, for over this matter, few in the world would ever know.

The capital and Qingfeng were recovering fast, and the whole court sang the Emperor's wisdom, his heaven-like virtue. In all of which a little guard had no part, and could have none.

The Martial Emperor needed such a name. The new dynasty needed it. And to take that name for himself was only his due, no one thought it wrong.

The ministers' memorials of praise Chen Dasheng never saw. The myriad people's praises he never heard. Even walking the streets and seeing Yanjing slowly regain its strength, he'd sigh from the heart: the Emperor is wise!

And never once think it had anything to do with him.

In the Emperor's eyes he was just such a subject, honest, sincere, earnest, plain, so guileless it made you anxious for him: a boy with a screw loose who'd be led off and sold the moment you didn't watch him.

That's right, a boy! Chen Dasheng was twenty this year, and in the ranks of officialdom, that age is a mere child.

Yet he was a subject the Emperor had owned, and in Great Liang's few months, subjects the Emperor had truly owned were not many.

Later the histories would write: the Martial Emperor, wise and brave both, and Great Liang, newly founded, already showing the first signs of a golden age, and not one word of Chen Dasheng.

He only flashed by, nameless, in the first year of Great Liang.

Of course, with a good superior, Chen Dasheng gained something too: privately he'd been given that pouch of gold by the old palace patriarch, a small pouch, ten ingots of ten taels each.

The Ministry of Revenue's newly cast Great Liang official gold ingots had been sent first into the palace for the Martial Emperor to give away as playthings. Not many were sent, some two hundred, and Chen Dasheng alone had taken ten.

Chen Dasheng had no idea how fine a thing it was. He simply handed it to his wife.

Qi Qian'er, as the widow-to-be of a low official, had no such eye for it either. She glanced left and right, warily tucked it into her wide sleeve, and, because it was so heavy, held it up with her hand.

"Well, I'll be off."

"Ai! Mind the road."

"Right! You've had it hard. Look well after Granny."

"I know. Don't go running about for nothing. All's well at home."

"Ai! I'm off."

"Mm! Go on."

And so they parted. From first to last, Chen Siniu, Madam Qiao, truly, they were long past worth a mention.

The wind and snow blurred the eyes. Qi Qian'er soon lost sight of Chen Dasheng. She was sleepy now, and gave a little yawn, and turned and drifted back to the old lady's courtyard.

In the gate, she saw the old lady had tied a rope to the leg of the square table in the main room, and to the rope was tied Xique, a cord round her waist, sitting on a straw pad.

The little girl had no objection at all to being tied up and set on the floor, for in her hands was a fine thing she'd never eaten before.

A block of white cold beancurd.

Seeing Qi Qian'er come in, the little imp turned herself round.

Watching the old lady bustle to and fro with her goods, Qi Qian'er asked: "Anything more here? Shall I do the evening meal ahead for you?"

The old lady had taken a great heap of the young couple's things, and now, seeing Qi Qian'er sleepy, felt it wasn't quite right. She smiled, sheepish, and said, generous: "No, no! You needn't come tonight either. I've everything here now. Ha, go on back, don't mind me. Tomorrow, sleep as late as you like."

That was her way, with goods enough in hand, she'd have no trouble waiting on Qi Qian'er instead.

Qi Qian'er nodded, turned to go, and out in the yard remembered she fancied a bit of fine flour, so she reached over, lifted off the window, and, under the furious eyes behind the door-curtain, scooped out a bowl of the old lady's white flour to take home and eat.

She put the window back on before she left, of course.

Behind her the old lady shouted, furious: "You come tomorrow and bring my bowl back! That came from my old home!"

Qi Qian'er paused, looked at the bottom of the bowl, and sighed: "Oh, quite a pedigree."

Home again, she barred the gate, banked the fire, buried herself in the quilt, and slept, slept until not quite the third watch of the next day, and then could not sleep for anything.

Outside the north wind howled. She pushed the window open. The snow was fiercer in the night.

Reckoning the hour, the zi hour was past, she still wanted to push the millstone in the back court to feel easy. So she found the elm bark Chen Dasheng had stripped from the back hills last time, and went to the back court to mill.

No sense pushing for nothing!

The old mansion's mill had a fine bite. Pushing till about the fifth watch, she'd swept out seven or eight hundred jin of fine elm-bark flour.

Qi Qian'er was a thrifty soul. She found the house's bean flour and mixed a basinful in, then scooped some fifty or sixty jin of the mixed elm-flour onto her back, and made ready to go out.

Yes, in the great snow, before the fourth watch, Qi Qian'er was going out to lay up a little merit.

In the last life, there was in Qingfeng an old beggar-saint called Qiu Huazi, Qiu the Beggar.

