Chapter 38: Yellow Earth on a Small Island

Two supply boats carrying eight sailors drew up to the shore. Originally the Fujian junk had two supply boats and the red-seal ship had one; one had been smashed during the boarding that day, so only two remained. The two small boats made two trips, bringing ashore eleven crewmen and nine corpses. Of the nine dead, only three had known hometowns — those were to be cremated — while the other six were buried on the spot.

The red-seal ship dropped anchor and stopped not far from the coast. Nearly twenty men were left on the Fujian junk. Chen Xin had Hei Pao and the others hang clothes from bamboo poles and set up some dummies on the deck, keeping watch from a slightly greater distance.

Chen Xin, Ba Zi, Song Wenxian, Zhu Guobin, Wang Zugui, and Hei Pao were among the eleven. There was also a dazed Lao Wang, who insisted on staying with the body of the Grand Proprietor. After coming ashore, the group took axes to a hill to cut firewood. The weather was sweltering; everyone worked stripped to the waist. Only Song Wenxian, ignoring the sweat soaking him through, kept his clothes on. Zhu Guobin swung a large axe, hacking fiercely at a tree, while the others used hatchets to cut smaller branches. Once Zhu Guobin felled a tree, two men would come and carry it toward the beach.

With a crash, another small tree was chopped down. Song Wenxian said to Chen Xin, "Brother Chen, shall we two carry this one?"

Chen Xin nodded and agreed. Together with Song Wenxian, he carried it toward the beach. Song Wenxian was frail and older; carrying it was a great strain. They stopped twice before reaching the sand. Chen Xin told Song Wenxian to rest a while, went to find a rock to brace it, and began chopping off the branches with a hatchet. At that moment, Lao Wang was keeping vigil over the several corpses in the distance, leaving just the two of them on the nearby beach.

Song Wenxian's clothes were completely soaked through. He sat where he was, ceaselessly wiping away sweat. After sitting a while, he watched Chen Xin busily working and asked, "The words Brother Chen spoke just now won everyone's hearts. I wonder, was there ever an official or clerk in your family?"

Chen Xin certainly could not say he had been an office director. As he chopped, he smiled and said, "What is Mister saying? My family have all been merchants; we've never produced an official or clerk. I was only acting according to my conscience — I never thought about winning anyone's heart."

Song Wenxian sighed with emotion. "Then Brother Chen is naturally gifted with a ready tongue. I am not so fortunate. Although my family once produced a Provincial Graduate, by my generation I have been reduced to escorting goods for others. Truly, I have failed my ancestors."

"Mister Song's literary talent is brilliant — you must have passed the examinations. Why were you willing to go to sea on such a dangerous errand?"

"I am ashamed to say it, but I did indeed pass the Licentiate examination."

"Then why did Mister Song not continue and sit for the Provincial Graduate examination?"

Song Wenxian shook his head. "After I obtained the Licentiate degree, I set out to travel. Passing through Henan, Shandong, and other places, all I saw were years of drought and flood. The farmland along the way lay waste, weeds as tall as a man. Of rural households, only six or seven in ten remained — in some places, as few as three or four. I thought: all those lords at court, those local father-and-mother officials, are men who passed the highest examinations. Why then do we not see the golden age that Confucius and Mencius spoke of?"

Hearing him touch on sensitive words, Chen Xin felt slightly puzzled. By all accounts, Song Wenxian had behaved quite smoothly and tactfully along the way, nothing like a man who would speak deeply to a shallow acquaintance. He could not help stopping and asking in return, "Does Mister Song then believe that the Way of Confucius and Mencius holds nothing worth studying?"

"Not entirely. For the self, it may be profound truth, but it is not necessarily useful for the state. Nowadays, many hold dissenting views. That is why I also traveled to Taizhou to study the Yangming School of Mind."

"And did Mister Song gain anything from that?"

"No. Whether the doctrine of principle and material force, or the idea that the mind is principle — neither was what I was searching for. The myriad common people, their clothing, food, shelter, and travel — the endless variety, the teeming confusion — can all the myriad phenomena of the world be explained by a single word, 'principle'? And even if they can be explained, can they be put into practice? Perhaps my talent is too low; I can neither explain nor practice it. Disheartened and unwilling to study things that cannot be explained, yet hard-pressed for money to eat, I simply became a private secretary — and that is how I came aboard this ship."

