Jin Tang was flipping through a copy of《The Ancient Eye1》as his palanquin swayed along the road when a Gaoli2 eunuch came running from afar. He whispered a few words to one of the accompanying attendants before drawing closer to the palanquin.
Since the newcomer was his subordinate, Jin Tang pushed open the palanquin’s window panel to reveal his ear without looking out. The junior chamberlain seemed a little nervous as he said in a low voice, “The Lord Director called Ruan Dian in this morning.”
Jin Tang glanced mildly at him. “What was his punishment?”
“He had Ruan Dian whipped, but said he’ll leave him some dignity by avoiding his face.”
Jin Tang smiled absentmindedly and dismissed the junior chamberlain with a wave of his hand. His attendant stepped beside the palanquin to wait respectfully for orders; Jin Tang casually instructed, “Reward him.”
Closing the window, Jin Tang returned to his book. Yet before he could flip to the next page, the palanquin shook and was lowered to the ground as shouts arose from outside. “What’s going on in front?”
They were close to the field headquarters that Qi Wan had set up in his temporary residence at the Ninth Young Master’s Garden. The streets here were narrow so minor clashes were frequent. The attendant investigated the commotion and returned to report: “Yeye3, Qi Wan has closed off the street, but a minor official didn’t know and now he’s being beaten up for walking through.”
“Mhm,” Jin Tang was indifferent, “tell him to get the hell up and clear the way.”
The attendant immediately went forth to drive the official away and the palanquin resumed its swaying way. The motion left Jin Tang feeling quite pleased and, perhaps was because of this good spirit, he pushed open the palanquin window. He only opened a little gap, but it was enough to see the smashed palanquin laying by the side of the street.
“Stop!” He stomped his foot hard.
He pulled open the curtain and stepped out without waiting for the palanquin to come to a complete stop. Pushing aside Qi Wan’s cronies, he saw that the man lying face-down was indeed Qu Feng. He was uninjured but covered in dirt and was pinned down by a foot on his shoulder.
Sweeping his gaze over the scene, Jin Tang saw that those beating Qu Feng were all fire-tenders without ranks. Seeing him, they all straightened themselves before bending over at the waist. His attendant then flashed Liao Jixiang’s calling card. Jin Tang walked silently towards Qu Feng and, without any pointless courtesies, pulled him up by the arms. Since Qu Feng was much taller than him, Jin Tang was forced to hug him as he hauled him up.
At such a close distance, Qu Feng’s face flushed red the moment he met Jin Tang’s eyes; he was like a youth who had done something stupid only to be discovered by the person he least wanted to see, leaving him embarrassed and overwhelmed.
“Have you any idea who this is?!” The fury in Jin Tang’s expression looked genuine as he pointed a finger at the group of fire-tenders. “That’s the Young Master from the Minister of Rites’ household!”
Yet even the Minister of Rites himself meant nothing to eunuchs, let alone his son. The fire-tenders looked at each other helplessly and only obediently uttered their apologies on account of Jin Tang’s insistence.
Qu Feng made for a sorry sight — not just because he had been beaten up, but more because Jin Tang had witnessed said beat up. Recalling the circumstances of their last meeting, he wanted to thank Jin Tang but the words of gratitude became stuck in his throat.
Since he had already helped Qu Feng from his predicament, Jin Tang ought to have stepped back into his palanquin. Instead, he bent down and used his hands — that pair of meticulous and spotless hands, adorned with consecrated4 gemstone rings — to dust off the hems of Qu Feng’s robes. Qu Feng could tell that he was not doing this for appearance’s sake, but rather because Jin Tang wanted, from the bottom of his heart, for him to leave cleanly and with dignity.
Was this just because he had stopped him out of kindness that time he injured his foot? Distracted by his thoughts, Qu Feng raised his head to find Jin Tang’s subordinates staring at him in astonishment or even hostility. He remembered that a colleague had once said, “The temperament of a eunuch is the hardest to grasp, but if you figure him out and get on his right side, he’ll cut off his own head to give to you and will even exert his all for you.” Now, it seemed as though that colleague was indeed right.
“Many thanks,” Qu Feng said suddenly.
