Chapter 17#
At dusk, Feng Bing and Chun Shi set the table in their room and ate happily to their hearts’ content. Chun Shi rubbed his round, bulging belly and couldn’t help thinking of the days in Laozhou when there was nothing to eat.#
The earliest two years had been the hardest. Langzhu had many treasured belongings, and each and every one of them was sold off piece by piece over those two years, never to be redeemed even now.
Food — it really is a precious thing.
—But even to survive, Langzhu had never been diligent about returning that ruqun skirt. It had been carefully kept in the safest of places all along. Chun Shi had long since regretted it until his intestines turned green. After that skirt was handed over, he had no idea where it had gone. Perhaps it would never return to Langzhu’s side in this lifetime. It was all his fault for taking matters into his own hands.
Feng Bing had been confined to bed for two days and was thoroughly sick of it, so he wanted to take a walk through the garden. The flowers and trees in the courtyard had all withered, and as night fell, frost began to creep in. The ice-dusted pathways were treacherous and slippery. The two of them supported each other, stepping forward with great caution, when they suddenly heard the sound of a xiao flute from not far away.
He looked up abruptly.
So they had come quite close to the mansion’s back gate. Plum trees lined both sides, stretching all the way beyond the walls, forming a lane through a plum grove. A servant stood guard at the gate — one of the two male servants Yang Yu had assigned to him.
Seeing a stranger, Chun Shi didn’t dare say much. He merely winked and gestured at Feng Bing: “The back garden! That one! The back garden!”
Feng Bing smiled helplessly, but spoke with perfect composure: “I know. That’s Pei Dan playing the xiao.”
As he spoke, he moved to leave through the back gate, but the servant blocked him. “My lord, it’s dangerous outside. I advise you not to go out as you please.”
Feng Bing sized him up. The man was tall and strongly built — when Yang Yu had introduced him, Feng Bing had suspected he was meant to serve as a house guard. “Was this Lord Yang’s instruction?”
The servant seemed to have something on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it back down. “Yes.”
“I won’t cause you any trouble,” Feng Bing said with a smile. “I’ll just take a look at the plum blossoms.”
The walls around the Pei residence were not tall, but clean and imposing — snow-white walls and jet-black tiles, which set off the plum grove on the grounds with an air of otherworldly elegance. From within the walls, the sound of the xiao carried a somewhat frivolous quality. The piece being played was a simple, cheerful tune called Tossing the Ball, and interspersed within it were a woman’s singing voice and the laughter of many men and women, so the lyrics couldn’t be made out.
It appeared Pei Dan was entertaining guests.
His injuries were apparently completely fine — he could even still play tunes, as if not worried about bursting his internal organs.
It happened to be month’s end, a thin crescent moon hidden among dark clouds, so even the red plum blossoms looked purple. Feng Bing was in a decent mood and softly hummed along to the melody of Tossing the Ball:
*“Pearl tears scatter upon silken skirts,
The young lord live up to s kindness, so they say.
Back then the sisters warned her plainly:
Never give your true heart away…”*
Chun Shi stared at him, dumbfounded, as if meeting Feng Bing for the very first time. Feng Bing merely lowered his head, amused.
Those frivolous little lyrics had been taught to him by Pei Dan.
When he’d first gotten married, he hadn’t imagined that Pei Dan — who could not only compose grand and dignified parallel prose — would also know many bawdy street-corner songs and lascivious verses. The young lord, having just tasted the ways of the world, was intensely curious about everything. He’d drag him half the night to puzzle over lines like “The sandalwood incense lingers on singing lips” and “The snow upon your breast — let me bite it from you.” Feng Bing had never even thought of such things himself, yet Pei Dan had led him through experiencing every single one. Sometimes he would ask Pei Dan, with less-than-innocent intentions, whether he had ever visited the pleasure quarters of Pingkang Lane — the women there knew even more. But Pei Dan would invariably not respond and simply keep tormenting him alone.
To Feng Bing, these were private matters between husband and wife. They happened naturally after marriage, and naturally fell away after divorce. He was no longer a young man. Even if “the young lord live up to s kindness, so they say,” it couldn’t wound him.
The music finished, and thunderous cheers erupted from the other side of the wall. One could faintly hear people urging each other to drink. A gust of wind swept past suddenly, and Feng Bing felt the chill. He decided to head back.
Just then, a brilliantly colored embroidered ball came hurtling over the wall from behind—
“Oh no! The ball flew away!”
A clear, bright voice shattered all the festive commotion in an instant. Feng Bing couldn’t dodge in time — the embroidered ball struck his shoulder. He instinctively caught it and stumbled back several steps.