This Qiu the Beggar never used a bowl. When hungry he'd simply sit down at some eating-house door, big shop or small, it made no matter. He'd sit, and someone would come pay his bill, and the keeper would come out himself to ask what he'd have, and pour his wine and serve his dishes.

In those days, to serve Qiu the Beggar one meal was the greatest honor in Qingfeng.

When Qiu the Beggar slept, he'd just lie down under any eave, but the moment he lay down, the owner behind that wall would surely bring out fresh cotton bedding to cover and warm him, and, in winter, light him a fire and feed it all night.

Yet this honored old beggar feared to trouble people, and would seldom take their keeping. And one deep winter he froze to death outside his old mansion in the old city.

The day they buried Qiu the Beggar, more than half of Qingfeng came out in mourning white. It was only later that Qi Qian'er learned the old man's story.

That day she'd driven the family cart, the old lady beside her, to Qiu the Beggar's house, and one look told you his family had been no common house. His old mansion stood next to the prefectural school, a fine dwelling steeped in scholarship.

Only then did she learn Qiu the Beggar's surname was truly Qiu. They said he was of a fallen noble line of the old dynasty. Before his house fell, he'd been a licentiate of old Qingfeng, with a private school of his own and a good store of wealth, a dozen and more prime shops in the city.

After Qingfeng fell, the refugees gathered at the gruel-tents, and when the court's gruel-tents could no longer keep up, people starved without cease, until a snowstorm took still more lives. And Qiu the Beggar's tale belonged to that time.

By then the court itself had no strength left, and those with any means began to save people by their own conscience. Everyone put out what they could, good folk within their power. But a good man who beggared his whole house, like Qiu the Beggar, there was only the one.

At first he took in a dozen-odd orphans, and as more and more came to beg his help, Qiu the Beggar turned none away, and gave in relief until he himself became a beggar.

At the last, the good old man went off easy enough: he threw a garment round himself, took up a bowl, and walked off with the beggars of his household. Many said he was simply a fool!

Say what you will. At any rate the old lady had once said: on that flight from famine, when their village left home together, had they met a living Buddha like Qiu the Beggar, one mouthful of food, only one, perhaps a hundred more of them would have lived.

The old lady was a miser, but once she'd heard Qiu the Beggar's story, every winter after she'd send Qi Qian'er into the old city to look, to see whether the old man was warmly dressed, and if he'd no winter coat, to cut new cloth and new wadding and make him one, inside and out.

But good deeds like that never fell to their lot.

An old saint a whole city kept, and in the end he died, of the deep winter.

The day of the burial, half the city in mourning white bore the coffin and carried the banners, and walked with it out to the old city's edge, and there, at a fork in the road, saw another group: Qiu the Beggar's own wife and children and descendants.

Qi Qian'er had gone to see the coffin off that day too, and at one glance could tell: Qiu the Beggar's wife and children lived not at all well. Even their deep mourning-white might have been borrowed.

And, fearing to be known as Qiu the Beggar's kin, they covered their faces with cloths and wept by the roadside, and their weeping was not the good kind. From oldest to youngest, the whole family was cursing the old beggar.

The funeral was a grand thing, mourning-sheds set up the whole way, kin and strangers passing each other, and no one quarreled, no one made a scene, no one argued who was right, still less blamed another.

To a stranger, a bowl of scraps was a life. To Qiu the Beggar's descendants, an elder had beggared the house and ruined their prospects. You want to be a good man, a living Buddha, then go be a monk. Why take a wife and get children?

The old lady had a saying: don't bring the world's reason to bear on a thing past helping. There's no reasoning in it. Let each act by his conscience.

What Qi Qian'er did now was a thing of conscience. She had the means.

Though the refugees had scattered, she still meant to go to Qiu the Beggar's house and look. If the old man was still taking in his crowd of orphans and elders, she'd give relief.

And if not, she'd find some destitute of her own to help, and be a good soul within her power.

So, a sack of elm-bark flour on her back, she leapt onto the roof.

The first jump went smooth enough, but trying to spring on and on, she began to crack the roof-tiles under her, one set after another, and not her own. Doctor Cheng's tiles.

Qi Qian'er's heart quailed and her nerve went. Flustered, she rolled off the roof with a thump.

No matter, spring up again.

Up again, spring again, cracking tiles several times over, until behind her a voice said, faint and put-upon: "Middle of the night, and what's the great feud? Could you practice your lightness-skill at your own house? This is my roof."

Qi Qian'er jumped again, and rolled off again with a thud.

When she looked up, she saw Madam Cheng wrapped in a wool cloak and, beside her, the little grand-aunt in a rabbit-fur jacket, one frowning, all disgust, the other watching her, all smiles.

