Chapter 450: Side Story 2: A Beautiful Woman — Narkissos

Side Story 2: A Beautiful Woman — Narkissos

Side Story 2: A Beautiful Woman — Narkissos

Remember that young lady in the veiled hat whom Wang Shixiong, then still a minor official, and Young Maternal Uncle Wu saw during the Mid-Autumn Grand Sacrifice in the fifth year of Jianyan? It is now the tenth year of Jianyan.

————THETEXT————

"There is a beautiful woman, gentle and bright. Lovely in form, clever in smile, harmonious and sweet of heart."

He Yixi was not her original name, nor was her surname He. Before the third year of Jianyan, she was called Song Wanru.

Song Wanru was a native of Dongjing.

In those peaceful years of abundance and prosperity, perhaps Mother's greatest worry was that Father's official salary was truly meager, making life in the capital very difficult. Song Wanru had seen Mother more than once take Father, who was deep in animated conversation with friends, aside to the kitchen, point at the empty rice jar, and ask, "There's no meat or vegetables, and no wine either. Sir, how exactly do you intend to entertain our guests?"

Father would then say with a face full of earnestness and shame, "I'll have to trouble you, my dear, to get some on credit for me."

Mother's family was from Hangzhou, and even when she scolded in the elegant Henan accent, it carried a soft, warm tone: "Sir, can you bear to see me go make a fool of myself again?"

"Wear your veiled hat, my dear," Father would say with a sincere bow and a promise. "Next month, I absolutely won't invite so many guests home to put you in a difficult position."

In the end, Mother could only push him away with a smile. "Alright, alright, go on then. I'll prepare the wine and meat myself. It's not like I'm telling you not to invite people—but couldn't you use last night's wine for today? Is drinking alone any fun? Whether there are guests or not, you always find ways to spend money."

That was true enough; Father's promises were forgotten the moment he turned around. Song Wanru often wondered if Mother didn't blame Father harshly because he didn't just spend money on himself. As soon as his salary arrived, Father would go buy Mother the newest style of silk, the sheep's head that Elder Brother loved, the fragrant candied fruits Song Wanru liked, and of course, a few ounces of cheap wine and a few books. But in the end, the food was eaten, the silk vanished without a trace, and only the books Father bought remained safely stored in the chests.

Song Wanru longed for new clothes, but Mother always wore the same few everyday garments, so she felt too embarrassed to ask. Yet she was often puzzled about where all that silk had gone. Later, when Mother taught her to read, and heard her recite "I pestered him to pawn his gold hairpin for wine," she sighed softly and said, "How ugly."

When she told Elder Brother about this, he asked if she knew what it meant. She nodded. Elder Brother, who was much older, said in surprise, "Our eldest girl is so clever! Could it be that the name borrowed some literary flair?—Little one, can you guess where the name 'Wanru' comes from?"

"There is a beautiful woman, gentle and bright. Meeting by chance, let us hide away together."

"A few days ago, Father taught you about the poetry of the Three Caos. How could it not be from Emperor Wen of Wei's 'Excellent Indeed'?"

Song Wan answered seriously, "Father said, 'The parting bird's mournful cry—how can one bear it?'"

Elder Brother clapped his hands and laughed heartily. At dinner, he mentioned it to their parents. Father said to Mother with a smile, "Even 'a poor and humble couple' won't have 'a hundred sorrows.'—Our eldest girl takes after you; she has the talent of Xie Daoyun."

A poor and humble couple having a hundred sorrows? Song Wanru had never thought so. She only felt that although Mother inevitably complained, she had never truly resented Father's extravagance. Mother would smile and say, "Too expensive," when holding the gorgeous silk, and when dining on wild vegetables, she would tease the inevitably ashamed Father, "Sir, you eat wild greens too—you must have the virtue of Boyi and Shuqi." Once, amidst the clinking of cups, Father avoided the crowd and watched his wife, who was racking her brains with the servant woman at the stove to make simple vegetables look exquisite and novel. He rarely reflected on his own generosity, but Mother gestured toward the hall from afar and laughed, "I wish to emulate the wife of Shan Tao. I wonder if you, sir, will permit it?"

Father sighed worriedly. "My dear, you are worthy of being a duke's wife, but I can hardly be Shan Tao."

Father indeed never became Shan Tao. In the third year of Xuanhe, Mother's entire family in Hangzhou was slaughtered by Fang La, and their house was burned down during the retreat. When the letter reached Dongjing, Mother, devastated with grief, fell ill in bed and was never well again.

Father never drank again, nor did he entertain many guests.

Doctors were called, diagnoses made, medicine boiled. Mother could no longer stretch their meager funds as she once had, nor could she weave or embroider to supplement the household income. Gradually, Elder Brother's sheep's head was no longer to be had, and Song Wanru never tasted the fragrant candied fruits again. Father was not a high-ranking minister with purple ribbons and gold seals; his salary was not that generous. Soon, Father stopped buying books too, insisting only on buying cloth to make new clothes for Mother, and forbidding her from pawning them anymore.

This was the first time Father had mentioned pawning. But Mother, slowly tracing a pattern, said to him, "Take it to buy brushes and ink for Dalang and the little one. Dalang has been using charcoal for too long. I hear His Majesty is skilled with brush and ink and fond of painting—writing like this won't look good... And buy some mutton too; it's been a long time since we've had any oil in the house."

"Father," Elder Brother, who had been silent all along, finally couldn't help asking, "I heard the palace uses ten thousand sheep a year, and the Grand Marshal's mansion only takes the meat from the face for his mutton soup. Is that true?"

