Chapter 86

Early on the first morning of the New Year, Yu Shoutian was called awake by Xiaodun. The whole family had sat up late seeing the old year out, and when Dadun roused him he thought hazily of the old days.

From today he was fifteen, and counted a grown man. By the new Great Liang law, had he lived on in the old home, he'd owe the state two dan of millet a year, three liang of cotton, and a month's corvée.

At his age, in a village with a well-lined household, a boy could take a wife already and carry on the family line.

Yu Shoutian had even served two years of forced labor in his eldest cousin's place, a thin small thing lost among a crowd of grown men, and how he'd come through it there was no telling. Think back on it now, and one word was left. Bitter.

But now he was a young master, and his father a noble who ate off one cauldron and one tureen, and he need eat no such bitterness again. Yet sometimes he dreamed, and dreamed only of the old days, as if the bitterness would never be done.

The Yu family of those days had no notion there were so many solar terms in the world. From Grain Rain to Great Cold, every term had its rules, its gods, its many good things to eat, good things there was no eating your way to the end of, eat and eat, till they ate him backward into a child again.

Outside the window someone called him, clear and gentle.

"Young master, young Master Qu of the Board of War lane sent word not to forget your meeting at the end of the hour of chen..."

Dadun's word wasn't done before Yu Shoutian had opened his eyes on the lion-face pillow and sat quickly up.

Dadun was one of his father's boys, and when he'd passed the word he went. Hearing the eldest young master up, it was Dagu and Xiaogu who came in to wait on him.

These were the steady boys his little aunt had found him on purpose, who could read a good many more characters than he.

Yu Shoutian sat on the kang and took the waiting-on as his due. He rinsed his mouth with tooth-powder, washed his face with a paste made of egg-white, bean-flour, and soap-pod, put on a cream against chapping, and then sat on the kang with his hair loose and ate his morning meal.

Cleanliness was the way of Guard Lane. Yu Shoutian bathed every second day now, and never slept with his hair bound, but had learned from his friend to sleep on a porcelain pillow, to what end there was no saying. Whatever habit another had, he must try it too.

The morning meal was the same as ever. Millet-and-bean rice, mushroom soup, and four little dishes, two of meat and two of greens, dried shrimp with magnolia-shoot slices, two small steamed fish, shredded chicken breast, and a bit of tofu.

Having a meeting set, Yu Shoutian didn't follow the Tong-house aunt's rule of slow chewing this time, but ate fairly wolfing it, and asked Dagu, anxious: "Youtian's not up yet, is he?" That said, he picked a fallen grain off the kang-table and pushed it into his mouth.

Dagu knew the eldest master feared most that the second master would tag along, and said with a smile: "Rest easy, master. The second young master tired himself out playing yesterday and won't be up. He'll likely sleep till noon."

Hearing his brother wasn't up, Yu Shoutian breathed easy, scraped the bottom of his bowl, rinsed his mouth, got down off the kang, and began to put on his New Year clothes.

This one year, Yu Shoutian had worn too many new clothes. From the Chen-house aunt to the Tong-house aunt, Guard Lane was like one family, and whichever aunt came in the door, having time on her hands, would set to making them all manner of clothes. Even the Chen old lady was so. She always had every kind of new cloth, and what she couldn't use she gave their house, and not bolt by bolt either, but seven or eight kinds, a bolt or two of each.

In the old lady's words, the Chen house had cloth heaped in two rooms at the least, and kept a troop of women besides, who ate and slept and did nothing but make everyone clothes and shoes.

In this one short year Yu Shoutian's new clothes could no longer be held in a chest, and the house cleared a room on purpose to heap them. At first the old lady and his mother would ration him, keeping him to two suits to wear turn about, but he shot up so fast that a good deal went to waste, and after they gave it up, only saying it made their eyes ache and their hearts weary.

In a round-collar robe of cloud-satin figured with ruyi-clouds, Yu Shoutian sat quietly before the dressing-mirror and waited, and Shi Jie's wife, waiting in the outer room, came in to comb his hair.