Qi Qian'er bared her teeth, scrambled up, and hurried to apologize: "Sorry, sorry! I'll use the door, I'll spring once I'm out of the settlement. My craft's poor, forgive me, forgive me!"

She was thoroughly mortified.

Snow-aunt found her a delight, and asked, smiling: "Where's Madam Huo off to?"

Qi Qian'er dusted off the snow, apologizing on, helpless: "To take a bit of grain, to see if I can help some folk in the city. The times are hard, and there's always someone past helping who's short just this one mouthful."

Ah, so!

Madam Cheng, all put-upon, looked at Qi Qian'er, and said: "In that case, wait a moment."

That said, she sprang down off the roof, and before long sprang back up with a cloth packet, and tossed it to Qi Qian'er: "Cold-dispelling powder. We haven't much grain either, but take this. The dose is marked on it. You can't get it wrong."

Qi Qian'er thanked her gravely, but Madam Cheng waved it off, impatient, and even turned her head aside.

Snow-aunt, all smiles, held up a slim, tender white fingertip to teach her: "Send the qi to your soles, and borrow force quickly. When you jump like that, don't take a fresh breath at the landing. Try it again!"

She kept drawing an arc, a half-circle, her fingers touching a little strength to a few key points.

Ah! So that was it!

Qi Qian'er watched carefully, thanked her, shouldered the medicine, and sprang a few times by the little grand-aunt's method, clumsy, but she got it through at last, though not yet smooth.

She stood thinking it over, and didn't turn to ask again. After a moment, Snow-aunt saw the young woman reach down and take off her shoes.

This time her bare soles touched the ground direct, and it truly came through.

Watching the leaping, plunging figure recede fast, Snow-aunt sighed softly: "Fine aptitude! If the house still stood, I'd take her for my chief disciple."

Madam Cheng smiled, reached over and stroked her hair: "Enough, don't envy her. She'll never be caught up in our tangles in this life. You, go back and sleep."

Snow-aunt nodded, came down off the roof, and praised: "Little Fish did well today too, she's learning to save people!"

Madam Cheng stumbled, and, much embarrassed, snapped: "What are you saying. I, I only feared she'd stamp holes in our roof."

The snow flew fast, a passing bird one instant, gone without trace the next.

Qi Qian'er jumped faster and faster, and in a night of wind and snow, the snow kept her going safe and unseen.

She was a Qingfeng woman who'd lived a whole life there, after all. In half an incense-stick she was at Qiu the Beggar's gate.

She'd meant to feel out the lay of things under cover of dark, but at Qiu the Beggar's gate she came upon this scene.

A crowd of old beggars, and child-beggars not waist-high, barred the old road before the gate.

On the road stood two flatbed carts, no beast to pull them, drawn, like the Huo family's once, by human hands.

A group of women and children sat on the carts, some hugging bundles, some hugging babies, all their faces despairing, all gazing eagerly at the old mansion.

No one spoke, no one talked. What, what was this?

A white-haired old beggar gripped a cart-shaft and pleaded: "I beg you, old madam, it's we who have no shame! We saw a mouthful to eat and fastened on your house and made trouble for Mr. Qiu. You must never go, it's we who'll go! We'll go now."

The old beggar hadn't finished before a firm, sharp voice came from the courtyard: "You needn't go! Let them go!!"

The words fell, and out from the old mansion came a man in a cotton robe, his hair a wild tangle, but with the bearing of a phoenix, of a luan-bird.

Qi Qian'er was a little startled. She'd seen the ragged, filthy Qiu the Beggar, but never thought he was like this.

The women on the carts had been gazing eagerly at their home, and hearing so cold a word, the wife set her teeth and cried, heartbroken, to the son pulling the cart in front: "Son! We're leaving! Leave!"

The beggars panicked and rushed to pull them back, and amid the shoving, from a nearby roof came a woman's light laugh, her voice carried on the snow to every corner of the old lane: "Mr. Qiu, your merit is boundless. Would you begrudge sharing one small part of that good work with a poor woman?"

Mr. Qiu and the rest were ordinary folk. Met with such a thing at the fifth watch, they naturally jumped.

They looked up and searched about, and soon, on the roof across the street, saw a young, woman? in a plain dark-red cotton robe, a cloth over her head, with two holes cut in the cloth?

Mr. Qiu walked slowly down the steps, looked up at the roof, and after a while asked: "This lady, I don't believe I."

He didn't know how to go about it. In all his life he'd never stood beneath a roof and talked with a woman up on it.

