The next morning a light snow drifted down over a thousand streets and a hundred wards. Towering Chang'an lay like a great beast crouched over a snowbound realm, and the roads running out to the four seas and the five lakes were the hairs on that beast's hide, linking every last corner of a domain ten thousand li wide.
With still about a month to the New Year, Song Yufu walked out of Wenqu Court with an armful of books and looked up at the snowflakes falling from the sky.
The New Year was nearly here, and the Dragon's Roar Poetry Gathering was only days away; her father, Song Baiqing, would inevitably have to put in an appearance. But her father held that "a scholar's poems are like a bravo's flowery fists and embroidered kicks—pleasant to look at and good for cultivating the temperament, but no use for holding the realm together." He had never thought much of the talents who fought tooth and nail over a poetry gathering, and chores like that were all left to her.
Song Yufu was a woman, and could never take office afterward, so naturally she didn't care a fig for the distinction between "small talent for verse and great talent for statecraft." Getting to see a few poems that pleased the eye was enough for her.
Only these past few days she hadn't been able to muster any interest, and she couldn't say whether it was because of Heir Xu.
Heir Xu had been in Chang'an a year now. He rarely stayed at the Imperial College, and when he did come he kept to himself in the Bell and Drum Tower. Before this she had at most passed him by; they had hardly exchanged a word.
But a few days ago Heir Xu had stood up for a Wolf Guard and taught Xiao Ting a lesson for his insulting stare, and she had grown a little curious about this lofty heir from the outer fiefs.
He's clearly a steady, sensible gentleman—so why does he always show the world that arrogant, domineering face? Making me copy out books, hauling me up and swinging me around to frighten me... maybe I just talk too much and annoyed him. A few days of being near him, and Heir Xu really isn't that fierce...
Lost in these stray thoughts, Song Yufu reached out a small hand and caught a few snowflakes. As the collar of her jacket brushed her neck, it seemed her heart itched along with it.
She turned to look at the Bell and Drum Tower standing at the center of the Imperial College; after a moment's hesitation she went over at a graceful pace. She knew perfectly well that once she got there Heir Xu would make her copy books—but she was still curious what kind of man he was. Copying books it was, then...
The Bell and Drum Tower was a solemn, august place. The Never Forget Bell above it stood for the hundred years of humiliation Great Yue had endured on its little scrap of land. People didn't usually come here; it was very quiet.
Song Yufu hesitated, so her steps were light. When she reached the rooms at the foot of the tower she was still wavering over whether to call out, and how to call out, when she heard voices drift toward her:
"...What kind of lousy poetry did you buy? In a few days the Dragon's Roar Poetry Gathering..."
"...Young Prince, writing is born of Heaven; a skilled hand happens upon it by chance..."
Song Yufu blinked, rooted to the spot, a look of astonishment coming into her eyes.
It was common enough for the sons of princes and nobles to buy poems and play the connoisseur at literary gatherings; most of the idle rich brats in Wenqu Court had done it. It wasn't a crime, but the orthodox literati had always looked down on the sort who did it.
She hadn't expected Heir Xu, high in station and always so far above the dust of the world, to do such a thing. Heir Xu was Prince Su's eldest son by the principal wife, heaven's own darling; he had no need at all for the little fame of a man of letters. Why would he stoop to such a ridiculous pose of refinement?
A disappointment she could not quite hide surfaced in Song Yufu's eyes. She thought about it, decided it wasn't her place to interfere, and turned to slip away quietly. But the next words from inside the room stopped her dead where she stood...
The door and windows of the little room under the Bell and Drum Tower were shut tight.
Xu Buling sat bolt upright at the writing desk, a stack of poem drafts in his hand.
Old Xiao stood before him leaning on his cane, playing advisor, shaking his head without pause:
"Young Prince, men of letters have their pride, and earning silver by selling poems is thought a disgrace. There are only so many talents who dare sell at all, and they won't sell to anyone they don't know. It took me half a day to find the channel, and a good deal of silver."
Xu Buling frowned at the thick sheaf of drafts, somewhat at a loss.
Rich young men bought poems to look impressive, not to make fools of themselves, and the talents who sold them understood their customers' hearts perfectly. The lines were all strictly conventional—not exactly dregs, but nothing you could call fine work either. Good enough to wave around; and real literati had no interest in quarreling over verse they'd forget the next moment, bought or not.
Xu Buling wanted to blacken his own name with a reputation for "poetry theft." For that, the poem couldn't be too bad to begin with, or there'd be no buzz at all—nobody would care whether he'd written it, and even knowing he'd bought it, no one would make a fuss over chicken-rib verse like that.
Remembering the task Madame Lu had laid on him, Xu Buling's head began to ache. He tossed the drafts aside:
"Couldn't you buy anything better? The kind where a single verse caps all Chang'an?"
