Painted boats went cruising on the Qinhuai, both banks of the river blazed with lights, and on Mid-Autumn night Jiangning kept its city gates open. The merrymaking and revelry would last all night and only scatter at dawn.

The streets were packed shoulder to shoulder; shortly after dinner people poured out of their houses and threaded through the lanes and alleys toward the busiest streets around the Confucius Temple and Mingyuan Tower. Lanterns hung thick as woven cloth along the road, a vast and unextinguishable river of fire.

Vendors shouted at the top of their lungs; dragon and lion troupes went past with gongs and drums; jugglers and street performers clustered at the corners; from brothel after brothel drifted faint snatches of song coaxing customers in, and now and then you could glimpse the dancing inside. People came and went through the doors; it was lively beyond description.

The courtesans with any name for themselves all had engagements tonight. You could still occasionally find a seat in the main hall.

Word kept coming down the street that at such-and-such a poetry gathering young master so-and-so had produced a new work — one of the highlights of the evening — and then you would hear some famous courtesan in some brothel sing that verse, and after that came news of another fine piece from another gathering.

The talented competed with one another, and the beauties dressed their talent in a beautiful rosy haze. Most people simply enjoyed the lanterns and the spectacle. In an atmosphere like that you could feel the lingering charm of Wei and Jin; the elegance of the Tang at its height was no more than this.

The way of poetry had flourished since the Tang, and after several hundred more years of development — well, when Ning Yi and Old Qin chatted they might toss off a line like "hard to say who's a great talent and who's a small one," but that was because their own sights no longer rested on ordinary standards.

In truth, the highest levels of the state had already worried over the fact that poetry was useless; what standard ought to be used for selecting officials had been weighed over and over in the past century. The court examinations would sometimes shut poetry out of the criteria and sometimes let it back in, forever balancing, forever wavering.

Yet even with such considerations at the top, poetry's standing had by now reached a glorious height in the overall scheme of things. If you truly could write one good poem, there was no place you could go where respect and courtesy would be lacking. That air of elegance was the brand of an age.

Since the Tang, the vast, teeming culture of poetry had settled here into the very foundation of society, the brightest part of the history of civilization; countless famous works and famous lines, like stars and like grains of sand, propped up the most important link in Han civilization.

In Jiangning at this hour, Wuyi Lane and the Confucius Temple district were the busiest, most prosperous commercial streets, and in each of them merchants had set out display boards.

Poems that the various gatherings could decently show were brought over one after another; now and then someone recited one aloud, and some merchants arranged for singing girls to sing a verse.

In the streets, in the teahouses and taverns nearby, in gatherings great and small, scholars wagged their heads over the finest poems and judged whose work would be sung the longest.

Even the unlettered common folk, in an atmosphere like this, could feel something of the mood and argue it over with the people beside them, picking up a touch of elegance for themselves.

Puyuan's six linked boats had long since left the bank and were gliding slowly along the most beautiful, most lively stretch of the river.

Even so, it was not a closed affair: a dozen or so small boats trailed along the banks on either side the whole way, sometimes ferrying people out to the great vessel, sometimes carrying people or poems away from it, like little fish escorting a palace on the water.

Those who went aboard brought up the best works produced that night, and brought up stories and news as well — how at one banquet some great personage had announced the betrothal of his daughter to so-and-so, or how some celebrated figure had praised the outstanding poem of a young scholar.

The poems at the Puyuan gathering were, in fact, presentable enough. In earlier years they had bought poems outright to get through the day, but now there was no need; with money you can always invite a few genuinely talented people along. They still could not match the most famous Zhishui or Lichuan gatherings, but with a lively round of hype the reputation would slowly build.

Mid-Autumn poetry gatherings mostly took the moon as their theme, but naturally no one spent the whole night writing only of the moon. Some gatherings had restrictions; where the host was a forceful sort, everyone chatted happily until the mood moved him to set a topic.

