Chapter 69

Ping Shen put on a face full of smiles. He looked up at the old man on the rockery and invited him down for a drink. But the old man stood where he was and did not move. He looked like a man taking in the beauty of the place.

Sprout, this old man had a sudden turn of thought. It came to me to mind your house. But don't be afraid. Years though it's been since I set foot in the martial world, I won't lightly give away the secrets of you shell-touchers.

A "sprout" is a young man just newly grown. A "shell-toucher" is a merchant. The earliest money was made of cowrie shells, so the martial world calls merchant houses the shell-touchers. The merchant houses, for their part, call themselves the gold-and-copper houses.

And the old man had it right. Ping Shen was young in years indeed. He wasn't yet ten years out from home, and he held up the family gate at no more than six or seven and twenty. In this old man's eye he was still an ungrown sprout.

The old man had his scorn, and he thought little of a merchant besides. So he didn't put the money into Ping Shen's hand. He flung it straight down on the ground. Ping Shen had seen plenty of such looks and it didn't bother him at all. Harmony breeds wealth.

He walked slowly down the steps, picked up the purse, and opened it. Inside was a bagful of coin-darts made of solid gold. He raised his brows. These Yuegong Mountain folk were odd indeed. Did they mean to settle a bill with gold hidden weapons? He couldn't make out the old man's meaning either, so he could only put the purse away, bow, and smile. "Elder Guan speaks too gravely. We've only newly come up to Yanjing from Shaoshang, and our footing's not yet firm. I only fear I'll hold up your real business. To give me so great a bag as this? Your junior truly dares not take it!"

Elder Guan cut him a cold glance, and his voice went heavier. "It's you, and only you, I can turn to. And I've said it. It's no matter. I won't give your house away!"

Ping Shen sighed. "Elder, by your meaning, you mean to stay a few days? And this money of yours, it's truly free-handed! Your junior will arrange you a quiet spot at once. The road from Yuegong Mountain here is a wearying one, and you must be spent in body and mind..."

But Elder Guan laughed all of a sudden and cut him short. "You little one, striking such an attitude. Are you afraid, then?"

Ping Shen bent his back lower. "The Elder is wise. My house has stood for how many generations, and we've raised how many deep-set mansions. And yet, generation upon generation, we've never dared build so much as a doorsill. Let a thief of the burglar trade come in at our gate, and he too would walk flat along the ground. So you ask, are we afraid? There's not a soul we can afford to cross."

Elder Guan gave a snorting laugh and felt at the place over his breast. "This old man, before he came out, took a turn round the Miscellany Hall too. Going, I carried off nothing much. I only lifted a token, whose color rather resembles the door-edging of your Bao house..."

At that Ping Shen's eyes lit, and he bowed low. "Then the Elder need only ask. Whatever your junior knows, he'll tell!"

Elder Guan cackled and stared at him a good while before he said, "The very image of your father. You know nothing but how to cozy up to filthy things. A pity, this fine talent of yours, born into such a house. Three generations of you have loved to speak gut-turning words, and this old man was afraid you wouldn't dare speak!"

Ping Shen kept his head down but said, "The Elder's said as much as this. Even had I not dared, what could your junior do about it? The rule of my Bao gold-and-copper house is that however hard the case, the rule comes first. Only, I don't know, is that door-edging color you carried off a real one?"

Elder Guan laughed coldly to hear it, and briskly drew an oxhide bag from his breast and flung it down too. "Truly a house of dogs. The nose is bred sharp in you. Take it! Look it over well. You've made a great profit here..."

Ping Shen bent, picked up the oxhide bag, and opened it. Inside was a bronze token. Well pleased, he tucked the token neatly into his breast and looked up. "The Elder may ask away."

This bronze token was a warrant. From now on, his escort carts passing Yuegong Mountain would need to pay the road toll no more. For such a warrant, giving up the trade round Yanjing for a time was worth it.

Elder Guan swept aside his robe and sat cross-legged atop the rockery. He looked off toward Qingfeng a good while before he said, "That disciple of mine, Pang Tu, was savage in his doings, and he deserved his death, sure enough. But he's dead. Stinking. Rotted. None of that matters now. The face of my Yuegong Mountain, though, that this old man means to win back. You know now what it is I'll ask?"