Father forced a smile and said, "Your father is just a lowly minor official. How could I know what goes on in the palace or the chancellor's mansion?"

But Elder Brother asked indignantly, "But it's true that mutton is so expensive! Grandfather was hounded to death by his superiors and the people over the Birthday Tribute. Mother's family was all killed by Fang La. Yet His Majesty only cares about calligraphy and painting, and all those high officials in court only know how to exploit the people under the banner of 'abundance and prosperity.' What's the point of passing the imperial exams? To become a jackal and enforce harsh governance?!"

Nine-year-old Song Wanru could already understand many things. Father spoke of compassion for the people and loyalty to the sovereign and love for the country, but she felt Elder Brother was also right. Could compassion for the people and loyalty to the sovereign coexist? Song Wanru couldn't find the answer, but she always remembered Mother's gentle yet solemn expression:

"The fact that you can say this—isn't that the very meaning of teaching you the sages' books? The future must be built by young people like you. If you young people can think this way, then surely the world will get better and better."

—But Mother did not live to see that better world. No one did.

Everyone said it was an age of abundance and prosperity, yet the situation of cheap money and expensive goods only grew worse. Mother's health declined year by year, and after becoming pregnant, she was reduced to skin and bones, with only her belly shockingly large. Song Wanru had seen Father countless times, his face full of worry, bowing and pleading with physicians. But no one expected that Father would be the first to go.

"Three hundred strings for a Vice Prefect; five hundred lengths for a Privy Secretary." Even the children of Dongjing sang this rhyme, and the officials of Dongjing all said it was about right. But poor Father could barely afford medicine for his wife. He would hold little Song Wanru and cheerfully teach her, "Ready to fill the ditch, I only let myself go; laughing at myself, the madman grows madder with age." The world was getting worse and worse, and it wouldn't let a poor, insignificant official walk his own narrow bridge. His superiors wanted promotions, wanted to curry favor, and wanted a good reputation for themselves. Father had read the sages' books on loyalty and patriotism all his life. He couldn't follow the example of the bandit who killed his wife's family and rebel, nor could he follow the example of the evil official who had hounded his own father to death and extort the people. The only example Father could follow was his own father, who had died of despair.

"The parting bird roosts at dusk, on that islet in the stream. Stretching its neck, flapping its wings, it cries mournfully for its mate. Gazing back, it fills my heart with sorrow. Alas, you people of old, how did you forget your grief?"

On his deathbed, gaunt and haggard, Father still had the anthology of the Three Caos by his hand, the page still open to where Song Wanru had asked about it the month before. He looked at his wife, daughter, and beloved son, and sighed bitterly, "In this world today, I have not even a place to stand. What will you do after I'm gone?"

What would they do? Song Wanru didn't know. Neither did her mother, who was about to give birth, nor her elder brother, who was not yet twenty. Father died at the turn of the year. Elder Brother went out every day to copy books, do odd jobs, and sell his labor, just to afford a thin coffin and a simple burial. Mother was bedridden from illness. A new emperor had taken the throne in the palace, but even the New Year could not be properly celebrated. First, Elder Brother said with a grim face that the Jin army had crossed the river and the capital was under martial law. Then, it was said the Jin were demanding money, silk, gold, and silver.

The Emperor and the ministers agreed.

Without Father, their home was completely plundered. The house was bare, the grain jar empty. The second day of the second month, the Dragon Raises Its Head. Song Wanru didn't know if the dragon had raised its head. She only knew that on that day, she lowered her head again, threw herself on the couch where Father used to rest, and wailed—Mother had given birth to a little brother, and Mother, unable to hold on any longer, had followed Father.

The white funeral banners and mourning clothes they hadn't had time to change had to be worn again. Candles and lamps were a luxury they couldn't afford. They couldn't even buy burial goods. Song Wanru and her elder brother could only keep vigil before the coffins in the boundless darkness. She didn't know what had happened. Why had she suddenly lost her father, and then her mother? She didn't know who to blame. Father wasn't killed, and Mother wasn't killed. Song Wanru watched helplessly as her parents' illnesses came down like a mountain collapsing, hating her own powerlessness.

In the cold February night of the late spring chill, the wind blew in. The darkness was like a devouring monster, grinning silently. Through tear-blurred eyes, she looked at her mother's coffin before her, but could only hear her own heart-wrenching sobs, and the faint, kitten-like cries of her little brother in Elder Brother's arms. Song Wanru didn't want to hear these. She wanted to hear Father tell her, "The moon is dark, the wild geese fly high; the Chanyu flees in the night." She wanted to throw herself into Mother's arms. But they were gone. Her brother was a newborn, not even a month old. She only had her elder brother left.

The southern mountain is steep, the wind blows fiercely. She only had her elder brother.

—Father, Mother, I have finally understood the poem "Liao'e," but I miss you so much.

Father and Mother could no longer answer her. The only answers were the sobbing wind and the wailing of her weak little brother. Song Wanru had become a big sister. She had always been the pampered little sister. Now, holding her kitten-like brother, she felt a heavy weight. She had always been obedient, but as a big sister, she had to be sensible.

The court was full of purple and scarlet robes, all of them scholars. Song Wanru wiped away her tears, coiled up her hair, and traded her powder, hairpins, and ornaments for money. Dressed in short jackets like a boy, she stood on tiptoe to light fires, split firewood, cook, mend clothes, and soothe her little brother. She stopped her elder brother when he came home from work and stubbornly insisted he go study. Hadn't Father said that Elder Brother was the best at studying in several generations? If he studied, he could pass the imperial exams. If he passed, he could become an official and draw a salary. If he became an official, no one would bully their declining, orphaned family and take all their property. With a salary, he could buy paper and ink for their little brother, and let him eat the sheep's head and fragrant candied fruits they had once tasted.

