By his original plan, Ning Yi had meant to make one circuit outside and then head straight to Yushan Academy; soaked through as he now was, he had no choice but to turn back and change. It was already early in the eighth lunar month, and a long walk home in wet clothes was no pleasant prospect; for all his exercising, his constitution had not improved noticeably, and he'd likely be down with a cold by tomorrow. Fortunately he hadn't gone far before he ran into someone he knew: Old Qin's concubine, a woman he had met a few times.
Ning Yi did not go running toward the busy markets, naturally; the streets he knew best were these, the ones he took whenever he came to play Go with Old Qin. Old Qin's concubine was named Yunniang.
She was in her thirties and had been a woman of the demimonde in her early years, though nothing about her was coquettish or seductive.
The few times Ning Yi had seen her, she had been bringing Old Qin his lunch; her bearing was dignified and easy, and she could trade a few lines of poetry with the old man in conversation.
Meeting her on the road now, he found her dressed like a farmwife, plain clothes and a thorn-wood pin, a wicker basket on her arm holding fresh greens and fruit just picked from the fields nearby. She looked at Ning Yi in surprise.
After a brief greeting, Yunniang asked what had happened. Ning Yi pointed at the Qinhuai River not far off.
"Fell in."
Yunniang smiled a little, and asked nothing more; she only told him to come along with her to the house nearby.
"The autumn wind is strong, young master. Walking home like that, you'll catch a chill by tomorrow for certain. You are a good friend of my master, so please don't stand on ceremony. The master is at home now as well… oh, and only yesterday he was saying you hadn't been by to play Go these past few days."
Ning Yi had only ever played Go with Old Qin on the streets nearby; he knew the old man lived somewhere around here, but had never been inside. Following Yunniang through the gate now, he found him in the main hall, reading from a scroll of ancient bamboo slips.
The old man's manner was grave and intent, with a faint air of authority about it, rather different from how he looked at his Go board by the river. When someone came in he raised his head and squinted for a few seconds before it registered, and then he seemed to choke on a laugh.
Yunniang walked over smiling; before she could speak, he nodded. After all, what needed doing most at this moment was plain at a glance.
"Have Xiaohong heat some water. Yunniang, go bring out a set of Dalang's clothes… Haha, young friend Liheng, what have you gotten yourself into?"
Only once the practical matters were arranged did the old man burst out laughing, with the same gloating delight he showed after landing a brilliant move at Go.
In truth, after all these days at the board they had grown fairly familiar; ordinarily the old man called him, without ceremony, "Liheng, you brat," and it was seeing him in such a sorry state that made him smile and say "young friend," though his face was cheerful enough either way.
Ning Yi answered with a helpless, bitter smile and spread his hands. With the man's concubine standing right there, he could hardly come out and say, You old codger, you're enjoying this.
Compared with the Su family's great compound, which could count as sprawling by Jiangning's standards, the Qin house was not large, and certainly not so rich, but it was still the home of a comfortably well-off family.
Front and back, everything was kept in good order; it felt full and lived-in, a house steeped in books and in ordinary life, with a solid, settled air that put a person at ease. And though Yunniang had gone out herself that morning to pick the vegetables, the household did keep several maids and servants.
A family that could support that many hired hands was, in the end, doing quite well for itself.
Old Qin's first wife was a thoroughly amiable and easygoing woman, of farmwife stock, but without the pettiness or sharpness of the ordinary farmwife.
Past fifty now, she ran the household and tended the melons and vegetables herself; that waste garden Ning Yi had seen Yunniang come out of with her basket had been broken and planted by Madam Qin with the family's own hands, and Old Qin himself had likely put in a hand as well.
Perhaps it was this temperament that kept the house so well ordered; Madam Qin and Yunniang were fond of each other too. A husband and two wives like this might well be called a model household under the system of one man with several wives.
When Ning Yi had washed in hot water and come out in his new clothes, Madam Qin looked him up and down and was much pleased.