Ping Shen answered lightly. "I do, Elder. The Elder wishes to ask after the recluse behind us on Baiquan Mountain. The Elm-Tree Lady?"

Qi Qian'er was eavesdropping, and her eyes brightened a shade. She leaned against the flower-wall, bent her head a little, and looked down at her embroidered shoes. To suit the occasion she'd worn shoes edged with chrysanthemums today, very pretty shoes. Only, it was a pity, now that she'd come into this Evening-Fragrance Return, with chrysanthemums thick on every side, they didn't stand out at all.

In the court next door, Elder Guan said again, "Just so."

Ping Shen said, "That's a simple matter. We have a few traces of her here. From last winter, when this Lady first appeared on Academy Street relieving the disaster-folk, down to after the second of the third month this year, when she vanished without a trace. As for the few thin leads we have, I only fear you won't be satisfied with them.

"The Elder may not know it, but this Elm-Tree Lady comes without a shadow and goes without a trace. Before that, she'd never shown so much as half a mark... Only, there is one man who ought to know more than we do. If the Elder would learn of her, your junior will tell you at once where he's to be found..."

At that Elder Guan laughed softly all of a sudden and broke in on Ping Shen's words. "You slippery thing! Where in the world do you see a man that could threaten the folk of the beggar trade? And besides, I'd have gone looking for the man, but that old wretch has shut himself away in seclusion, hasn't he?"

Ping Shen was taken aback and cried out despite himself. "Old Xin's gone into seclusion!"

Ping Shen smiled bitterly inside but had to go on with the business. "Now that I know it, there's no help but to grit my teeth and press on. Ai! If Elder Xin has a mind to keep clear of people, then even the Bao gold-and-copper house can do nothing. The old man walks the roads and lodges at no inn. All these years, not once has Elder Xin let your junior earn so much as a two-cash-a-night cart-inn off him."

Elder Guan nodded. "Hmph, and there it is. This old man had no other course, and so I could only come and trouble you, sprout."

Someone behind coughed lightly. Ping Shen felt at his breast, drew the oxhide bag out again, and held it up in both hands. "This? I wonder if the Elder might, for the sake of..."

Elder Guan waved a hand. "Trot out whom you please, it's no use! Were your dead father himself to come, it would be the same end."

Ping Shen had no choice. He put the oxhide bag away again and sighed. "Yes! Then let it be so. Only, having made this bargain with the Elder, I fear in the five hundred li round Yanjing we'll come in for some hard times. Fortune be thanked, that Lady, though she lives retired on Baiquan Mountain, has never once made a fuss with idle folk such as us over any small matter..."

On the far side of the wall, Qi Qian'er couldn't help but touch her own face, then her own heart, and think: hard times? What would she have to do to count as a hard time? Tomorrow she'd catch that old Xin and question him close. Retired or not retired, if he wasn't at the city gate, she'd follow the little beggars' trail and search the few broken temples nearby. That old thing would be in one of them for certain.

She was still thinking when she heard Elder Guan say, disdainful, "By your account, then, this Elm-Tree Lady's a large-hearted sort?"

Ping Shen's tone was full of worship, and he said in dead earnest, "Just so. But for this Lady, the Baiquan Mountain line, I fear, would not have won back its vigor in another full sixty years."

A fit of coughing came from atop the rockery, and Elder Guan asked, his voice gone grim and cold, "Talk too much idle talk and the tongue breaks out in scabs. I've said it. Pang Tu deserved his death! I ask you but one thing. How am I to find her?"

Ping Shen said nothing and turned it over a good while, but he told it in the end. "The Elm-Tree Lady acts more openly than anyone, and holds more to the rules than anyone. The Elder need only post a challenge notice at the dueling platform of Qingfeng, aboveboard and in the open."

Elder Guan heard him say it and was taken aback completely. He asked, a little unable to believe it, "Only that?"

Ping Shen answered, "Yes! Only that... Only I don't know, when the Elder has challenged the Elm-Tree Lady, what's the next step?"