Born in the first month, weaned by the third. After seven or eight months, Song Wanru had become as adept as a long-serving servant woman. Summer passed, autumn came, with heavy frost and cold dew. But Elder Brother only came home with a meager bundle of firewood, and told her in a hoarse voice that the Jin were coming again.

They had thought about leaving Dongjing. But this was Dongjing, the capital of the nation. If the capital fell, where would the Son of Heaven go? Where would the country be? They had never dared to imagine the country would be destroyed, never dared to imagine that the story of the Western Jin emperor and his ministers would repeat itself with them—they didn't believe that the capital, where all the citizens, high and low, wanted to fight, could be breached! Yes, their family was poor and destitute, but which dynasty hadn't had impoverished, humble households? There was more than one wealthy family with cauldrons for jade, gold for rubble, and pearls for pebbles. The princes and imperial descendants who sang and danced from dawn to dusk, with smoke and mist swirling, were not only in the palace. Wasn't this the scene of peaceful times? The Emperor had been on the throne for decades. How could he have suddenly abdicated, and then the soldiers came, and everything came crashing down like a great building about to fall?

Song Wanru couldn't figure it out. Song Wanru didn't have time to figure it out. In the eleventh month, on the day Bingzi, the Jin crossed the river and the capital was placed under martial law. On Yiyou, Wolibu's army arrived at the city walls. On Guisi, the capital was bitterly cold, and Woqian's army arrived at the city walls. On Jiawu, rain and snow fell together. The Emperor donned armor and ascended the walls. The Jin attacked the Tongjin Gate.

The city would not fall, Elder Brother said firmly to Song Wanru. The Emperor had already issued an edict for all circuits to come to the rescue. No matter how much the people of Song resented the court, their hearts would not turn to the Jin, who slaughtered cities and acted like beasts. Elder Brother no longer even resented the officials who had plundered the people's wealth before. If they could sacrifice their family wealth to save the nation, if they could use gold and silk to hold back the collapsing sky, what harm was there in giving it?

But would those men outside the city, with their armored horses ranging across thousands of miles, be satisfied?

The sky over Dongjing grew colder day by day. Firewood and charcoal were no longer enough for the capital's people, and the torrential rain and snow showed no sign of stopping. The stagnant air rose with a chilling dampness, seeping into the marrow with a suffocating cold. Dongjing, once a place of soft red dust and fragrant earth, was now utterly desolate. Shops on every street and alley were closing one after another. The starving and freezing people could find no firewood or grain. Countless houses were reduced to stone walls and mud tiles, their wooden doors and fences long since taken for fuel and warmth. Corpses lay piled by the roadside, rotting and breeding maggots, with no one to care for them.

If only they could drive away the Jin soldiers, everyone said. This year, there had been no reports of famine or great chaos in other circuits. As soon as the Jin retreated, an endless stream of grain would be transported to the capital, and everyone would be able to eat. Could the Emperor and the ministers hold out much longer under these conditions? This was the capital!

The Emperor indeed could not hold out. So on the thirtieth day of the intercalary eleventh month, the Emperor led his ministers out of the city to the Jin camp.

Three days later, the Emperor returned to the city. At the Nanxun Gate, he wept with his officials and the people. Then he went back to the palace and, in fear and trembling, offered horses and wealth as the Jin demanded.

The eastern neighbor couldn't stand the hunger. After eating a corpse that had fallen at their door, the whole family died of illness. The western neighbor had always been poor and frugal; a few days after the Jin besieged the city, they starved to death. The southern neighbor's elder uncle was an official at court; after returning from the Jin camp, unwilling to witness the city's fall and the nation's ruin, he set his house on fire and died a martyr. The northern neighbor had only an old woman; upon hearing that her son had died in battle, she hanged herself.

The scene in Dongjing from the end of the first year of Jingkang to the beginning of the second year—in the history books, it doesn't even get the eight words "the people had no savings, nine out of ten houses were empty." Compared to the lengthy accounts of the absurd actions of the Emperor and his ministers, it only gets a brief mention: "a great search for gold and silk."

Elder Brother grew more and more accustomed to long silences as he looked at their frail, weakly breathing little brother. Song Wanru knew what he was thinking. Dongjing was piled with white bones, a city of weeping. There was no room for a tender infant. But they had no choice. Their little brother was born on the day their mother died. It was only because of this child, this hope, that Mother had endured those many days. Father, who had once bowed and scraped, had looked at Mother's swollen belly with both hope and worry, and had rambled on about how the child must be filial to its mother and love its elder siblings—

Their parents' voices and faces were still before their eyes, but their parents' belongings had been seized and taken by the officials. Their little brother was the only keepsake they could protect!

Mourning sounds became music, white mourning clothes became new garments, armor was beaten into smoke and firecrackers. The Emperor was forced to go to the Jin camp again. The people of Bianjing endured New Year's Eve and survived the Lantern Festival. The Jin wanted gold, silver, and women in exchange for the Emperor. The Grand Astrologer became the Jin's lackey, and together with the Prefect of Kaifeng, they went door to door searching for women. Song Wanru was so thin she was barely recognizable. She smeared her face with ash and lay on the ground, pretending to be dead. Through narrowed eyes, she watched her elder brother, wielding the family's only blunt knife, drive away the bandit-like government soldiers, only to then face the Jin army entering the city.

—Elder Brother traded his life for theirs in the end. That was the first time he, a young scholar, had ever killed a man, and it was also the last.

