Chapter 7

Deep autumn had just come. In Quanhou Village, whose people had fled only a few days before, wild grass covered the ground everywhere, and vines sprawling over the old houses hid the bustle of former days, and the old country, away completely.

After the army laid siege to the city, the families who had lived in Quanhou Village had long since vanished who knew where — off fleeing for their lives, most likely, the way the Huo family had.

Qi Qian'er hadn't been gone from the place long either — only three or four days, as she reckoned it — and so, with no need for the old woman to lead her, she made straight for home, sure of every step.

All the way there, the times being different, the things she saw were different too.

And it was a wonder, when she thought about it: a few days ago she'd still been the most formidable old woman on Quanhou Street, whom no one dared cross — and now, at a turn, here she was living as a young girl again.

Back then she'd had no children, no husband, no kin, no nephews. Wanting nothing, she feared nothing, and her last days she lived not badly at all — she'd dare say anything, dare curse anyone, and if you crossed her she'd go to the capital and beat the Grievance Drum. After all, the imperial house owed her a husband.

Chen Dasheng held the frontier for twenty years. When the foreign enemy bore down on the border, he led his troops in a thirty-two-day defense of Zuoliang Pass, and in the end died for his country — a loyal and valiant subject written into the histories.

Later the men of letters took up their brushes to sing his praises, and some idle ones wrote her, Qi Qian'er, up as a sinner, sneering that she hadn't even left Scabby an heir — whereas Scabby, by his very death, had earned her a title of honor.

Madam Qiao of the fourth branch wanted to adopt her own grandson to Scabby as heir; Qi Qian'er wouldn't have it, and so the clan made things hard for her in every way, until in the end there was poison in the very gruel she ate.

If she was someone not to be trifled with, it was from about then that she'd started throwing all caution to the wind.

She'd thought: if she couldn't go on living, then she'd go and turn the whole sky over. In the dead of night she fled, hired a donkey cart, and made straight for Yanjing to beat the Grievance Drum.

Madam Qiao had killed her An'er back then — and Chen Siniu still wanted to send his grandson over to the third branch to inherit Scabby's incense and rank?

Dream on!

In the end no one got what they wanted anyway. No one burned paper money at Scabby's grave; no one saw her, Huo Qiqian, to her death; Madam Qiao swallowed gold and killed herself, taking the whole family's guilt on herself alone... And now that she thought about it, it was Chen Siniu who'd come off best out of all of it.

---

Rounding the ancestral hall, Qi Qian'er looked at Quanhou Village as it was now and let out a slow breath. This time, she thought, the beginning really was different.

The women who lived well in this world either had husbands who cherished them or children who did them credit. Those first two she had no thought of leaning on — but now she was one with money in her pocket and something put by at home, so what did she have to fear? Nothing at all.

She was likely to become the most impossible young wife on all of Quanhou Street. At the thought, Qi Qian'er felt easy all over, brimming with a drive she couldn't have put into words.

"What are you charging about for like a headless fly, girl!" Old Madam Chen, hurrying and puffing, caught up with Qi Qian'er, and seeing her heading down the dirt road to the right of the hamlet, called out again: "You there, girl! Wrong way! It's over here... aiya, there's not a soul down that way — off to catch mice, are you? Honestly..."

Qi Qian'er stopped, and had to laugh at herself. She'd been heading for the old house again.

Right, right — that wasn't home yet, not now.

With a sheepish little laugh, Qi Qian'er turned, took up the goats again, and dragged them off toward the old woman.

The goats, disgruntled, left behind a string of droppings like little black dates.

The aunties watching the fun got a great kick out of it — found it truly hilarious, and laughed so hard the magpie overhead went flapping off in a fright...

They wouldn't live in the old run-down houses of the back village, not them. The places they lived now were the finest official mansions in the hamlet — and if a house didn't have a good garden, they wouldn't so much as deign to pry its door open.