Man though he was, he used a dressing-mirror now, and had a heap of odds and ends, things to stick in the hair, things to smear on the face, all of them sweet-smelling. When he first came he'd asked what they were, and later stopped asking, being too busy. He studied and memorized the day long, and the Tong-house aunt would have crammed every book in the world into his head, and said he needn't understand the meaning yet, that with wide reading understanding would come, and for now he must learn it by heart first.

Poor Yu Shoutian was the dullest of the family's four children. Read much and his head ached the day long, and the sight of a book made him want to sleep, but he dared not sleep, and dared less let himself slacken. He could go to school, and he always knew to prize it. He was only dull, and learned slower than his brothers and sister. But when his father came home and taught him some saber-work, that he learned quick as quick.

His new futou on, a mixed-fox cloak over him, a lucky-charm coin taken from under the pillow, a hand-warmer held close, Yu Shoutian took Dagu and Xiaogu to the front main room to make his New Year bows to his father and mother and granny. As he went out his father hung the charm-coin at his waist with his own hands, and said only to have a care, and not to play the fool, and that was all.

In truth the one who spoiled him most in this house was his father. Yu Shoutian could feel the guilt in his father's heart. But he thought, there was nothing to feel guilty over! What a fine life it was now, and his father had earned it. In the muddled years, folk starved to death in the village every year, and it was his able mother kept them all alive. Yu Shoutian dared not say half a bad word now.

Yu Shoutian dared not lift his head, but made his bows in a muddle, asked after each one, and got a great heap of New Year money, a string of new cash tied with red cord, and small silver ingots too, none of them big, five or six qian at the most. For his aunt had told him those grannies had a hard time of it, and however little they gave, he must thank them from the heart, and never let a thing show in his face.

How would Yu Shoutian dare let it show? His was the poorest house in the whole lane. What spare money the house had, his father let the little aunt manage and buy a manor with, and his granny and his mother both drew a monthly allowance from the little aunt's hand, the same as he, ten strings a month.

Just now, making his bows, his granny was truly a skinflint, and gave him but a string of nine big coins, and his mother, not daring go past his granny, gave six, and his father gave not a coin, and would have liked to scrape a little off him every month for drink.

As eldest son, Shoutian was a good and dutiful boy, and shared half of his out with his father each month.

Given his New Year money, praised handsome and fine by a crowd of grannies, and pressed to drink down two bowls of last month's mutton soup, Yu Shoutian broke free at last, and, holding his belly and bracing on the wall, went on with his New Year rounds.

By seniority, his second bows must go to Grandpa She, and that set Yu Shoutian's mind running.

Of this Grandpa She, Yu Shoutian was all fondness. First, Grandpa She was the best-looking grandpa in the world. And second, Grandpa She had money and was open-handed.

The first time he met the grandpa he got the greatest gift of his life. Grandpa She gave him two great gold ingots of fifty taels.

Those two ingots were the biggest Yu Shoutian had seen in his life. In fourteen years it was the first time he'd seen gold, and heavy they were, and he'd slept several months with them in his arms, and even his granny, close as they were, couldn't coax them off him. He'd have gone to his death with the two of them in his arms.

No one called him mean over it. Even the little aunt at home warned people not to speak of it. And it was a good half-year before Yu Shoutian began to be ashamed of himself for it, and went to the little aunt and gave the ingots up of his own will, and asked her to buy him property with them.

For all the family's money was in the little aunt's hands.

Seeing the hour getting on, Yu Shoutian ran off at a trot to the Chen house. There was no need to wait on the gate-lodge to announce him. As at his own home, he trotted straight to the back courtyard and the east wing.

But at the door of the east wing he found a train of boys waiting quiet under the eaves, one bearing a basin, one a stand, one a mirror, a dozen or so in a row and not one with empty hands.

Not up yet, then?