Elder Guan stood, flicked his sleeve, and gave a snort. "When I've matched a bout or two with the lady and finished tormenting her, then, of course, I'll go and finish what my beast of a disciple left undone, and do it once more at Yanjing. The face of my Yuegong Mountain is not a thing I can afford to lose!" He sprang down off the rockery, put his hands behind his back, and said, "You've only to point me to the wine cellar. This old man's content with wine, and let there be a scent of wine and everything's easily said. Set your heart at ease. I'll stay but the one night and be gone tomorrow."

Ping Shen smiled, turned, and pointed the way, and made the gesture of a man inviting a guest in.

Elder Guan walked a few steps on and said again, "Sprout, my Yuegong Mountain has offended everyone through and through. We've lost the branch heads round about, and we've lost our very eaves. To draw your old Bao house in today is a thing I couldn't help. Don't be afraid. A thing passed over the face of the water raises no ripple. That no-account boy of mine broke the rules and drew down retribution on himself. His was an ill fate. I came quietly, and quietly I'll be gone tomorrow."

Ping Shen nodded and gestured him on. "Yes, yes. We of the Bao gold-and-copper open our doors for trade, and there's no reason to go digging into the roots of a customer who comes in at them. Go slow, and rest well. There's fine wine and to spare..."

Elder Guan went off at last, clean out of sight. The man who'd coughed behind Ping Shen came forward and asked, "Third Master, what's to be done? Our traces are given away. The Yanjing trade truly can't be carried on now."

Ping Shen weighed the oxhide bag in his hand, and it was a good while before he sighed. "These old things! And whom can we afford to cross? We'll take it we saw nothing! My father used to say, when there's truly no way out, all a man can do is pray the God of Wealth to shield him. What else is there?"

The man held no low place himself, and he made bold to ask on. "This old fellow, a Yuegong Mountain old recluse? He didn't look it!"

Ping Shen nodded. "Mm, you've the right of it! As a boy I went with my father to pay respects at their mountain gate, and in those days we couldn't so much as get up the steps to his very feet. He's Pang Tu's master, Guan Zhuping, of the Twenty Old Recluses of Yuegong Mountain. He looks as he does now because he's lived in retirement. Go by the temper he had of old, and ten Pang Tus entering the capital wouldn't make the stir he would... And it went hard with him to hide his tracks and come quietly into the capital. Tell me, that pack of dung-eaters of our house never caught one scrap of word of it?"

His man sighed. "The Third Young Master shames us, putting it so. He came into Qingfeng and lodged at no inn, but came to loiter at our own cellar. How were the keepers of our inns to know of it?"

Ping Shen had only been musing. After a little he laughed and muttered to his man, "Tell the keepers of all the halls, from now on, on the goods that go into the palace, we take no profit. And from today, when the gentlemen of the Jiusi Hall travel, their lodging and their inns shall be free of our Bao gold-and-copper too."

This time the man answered briskly enough. Seeing how the Jiusi Hall had pressed this old fellow into hiding his tracks the whole way, he'd come to fear the new dynasty all the more.

A gust of autumn wind rolled the gold flowers into a scatter. The chrysanthemum garden behind had gone quiet at last. Qi Qian'er, who had stood pressed to the wall a good while, slowly stirred herself.

She hadn't been afraid. She'd only been thinking, the whole while, what sort of fortune this Ping Shen had made off the back of her. And she thought, too, of that word of his, that she was the most rule-abiding of any, that if he only posted a challenge notice, she'd surely answer it.

So then, was she to go, or not to go?

She turned it over in her mind and came back to the mountain-viewing terrace. But the Greater Feast below had ended, and the four whole baskets of coin on the ground had all been given clean away in rewards.

The several Pan girls had likely warmed to their play. Their little faces were flushed, and there was even a faint sheen of sweat on them.

Zhang Wanru saw Qi Qian'er come back and waved to her, smiling. "Only look at you! Turning about the whole day long, who knows what you've been at? You've come back for nothing. Whatever good thing there was, you've gone and missed it."

Qi Qian'er rinsed her hands in the basin Fourth-Moon brought and asked, "Oh? And what have I missed?"

She lifted her face and looked, and sure enough, the finest pin on Zhang Wanru's head was gone.

Dong-shi covered her face at Qi Qian'er's side, ashamed. "One moment I didn't watch her, and she'd drunk too much. What's to be done? No mistress of a house does the like. It's only men who carry on in this scoundrel's fashion, throwing their ornaments to cheer an actor. If you'd wanted it, you only had to have someone reward more coin. Why do this thing, and make people laugh at your father and me for not having reared you right..."