Song Wanru did not cry. She was afraid her voice would make her little brother cry too and attract the Jin soldiers. She was also afraid that crying would exhaust her and leave her without strength. She lay beside the scattered corpses, gently patting her brother to keep him quiet, until night fell. Then she stood up, placed her brother in a long-unused vegetable basket on her back, and, by the light of the moon, went to find her elder brother.

She needed to find a place to bury her elder brother.

Every time it thundered, Father would hold Song Wanru in his arms. She wasn't actually all that afraid of thunder, but Father would tell so many stories, so she never said she wasn't scared. What Song Wanru feared was the dark. She disliked chaos, disliked the unknown; she always suspected something was lurking in the shadows, watching her. A darkness so thick you couldn't see your hand in front of your face was a state of utter despair, with no light to be seen. What she feared was never those insubstantial ghosts and goblins.

But compared to the brutal daylight, the night now brought Song Wanru nothing but boundless peace.

Song Wanru dragged her brother along. He wasn't heavy; there wasn't a single person in Dongjing who hadn't been gaunt with hunger. The Jin had used grain to trade for the people's gold and silver in the outer city. Only a handful of wealthy households had the means to trade, and even they were merely clinging to life. When the nest is overturned, no egg remains unbroken; high and low alike had never been so equal as when the capital fell.

The Jin guards were not strict—whether from disdain or something else, she didn't know. Song Wanru slipped out of the city cautiously, yet encountered no interception along the way. The outskirts, once a fine place for the capital's ladies to enjoy spring outings, now reeked with a stench that reached the heavens. Song Wanru couldn't smell it anymore; she had been steeped in that stench for many days. The rough branch she used to dig the earth was unwieldy, but she couldn't bear to use the white jade hairpin hidden in her clothes. It had been her grandmother's dowry; Father had once personally pinned it into Mother's hair, and had said it would one day be given to the sister-in-law her brother would marry. Song Wanru had pawned many things, and had had many things seized by the authorities. Even her last blunt knife had been taken by the Jin. This was the only thing she had managed to protect and keep. With the person, the hairpin remains; when the person dies, the hairpin dies with her. The sharp tip of the hairpin was the blade she intended to use to drag someone down with her when she died.

In a sudden time of chaos, how could an orphaned girl and her weak younger brother bear to let their only blade go dull?

The Jin came and went, and Dongjing City became nearly an empty ghost town. Song Wanru had nowhere to go. If the capital itself had fallen, what place could still offer peace? In a chaotic era of war and rampant bandits, what difference was there between traveling a long distance with her brother and staying in the broken-walled capital? Song Wanru simply lived in a daze—digging for weeds, stealing, even scavenging corpses. She had done it all. She was also rather surprised to find she was quite good at picking up leftovers, digging up treasures buried beneath the mansions of former nobles and princes that had been overlooked, trading them for a mouthful of food to barely fill her and her brother's bellies. She even felt a kind of numb hope that the Jin would come again, so she would have a reason to die.

The Jin did not come. Instead, the Defender-in-Chief Zong came.

The Defender-in-Chief Zong came, and the bandits gradually subsided. Song Wanru no longer had to wander the outskirts all night; she moved back into her own family home. The place was vast, and fine mansions lay completely abandoned, unoccupied. The dilapidated ruin no longer resembled the warm, cozy home she remembered. This Defender-in-Chief, Song Wanru had never heard her father or brother speak of. But then again, probably everyone she had heard of had gone north to hunt with the Jin. Hunt! Ha! Who didn't know what that "hunt" really meant?!

Word had it that the Emperor had changed again. The one who ascended the throne was the Prince of Kang, whom her brother had once praised highly for his mission to the Jin. Jingkang Year Two had suddenly become Jianyan Year One. But it didn't matter. Song Wanru listened coldly, pressing herself against the wall to hear people talk. Her only purpose in listening was to figure out how to survive. She could no longer do the things she had done before. The Defender-in-Chief she overheard was very strict. Her younger brother was still alive, so she couldn't die.

Going outside the city to forage for vegetables only filled her belly. The tattered rags on her and her brother could no longer be worn. She lived like a lonely ghost. She knew what would happen if she ran into anyone. At twelve, it was already hard for her to pass as a boy. And even if she were a boy, what then? In this world, the lives of both men and women were like weeds to be trampled underfoot. Who was nobler than whom?

Song Wanru felt her brother's forehead, burning hot from the cold wind. She cleaned her clothes, carefully pinned up her hair, and wiped her face clean. For the first time in over a year, she revealed a delicate, bright, and beautiful face. A twelve-year-old girl, after years of constant hunger, looked as frail and childish as an eight- or nine-year-old.

She dressed herself carefully, as if she were going to be married. Then, following the path she had walked at night, she made her way toward the Defender-in-Chief's mansion. She knew she would most likely be stopped before she got there, but it didn't matter. Song Wanru didn't know what she would encounter. In her daze, she just had to find a path, a destination, didn't she? The hairpin was tucked at her temple. She only knew that two outcomes awaited her: either she would get grain and cloth to fill her and her brother's bellies and keep them warm, or she and her brother would happily reunite with their parents and elder brother. If she could take a Jin soldier with her, that would be even better.

She was indeed stopped. The man who blocked her way had dark skin, a tall, sturdy build, and looked like a bear or a giant. He carried a blade and wore armor. He asked in a gruff voice, "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to the mansion to find my father," Song Wanru said, tilting her head up, putting on an innocent, carefree expression. "My little brother is starving to death."

"Who is your father? What's his name?"