He was about to draw back when he heard his little dad coaxing someone to rise inside: "Father, here's Shoutian come to make his New Year bows, and you've the face to lie abed? No grandfather behaves like that."

So he couldn't go. Grandpa She kept the strictest rule of all, and asking after one's elders had been so of old. If the elder wasn't up, you could only stand meek in the yard and wait.

But it wasn't a cold wait. Jixiang's wife had sent two unfamiliar maids to bring him a brass stove, that he might warm himself while he waited.

Guard Lane lived like one family. The great forebear of this house was everyone's forebear, and their old lady everyone's old lady. Save for one thing. This house's Grandpa She was father to Chen the little dad alone.

Because his own father was the oldest of the old sabers but a second saber, and to keep the rules from muddling, Yu Shoutian called all the others but his own father "little dad," and to the world it was "my Chen dad," "my Tong dad."

The people under the eaves went slowly in, and before long came slowly out again. Yu Shoutian was a patient child, and sat meek in the yard and waited, and only when they'd made all ready did he go in. Into the east wing, and sure enough a cushion was laid ready for him on the floor.

The child knelt down honestly, and knocked three great sounding heads to his Grandpa She, and said: "Grandfather, your grandson makes his New Year bow. I wish you ten thousand blessings and good health, and all your wishes met!"

His Grandpa She said, smiling: "Up, up. How can a man have all his wishes met? Cold out, is it? Warm yourself first..."

Hearing his master say so, She Jixiang was not pleased, and complained: "The first morning of the New Year, and the child's come so glad to make his bow, and look what you say to him."

Yu Shoutian stood and sat carefully down, and only then dared lift his head to look at Grandpa She. To speak true, he thought Grandpa She not a bit like a grandfather. His face looked younger even than his own father's.

Only, how was he a lie-abed too, the same as himself, and fond of sitting with his hair loose in the early morning, still not out of the quilt? Just as the little aunt said, spoiled by his Chen little dad into no sort of grandfather, so that one could only go soft with him.

Had the grown-ups at home not warned him not to go telling anyone the house had such a good-looking grandpa, he'd long since have boasted of it to his friends.

She Qingling, snubbed by his old servant, was blank a moment, and looked at his son: "Did I say a wrong thing?"

Chen the little dad humored him, and quickly sent someone up on the kang to smooth Grandpa She's hair, coaxing: "As you please, so you're happy. Only the children will all be along soon to make their bows. Shoutian's a boy, well and good, but Dani and the girls are girls."

Grandpa She seemed unused to such bustle, and after a while said: "Then, then be quick." That said, his eyes went bright and he ordered those about him: "Quick, quick, give this child his, oh, his New Year money."

At his word someone brought things over, and first hung a great jade pendant at Shoutian's waist, and then a satchel besides.

This year Yu Shoutian was often taken by his little aunts into their dowry storerooms to learn things. Of the patterns on satin alone he knew a good many, shuttle-body cloud-blends, linked-pearl blends, medallion-treasure roundels, four-out floral roundels, tortoise-shell, sea-pomegranate, and such.

He was to learn to know at a glance, by the pattern, where a person came from, for the patterns favored were not the same where the silk was woven in different places. And going to eat at some house, he'd look at the porcelain, whether black or green, ornate or plain and quiet, and know where the house's old roots were.

The aunts said a young lord of a great house never fussed over it, but knew at a glance which kiln a thing came from, which region's loom had made the goods. This was the second knowledge one should have, after books.

His mind on his waist and its patterns, Yu Shoutian heard the most hateful words in the world: "So, so what books have you read lately?"

The first morning of the New Year, oof.

Heart quailing, Yu Shoutian stammered: "I, I haven't read much, only learned a hundred characters and more, and, and got a dozen poems by heart. The little aunt says my head opened late, and I don't learn things well, so I'm to get them by heart hard and come to understand them slowly. These days I've not been reading. The little aunt's taught me some patterns, and I've got those by heart..."