Qi Qian'er had toiled a whole life, and over two lifetimes she'd seen through no small part of the ways of the world. Only now was she at ease in everything. She went about her doings freely now, freer than Zhang Wanru, and there were reasons behind that. But Zhang Wanru had always been just so.

Zhang Wanru was married off now, and she would by no means go in fear of her own mother. She heard it and even wiggled her toes, smug, leaned on her cushion, and laughed.

Qi Qian'er said, unconcerned, with a smile, "Auntie thinks too much. Let Jintai only hear that Wanru played to her heart's content, and there'll be nothing in him but gladness. And besides, there's no law that says we women can't reward an actor."

Zhang Wanru nodded over and over. "Just so! Just so!"

Dong-shi spat toward her daughter, turned her face away, and would not look at her again.

Qi Qian'er sat down and poured Zhang Wanru a cup of wine with her own hand, but she looked at Dong-shi as she did it. "Does Auntie know why I wouldn't watch the Greater Feast?"

At that, the whole company turned to look at her.

Qi Qian'er took up the wine pot, filled herself a brimming cup, and drank a shallow sip before she said, "There are a great many heroes and stout men of old. But the ones I loathe most are, first, Fan Li, and second, Wang Yun. And yet the histories written of those men sing their merits and praise their virtues, and make the two of them out to be men of wisdom and courage both... Hmph. Just to speak their names dirties my mouth and fouls the young ladies' ears!"

Qi Qian'er hadn't finished speaking before Zhang Wanru's eyes lit up, and she raised her cup to clink it against Qi Qian'er's. Just then, someone at their side put in, "Wait a moment."

The two sisters-in-law were surprised, and they turned their faces to look. There was Song-shi, Censor Pan's wife, who'd poured herself a cup too. Cradling it in both hands, she came gracefully over to them. "For those words of the Big Madam's, will the two madams take one with me as well?"

That said, she fell to laughing along with them, and at last the three wine cups struck together and rang out with a clear, bright note...

A whole day's ease, and at the end there must come the time of parting. Just as the several young ladies of the Pan house were boarding their cart, they heard the Chen Big Madam say behind them, "Aiyo! Truly I've drunk too much wine. I'd clean forgotten the real business."

Each with her own thoughts, the company turned to look. There was the Chen Madam, carrying a long, vermilion mother-of-pearl box, coming slowly over.

This box was called the betrothal box. By the settled custom of the place, whichever girl was chosen, to her the box was given.

Pan Qiqiao's heart was near to leaping out of her. She secretly edged a step forward, then, all bashfulness, dropped her head.

But who would have thought it. The Chen Madam went right on past her, put out a hand, and gave the betrothal box to the round-headed, round-faced, plump little Pan Baqiao, who still had a piece of persimmon cake in her mouth.

In that instant, the whole company was struck with amazement, Song-shi and Zhang Wanru excepted.

Pan Baqiao was stunned dumb, her ears buzzing. She was helped up onto the cart, and there was no telling how long after, with the swaying beneath her, she heard her sister sobbing and snuffling.

The plump girl came fully to her senses at that. Aghast, she flung the betrothal box into her sister-in-law's arms and waved her plump hands over and over. "No, no, no! Don't want it! Wrong, wrong!"

Pan Qiqiao was beside herself with fury. Gripping her handkerchief, she turned her face to her sister. "Never did I think you were this kind of person! Don't want it? Then why did you take the betrothal box? You, you surely worked some trick behind our backs, to have it fall out so!"

Mm, the Pan house had twelve daughters, and their inner strife was, naturally, a bitter and bloody thing.

At the words, Pan Baqiao's little face flushed red on the instant. This girl had never been one for a quarrel. She was a genteel little body who used her mouth and not her hands... But her seventh sister's words were ugly to hear, so she reached out, seized her sister's arm, pushed the sleeve up in passing, took aim at the fleshiest place, and, chomp, bit down on it.

Pan Qiqiao knew her sister's temper, and she knew she'd surely come in for a bite. She didn't dodge it either. But when it bit her sore, she screamed out, burst into loud weeping, and reached up to yank her sister's hair down.