Seeing him sweat so profusely, Chen Xin handed over the water flask he had just filled with spring water and said, "These things can perhaps only be understood by a genius like Master Yangming. Why must Mister Song cling to them so? Take this arquebus, for example: I need only set the requirement — kill a man at a hundred paces. As for how to smelt the iron and steel, how to polish the barrel — that is the craftsman's business. I have no need to understand it."

Song Wenxian gulped down several mouthfuls of spring water and laughed. "Brother Chen can always produce some unconventional reasoning. Now that the Grand Proprietor has passed, what plans does Brother Chen have from here on?"

Chen Xin said, "I haven't thought about it yet. I'll see when we get back to Tianjin. If I'm still working the sea, then I'll have to ask Mister Song to look after me."

"Brother Chen is accomplished in both civil and martial arts — surely no creature of the pond. On the day you soar into the heavens, it is I who must ask Brother Chen to look after me. There is something I must get off my chest. Before we boarded the ship that day, the Grand Proprietor asked me to assess Brother Chen. Do you know what I told the Grand Proprietor in reply?"

"I do not."

"I told the Grand Proprietor: Brother Chen is indeed a scholar, though he may not necessarily have passed the Licentiate examination. But he is reliable, quick-witted, steady in his actions, and can be entrusted with great responsibility."

Chen Xin said in surprise, "Mister Song flatters me too much. But why did you say I may not have passed the Licentiate examination?"

"Whether Brother Chen has passed the Licentiate examination or not, I still regard Brother Chen as a good friend. Here, I may as well offer Brother Chen a word or two of caution. Although Brother Chen knows many characters, the posture of your hand when using a brush does not resemble that of someone who has used one for a long time. I believe the Grand Proprietor also had his suspicions early on. Later, when Brother Chen and I exchanged names, you did not give your courtesy name. Among those who have passed the examinations, few are without a courtesy name."

Chen Xin truly had not thought of these things. These were the hard flaws of his own habits. And the fact that Song Wenxian chose to speak of this in a place with no one else around showed he meant no harm. Smiling wryly, he said to Song Wenxian, "Many thanks for Mister Song's warning. My background indeed has difficulties that are hard to speak of, and I cannot conveniently disclose them. If there are any other oversights, please, Mister, point them all out."

Song Wenxian continued, "The day after, when you and I were checking the cargo in the hold, I said, 'The three beneficial friends: the upright friend, the forgiving friend, the friend of much wisdom.' I deliberately said it wrong. The saying should actually be 'the upright friend, the forgiving friend, the friend of much learning,' from the 'Ji Shi' chapter of the Analects. If Brother Chen had sat for the Licentiate examination, you surely ought to have read it. But Brother Chen showed no look of surprise. From this, one can see that Brother Chen's Licentiate degree..."

Chen Xin sighed inwardly. A courtesy name he could have made up, but these things — there was no way around them. He could not, after all, memorize the entire examination syllabus of this era. It seemed that in the future he had better not recklessly pass himself off as a scholar, lest the holes become too many. After spending these days together and being seen through in succession by the Grand Proprietor and Song Wenxian, he no longer dared to underestimate the ancients.

He cupped his hands toward Song Wenxian and said, "Many thanks, Mister Song. Mister Song's reply to the Grand Proprietor was also painstakingly well-intentioned. If ever in the future there is a place where I can be of use, Mister need only say the word, and I will never refuse. It is just that Mister Song has looked after me ever since we boarded the ship. I wonder, how did I come to catch Mister Song's discerning eye?"

Song Wenxian smiled, his eyes crinkling, and wiped the sweat from his face. "Brother Chen is modest and eager to learn, good at getting along with others, quick of mind. In martial matters, you can take the field and kill the enemy; in civil matters, you can read, write, and calculate. To other literati, these may seem mere trifling skills, but I, on the contrary, consider them precisely the learning of practical statecraft and application. In this age, what damn use is it just to know how to recite poetry and compose rhapsodies? If one day I have no money for food and come to rely on you, my young brother, I hope you will still remember me."