She Qingling sat up, let the man behind him bind his hair up slowly, and hearing the child speak of patterns asked in earnest: "Oh? Down to what dynasty have you learned?"

Thunder from a clear sky. Yu Shoutian was struck dumb, and after a good while said: "I, I don't know. I, I only learned chariot-riders, war-riders, tiger-fighting, horse-riders..."

She Qingling didn't hear the child's difficulty at all. When the man behind had bound his headcloth, he smiled and asked Jixiang: "I never knew Zhang Zhengci was a collector of rubbings."

Zhang Zhengci was Zhang Wanru's father.

She Jixiang held out socks and helped him on with them: "The Zhang house has loved old things for generations. You never knew?"

She Qingling thought, and shook his head with a smile: "It's too long ago, I don't recall." That said, he asked the sweating Yu Shoutian: "You needn't be flustered. You're your father's son, and no one will fault you if you don't learn well. But how much of your father's skill have you got?"

Here Chen Dasheng had something to say.

He smiled as he ordered the morning meal set out for his father: "This I know. The boy's a quick one. The waist-saber his father filched off Liu Daya, he learned in two watchings, and last time I came home and sparred with him for fun, he could keep me off a stroke or two. It runs very free with him, none of your dull rote."

She Qingling kept a clear line between inside and out, and nodded, satisfied at last, and asked Yu Shoutian with a shade more smile on his face: "I mind this boy of yours. He's fifteen this year too, is he not?"

Yu Shoutian breathed easy at last: "Yes. Today's my first day of fifteen."

The first day of fifteen. She Qingling laughed at that, and when he'd laughed said gladly: "Good! Good. Our house's generation has a grown man in it too. Well, well. If it's so..."

He said to Yu Shoutian in earnest: "When the festival's past, go to the outer guard and put in a few years first. The Qingfeng Right Guard's no great way from home. Go be a ranked little standard there, and in a few years, when your father comes down from the south gate, I'll move you into the inner guard."

Yu Shoutian, not seeing he'd been given a post, said blankly: "Ah? Oh!"

Chen Dasheng laughed, came up and patted the back of his head: "You silly boy, you're an officer now! Thank your Grandpa She!"

An officer now?

Yu Shoutian didn't know what officer he was, but he was glad, and stood and knelt and knocked his head to Grandpa She, and when he'd done heard Grandpa She send him off: "There, and this is called being an officer. I only feared he'd play the fool and go to the bad. Off you go and play, poor child. There'll be no more of these good days after this."

Why there'd be no more such good days, Yu Shoutian couldn't understand, and, afraid he'd be asked about books, he quickly took his leave, and went to the front to knock his head to his little aunt. When she'd heard him out, his little aunt said Grandpa She had given him an eighth-grade little standard's post, that he'd have ten men under him now, and draw six strings a month, and eat seventy-two dan of the Emperor's grain a year. Only, from this day his ten strings a month allowance was gone.

Gone? Yu Shoutian's heart and liver cracked, and the five thunders struck him again.

Out of the Chen house, and past the Cheng house, the Meng house, the Tong house in a row, and everyone congratulated Yu Shoutian, but the one thing turning in the child's heart was, I'll not get my ten strings a month anymore, and it was truly grievous.

And so, a child cast down while the whole world was glad, he went out, got into his family's carriage, and rode to the mouth of the Board of War lane, where his little band of friends had long been waiting.

Everyone growing up meets friends of a kindred temper. But for a child like Yu Shoutian, his life had gone otherwise.

In the old home, his eldest uncle's children had toil without end every day, and no spare time at all to go looking for fun. He'd suffered right up to now, and only at the Board of War lane found his three good friends.

Dou Yonglun of the Dou house, Qu Yingfang of the Qu house, Kong Xiangchun of the Kong house.

The four were much of an age. Only these three studied at the Three-Rites Academy by the ancestral hall, and he alone studied at home with the aunts, which went by the fine name of having a teacher to himself.

Timid at heart and with no ink in him, Yu Shoutian was a child who talked much at home and little away from it.