Half a month back, Old Madam Chen and that pack of camp-following women had taken over the hamlet. There weren't many of them, so they'd picked out the luxurious grey-brick courtyards with wells and moved in together; doing their work and idling and gossiping through the days, their life couldn't be called lonely.

Quanhou Village was a far more solid place than Huo Manor. Huo Manor was just a servants' hamlet that kept the crown's farms; but the families who'd lived in Quanhou were another matter. It was a hamlet formed, house by house, of the country villas built by Yanjing's up-and-coming officials and its second-rank titled gentry.

In the old days, whatever the winter, the moment snow fell the great folk of Yanjing were sure to come in droves, leading dogs and galloping horses. They'd arrive and rest up at their villas in the hamlet, and the next day call up their friends and go hunting in the hills.

And so Quanhou Village was made of two sorts of people. The first were the original hamlet folk, who lived in the ordinary houses on the right-hand side of the village; the second lived around the ancestral hall, in the elegant quarter — building after building, lane after lane of respectable official mansions.

This crowd of women had no scruples, and naturally lived wherever was nicest, never minding whether the place was theirs to live in or not.

The square-laid grey-brick road was three carts wide, and a good twenty women followed noisily along with their children in tow.

The old woman shooed them off a few more times, but thick-skinned as they were they wouldn't go, so she let it be.

After another stretch the old woman finally drew level with Qi Qian'er. She led the way, throwing out a few commanding directions with some swagger — but perhaps, remembering that great bulging sack of grain of hers, gone now along with ten jingling strings of copper cash, her heart went hollow and unmoored.

By the old woman's reckoning, this thin-haired young wife had been got with fifty jin of grain and ten strings of cash, so whatever the young wife owned ought by rights to be hers too. But seeing how fierce the girl was, she was likely a hard one to handle — and if the old woman couldn't get the better of her, she'd stand even less tall in front of Madam Qiao from here on.

What to do? All the way along, the old woman turned over her petty country-granny accounts, dreaming up scheme after scheme — but as she walked on and on, up ahead in the distance she saw the fourth son's wife, Madam Qiao, standing at her door with Xique'er, smiling and waiting for them.

Pah! The sight of this vexing creature set her blood up.

This one was no good sort. However much Scabby and the others sent back by messenger — the moment it reached her hands, it vanished!

No, she mustn't take it! This family had long since split in all but name, each branch minding its own — Scabby's wife's things were the wife's own, and if she, the old woman, "looked after" them, there was no telling whose they'd be by tomorrow.

Her fourth son took after his father — soft-eared and spineless, a base creature so under his woman's thumb you'd think he'd never seen one before, who couldn't stiffen his backbone even for his own mother. Rather than count on Siniu, she'd do better to get on good terms with this girl from the start — better that than to have no one to look after her in her own old age.

At the thought, Old Madam Chen felt sour and torn, all fret and second-guessing. She had no idea whether this scrawny little sparrow could hold a household together...

The smooth, soft white jade bangle swung on the little sparrow's wrist. Feeling Old Madam Chen sizing her up, Qi Qian'er lifted her face and smiled.

Old Madam Chen wasn't familiar with her yet — but she was familiar with the old woman.

Familiar enough that when the old woman died, it was she who dressed her in her burial clothes.

From a distance Madam Qiao called out with a smile: "Ai-yo! Here you are! Here you come! At last! Mother! Bring Scabby's wife over quick — I've even got the water boiled ready for you!"

The old woman and Qi Qian'er stopped at the same moment, a cold light flashing in the eyes of each. Both thought the same thing: lightning-blasted, no-good creature — all mouth! What's the water boiled for? Scalding the bristles off a pig?

Come? Come your granny's leg. Had she not called out like that it might have passed — but at the shout, Old Madam Chen turned on her heel and swept Qi Qian'er off into the side lane.

Seeing her turn aside, Qi Qian'er's heart lifted.

There'd been a moment like this before, too — only back then she'd been small and knew no better, and when the old woman told her to live on her own, she'd burst into frightened tears.