Chun Shi jumped too, staring at the twelve-sided embroidered ball. It was covered in extravagant patterns and adorned with brilliant kingfisher feathers, like a flamboyant rooster’s comb.
The back garden gate of the Pei residence swung open, and a little girl — carved from porcelain and jade, dressed like a little dumpling — came skipping out. She reached her hand toward Feng Bing and said: “It’s my ball! Give it back!”
Feng Bing handed the embroidered ball to her. Before he could say anything, her maidservants hurriedly bowed to him, all flustered: “We’re so sorry, my lord, so sorry! Our young miss was playing and accidentally threw the ball over the wall…”
Furubing rubbed the bridge of his nose. So this was “Tossing the Ball.”
He had seen this girl before. She was Pei Dan’s little cousin — once just a chubby pink baby. Five years had passed and her features had bloomed, lovely and bright, with a striking resemblance to Pei Dan. But Furubing didn’t dare acknowledge her. He just said vaguely that it was nothing and turned to leave.
The little girl hugged her ball and skipped merrily back inside. She ran around and around the Pei residence garden until she found her favorite Pei Dan, then threw herself at him with a laugh: “Little Uncle!”
Pei Dan was injured, and though he didn’t want these relatives who had come all the way from Hedong for the birthday celebration to notice, he was lounging lazily on a beauty’s daybed. When she threw herself at him, he nearly coughed up blood.
“This is for Little Uncle.” The little girl shoved the embroidered ball insistently into Pei Dan’s arms.
Pei Dan weighed the ball in his hand. “Why give it to me?”
“Because Little Uncle is pretty.” The girl answered without a moment’s hesitation.
“The young lord live up to s kindness, so they say — have you heard that?” Pei Dan said with a mischievous grin. “Back then the sisters warned her plainly: Never give your true heart away…”
The girl only half understood. She vaguely sensed she was being rejected and sulkingly took the ball back. “Fine, keep it! There was another pretty uncle just now. I’ll go find him.”
Pei Dan raised an eyebrow. “There’s an uncle prettier than me?”
The girl stared at him, then declared with great seriousness: “He’s different from you. He’s — calm. Like, faint. And he seems like he’s still sick.”
Pei Dan’s brows knitted together. Suddenly, he raised his voice: “Yang Yu!”
Yang Yu was drinking with someone at a nearby table. Being called by his superior startled him, and he rushed over at once. “Minister Pei, what are your instructions?”
“I told you to keep a closer eye on him,” Pei Dan said. “He went out today.”
Yang Yu immediately went to check. The male servant guarding Furubing’s courtyard came over and whispered a few words to him. Yang Yu turned back and murmured: “Going out through the back gate counts…?”
Pei Dan was silent for a long moment, then seemed to lose all his amusement. “Be careful in everything.” He dropped the remark, rose, and prepared to return to his room — but was pulled back by his second uncle, who insisted he drink the toast he was offering.
Second Uncle’s two sons were about to take the spring examination again. Having failed repeatedly in the past, the family had spent money to buy them official positions, but they were mocked by their colleagues and were always in a foul mood. Second Uncle wore a face full of smiles and said: “In our Pei family, no one has ever been expected to be scholarly! For the sake of this old face of your second uncle, won’t you drink this cup and share a bit of your brilliance with them? Bless them to pass next year’s exam — how about it?”
Pei Dan looked at Second Uncle and his two fleshy, pampered cousins, and for a moment said nothing.
These relatives had come to the capital under the pretense of celebrating his birthday, and they had long since exhausted his patience.
In the past, he had been the Top Scholar who had plucked the cassia branch from the moon palace, the man bestowed a marriage by imperial edict. When he had returned to his hometown with his newlywed partner, Furubing, their faces had not looked like this.
Going back further, when his father had died in Goryeo with no body to show for it, when his mother had grieved herself sick and passed upon hearing the news, when five-year-old him had stood alone in the clan’s ancestral hall wearing mourning, holding his parents’ clothing cap and the imperial tablet honoring their entire family’s loyalty — their faces had not looked like this either.
Pei Dan’s gaze deepened. A flash of ice-cold something swept past, visible to no one.
The golden goblet in Second Uncle’s hand rose into his field of vision. Pei Dan picked up the tea he’d had prepared long ago and said to Second Uncle with a soft laugh: “I know next year’s chief examiner, but I don’t have much influence. I can only guarantee one person passes. Think it over carefully and let me know.”
The two brothers beside them heard every word, and their expressions turned into a spectacular display of mixed emotions.
Pei Dan clinked his cup against his bewildered second uncle’s with a smile, as though he had merely played a merry game.
All verses in this section are quoted from Dunhuang ci lyrics.
Yes, “the snow upon your breast — let me bite it from you” is one of them too!