His friends swarmed him, sat in his carriage, and fell to praising the warmth of it. Yu Shoutian's carriage was fine and roomy within, laid with old felt and wolf-skin and lambskin for warmth, and a good charcoal-stove going.

They were all sons of sixth- and seventh-grade military officers, kept rough at home, and in the cold not given a carriage as a rule when they went out. Had a house a horse to spare they rode, a carriage to spare they drove, and today being the first of the year this band of young lords could muster but two carriages between them, one the Qu house's, one, of course, the Yu house's.

That was no matter. Yu Shoutian had ridden in others' carriages too.

The few young lords climbed gaily in, and the four or five boys behind them took the Qu house's carriage.

Today being the first of the New Year, the young lords had long agreed to go burn incense at the Nation-Protecting Temple. They dared not dream of the first stick of incense, and their hearts weren't so devout. It was to see the show.

When all were settled and the carriage moving, the young lords looked at one another, and together, smiling, took out their purses and dug out their New Year money to club together.

Yu Shoutian was a bit of a skinflint. The gold ingots Grandpa She and the aunts gave he'd long since had Xiaogu carry home, and what he carried today was the half-bag of silver ingots from the grannies, which was no small sum, and at the least he'd not lose face before his friends.

The others followed suit and handed over their silver ingots.

"This is for the vegetarian meal."

"This is for a private room at the foreigners' house in Yanjing coming down the hill, tips, wine. It's the New Year, so this money must be given double."

None of them was a top-rank young lord, so they honestly clubbed together.

To keep face out in company, they clubbed together in private, and before others each would make a show of standing treat.

Yu Shoutian put in a full twelve taels of silver ingot, and his heart broke to bits over it, but he dared not say so, and could only bear it in silence.

The others didn't much mind. More or less, they each had a monthly three to five taels, none so much as Yu Shoutian, but they knew better how to spend it.

Sometimes, spending too much out in company to save face, they'd set their teeth, go home, and take a private beating, and kneeling in the ancestral hall was an everyday thing, but never would they lose face before their friends.

When Qu Yingfang had put the silver away, the carriage jolted off to Yanjing, for they must first go to a money-house and change the silver ingots the family gave into copper cash to spend out in the city.

Only a fallen house that didn't know to hide it would spend silver ingots out in the open.

Come to Yanjing and the money changed, the young lords breathed easy and began to chat freely, having held their breath the whole way till then.

There was no help for it. Had the money-house not opened today, the extravagance they'd planned a whole year would be gone, and every one of them had the wild wish to go and see the dancing-girls at the foreigners' pleasure-house.

Qu Yingfang put the money in a satchel, gave half to his own boy, and got back in the carriage smiling: "I've sent him to hold our places."

The few just-grown lords quailed a little, but all nodded, feigning worldliness, and Kong Xiangchun said: "It was agreed long since, all as elder brother arranges."

Yu Shoutian called out to Dagu, and Dagu drove the carriage on out of the city. When it was clear of the streets, Qu Yingfang said with a mysterious face: "Guess who I saw just now?"

They all looked at him, and he gave a knowing "heh heh": "I saw Tang Hexuan of the chessboard court's fourth branch. Puts on such airs as a rule, won't so much as speak to the likes of us at school, and here it turns out he's a changer of silver ingots too!"

This fellow was a typical Board of War lane child, with no sure ground under him. He was a changer of silver ingots himself.

At that the young lords fell to jeering, and when they'd jeered, Dou Yonglun said: "However poor he is, he's better than us. I heard my father say the New Year past, he's been recommended to the Board of Works as a vice-commissioner, and here we sit idle. My father, seeing the old year out last night, said too, these few years we scrimp and save, and first get my two elder brothers each an empty title, then work a bit and see can we get a recommendation for them, so at least the marrying looks better."

Fourteen or fifteen was an awkward age. The young lords of Qingfeng might not own it aloud, but grown men still ground away at school, and there was something of shame in it.