Song Wanru clearly stated her father's name and even raised his official rank by half a grade. The burly man stared at her for a long time before saying expressionlessly, "Your father probably ran off with the Emperor and the ministers, didn't he?"

Before Song Wanru could even form a thought, the words she had rehearsed rolled off her tongue, and she spoke with a mournful tone: "My elder brother was killed by the Jin! How could Father ever surrender!"

"So even a little yellow-haired girl knows the Emperor surrendered? Knows that surrender is wrong?" The burly man thought for a long time, then suddenly bared his teeth in a grin and asked her, "Take me to see your little brother."

Her younger brother was dead. His forehead was still warm. He died just as his sister was about to bring him clothes and food.

—In the end, Song Wanru still went with the burly man.

It was only when she saw the man's tall, strapping son that she realized she had misunderstood. The burly man wanted her as a daughter-in-law. Song Wanru obediently called the son "elder brother" and the father "uncle." Her new "elder brother's" name was very common—the kind that, in the old days in Bianjing, would have made many peddlers and laborers turn their heads if you shouted it. He had no courtesy name. At fifteen, he was as broad-shouldered and thick-waisted as his father. Song Wanru had to look up to see his face.

He rubbed his hands together and grinned foolishly. "Dad says when you grow up a bit more and get stronger, you'll be my wife. My little sister had skin as fair as yours."

So Song Wanru asked him why his sister was nowhere to be seen. To her surprise, he rubbed his dark, rough face hard with his big hands, his eyes reddening as he said, "That damned Jin bastard, her maternal grandfather, snatched her and gave her to the Jin!"

Sorrow upon sorrow, why grieve for a dead brother? Marriage calls for no tears.

Song Wanru quietly buried her younger brother, then married herself off. There were no three letters and six rites, no guests or relatives. In her eyes, it was more like selling herself—for a meal and a place to stay. She washed clothes, cooked, and mended, making the uncle feel she was worth it. When he learned she could read and write, he even showed a hint of rare appreciation. Song Wanru was grateful. She felt she was truly fortunate. Just living on like this was fine; she felt secure. She hadn't felt that sense of security since her parents died—Song Wanru knew they were all soldiers used to killing.

She thought her invisible indenture contract was for a lifetime. She never expected a lifetime to be so short. In just a little over a year, she never saw them again.

When their comrades-in-arms saw her, they froze, then laughed and joked, "Who would have thought the little girl Liu Da grabbed for his son would be so pretty! He kept that quiet!" Before the sentence was finished, they were already choking up, unable to speak.

Song Wanru didn't cry. She just used the leftover grain they hadn't finished to muddle through another year. Jianyan Year Three. That year, she turned fifteen.

Someone set off a string of firecrackers on New Year's Day, crackling and popping. She chopped firewood, one stroke after another, her face expressionless. Startled by the sound, her hand jerked, and blood immediately gushed from between her fingers. She sucked on her finger as the cold wind of New Year's Day lashed her face like a whip.

This "first red" of the new year was a bit too painful. Song Wanru regretted it. She was all alone—why chop so much firewood?

I was born in Bianjing, now a guest in Bianjing. Dwelling in Bianjing, I lift my eyes and see no one I know.

There was an Emperor in Bianjing City again. It was said that as soon as the Emperor entered the city, he composed a fine poem. But that poem was written for the Defender-in-Chief, who had passed away just after entering the city.

Song Wanru heard about this poem from an older sworn sister she had taken. The Emperor had come to Dongjing, and the city was visibly growing more prosperous day by day. But this prosperity had little to do with Song Wanru. She needed clothes, she needed food. She had to survive first.

What could a young, unattached woman do to survive? Bai Juyi summed it up exquisitely in two lines: one, "The young blades of Wuling vied to throw silk, one song brought countless red gauze"; the other, "The gate is cold, the saddled horses few, grown old, she marries a merchant's wife."

What was so bad about that? Could it be worse than the starving corpses lining the roads of Bianjing in the old days? Could it be worse than the women of the city who were offered up by their Jin maternal grandfathers? Rather than being tricked and sold off by some unknown person one day, it was better to sell herself, and get a good price for it.

Her sworn sister was also from Kaifeng. Her father and Song Wanru's father had been old acquaintances in the yamen. Her entire family had lived through Jingkang in fear, but in Jianyan Year One, after the Emperor ascended the throne, she was forcibly "sought out" to become a "laundress." Perhaps because the Emperor had been frightened by the Jin and had no interest, she was later bestowed to an imperial guard at the Mingdao Palace. On the fifteenth day of the first month, the Emperor returned to the capital. The next day, Song Wanru ran into her, who was out shopping in person.

By law, all female entertainers had to register with the authorities. Song Wanru went to register.

Her sister gave her the poem and asked with a complicated expression, "Can you sing it?"

Of course she could. Dongjing City no longer had as many beautiful women skilled in song and dance as before. Those who could appreciate poetry and lyrics were even rarer. Song Wanru's hands were covered in scars and calluses, and the marks of wind and frost had not yet healed. She picked up the bamboo flute her sister had lent her.

"Knowing the notes and understanding the tunes, skilled in the art of music. The mournful strings are subtle and exquisite, the clear breath carries fragrance. Flowing Zheng and stirring Chu, measuring the gong and shang modes. They move the heart and stir the ear, a splendor hard to forget."

Several scholars in a newly opened high-end tavern in the eastern part of the city, who had been looking on casually, stared in a daze. The one at their head asked her name.

