The fifth day after Xiao Mo's return to Stone Bridge Village.
Magistrate Sun came looking for Xiao Mo.
Magistrate Sun clearly knew about Bai Ruxue having been "taken away by an immortal," and he also knew that a man as devoted as Xiao Mo, coming home only to find Bai Ruxue gone, must surely be heartsick over it.
He had come home robed in silken glory, and yet the one person who mattered most was not there.
"Ah..." Whenever Magistrate Sun thought of it, he could not help heaving a sigh on Xiao Mo's behalf.
So for the first few days Magistrate Sun had not come to disturb him.
By the fifth day, judging that Xiao Mo's feelings had likely settled, he came cautiously to ask about the parade.
As for the three words "Bai Ruxue," Magistrate Sun naturally did not breathe a single one of them.
Xiao Mo knew as well that a zhuangyuan's parade was an ancient custom of Qi. To refuse would be to deny the magistrate face, and it would weigh heavily on his future political career.
So Xiao Mo naturally agreed.
"Xiao Mo, you don't need to prepare a thing. Leave it all to this official, and I'll make sure you have a day of glory!"
At first, Magistrate Sun had assumed the whole business might come to nothing.
In truth, even if Xiao Mo had refused to parade, Magistrate Sun would not have blamed him; he knew how deep the feeling ran between Xiao Mo and that Miss Bai.
But hearing that Xiao Mo had agreed, Magistrate Sun was overjoyed.
At dawn two days later, the escort party came for the zhuangyuan and arrived at the entrance to Stone Bridge Village.
Girls dressed in bright festive clothes walked into Xiao Mo's courtyard, dressed him in the zhuangyuan's ceremonial robes, and pinned on the big red flower.
The villagers saw Xiao Mo out of the village and followed along behind the zhuangyuan.
Everyone in Stone Bridge Village had put on their new clothes.
The old village chief was the happiest of them all.
Influenced by Xiao Mo, Village Chief Wang had been taken on by Magistrate Sun as registrar.
When Xiao Mo's party reached Qingshan County, the streets on both sides were already packed with people, all of them hoping for a glimpse of the zhuangyuan's glory.
"Mom, how come the zhuangyuan doesn't look very happy?" A little girl perched on her mother's neck pointed at the zhuangyuan.
"He does too. Isn't the zhuangyuan quite happy? Look, he's smiling right now," the girl's mother said.
"Really?" The little girl gnawed her finger and tilted her head. "Is the zhuangyuan really smiling?"
In the sixth month the appointment came down from the imperial capital: Xiao Mo was made magistrate of Qinghe County, Liuyun Commandery, Liangzhou, to take up the post at once.
For a zhuangyuan, that was indeed a rather low starting point.
But no one took it to mean that Xiao Mo would not be given weight.
Quite the opposite: sending a zhuangyuan to serve as magistrate in a remote prefecture was a matter of pressing him down before raising him up, a mark of special grooming.
"Xiaoqing, are you going to stay here?"
Before leaving Stone Bridge Village, Xiao Mo had climbed Sheshan and asked Xiaoqing.
"Mm-hm." Xiaoqing nodded. "Elder Fuchen of the Tianxuan Sect taught me some arts. I want to cultivate here, and wait for my sister to wake up."
"All right." Xiao Mo nodded. "If anything comes up, go to Magistrate Sun and have him send word to me."
"Don't worry, Brother Xiao. Nothing's going to happen." Xiaoqing nodded.
"I'm off."
"I'll see you off, Brother Xiao."
Xiaoqing walked Xiao Mo down the mountain.
When Xiao Mo left Stone Bridge Village, all the villagers and Magistrate Sun came to see him off.
Magistrate Sun clapped him on the shoulder. "Xiao Mo, giving you a magistracy in an ordinary county of Liangzhou this time was Old Master Zhang's idea."
Xiao Mo's eyes flickered in momentary surprise; then he nodded. "This junior understands."
"Do well, and there will be no limit to what you make of yourself." Magistrate Sun did not need to spell it out; a clever man catches the gist of a hint.
"Thank you, Lord Sun, for your support all these years," Xiao Mo said gratefully.
"Safe travels. This official will be waiting for you to blaze a trail in the halls of court." Looking at the young man, Magistrate Sun felt a pang of reluctance.
Xiao Mo bowed deeply, climbed into the carriage, and set off for his post in Jianshui County.
"Father, why didn't you bring up my marriage to him?" After Xiao Mo had gone, Miss Sun came over, disgruntled. "Miss Bai has gone off to cultivate. Can't I be the zhuangyuan's wife?"
"None of that!" Lord Sun rapped his daughter on the head.
Once he reached Jianshui County, Xiao Mo did not go straight to the yamen; he lodged at an inn in the county town for some days.
From the local people he learned how the previous magistrate had been regarded, whether the county had any local strongmen, which prominent clans and families there were, what the heads of those houses were like, and so on.
By the end of his inquiries, Xiao Mo could only sigh that the magistrate's seat in Jianshui County was indeed no easy job.