Every house had its several branches, wives and concubines, true-born and base-born in a long string, and the troubles they met were much the same.

Guard Lane was not so, but Yu Shoutian never let out half a word of home outside it. His father had said, if you would eat the Guard's rice, sew your mouth shut first.

Yu Shoutian worshipped his dads without end, and knowing himself dull, began his learning with sewing his mouth shut, which was the easiest to learn besides.

Hearing the elder brothers talk of hard days, and glad as he was today, he dared not say he'd already a little standard's post, an outer-guard place a step from the inner guard.

Guilty at heart, he took the sweetmeat-box out from under the seat and asked the brothers to eat cakes and drink tea.

The little aunt was always open-handed in such small things, and never slighted him for a child. Whenever he went out he was the one of the four friends who always had a carriage, and the carriage was stocked full to the elders' allowance.

That gave him great face.

A boy's stomach is a bottomless pit, and at the sight of food the young lords cheered together, and took it up and ate, and chatted as they ate, of how some small officer in Yanjing had won five thousand strings before the year's end, and how they'd spend it had they five thousand strings, and of how someone-or-other's boy at school, younger than they, had two bed-maids already...

In this Yu Shoutian was wanting. He had no knowledge to catch such talk with, and grew more and more silent.

By the time they came to the foot of the Nation-Protecting Temple's Chan mountain the carriage stopped of a sudden. There were too many people, most like, and they minded it not, but chatted on, until Dou Yonglun by chance lifted the carriage-curtain, and the cake in his hand dropped, and he turned and stammered into the carriage: "Guess, guess who I saw? Eh?"

Qu Yingfang gave him a scornful look: "Hmph, the Queen Mother of the West?"

Dou Yonglun's face went red, his very hands shaking, and he pointed left and dropped his voice: "No, no! I, I saw, saw Peng Ruiniang of the Board of Personnel lane."

In that instant, Yu Shoutian and all, they dropped what was in their hands and crowded to the carriage door, not daring open the crack wide, only pressing down a heart full of longing and stealing a look.

She was the girl every young lad of Quanhou Street loved.

For the young lords of Quanhou Street had their own ladder of scorn. The chessboard-court lords looked down on the Six-Board lanes behind them, and among the Six-Board lanes, Personnel looked down on Punishments, Punishments on Revenue, Revenue on Works, Works on War, War on Rites, Rites on the mixed-residents, and the mixed-residents on the renters.

And all the young lords above alike counted Guard Lane as clear glass.

It's hard to put. Whether it was scorn or what, there was no saying. In a word, their families shied from it, so they shied from it too. Children always learn from the grown.

A crowd of middling and lower court officials packed into one place, and in the ordinary run of weddings and funerals the houses came and went, and each house's lovely misses and young lords were talked over in private, and given a secret rank in the heart.

And in the left-hand carriage, not far off, was the one these young lords dreamed of. That carriage had waited long, most like, and a young lady got down on her maid's arm, and stood behind her mother looking down the hill.

The Ruiniang all the lads marveled at was as lovely as in their fancy. Today she wore a red jacket woven with gold, a great red cloak over it, made up in Yanjing's fashionable old-style three-whites, a pink flower-mark at her brow, her hair in a dragon-stamen coil with a bright-red ribbon streaming from it on the wind.

The day was so cold that Ruiniang's little face was flushed red clean through the three-whites.

She was the loveliest girl of Quanhou Street. The old folk of the houses all said she was bound for the palace to be a consort, the more to tell the lads not to nurse foolish hopes.

Even were she not to be a consort, the true-born daughter of the Board of Personnel's Lord Peng would never marry a Board of War lane lord. So they could only look, and if by chance they met her, they'd make a great to-do, talking loud, jostling on purpose, but never had they seen her so near before.

They were looking their fill when up the mountain came a quick clatter of hooves, and a band of inner-guards, riders holding the road, cried: "A noble ascends the mountain today. The Chan mountain is closed. Carriages, turn back! Carriages, turn back..."