Her name. Liu Da and his son, whose bodies were never found, only knew her surname was Song and that she was the eldest in her family. Her sworn sister had long forgotten her given name, only remembering her surname. Song Wanru never expected to be politely asked for her "fragrant name" again, in such a situation. Her lips moved, but the character "Song" simply wouldn't come out.

"He Yixi," she said.

The dew on the shallot leaves, how easily it dries. The dew dries, but falls again tomorrow morning. When a person dies, when will they ever return?

But she did not become famous overnight because of this. She was unwilling, she couldn't let go. She was afraid of meeting old acquaintances who had returned to the capital, who would call out in surprise, "Eldest Miss Song!" Fortunately, the tavern she relied on did not pressure her—why would they? Even the shopkeeper didn't know how many more days they could stay open. Jianyan Year Three, how much time had passed since the Jingkeng Disaster? When would the Jin come south? Would Dongjing be besieged again? Would the utterly tragic situation of before reappear? No one knew. Everyone Song Wanru saw seemed to be in a state of panic, subconsciously avoiding the subject.

There was no avoiding it. Half a year later, right after the Mid-Autumn Festival of Jianyan Year Three, the Department of State Affairs advised that commoner women and children who had relatives in the south might as well leave the capital, but able-bodied men and military dependents could not leave at will without approval from the Kaifeng Prefecture. The Bureau of Military Affairs declared that all properties within the city were to be placed under military control effective immediately. For military needs, the demolition of houses, requisitioning of property, and the like were not to be disobeyed. All able-bodied men in the city were to be registered for potential deployment.

Song Wanru had nowhere to go and no one to turn to for protection. The Emperor's words from the grand examination had already spread—a full-scale war between Song and Jin. These were extraordinary times, and no one paid attention to the few registered female entertainers. But she didn't want to hastily seek shelter either. Who could she rely on? In the end, who knew if she would be sold off in exchange for food or to curry favor with the Jin? All she possessed was this seemingly self-determined sliver of freedom.

But perhaps because so many women were leaving the capital, Song Wanru was swept up and made a cook. The Emperor's Lady Wu led a few palace maids to boil water and cook rice on the riverbank.

Song Wanru remembered a few years ago, when the Jin had besieged the city. The Emperor who had gone north on a hunt had also donned armor and ascended the walls to inspect, and had rewarded the soldiers with the meals prepared in the imperial kitchen. The gestures were all similar. But this time, she watched as the river grew wider and the city walls grew thicker. She thought blankly, this time, even if the Emperor had to leave the capital, it should take a few more days, right? After all, she had heard that this Emperor had actually won battles against the Jin.

But the Jin didn't come. In November, the Dongjing authorities were still coyly saying the city was semi-open, but the citizens seemed to have been pent up for too long and suddenly burst into activity. The next few years felt like a dream. One victory after another came in. Even in the taverns, scholars, emboldened by drink, imitated Wang Anshi and spoke bluntly: the Jin were not to be feared, the old policies were not to be followed, and the Two Emperors were not to be pitied.

But she no longer had anyone worth worrying about.

The former Emperor was skilled in poetry and lyrics; the current Emperor was even more skilled. The former Emperor had countless beauties in his harem, all taken away; the current Emperor, when he was the Prince of Kang, also had a multitude of beauties, seemingly all seized by the Jin as well. The former Emperor's surname was Zhao, and he abandoned his subjects; the current Emperor was his son or younger brother, and he too had abandoned the capital and the Two Rivers to flee south. The former Emperor had been known for twenty years as "frivolous"; the current Emperor was also criticized by many scholars as "frivolous."

Yet she didn't understand why this Emperor, with so many similarities, could make the Jin retreat and fail time and again. Just as she didn't understand why fate was so capricious. The lives of everyone in Dongjing seemed to be getting better and better, yet her father, mother, elder brother, and younger brother—even the man she had reluctantly chosen for herself—could never see this increasingly good world. Everyone gradually sank into it, their hearts yearning for peace. No one wanted a repeat of the Jingkang Incident. Everyone was striving to rebuild the glorious old dream of abundance and prosperity. It was as if only by doing so could those sufferings, those nightmares, those countless unburied bones be cast aside like a dream, blown away by the wind, and be treated as if they had never happened. Then they could serenely accept this so-called better, more peaceful life.

She had almost forgotten her own name. She had grown more and more accustomed to others calling her "Madam He."

"Madam He, Master Pan has prepared generous gifts and says he will host a grand banquet for guests. He invites you to his mansion for a visit."

"Madam He, the latest fashion patterns have arrived. This is the newly published gazette."

"Madam He, Young Master Zhang requests that you sing to the lyrics three days from now to add to the entertainment. He says there will be literati composing lyrics at the feast... This banquet is on a grand scale. If you go, you will surely make a name for yourself."

She did not go.

Young Master Zhang had hired no small number of musicians and entertainers. Grand Defender Zhang's feast went on for several days, each day more lavish than the last, each day drawing closer to that magnificent, decadent old dream. On the seventh day, wearing a veiled hat, she watched from afar a top-tier banquet of a kind that had not been seen in Dongjing City for a long time.

Song Wanru vaguely recalled a long time ago, when her father had discussed the extravagance of Prince Cai, described the Imperial Genyue, and her elder brother had questioned the expense of ten thousand sheep. But this time, the scholars and commoners of Dongjing did not "mock" and "sarcastically criticize" as they had in the past—everyone knew that Grand Commandant Zhang and those marshals were the Wei Huo of today, saving the state and rescuing the people. What did it matter if they were greedy? In the hundred years since the founding of the Song Dynasty, had there been any shortage of rumors about corruption in the military? Wasn't it already rare enough that the Song army could fight?