When he had learned about as much as he could, Xiao Mo went to the yamen, completed the handover formalities, and formally took office.
The first thing Xiao Mo did was summon the core staff of the county yamen and put on a modest air of "newly arrived, I must rely on all of you."
The others decided that although this zhuangyuan was young, he knew how the game was played—here was a man they could fleece the place alongside.
Very soon they discovered that they were wrong.
Xiao Mo began poring over the household yellow registers, the fish-scale land maps, the tax and grain ledgers, the criminal case files, and the official correspondence and archives.
Then, in the yamen and in the county town, he played one faction against another and backed the men who backed him.
He laid down rules and handed out favors, audited the money and grain, reviewed criminal cases, overhauled taxes and corvée, and cut wasteful spending.
He propped up the local great clans and then pressed them back down—a stick in one hand and a sweet jujube in the other.
Very quickly, Xiao Mo built up his own authority.
In less than four years the governance of Jianshui County was, if not clear as water, at least such that no one dared throw his weight around.
A children's rhyme went around—
The sun shines bright, the clouds drift high— a lucky star descends on Qinghe County.
Magistrate Xiao, of wondrous skill, digs the canals and bridges the rill.
Chases the jackals, shields the lambs, tries each case down to a hair's breadth.
Lightens the taxes, sows new seed, the granaries fill and the people sing.
In Mo's own ink, a tune of peace.
When his five-year term was up, Xiao Mo was transferred out of Qinghe County and promoted to Xueyang Commandery in Qingyang Province.
On the day he left office, the people escorted him ten li, weeping and begging him to stay.
Before heading for Xueyang, Xiao Mo went back to Stone Bridge Village to visit old friends, and then called on the new magistrate.
The former Magistrate Sun had been promoted too—mainly because Xiao Mo had mentioned him several times in his letters to Zhang Qianzhi.
Xiao Mo climbed Sheshan to look in on Ruxue, and on Xiaoqing as well.
Xiaoqing had grown much taller now, and there was something of a grown young woman about her.
Her cultivation, though, could not compare with her sister's. By now Xiaoqing's realm was probably the Dragon Gate realm.
Xiaoqing had assumed that after five years Brother Xiao would have taken a wife. He had not.
"In all these years, has Brother Xiao ever had someone in his heart?"
In the courtyard, Xiao Mo and Xiaoqing shared a rare meal together.
Xiao Mo shook his head and smiled. "Official business keeps me too busy. I've had no time to think about such things."
Xiaoqing lowered her head. "Brother Xiao, if my sister were here, she wouldn't want you to stay lonely forever."
Xiao Mo said nothing; he only put more food in her bowl. "Eat up. Five years without seeing you, and you've gotten thinner."
Xiaoqing's lips parted slightly, as though she wanted to say more, but in the end she closed them.
A few days later, Xiao Mo took up his post in Xueyang Commandery as Commandery Assistant.
The Commandery Governor of Xueyang treated Xiao Mo with great courtesy.
Everyone knew that Xiao Mo was Zhang Qianzhi's disciple—which made him the junior fellow disciple of the present chancellor—and that he had found favor with His Majesty besides. His examination poem "When Will the Bright Moon Appear?" and his "Rhapsody on the Chunli Palace" had spread through the whole of Qi.
Some even said that the draft of the present Edict of Grace had come from Xiao Mo's brush in the first place.
To say nothing of the name he had made these past years: the people escorting him ten li had long since become a much-told tale, and His Majesty had heard of it well before.
There was no limit to Xiao Mo's future.
For the first few months of his tenure as Commandery Assistant, Xiao Mo spent his time familiarizing himself with local affairs, making the acquaintance of the local great clans, and taking the measure of his subordinates and his superiors.
Speak little, listen much.
Only when Xiao Mo felt he had the feel of the place did he formally take the reins.
Xiao Mo was modest by nature, ordinarily every inch the refined scholar.
But when it came to getting things done he was brisk as thunder and wind, and there was even something of the maverick about him.
In the second year of Xiao Mo's tenure as Commandery Assistant, plague struck Xueyang Commandery.
An unknown pestilence spread through the whole commandery. The afflicted ran fevers, turned nauseous, vomited, broke out in pustules, and finally died of diarrhea.
The Commandery Governor had never met with anything of the kind, and in an instant he lost his head.
Xiao Mo stepped forward and took charge. The counties with the sick were sealed off—people could go in, but no one could come out.
All supplies could be delivered only as far as the city gate, and were then carried in by the people inside.
Xiao Mo had gathered herbs for a living since he was small, and as he grew up he had read medical texts and picked up some skill in medicine.
He went in person to examine the sickness, and once he had found the cause he ordered that cold water was never to be drunk straight, but must be boiled first. He had the sick handled in separate zones and laid down a whole set of rules for preventing the plague.
The Medicalist cultivator sent by the palace arrived in Xueyang and produced a course of treatment, but the herbs in his prescription were far too expensive, and expensive meant scarce—there was no way most people could get them.