Pan Baqiao wouldn't let go her mouth's hold. Her two hands shot out, grabbed two great fistfuls, and pulled down and down...

This was the wisdom of long inner strife. Pan Qiqiao would go home and, by the tooth marks, lodge her charge with the master and mistress. Pan Baqiao knew there was no escaping it, so she meant to win back her full measure of the advantage.

The two weren't born of one mother, and both of them were concubine-born. They'd crossed hands past all counting from small to grown, and it was wins and losses on both sides. But the seventh girl would never have dreamed that today's move was likely a miscalculation. Pan Baqiao had got herself a husband who was an honorary marquis now, a house that ate from a cauldron of rank. From this day the eighth young mistress stood, in the Pan house, at a standing equal to the two true-born misses.

Pan Qiqiao wept with a heart-rending cry. Song-shi at last got the pair of them apart and said to Baqiao, between laughing and not, "She accused you, you only had to explain it clearly. I watched the whole of it from first to last. Couldn't I have given you your justice? What did you bite her for?"

Pan Baqiao wiped her mouth and said, her plump little face all indignation, "Force of habit! I never thought it out! I've no clever mouth to go tattling like her, so I get my anger out first and talk after. Otherwise I'd get the ruler across my palm at home, and lie awake half the night so cross I'd be the death of myself, and where's the profit in that!"

The eighth girl saw her seventh sister make to provoke her again, and she bared two rows of little white teeth and gnashed them hard at her.

The seventh was near to bursting with rage, and she set up her snuffling once more.

Baqiao finished frightening her sister, then looked at her sister-in-law and asked, "Truly fancied me?"

At that, Song-shi opened the betrothal box at her side. Within it, sure enough, was a pearl flower set in gold with gems, and it looked a right noble thing.

"Yes indeed! Fancied you they did!"

Song-shi looked her plump little sister-in-law up and down and thought: who could have foreseen it, that this eighth young mistress of ours should climb so high a branch. Her smile grew all the more sincere, and she said to Pan Baqiao, "Heh! Your brother guessed it right, then. Our Baqiao can eat and can drink, and she was born to the fortune of a rich madam..."

"You!" Song-shi closed the box and gave it back to Baqiao, then said to Qiqiao, "And how did they tell you at home, before you came out? They told you to hold yourself in, not to be always aping your mother's airs. Did you listen? Had you listened to half a word of it, you wouldn't have shown this sour face! Today's business, let the past be past. Where there's no fate for it, there's no fate! Was it that the family didn't back you up? When I set out I said it plain, best of all would it be you, for your years suit it better than any. But you wouldn't make the push, and what was I to do about it? You went about all in a daze, laughing one moment and grieving the next, and folk who saw you dared not have you, but took you for a mad thing!"

Pan Qiqiao wailed aloud.

Song-shi had no choice. She handed her her own handkerchief. "Wipe your face, quick. Those little schemes of yours, who is there that can't see them! Guard Lane's birth may be a touch lower, but at the least they've a household set up now. I told you to be careful in word and deed, cautious and heedful at every turn! Even to have feigned a shyness and said not a word would have served. But no, you? Have you never seen flowers in your life? One basket is too many, and only look how many you brought back alone on the cart behind, a full eight baskets! The Chen Big Madam settled thirty taels for that bit of flowers of yours, thirty taels! They mean to marry you to keep a house, not to ruin one, and you've still the face to cry..."

Pan Qiqiao was cross and rueful both, and she wept the whole way. By the time she was home, her eyes were swollen and her head all a-swim.

The Pan house was ruled by Song-shi, and she had given her lesson on the road, so she let it pass. Only, Pan Qiqiao saw her sister lifted up and made much of by the whole family, and in the end she grew up overnight and did learn to hold herself in.

But that, to be sure, is later talk.

Only say that on the second day after they'd left the Little Immortal Garden, someone in Qingfeng handed in a challenge notice...

And on the very night the Jiusi Hall's branch office took in that challenge notice, the Little Immortal Garden's keeper Ping Shen had scarcely lain down when he heard someone say to him from beyond the window, "I say, you shell-touching third keeper of the Bao gold-and-copper, whatever benefit did you trade me off for? At least come out and give me an accounting. Let's have a talk of it, you and I, half and half, how's that?"