Qi Qian'er tossed down the sack of grain and the packet of medicine, smiling: "Don't think ill of it, sir, I mean no harm. I've only heard of your good name, and envy your good works, and come today to beg a little share of your blessing. Would you be willing to share it with me?"

The young man pulling the cart set down the rope, ran stumbling to the wall, opened the cloth sack, took one look, and cried out, shaking with joy: "Father! It's grain! Look! We have grain."

He held up the elm-flour sack for Mr. Qiu to see, then ran holding it to Madam Qiu: "Mother, look, it's not Father alone doing good. Look! It's grain."

Madam Qiu bent and looked, and her tears fell at once. She wept: "Only fifty jin, a day or two's worth, and still we're driven out."

"Hold your tongue!" Mr. Qiu stopped her, and turned to make Qi Qian'er a scholar's deep bow of thanks.

Such a good man's bow Qi Qian'er dared not take. She dodged it, sprang to another roof, and said: "I dare not take your bow, sir. You've beggared your house to keep others alive. You are a very Bodhisattva. You must never do so."

Then, looking at the wife, she said: "Don't fret, Madam Qiu. There's no such thing in this world as a good soul coming to a bad end. Not knowing before, that was one thing, but now I've come, of course I'll see it through to the end!"

That said, she reached into her sleeve and took out the gold ingot Chen Dasheng had given her that day, and rubbed off two little gold pellets from it.

Nothing for it, she'd brought only these two, having thought the little ingots pretty to fiddle with.

Qi Qian'er sprang down, walked to the cart, and pressed the gold pellets into Madam Qiu's trembling hand: "In this world men are dogs by nature. A full belly and the whole house is fed, and what do they know of us in the back rooms, toiling at the weaving, the small hard work of every corner and scrap! This is private money to weight your purse, don't you give it to him, ha ha."

Qi Qian'er found her own words funny, and laughed.

At bottom she'd done a good deed, and it left her in fine spirits.

Madam Qiu dared not take it, and was about to refuse, but Qi Qian'er sprang back to the roof and said, smiling: "Don't fear going hungry, madam. In three days I'll come again, with just as much grain. This whole winter, I'll do my utmost to help your husband's good work. For now, I'll take my leave!"

And with that she vanished in a few bounds.

Madam Qiu jumped down from the cart, ran to Mr. Qiu cradling the two gold pellets, and said through streaming tears: "Hus, husband, look. Gold. We have gold."

Mr. Qiu's lips trembled. He made to reach for it, and Madam Qiu, coming to herself, whisked the gold into her sleeve and said to him, stern: "The immortal gave this to me. It's nothing to do with you, husband!"

Mr. Qiu looked at his old wife, and looked, and of a sudden, tears brimming, burst out laughing.

Qi Qian'er had sprung only a few roofs on when she heard someone behind her chanting aloud: "Now as to the essential nature, it can be made good. This is what is meant by good. If a man does what is not good, it is not the fault of his native powers. The heart of compassion, all men have it. The heart of shame, all men have it. The heart of reverence, all men have it! The heart of right and wrong, all men have it!"

Qi Qian'er stopped, and found herself carried away with it.

She thought: yes, just so. A man like Mr. Qiu, steeped in the classics, where could he not be an honored guest? And yet he let himself become a beggar, kept by a whole city.

He had spent his whole life proving the Way, and with his own death proved the benevolence that was his.

Thinking of that funeral no emperor ever had, and how it had waked in the world, in her too, so much of the heart of mercy and right, Qi Qian'er thought again: oh no! Doing as I've done, haven't I spoiled the sir's proving of the Way?

In the midst of her tangled thoughts, she felt a rush of cold wind at the back of her head. She sprang forward at once, leapt high, and, in a fluster, cleared several roofs in a row. Only when she was sure she was safe did she look back.

By now the sky had lightened a little, the wind and snow easing, and there stood two men of the yamen sort, one tall, one short, in uniforms much like Scabby's guard-dress, gripping great sabers, staring at her, aghast.

The tall one, his voice overbearing, leveled his saber at Qi Qian'er: "You there, woman!! What gate, what school are you of? What's your name? Whose martial line? At the crack of dawn, instead of keeping to the honest road, you go clambering over the rooftops, bold as brass, at the gate of our Qingfeng Jiusi Hall yamen. You, do you look down on us? Are you not afraid our capital Jiusi Hall will call you to account?!"

Qi Qian'er couldn't follow a word of it, and only thought, furious: I've scrimped my whole life, and at last I want to do a little good, and at the crack of dawn these two fools come at me with a pair of great chopping-blades?

Have they, have they lost their minds?

I'm sixth rank! Sixth rank!

And you two across there, what rank are you, that you dare cut me?