The old woman, at a loss, had ended up taking her along to the big three-courtyard compound the other way.

So long as everyone stirred the same big pot, the family wasn't counted as split, and the fourth uncle was the only elder — so whatever Scabby earned had to go into the common purse. After that, in food and spending they ranked half a head below everyone, and with Scabby away, she and her child both lived on handouts, reading other people's faces to get by.

The old woman back then must have despised her for being so useless — and she, for her part, had feared the old woman like a viper and kept as far away as she could...

Granny had, in her way, thought of her good too — a truth Qi Qian'er only came to understand later.

---

The old woman went a few steps, and seeing Qi Qian'er hadn't kept up, turned her head and cursed: "Are you a fool? Get over here! You expect that fine person to feed you, do you? Oh, aye — she's got the water all boiled, just waiting to drop those few thin wisps of yours into the pot. Wait on her? She'd sell you off and you'd never even know it!"

At that Qi Qian'er smiled, and answered crisp and clear: "Aye! I've got it — Mother!"

The women all around burst into roaring laughter again.

The old woman, a belly full of temper, heard Qi Qian'er call her Mother and didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She curled her lip, touched her peach-pink brow-band, and in the end laughed too.

"Wrong name! Mother, my eye! Do I look like your mother? A great age like mine, and 'Mother'? I'm your granny! You ignorant little thing, what are you blathering — 'Mother,' honestly! Seventy, eighty years old and still 'Mother'? 'Mother' — damn their bones, I've got ten-odd grandchildren already!"

As she spoke, the old woman tugged at her silk gown and, all dignity, patted the silver bar-pin in her bun.

Really? Was she really so easily won over?

Qi Qian'er was taken aback, then again called out crisp and clear: "Aye! I've got it — Granny!"

Such a sweet mouth on her — not a country girl after all; one who could read really was different.

So the whole crowd laughed again, all praising the old woman for betrothing such a fine granddaughter-in-law; and the old woman felt that, thin as the thin-haired girl was, she had her good points too — a clever mouth being one, and reading being another.

When a body's young they think a quiet, honest child is the dear one; but once you're old you come to favor a livelier one — not for how capable they are, but just for the liveliness of it.

Ah well — it'd take some effort down the line. The girl had no elders to look after and school her, so she'd just have to be brought along slowly; good crops all need careful tending, don't they?

The two of them, grandmother and grandchild, had gone only a few steps when they came to a rather grand residence. At either side of its gate stood square-box gate-piers carved with the Five Blessings, each topped with a Sumeru pedestal; above the gate ran four door-pillars, ranged neat and even. Grandest of all, the plaque over the gate bore a few large characters — House of Five Generations of Farming and Study — and the signature, no less, was the name of the fallen dynasty's old Grand Preceptor.

Good grief — a house with a pedigree like that. Who'd dare live in it?

One look at the gate-plaque told you its pedigree: this was a family that had produced exam graduates generation after generation, most of them officials posted to the provinces, and that was how they'd come to set up a villa outside Qingfeng.

A pity — the once-grand gate was now locked tight and sealed with an official strip, but the courtyard wall was half collapsed; the place had likely been looted long ago.

The old woman glanced left and right, pried a brick off the top of the wall, and set about battering the gate-lock with it. She was strong, and after only seven or eight blows half the bolt fell away.

There came a great clang as the old woman, for all the world like a bandit, kicked in the gate of the five-generation scholar house, and pointed at the finely-carved grey-brick spirit-wall within: "Scabby's wife, this is your house from now on. Go on in!"

Heh — big words, those!

The seal-strip stamped with the new yamen's official chop drooped pitifully. The old woman looked back and gestured again and again, but Qi Qian'er stood there, not moving.

Her head was in a whirl, turning over how best to get along with this old woman.

This old woman was one who'd thrown all restraint to the winds: she cared nothing for face, her own or anyone else's.

And herself?

Maybe she too was past caring about face now. She'd always envied the way the old woman was — afraid of no one, cowed by no one, ready to scold anyone at all...