"Master, with Young Master Ning in these clothes, he rather resembles Dalang."
Ning Yi glanced at the garments: they were cut in a young man's style, and the cloth was new, so they must be Old Qin's son's. The old man had two sons, both living away from home. Hearing his wife say so, Old Qin nodded, then asked how Ning Yi had come to fall in the river.
Ning Yi told the tale of his morning's misfortune, and the old man laughed all over again.
"You brat. Smearing a decent woman's good name — truly despicable."
"Now that's turning the rake on me with a vengeance…"
"Haha… though… turning the rake? Is there a story behind that one?"
"…"
Talking with learned men is a nuisance — they want an allusion for everything. While they played Go, Ning Yi had laughed and explained himself readily enough; now he only said, "It's a long story." A short while later Madam Qin had breakfast ready, and she and Yunniang called Old Qin and Ning Yi over.
At the table they talked about how Ning Yi's first few days of lessons at Yushan Academy had gone. To Old Qin, Ning Yi teaching anyone was sheer rookie work, so he could hardly resist scolding him, half laughing, for miseducating the young. Then the talk turned to the Mid-Autumn Festival.
"The Puyuan poetry gathering… The Pu family's six boats lashed into one barge — it's certainly an amusing enough affair, but most who go have precious little poetic talent. The one that draws all the talents running after it is the Pan family's Zhishui poetry gathering…"
"Oh, talents… the very talented kind?"
"Haha, it's hard to say how one tells great talent from small. They have some poetic talent, at any rate; every year at the Mid-Autumn gathering, Zhishui Academy turns out a few good verses. Three generations of the Pan family have been Hanlin academicians; anyone with learning who wants to be heard of and rise is always glad to walk that road…"
On Mid-Autumn night along the Qinhuai, talents vie in letters and beauties vie in song, and there are poetry gatherings great and small, with invisible contests running between them. One gathering produces a fine poem, another produces a better one; the whole thing is made a great clamor of that night, and then talked of admiringly for months, even years, afterward. Merchants and even the government are of course somewhere behind it all, fanning the flames — but be that as it may, the Qinhuai's name is built up on exactly this sort of atmosphere.
The Puyuan gathering and the Zhishui gathering were among the most influential of that night. Puyuan called itself a garden, but was in fact six great boats bound into one, drifting all night down the Qinhuai: wine, poems, fireworks, the lamps along both banks, and assorted performances aboard.
The Pu family were rich merchants, and merchants ranked low; having money, they wished to lean toward the men of letters, though that is not a thing to be accomplished in ten or twenty years.
Their clan was large, and a few passably talented scholars had come out of it in recent years — somewhat better than the Su family — but the world still did not count them a scholarly house.
The Puyuan gathering was famed along the Qinhuai for its grandeur, its luxury, its liveliness; but those who went were mostly people with merchant backgrounds or merchant ties, Xue Jin, Su Tan'er, and their like, out for the fun of it. Those who fancied themselves men of letters wrote poems; the other half came to cultivate connections and discuss business.
The quality of the verses was wildly uneven. It was the most lavish gathering of them all, and could not begin to compare with the top few in literary air.
The Zhishui gathering was the true gathering of the finest talents of the Qinhuai region. The Pan family who hosted it were a genuine scholarly clan, three generations of Hanlin academicians; in this generation, Pan Mingchen was a Hanlin academician and concurrently a Vice Minister of Rites.
The gathering his family held was what every student with thoughts of examination success went running after — though to earn a place there one needed some talent of one's own, or connections enough.
Beyond the famous talents who received invitations, every year before Mid-Autumn a good many young scholars would send their cards and their poems to the Pan residence, hoping to find favor.
On top of that, many celebrated courtesans of the pleasure quarters counted an invitation to Zhishui an honor — a world apart from Puyuan, which spent heavy sums every year to bring people in.