The hand that had been dusting his robe stopped at the sound of his voice. Jin Tang appeared to be taken aback; he had thought that Qu Feng looked down on him and disdained to converse with him. Straightening up, palms covered in dust and dirt, he said to Qu Feng, “You should take my palanquin, I…”
All of a sudden, Qu Feng stuffed something into his hand. Then, lowering his head, he slinked off with his attendant and palanquin bearers in tow.
Jin Tang slowly looked down at his hand. It was a little square handkerchief, snow-white and made of delicately woven dingniangzi5 cloth rather than silk. He hastily shouted for his attendant: “Hurry, bring me water!”
He had his subordinate hold the handkerchief while he washed his hands with water and dried off with a silk towel scented by white olive incense. It was only then that he took the handkerchief back, lifted the curtain and stepped into his palanquin.
1. 《千百年眼》, a Ming book by Zhang Sui (张燧 ) that discusses Chinese history, politics, technology, economics, religion and literature throughout the ages. Its title can be roughly translated as “The Ancient Eye” or “The Eye That Looks Through the Millenia”. [Back]
2. 高丽, Korea. [Back]
3. 爷爷, respectful address to powerful eunuchs, literally “paternal grandfather”. [Back]
4. 开光, refers to a Buddhist ritual. Objects that have been consecrated at a temple are believed to be able to extend the Buddha’s blessing to its owner. [Back]
5. 丁娘子布, literally “Mrs Ding’s cloth”. A type of cotton cloth said to have been created by a late Ming woman surnamed Ding, who lived in Songjiang Prefecture (松江府), modern Shanghai. [Back]
6. 八, literally “old eight”. “Old” is added to a name to show familiarity. “Eight” refers to Liao Jixiang being the 8th brother. [Back]
7. 老七, literally “old seven”. “Seven” refers to Mei A’Cha being the 7th brother. [Back]
8. 普陀山, a renowned Buddhist site in Zhejiang. [Back]
9. 太素脉, an old practice in Traditional Chinese Medicine that claimed to predict people’s fortunes based off changes in their pulse. It’s a bit similar to physiognomy and is believed to have originated during Ming. [Back]
10. 子时三刻, 11:45 pm. [Back]
11. 鸾笔仙, a type of folk Chinese spirit writing. It involved using a using a suspended sieve or stylus to write characters into sand, which are then interpretated. The first character 鸾 is a mythical bird and may refer to the person controlling the ‘brush’. They are believed to be possessed by an immortal are referred to as 生鸾. [Back]
12. 冠, refers to the hairpiece worn by men over their topknots. A common Ming-style guan looks like this: Visual reference. [Back]
13. Xie Yilu is again using the archaic first person pronoun 吾. [Back]
The Ninth Young Master’s Garden was not big but its scenery was beautiful, boasting of a handful of ancient millennia-old trees as well as a lilac grove. Jin Tang sat beneath the lilac pergola as waited for Qi Wan. His tea was good tea and it was well brewed; its only fault was that it was not hot. Cold tea was not a good omen, and as expected, Qi Wan did not arrive for a long time. The sun had just begun to rise in the east when Jin Tang began waiting for him and he only appeared, dressed in casualwear, when the sun had slipped ever so slightly into the western sky.
The girl that Tu Yue had gifted last time trailed behind him, holding his teacup. Qi Wan did not put up any airs and sat down next to Jin Tang after plucking a sprig of flower buds on the cusp of blossoming from a nearby branch.
Jin Tang sprang up and bowed reverently. Qi Wan lifted the sprig to his nose and sniffed: “Sit.” He looked Jin Tang up and down. “Your surname is… Jin, right?”
“The Second Ancestor’s memory is splendid!”
“What ‘Second Ancestor’? That’s just what the subordinates say to flatter me,” Qi Wan laughed. “Lao-ba6 is surrounded by good people. The whole lot of you are all very good — you, and Lao-qi7.
Seizing on the friendly atmosphere, Jin Tang hurriedly pulled out a gift registry from his robe, the exact one that Mei A’Cha had given to Zheng Xian. “Second Ancestor, our Lord Director specifically tasked me to come apologise to you…”
Qi Wan accepted the gift registry and dismissed the girl with a wave of his hand. “Oh, what apology? Lao-ba is treating me as if we’re total strangers.” He began to flip through the registry as he spoke. This came as a great surprise to Jin Tang since once most eunuchs reached his position, they would consider it too embarrassing to personally look over a gift registry. Just as he felt something was off, Qi Wan asked, “Do you manage Liao Jixiang’s correspondence for him?”