So Xiao Mo searched hard for herbs that could take their place, and tasted a hundred plants himself alongside that Medicalist cultivator.
With a Medicalist cultivator standing right there, tasting them won't kill me anyway.
In the end Xiao Mo extracted the active essence of the white snowblossom, and it proved highly effective against the sickness.
For nearly half a year, Xiao Mo got less than two and a half shichen of sleep a day, and whenever he had a spare moment he threw himself in among the sick.
The Medicalist cultivator had already made ready to treat Xiao Mo himself.
And yet Xiao Mo never once fell ill.
It was true that Xiao Mo carried mountain-and-river fortune, but mountain-and-river fortune does not guard an official from sickness and death.
You could only say that his luck was truly good.
Five and a half months later, the plague in Xueyang subsided.
The people saw everything Xiao Mo had done.
Of their own accord, the people raised living shrines to him.
Xiao Mo might only have been the second in command of Xueyang, but in most of the common folk's hearts they had long forgotten who the first was.
As for the Governor himself, he had not the slightest objection.
Because he knew that Xiao Mo's future would not lie in the provinces, but high in the halls of court.
Xiao Mo actually refused several times over, but the people would not listen.
So living shrines went up in place after place across Xueyang, each holding the figure of a scholar "with a scroll in one hand and herbs in the other."
Xiao Mo could feel it plainly: more and more mountain-and-river fortune was gathering upon him.
"The waters of the Yellow River come from heaven; they rush to the sea and never return."
Once, to try out the official arts, Xiao Mo went out of his way to slay a fierce beast in Xueyang.
The moment he finished reciting his verse, the sky split open and the phantom waters of the Yellow River came pouring down, smashing that beast to powder and splintered bone.
But afterward Xiao Mo felt a good deal of his mountain-and-river fortune drain away. It took several days before it recovered to its former level.
Two years later the Governor of Xueyang was transferred up into the Qingyang prefectural yamen, and Xiao Mo became Governor of Xueyang.
In the three years Xiao Mo governed, Xueyang was well ordered and its people at peace; no household barred its doors, and nothing dropped on the road was picked up.
The people of Xueyang wished Governor Xiao could hold the post forever.
In Xueyang, Governor Xiao was like a patch of clear blue sky.
But what puzzled a great many people was this.
Governor Xiao was already in his twenties, long past the age for marrying.
But why was Governor Xiao always alone?
In fact, quite a few of the great clans of Xueyang were puzzled too. Concluding that he simply had not found a suitable match, they presented their daughters to him one after another.
Xiao Mo politely declined them all.
In time, more and more stories about Xiao Mo made their way among the common folk.
Governor Xiao, it turned out, came from a poor family—he did not even count as a son of a poor scholar's house.
He had a childhood sweetheart. The two had been innocents together, grown up together, and depended on each other for dear life.
When they were grown, Governor Xiao passed the examinations and won office, but his sweetheart left with an immortal to cultivate. From then on, immortals and mortals lived in separate worlds.
Yet Governor Xiao waited for her to come back all the same, unwilling to take another wife.
"The Story of Governor Xiao" spread farther and wider, and more than a few scholars even wrote it up as vernacular tales, which circulated widely.
Confronted with these heavily spiced stories, Xiao Mo hardly knew whether to laugh or cry.
"Master, the osmanthus tea you asked for—we've brought it."
In the Governor's residence in Xueyang, Xiao Mo was reading when two maids came into the courtyard carrying two packets of tea.
"Mm." Xiao Mo kept flipping through the pages without looking up. "Did you pay?"
"Yes, Master," Caidie said with a nod.
Wangyue added, "At first Shopkeeper Li didn't want to take the money, but I talked till he agreed."
"Good, then. You may go."
"Yes, Master." The two maids curtsied and set down the tea, but they did not leave at once; they nudged each other.
Xiao Mo looked up at Caidie and Wangyue. "Is there something else?"
"N-no..." Caidie shook her head hastily. "This servant has nothing..."
Xiao Mo smiled. "Then why are you still standing there?"
"This servant..." Caidie's face went red, and she screwed up her courage. "Master, may this servant... may this servant ask you something?"
"Mm."
Wangyue blurted out, "Master, there's been a rumor going around that you have a childhood sweetheart who joined an immortal sect, and that you've never married because you're waiting for her to come back. Is it true?"
The only reason Caidie and Wangyue dared ask at all was that they found their master easy to approach.
Not that this meant they did not respect him—quite the opposite; they thought their master the finest man in the world.
The "humble gentleman, gentle as warm jade" of the books was no better than this.
Xiao Mo shook his head. "Those rumors are too far-fetched. Not much of them is true."
"Then, Master, why haven't you married?" the two maids asked, eyes full of puzzlement.
Xiao Mo smiled, rolled up his book, and rapped each of them on the head:
"Because... a very silly girl fell asleep.
And I'm waiting for her to wake up..."