But if she went in through this gate now, it would make a great joke of her.

And that would only make trouble for her An'er.

Wind blew clear through the empty hall; a wintersweet not yet in flower reached its branches out over the wall, and for a moment Qi Qian'er lost herself in thought.

The old woman called to her: "Why aren't you coming in yet?"

Qi Qian'er only stood under the tree and smiled. She pointed at the grey-brick house at the far end of the lane: "Granny, I don't want this house! Let's go over there — that house is better!"

Everyone around laughed again at once...

How many days had it been since anyone dared cross her wishes? Old Madam Chen stood there staring at the thin-haired thing before her... Out of habit she felt for the pipe-stem at the back of her waist, thinking: why not give her a first beating and be done with it?

If one didn't do it, then two? Three? There'd come a time she'd knuckle under.

---

These past two years, the old woman had grown less and less willing to sit and reason things out with anyone.

Starting from the last years of Hongshun, a great flood had destroyed Old Madam Chen's old home. In the blink of an eye, the little estate that generations of ancestors had scraped together for their descendants was left with not a hair remaining.

With no other choice, what was left of Old Madam Chen's whole village banded together and fled north from the famine — but the further they went, the more desolate it got.

In under three months, Old Madam Chen lost her old man on the famine road; then came a bandit raid, and the village was scattered into two groups that fled their separate ways, and the household's daughters-in-law along with its older granddaughters were all carried off...

And not one of the menfolk of the Chen family was fit to stand up to anything — seeing their own people seized, all they could do was weep, useless.

That night Old Madam Chen was half out of her mind. She gripped a nicked, gap-toothed firewood cleaver and screamed at the men of the family: if there's no living through this, then let's all die together!

No one would go and die with her; they only clung to her waist and locked her legs and begged her to stop.

From then on, in her heart Old Madam Chen had no respect for any man under heaven — least of all the men of her own Chen house.

The next day, the old and young who were left took to the road again, harried and forlorn, and before they'd gone two li... they saw, along the old riverbed, a great white sprawl of the dead... their own kin, the ones who'd been carried off, lying stretched out, their eyes unclosed in death.

In a daze they walked on for some months more, and then, muddled and blind, the family got swept up by the righteous army — oh, what used to be called the rebel army.

Though "swept up" isn't quite it, really — they'd been tricked.

The ones who tricked them were a local landlord family. At first it was said they'd found the menfolk hard labor felling timber; but once the contract was signed, and every man of the family young and old had pressed his handprint to it and arrived on the spot, they learned they'd been put in the place of the landlord's own men — sent to the battlefield under their names...

That year, Old Madam Chen's youngest grandson was twelve, his head barely past her waist; small and thin, he went to the battlefield with his father and never came back.

Over a few years Old Madam Chen lost three sons and five grandsons, one after another; and from then on the whole Chen family, top to bottom, carried a demon in the heart — the conviction that a person must never give ground, that one step back means your own death and two steps back the death of the whole family, and that Heaven is a blind, deaf thing that sees nothing at all!

Besides never retreating, they carried another demon: a person had to learn to read. So long as you weren't starving to death, you'd find a way to learn your letters!

And so, these days, anyone who could read and count was treated like an idol enshrined the moment they came to the Chen family.

The Chen family had it all worked out nicely: mud-footed country men had made it into official rank, but to advance a step further, to climb any higher, would be harder than scaling heaven.

As Chen Siniu put it, merit enough to have your head cut off eight times over couldn't stand up against one little drink with your superior — a bit of eye-play and smooth patter, and you were in.

The educated men played them like performing monkeys — played them without their ever knowing what had happened — and it galled a body to death.

Her son often muttered it out drunk, and the old woman took it to heart.

And now this thin-haired ladder-to-heaven was craning her neck, staring stiff and hard right back at her — the wretched girl didn't know the first thing about fear!

Old Madam Chen knit her brows, her back hand gripping her pipe-bowl tight — to hit her, or not to hit her?