"Since you've made ready to attend, young friend Liheng, have you prepared any poems? I have a few Go friends at the Pan house; if you're inclined, I could get an invitation for you."
Old Qin finished and looked across the table at Ning Yi, who only smiled and shook his head. "I don't understand poetry. I'm just going to Puyuan to see the spectacle."
He refused so lightly that Old Qin could say nothing further. Breakfast over, the sun outside was high, and Ning Yi had to take his leave and go to Yushan Academy. After seeing him to the gate and watching him out of sight, Yunniang smiled and asked from Old Qin's side, "Master, can it really be that Young Master Ning doesn't understand poetry?"
"What do you think, Little Yunniang?"
Yunniang blinked. "He's fibbing?"
"Heh. Whether he does or doesn't, I can't make out either. If he'd said such a thing in the first few days, I'd have believed it. Now — it's hard to say."
Old Qin shook his head and smiled. "I've seen a great many people in my life, young men fishing for reputation and young men with real learning among them.
Of those with true learning, some follow the way of Confucius and Mencius, mild and upright, modest and courteous; some are wild talents who take the crooked path, flamboyant in their doings, unrestrained, and genuinely brilliant, forever astonishing a person. But one way or another, all of that is no more than the usual run of things.
Only this Ning boy — I honestly cannot read what's in his mind.
"When I first played Go with him, I thought he took the crooked path, always pressing and provoking, yet always making a man think; I took him for a brash youngster with a quick wit, and he did not say overmuch.
But after playing him long, I found his game could be orthodox or unorthodox, wholly unbound by rule and pattern.
And after chatting with him a while, I felt that though the Ning boy speaks casually, inside he is calm and plain, and now and then drops a remark that makes you think; it sounds novel, and yet it never departs from the great Way.
"I remember a few days ago, when we spoke of his going to the academy to teach, he tossed off a few lines in passing. Teaching, he said, is not teaching people how to act; it should be teaching them why to act.
When the ancient sages wrote their books and set out their doctrines, what they chiefly spoke of was human feeling and the ways of the world, the highest principles by which heaven and earth and the human heart run; once a man understands these things, and then knows how to act — that is a true scholar.
He said it casually. To shallow ears it might have earned him the label of a wild talent, but… the principle is indeed the principle.
Seeing a mountain as a mountain, water as water; then seeing a mountain not as a mountain, water not as water; and then coming back to seeing a mountain as a mountain, water as water — that is when you've truly understood the books.
Hmm.
Don't go spreading this about, or it may bring him some trouble."
"I understand."
"We've known each other only a short while, and it's too early to draw any grand conclusion. But while we play he has recited a few verses to fit the moment, and those verses were very good, and I had never heard them before. If it's only a question of poetry — that the man doesn't understand it — heh, that I do not believe."
Old Qin turned and started back inside; Yunniang followed. "Then why does Young Master Ning keep his light hidden like this? Whatever the reason…"
"That is just why I can't make him out. But one thing is clear."
At this Old Qin frowned slightly, then shook his head and sighed softly.
"As you say, Little Yunniang, there are young men who, though they have learning, may hide their light or deliberately play the dullard, enduring solitude and resisting temptation for a time. All of it in the hope of greater things later, of leaping the dragon gate one day and rising to glory.
But such a man could never, before making his name and establishing himself, choose to marry into a merchant household as a live-in son-in-law. From ancient times to this day, of men who took that road, how many ever built a career? Ah — if he truly has great talent, then it is a genuine waste…"
At the mention of it, Old Qin still felt a measure of regret. It was only natural for a man to harbor thoughts of fame and fortune, or ambition; from these days of acquaintance, even a shred of ambition in Ning Yi would have kept him from marrying into a merchant family.
The people's minds were not yet opened in these times, and the difference between the uneducated and a scholar who had read and studied was plain at a glance. Never mind whether he truly had talent — a man with such conversation and bearing could have done almost anything and not starved. Why run off to be a live-in son-in-law?