Poetry gatherings were literary societies, and some of them faced off against each other or competed quietly — Zhishui and Lichuan, say.

Hearing the other side's topic, a man might remark, "Speaking of which, I happened to dash off a little something myself…" and then calmly discuss it with the company, careful that no trace of a fighting spirit show on his face.

If poetry truly reached a very high level, you really could not rank one above another; but where the gap was wide, the fine work and the clumsy one were plain at a glance.

It was not yet the hottest hour; the gatherings would run until dawn. Truly good poems could not really be plucked from thin air. Nearly every scholar had one or two prize pieces prepared; only those who felt their talent insufficient, and saw no need to make fools of themselves before the topmost figures, would release theirs early.

The climax — the moment when the very finest talents brought out their killer works — usually did not begin until midnight. Win a good reputation at this hour tonight, pile up some fame, and the road of officialdom ahead would be that much smoother.

The night thickened with every passing moment; the moon stood at its zenith, and the city's mood only grew hotter. In the Su family's modest courtyard, Ning Yi and Xiao Chan had already gone back to their room. They had taken in what spectacle could be seen from here, and outside the wind was beginning to pick up.

The clamor outside still drifted faintly in. Master and maid held a little Mid-Autumn party of their own. Since he did not remember the details of Romance of the Western Chamber clearly, and since that play was, after all, about teaching young ladies to elope, Ning Yi ended up telling Xiao Chan a stretch of Journey to the West.

Then Xiao Chan sang him a couple of little tunes, mixed in with dancing that a young girl had not quite mastered — reportedly learned from watching some performance.

Su Tan'er had never entertained the idea of giving the three maids away or using them to please others, so she had them learn to read, to do embroidery, and to help manage and direct the servants so as to lighten her own work; she had not taught them instruments or song and dance.

Singing they could just barely manage; dancing they could not, though when she danced she looked light and rather sweet.

Xiao Chan liked five-in-a-row, but Ning Yi was ill, and that kind of mental exertion had to be avoided. After her singing and dancing, Ning Yi showed her a simple magic trick — a game piece vanishing from his hand and then being produced from her hair or her pocket.

The girl gasped and squealed at every step; Ning Yi laughingly explained the principle, and while Xiao Chan clumsily tried to repeat it, he said, "I'm going to sleep now. It's still early — Xiao Chan, go on over to the Puyuan poetry gathering and enjoy yourself… Oh, that's right, the invitation is on the table…"

"I'll go after you've fallen asleep, Son-in-law," Xiao Chan said with a smile.

"Ha, then how about singing me another song first?"

"Sure! Which one would you like to hear, Son-in-law?"

The songs of this age were by and large ci poems, and each tune title had its fixed melody — though by modern times those melodies had long since been lost. The verses Xiao Chan knew were not many either, so the two of them took up an anthology and picked songs by the bedside.

"Ode to the Fisherman…"

"Xiao Chan doesn't know that one."

"How about Yi Jiangnan?"

"I can sing that one." Xiao Chan eagerly made ready to sing.

"Never mind, I don't care for that one."

"Then Nian Nu Jiao — would you like to hear that, Son-in-law?"

"This Shui Diao Ge Tou isn't bad at all. Uh… Shui Diao Ge Tou…"

"That one I can, I can."

"You can sing Shui Diao Ge Tou?" Ning Yi thought it over. "Oh — Xiao Chan knows quite a few, doesn't she."

"Shall I sing that one, then?"

"Uh… actually, let's sing a different one. Also a Shui Diao Ge Tou…"

Idle and bored, Ning Yi had in fact been thinking of Faye Wong's "When Will the Bright Moon Appear." But in this era Su Shi seemed never to have written the poem. He had Xiao Chan fetch paper and brush, then sprawled by the edge of the bed and wrote the verses out crookedly on xuan paper for her to sing, and Xiao Chan's eyes went bright and sparkling as she watched. "Did you write this, Son-in-law?"