"Ah? We can't go up?"

Looking at a lovely girl lasts but a moment. Hearing they couldn't go up the hill for the fun of it, the young lords withdrew into the carriage as if their sinews were cut, and slumped every one on the seats, only Yu Shoutian lifting the curtain and craning back longingly.

Just now his heart was racing, the way a hundred of his little brothers scrambling on the kang would race.

Kong Xiangchun tugged him: "Come back, come back. Don't you mind the cold? Where are you going?"

But Yu Shoutian sprang down from the carriage, and there, before all their eyes, stopped one of the guards and called: "Are you a Jinwu Guard uncle?"

The guard would have raised his whip to bark at him, but hearing the child call him uncle he stopped his horse, drew rein, and looked at the little lord: "You are? Whose child?"

Yu Shoutian was a bit shy, but not afraid of guards. Men like the palace guards he often slipped off to Yanjing to play with, and when it grew late and he didn't want to go home, he'd stay at his father's, and to the guards he was warm by nature.

He smiled: "A New Year bow to you, uncle, good health. I'm of Long Saber Yu Qingguan's house."

At that the man looked at Yu Shoutian, then eyed his carriage sidelong, and seeing the mark laughed: "Heh! Second Brother Yu's boy! No stranger, then. What, come with your elders to burn incense today?"

Yu Shoutian quickly shook his head, then nodded, and, reddening, pointed at the carriage behind: "Uncle, truly can't we go up today?"

The mounted guard laughed again, and when he'd laughed said: "Others can't, but our own house's carriage can. Wait a bit, child, uncle will go get you a pass up the mountain. How many carriages has the family come with?"

Yu Shoutian's heart drummed. He looked back, then turned and lied in earnest: "Reporting to uncle, six carriages!"

The guard glanced that way, pointed his whip at Yu Shoutian and smiled: "Right, nephew, wait you here."

That said, he wheeled his horse and rode up the hill, and before long came riding back and pressed a stack of bamboo tokens into Yu Shoutian's hand: "Wait half an hour, nephew, and when the carriages have cleared, go up quiet by the right, and on these tokens take a vegetarian meal at the guest-monk's side-room. When you're home tonight, give your father my regards. Say Li Gao of the Jinwu Guard wishes him a happy New Year."

That said, he rode off at speed.

Yu Shoutian stood holding the tokens, his hands shaking, and stood a good while before he screwed up his courage, and took the tokens to the right-hand carriage. First he made his bow in earnest to those within, and heard a woman ask, smiling: "Up with you, child. You're out to burn incense today too?"

Yu Shoutian nodded, and dared say little, but told over what the guard had said, and, stammering it out, handed four of the tokens to the Peng house's driver.

When those in the carriage had thanked him, he quickly said he dared not, and having made his courtesy, hurried back to his own carriage, and when the curtain was down slumped boneless in it, gasping for breath, and gasped a while, and slowly opened his eyes, and got a fright.

For there were Kong Xiangchun and the other two glaring at him wide-eyed, and Qu Yingfang, furious past bearing, slowly rolling up his sleeves: "I'll thrash you, you sly cozening thing! A good thing turns up and you leave your brothers out of it! Were the spirit-monies we burned for you all burned for nothing?"

That said, the three of them ringed Yu Shoutian and set on him.

The carriage rocked and pitched, and a boy's cries of woe kept coming, and Peng Ruiniang held her sleeve to her mouth and laughed, and her mother, finding it comical too, glared at her and scolded fondly: "How unseemly you are!"

At that the peerless girl laughed aloud, and even stuck her tongue out at her mother in play and pleaded: "Mother, I'm to enter the palace soon. Let me be free this once!"

That said, she laughed a great silver-bell laugh.

And the carriage over there fell still of a sudden, and the young lords slowly shut their eyes, wanting to print that laugh into their hearts, and best of all never forget it their whole lives long.