Old Xiao rubbed his cane, rolled his eyes, and said, "Young Prince, never mind capping Chang'an—if a man had the skill to cap the Imperial College, he wouldn't be selling poems for silver in the first place. Why don't you write a couple yourself?"
Xu Buling thought it over; there really was no other way. Last year Old Xiao had carried him out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood on his back, so there was nothing to guard against with him. He took up the brush, ground the ink, and wrote a few lines on the rice paper.
Old Xiao knew that since his illness Xu Buling's head had come back sharp, but he had never seen him write poetry. He craned his neck and slowly recited along with the strokes:
"Drunk, I trim the lamp and look at my sword; in dreams I am back where the horns sound through the camps... To finish the king's business under Heaven, and win a name in life and after death. A pity—white hairs grow! ...No, no good..."
Xu Buling looked up, puzzled. "Why not? I'm eighteen this year; obviously I couldn't have written this one."
Poetry wasn't just stacking up pretty phrases; without having seen all the faces of a life, a man couldn't produce that weathered, sweeping feeling.
If Xu Buling wanted people to see that he'd stolen his poems, he naturally had to write things that didn't fit his age. In his view, this one was perfect.
But Old Xiao shook his head and said seriously, "Young Prince, General Xu spent his whole life in the saddle. If you write these lines, they can pass as mourning for your ancestor—and if those scholars think of that, they'll decide the poem really is yours."
Xu Buling frowned; he'd forgotten about that. He thought a while and wrote again:
"Withered vines, an old tree, dusk crows... a little bridge, running water, a cottage... an ancient road, the west wind, a lean horse... The sun sinks in the west, and the broken-hearted man is at the edge of the world..."
When he finished, Xu Buling raised an eyebrow. "This one's fine, isn't it? I'm the heir to a vassal prince—there's no way I could fall into such a wretched state."
Old Xiao squinted at it a few times and gave a sigh of feeling. "Last year, when we were ambushed at the Wei River, I carried my lord Heir on my back and we hid and slunk all the way to Chang'an. The scenes along that road did look rather like this poem..."
Xu Buling's brows knit tight. For the first time he discovered that copying poetry was hard work.
He didn't remember many poems, and after thinking it over, all he could do was pick up the brush and write again:
"Ten years now, and the living and the dead are both in the dark; I do not think on it, yet I cannot forget. A lonely grave a thousand li away—nowhere to speak of desolation..."
Old Xiao studied the neat characters on the paper, a bleakness coming into his eyes. He raised a hand and patted Xu Buling lightly on the shoulder:
"The Princess Consort pined away and died ten years ago over the Iron Eagle Deer Hunt affair, and the Prince has never been able to let it go. Who'd have thought my lord Heir had seen it all..."
Slap—
Xu Buling slammed the brush down on the desk and spread his hands in exasperation. "I didn't write this, I copied it, and even you can't be fooled—how am I supposed to fool those scholars?"
Old Xiao heaved a long sigh. The look he bent on Xu Buling carried a measure of comfort, as though he were watching a snot-nosed kid finally grow into a man who could stand on his own.
Xu Buling had nothing to say. He sat at the desk racking his brains for a long while before he picked up the brush again:
"The wind has died, the dust smells sweet, the flowers are all gone; late in the day, too weary to comb my hair. The things remain, the people are gone, and everything is over; I would speak, but the tears come first..."
Old Xiao's eyes lit up. He leaned in close and studied it a few times. "Mm... this one doesn't read like a man's work. Anyone can hear it's some poor woman weathered by hardship with no one to lean on... an ordinary person couldn't write it..."
"Then it's this one. I refuse to believe they can't spot even this as copied..."
Outside the room.
Song Yufu's almond eyes were wide as could be, and she clapped both hands over her mouth. She looked like someone who had discovered buried treasure, shock filling her eyes.
Oh my god~
Verse conjured on the spot, in wildly shifting styles.
A veteran of the battlefield, a down-and-out wanderer, a heartsick scholar, a grieving wife in a lonely boudoir...
He slipped from one role to the next without a seam, as though he had truly lived each one himself; there wasn't a flaw to pick.
Such command of poetry—the man can't be human!
Song Yufu's lashes trembled without stopping; she wanted nothing more than to rush in right now and look at those poems.
But the thought had hardly formed before she checked herself.
From what Heir Xu had just said, he didn't want to be famous—he actually wanted the bad name of a poetry thief.
She didn't understand the intent, but whether or not Heir Xu had stolen those poems—how could she not know?
Song Yufu had been born into a family of letters; her father and brothers were all great scholars. How could she sit by and watch a man of true learning have his reputation ruined?
If she went in now, Heir Xu would know she'd been eavesdropping, and then he definitely wouldn't go to the poetry gathering.
Then...
Song Yufu narrowed her eyes slightly, and in those bright, shining eyes a flicker of mischief appeared...
A heartless vote-begging robot!