"Oh." Ning Yi thought about it, saw the expectation all over her face, and shrugged. "I wrote it. It's yours now. Hurry up and sing."

Xiao Chan studied the ci for a while, then sang it earnestly in the meter of the tune. The girl's voice was light and sweet and flowing; she was not very professional, and because she was trying so hard she even stumbled once in the middle, but the mood of it was wonderful. When she finished, Ning Yi smiled. "Let me teach you another way of singing it."

"Huh?" Xiao Chan blinked. "Another… way of singing?"

"Mm. I sing a line, you sing a line. It should be easy to pick up… Ha, mainly I want to hear it."

She was a little puzzled, but since she could learn something from it, Xiao Chan brightened at once. She had been at Ning Yi's side longer than anyone, and she had come to understand that there was often something mysterious and amusing about this son-in-law. Then, under his instruction, there in the room, Xiao Chan learned this Shui Diao Ge Tou line by line to that strange new melody.

"When will the bright moon appear? I raise my cup and ask the blue sky…"

"I do not know — in the palaces of heaven…"

"Mm, not bad… what year it is tonight."

"Hee — sing the next line, Son-in-law…"

Be that as it may, before long Ning Yi heard, in this era, a modern song he had missed more than a little. If the chance came later, he could write down modern songs and teach them to Xiao Chan alone to sing, or find someone who could set music and play an instrument and have them score similar tunes. Anyway, it was only for his own private listening; if it could not be brought out into the world, if it was unfit for refined company — well, that was no great matter.

"What do you think? Does it sound good?"

"It's lovely…"

Ci tunes did have fixed melodies, but the songs of antiquity shared an origin with much of opera and were mostly monophonic, and in their sweet turns and modulations they could not after all compare with modern songs. This song's melody, too, took the gentle road, and was not absurdly out of place in this era.

If what he had sung just now had been "Mice Love Rice," Xiao Chan would likely have been either grossed out to death or frightened to death. As it was, the girl's eyes had turned to plain admiration and reverence.

"You can compose music too, Son-in-law…"

Ning Yi laughed. "Keep this song for yourself and just hum it. Don't go singing it all over the place. A little maid like you, daring to tamper with a tune title and the way it's sung — people might well say you don't know your place. Understand?"

"Mm." Xiao Chan clutched the sheet of xuan paper and nodded hard.

"All right… good night." Ning Yi crawled into the covers, and a moment later turned his head to find Xiao Chan still sitting on the stool by the bed watching him, just as she had sat by the bed keeping watch over him a few days ago when he had that cold. He waved a hand. "I'm fine now. Out you go." Only then did Xiao Chan snap to, and she hurried to her feet and out the door.

"Hey — take the invitation on the table, or they may not let you on the boat…"

After all that shouting, once Xiao Chan had blown out the lamp, taken the invitation, gone out, and shut the door behind her, Ning Yi gave an enormous yawn. The city's clamor still drifted faintly in, and the sliver of light on the window was proof enough of how lively it was outside. He smiled. "A whole night of fish-and-dragon dancing…" Then he was pulled down into sleep.

Xiao Chan stood with her back against the wooden pillar outside the room for a long while, and only once she had made sure Ning Yi was truly asleep did she go downstairs.

Back in her own room she lit the lamp, took out brush, ink, paper, and inkstone, and leaned over her desk to copy out once more the verses whose strokes had come out poorly because they were written at the edge of a bed. The girl's brushwork was small and neat, with a lively grace to it.

She looked at Ning Yi's handwriting several more times, then, her little face red, put it away at the very bottom of a drawer and hid it there, for all the world like a thief.

After that she left the courtyard, and seeing no one on the road, went at a trot toward the main gate, where she got a carriage and an idle driver from the steward, and happily hurried off to join the fun at the Puyuan poetry gathering.

A little girl, after all — she still dearly loved that sort of bustle.