Qi Wan had changed from addressing Liao Jixiang as “Lao-ba” to calling him by his full name. Jin Tang knew that he was walking on thin ice now. “I do. I manage both his official documents and personal correspondence.”
Qi Wan peered at the gift registry as he pretended to ask offhandedly, “Before I came to Nanjing… did the Great Ancestor send a letter over?”
A letter was sent, but Jin Tang was too shrewd to fall for Qi Wan’s question. He immediately answered, “No. Or perhaps he did, but the Lord Director didn’t show it to me.”
“Huh, so he didn’t know I was coming…” Qi Wan placed down the gift registry and toyed with the sprig in his hands. “Oh and another thing, I heard that he’s having trouble sleeping at night?”
“He’s plagued by nightmares every night,” Jin Tang said. “To tell Second Ancestor the truth, the Lord Director… the time at Gansu injured him.”
It was the current Son of Heaven who had ordered Liao Jixiang to Gansu, so Jin Tang’s words had broken a taboo. Qi Wan stayed silent, leaving Jin Tang with no choice but to continue. “Before New Years, he invited a great master from Mount Putuo8 to take his taisu pulse9. He even used the bones of a young hen slaughtered at three ke past the hour of zi10 to summon a brush immortal11, who said that he simply had to cut the trees. We…”
“Even if the divinations were right, how could he have acted like that?” Qi Wan suddenly slapped his palm onto the gift registry as it lay on the table. “Thousands of pear trees, cut on a whim — what is he trying to do!”
He was furious now. Jin Tang schooled his face into a frightened expression and dropped to his knees with a thud. Qi Wan did not tell him to stand up but rather snapped the twig in half with the barest of efforts. “Some people are saying that he only cut the pygmy pear trees because he knew I was coming.”
Jin Tang jerked his head up. “That’s absolutely unfounded!” He shuffled towards Qi Wan on his knees, took off his gauze hat and tossed it away. “What does the Lord Director gain from cutting the trees?” He pulled out the silver hairpin from his topknot and threw it towards Qi Wan’s feet. “If the Second Ancestor has doubts, please cut off this slave’s head so that this slave might prove Lord Director Liao’s innocence!”
Cutting off a slave’s head was nothing to Qi Wan, and he knew that this fellow believed he would do it. As such, for him to place his neck on the line, it would mean that either Liao Jixiang was truly innocent or that this Jin fellow was loyal to the grave. “Hahaha!” Qi Wan laughed. “You’re an interesting one!” As he laughed, he tossed the mangled twig away and rubbed his hands. “Stand up and put on your guan12. Come drink some hot tea in my room!”
Darkness had yet to descend when Xie Yilu ran anxiously to Lingfu Temple. Purplish-red light spilt down from the sky onto the white stone lantern, drenching it in a brilliant, bloody hue. He had delivered his letter the previous evening. It was intended for Liao Jixiang, but he left it unsigned like before. It began like this: “Thou art a child of wealth and rank, while I am but a scholar poor. Though thou art summer flowers in my winter snow, still I ask for a meeting yet.13”
“Still I ask for a meeting yet”. This was the only thought burning through Xie Yilu’s mind right now. He wanted to see him so that they could end this ill-fated entanglement once and for all.
He was still three or four steps away when he noticed that there was something in the stone lantern stand. Walking closer, he saw that it was a letter. A single glance at the paper was enough to tell him that it was not his own. Such a quick reply — could it mean that Liao Jixiang sent someone over to check every day? Xie Yilu could not help but feel a little smug. Unrolling the paper haphazardly, or maybe even roughly, he read over the line of carefree and unrestrained characters: “Wealth and power are blades against the neck; it is the poor who are woeless and free.”
“Tomorrow, old time, old place, two friends will meet.”
Nothing to discuss this chapter. Thank you to all my readers, especially those who have bestowed upon me the great honour of a comment.