Chen Xin looked at the smiling middle-aged man before him and felt that he seemed to have rather taken a liking to this interesting person.

The ten men spent two double-hours cutting the firewood and stacking it into three pyres. They then spent another double-hour on the hill digging six graves. Because carving characters would truly take too much time, Chen Xin asked Song Wenxian to write the grave markers with a brush on six wooden boards. The ten men worked together to lay the six bodies to rest in the earth. The one who had died the most gruesomely had been torn to pieces by an iron ball; the men hastily wrapped the remains into a bundle with a length of white silk and placed it in the pit to be buried. Chen Xin, currying favor, decided to play the part to the end. He kowtowed to each in turn, calling out, "Brother, be on your way! In your next life, may you be born into a good family."

The others also followed Chen Xin's example and knelt, sending off each sailor on his journey. Song Wenxian did not kneel, but bowed once.

Once this was done, several of them went back to the beach and laid the bodies of Proprietor Zhao, Han Yong, and the others onto the pyres. They sprinkled some tung oil over the pyres. Lao Wang knelt on the sand, staring blankly at their bustling work. Ba Zi tugged at him several times, but he would not rise.

Lao Wang was usually a man of few words, and in truth his heart was not bad, but people like him were the most prone to stubborn obsession. Chen Xin felt some concern in his heart, so he walked over and said to Lao Wang, "Brother Wang, don't keep kneeling. The dead cannot return to life. In Tianjin, there are still the Lady and the Young Lady who need looking after. If you ruin your health with grief and fail to care for the Lady and Young Lady properly, how will you answer to the Grand Proprietor when you see him in the future?" At the words "the Lady and the Young Lady," Lao Wang's body trembled slightly. A glimmer of spirit slowly began to return to his dazed eyes, and he murmured something under his breath.

Ba Zi shot Chen Xin a look of admiration. Seeing that Lao Wang had at last shown some reaction, he came over to help him up. Lao Wang had been kneeling for over a day, and his knees could not straighten. Chen Xin and a few others came over, lifted him up, and sat him down on a large rock. After settling him, Chen Xin said to him again, "Lao Wang, remember this: although the Grand Proprietor has gone, before he left he arranged two tasks for you. You must do them well, or else when the time comes, he will punish you."

"Ah? What tasks did Big Brother arrange for me?" These were the first words Lao Wang had spoken in two days. In two days, he seemed to have aged ten years. He had not touched a drop of water, his lips were completely cracked and dry, and his voice was terribly hoarse.

"Before the Grand Proprietor left, he told Mister Song that he did not trust anyone else. He insisted that Lao Wang must bring his ashes back to Tianjin, and then look after the Lady and the Young Lady until their hundred years are done. Only then may you go together with them to see the Grand Proprietor."

Song Wenxian also chimed in, "Yes, I heard it with my own ears. The Grand Proprietor instructed that you must accomplish this."

"Good, good. The Grand Proprietor gave the order. I, Lao Wang, will certainly accomplish it." A light shone from Lao Wang's eyes. From Chen Xin's description, it seemed as though the Grand Proprietor had merely gone on a long journey and had arranged for him to look after the household matters. His life from now on was to care for the Lady and Young Lady, and then wait for the Grand Proprietor to return. Ba Zi and the others all looked at Chen Xin with admiration. They had been trying to console Lao Wang all day with no effect whatsoever, yet Accountant Chen had settled the matter with just a few words. They hurriedly brought over a water flask and steamed cakes for Lao Wang. Lao Wang murmured under his breath, eating and muttering at the same time.

A torch was touched to the four pyres one by one. The three bodies slowly blackened. Ba Zi and the others knelt on the ground, kowtowing repeatedly. Weeping, they shouted, "Big Brother, you've ascended to heaven to become an immortal — remember to protect and bless us! Ba Zi will go to sea with you again in the next life."

In the firelight, Chen Xin's lips moved slightly, uttering something softly in a voice that only he himself could hear.