Her expression was completely blank. She watched for a moment, then calmly turned to her maid and said, let's go back.

The young nobles of the five tombs vied to throw silk, a single song earned countless red gauze—Bai Letian could not have been more right. She hired a few sturdy young servants and bought several girls as maids, all pitiful souls who had been confusedly sold or deceived amidst the upheaval. Her residence was renovated several times, the gates growing ever higher and harder to enter. She had become what proper women disdained and romantic scholars pursued: the so-called "flower queen." The poetry and books her parents had taught her in the past became her support, and her value rose day by day. She wore the latest fashions, donned expensive fabrics, adorned herself with exquisite accessories, and in her company were only great scholars, never common men.

Dongjing had regained its old bustle and added many new amusements. Today there was a cuju league match at Hanfang Garden; tomorrow, it was said that the once water-boiling and clothes-washing Imperial Consort Wu had written a new piece; the day after, it was said that some White Snake Legend had sparked a dispute between Buddhists and Daoists. A familiar Mr. Pan invited her to the Five Sacred Mountains Temple to watch the excitement. After watching for half a day, he brought up the old story of Su Dongpo and Qin Cao's Chan dialogue.

"'I do not wish to leave the life bitterly, nor do I wish to leave it joyfully; from now on, I will chant Buddha's name and go to the Western Paradise.'" Song Wanru repeated the legendary words of Qin Cao, then shook her fan and asked with a smile, "Sir, are you trying to persuade me to leave this life?"

Mr. Pan's mouth went dry. Staring at her, he stammered, "I... I can help Lady He..."

Reading too much was really not good, she thought with a sense of tedium. Reading too much inevitably led to thinking too much. "Heavenly Questions" asked over one hundred and seventy questions; she seemed to have even more to ask. What good was leaving this life? What good was not leaving it? How had she become "not good"? She did not know where her future would lead, nor did she know what meaning there was in her living. She began to think of death frequently, but no longer with the desperate bitterness of before. Now, this thought only brought her infinite melancholy. She wanted to see her parents and brothers, yet dared not. She feared her parents would blame her, and even more, she feared they would pity her. On their death anniversaries, facing the sacrificial offerings, she always wanted to say, "Your child is well, do not worry," but she could never make a sound, could not cry, only choked with emotion.

The scholar-gentlemen she associated with would shake their heads and sigh, praising the melancholy between her brows as the delicate charm of a sorrowful beauty. Song Wanru did not argue, nor did she have the energy to argue. She had heard that the noble ladies of the Zhao clan who had returned from the south also often wept bitterly, but everyone was still eagerly speculating about what disgraceful things had happened in the north. To put it nicely, she was a female secretary; to put it bluntly, she was a lowly person whom anyone could insult with words. In her eyes, she and those corpses that had once littered the fields from Dongjing to the Two Rivers were all dregs destined to be forgotten in the glorious new dream. The only difference was that one silently turned to mud and bone, while the other remained in the human world with snow on her head.

—But it was some comfort that even the supreme ones could not escape being disliked, criticized, and fated. The two supreme ones were also dregs to be forgotten in the glorious new dream.

She had long since stopped pondering these lords and ministers. She only talked about romance and the moon. If someone spoke, she would listen for amusement; if no one spoke, she would read the official gazette to pass the time—the gazette was also a new amusement in Dongjing, not to be missed. The return of the Two Sages to the south was a major event, discussed noisily by everyone from high-ranking ministers to lowly peddlers and laborers. Mr. Pan, who sat across from her, had some connections at home. He was now talking endlessly about the so-called "slaying the white horse to establish Shaoxing," and then chattering on about the rights and wrongs of destroying the puppet Qi and the Song-Jin peace negotiations.

Song Wanru listened half-heartedly, a smile in her eyes, but inside she felt only distance and indifference, even a sense of "I knew it." What did it matter how grand or shocking the words were? The two emperors were being kept comfortably in this palace or that temple; it was just a matter of the kept and the keepers saying a few words.

Mr. Pan waved his sleeves excitedly: "His Majesty also said—"

"—What are the Two Sages?!" a voice said from downstairs, its tone as certain as if stating an obvious truth. "His Majesty did say that... but is there anything wrong with it?!"

Mr. Pan upstairs was struck speechless with astonishment.

Song Wanru was startled for a moment, then leaned forward with interest. After watching the tall, robust youth walk out boldly with his companion, she noted Mr. Pan's expression and asked gently, "Sir, do you know that man?"

Mr. Pan stared at the companion and shook his head firmly. Then he explained that His Majesty's resentment was natural and obvious, but it inevitably led to misunderstandings by ignorant and opportunistic people, and that His Majesty was also dissatisfied with the many obscurities surrounding the Two Empresses Dowager's journey to the north, and so on.

Song Wanru was speechless with laughter. The young man opposite, who had been showing off, immediately fell silent and asked her what she was laughing at. She shook her head and did not explain. It was too ridiculous, she found it utterly absurd. What should be remembered was not, but the "purity" of a few hundred ingots of gold and silver was clung to tightly. But now she didn't know whether she was possessed or the world had gone mad. Peace had been negotiated, the Two Sages had returned south, and it seemed there was almost no one left like her, stubbornly sunk in a nightmare, refusing to wake, repeatedly picking at old wounds and festering sores.

Probably she was possessed. Possessed or not, without madness one cannot live. She still had to live.

For the people of Dongjing, the fifth year of Jianyan could barely be described as "a year without war." But after several years of rare leisure, strange events were becoming more and more frequent. The Mid-Autumn Festival was approaching, and people said His Majesty and the ministers were going to perform a grand sacrifice at Yuctai. Some even said that the sacrifices were not only for the famous and principled ministers but also for the common people. When her maid told her this, she was still wavering between belief and disbelief, when she suddenly ran into the Imperial City Department checking for Jin spies. Through the screen, she watched the terrified manager of the main restaurant. But soon, she too was speechless with shock.

—How many prostitutes? How many affected by the Jin calamity? How many were relatives of righteous people?

"Lady," the maid asked nervously, "there won't be trouble, will there? Could it be that because of this profession, which is considered a loss of chastity and lowly, the relatives of righteous people are not allowed to practice it?"

This ten-year-old maid she had picked up had once lived a poor but peaceful and happy life in a small household north of the river!

Song Wanru could not give an answer. She could only remain silent.

The days passed in a flash until the Mid-Autumn Festival. The maid was young and pestered her to go watch the excitement. Incense, powder, hair bun, clothes—this was her livelihood, and she could not relax for a moment. Near Yuctai, the crowd was surging; almost the entire population of Bianjing had turned out. Hundreds of Imperial Academy and Military Academy students were stationed everywhere to guide the people. Everywhere was an excited buzz. Some said they couldn't see the altar or the spirit tablets; others said His Majesty was too far away to see clearly. After a while, there was a sound like firecrackers, followed by a burst of laughter.

The tremor began with a sound like a clap of thunder.

Song Wanru watched as soldiers stacked the old helmets of the Jin soldiers in rows. Armor, weapons, and banners were also piled one by one into a mountain. Beside her, the maids and servants who had fled from the Two Rivers could not help but weep with those around them. The Jin could be defeated in battle. Finally, the Jin could be defeated in battle. Perhaps one of those helmets had once belonged to a Jin soldier who had killed a father or brother; perhaps one of those suits of armor had been stripped from a Jin soldier who had raped a mother or sister. Song Wanru heard the maid ask her tearfully, "Lady, my father has been avenged, right? His Majesty has avenged my father, right?"

She could not speak. She saw the lords and nobles on the distant Yuctai begin to rise and stand solemnly. She stared blankly at the large, blank wooden tablet, and at the wooden tablets inscribed with place names, one after another.

Song Wanru began to push forward, trying to squeeze through the dense crowd.

One wooden tablet after another was carried past, an unending stream of iron flowing from here to the distance. Song Wanru's eyes were fixed on the names on the tablets. Strangely, the sounds around her gradually faded to silence, but she could not care. She could only hear the voice in her heart, urgently repeating the names on the tablets, louder and louder, louder and louder.

Zhang... Wang... Zhao... Li... Liu... Song...

Liu... Song...!

Song Wanru suddenly turned her head, looked around, and called out to two young men who looked somewhat familiar. She had no time to think about why she found them familiar, and even less time to notice why one of the young men had an odd expression and a flushed face. She hastily scanned the nameplates on their chests, reading the five characters "Wang Zhongfu" and "Wu Yi," then gave a slight bow and asked, "I have seen Young Master Wang, I have seen Young Master Wu... I am being presumptuous, but could you let me pass over there?"

The taller, older Young Master Wang raised a large hand in a vague blocking gesture. Song Wanru instinctively stepped back, and heard him say sternly, "According to today's rules, it is not allowed!" As soon as he finished speaking, the fair-faced, handsome young master also added seriously, "If the young lady wishes to go, she may go around from the back, circle around, and that will be fine. But the rules must not be broken."

Rules! Rules!

Song Wanru almost gritted her teeth and shouted. Her mother's gentle voice suddenly echoed in her ears, reciting, "When rules are established, they cannot be deceived by squares and circles." She glanced back at the procession of spirit tablets, then directly grabbed Wang Zhongfu's large hand and shoved the white jade hairpin wrapped in a handkerchief from her sleeve into his palm. She didn't even have time to distinguish what she had shoved, but only pleaded, "Please, young masters, be kind. I just saw a tablet that seemed to have my elder brother's name on it, and it's about to pass by..."

The two young masters exchanged a glance, then directly freed themselves with one hand and tossed the hairpin back to the maid behind her. Then they stood with their hands clasped behind their backs, sternly refusing. The young man beside them repeated the refusal like a parrot.

Rules! Rules!

In all these years, Song Wanru had never been so agitated and lost her composure. The spirit tablets of her elder brother and older brother were about to pass by. She was only a few steps away, yet it seemed she could never reach them. Just as she was about to cry, the two men each took a step back, then turned their backs to her in unison. The taller, older one even pulled two soldiers on duty back half a step with him.

Song Wanru did not have time to thank them before she rushed away. She hurriedly chased after the tablet with the identical name, calling out as she ran. Gradually, she was blocked. The densely packed tablets were placed together by the soldiers, and around her, the scholars and commoners who had followed could not help but weep.

On Yuctai, His Majesty and the civil and military officials began the sacrifice. Then there was some commotion, as His Majesty's words were passed down sentence by sentence. Amidst the sobbing, the world before Song Wanru's eyes began to blur and shake violently. She could no longer see the characters on the tablets clearly. The dense tablets began to twist and transform in her eyes, becoming familiar smiles and frowns.

—"First, in the war between Song and Jin, we Song people protect the country and the people, resist aggression. This is right, not wrong! This is righteous, not violent!"

She finally could not help but begin to cry.

She cried for the tears she had not shed when the news of her uncles' and brothers' deaths had arrived, cried because she had not even been able to bury their corpses, and had no place to find their clothes or hats.

She cried because at that time she had only been consumed by hatred, only buried herself in her own grief and refused to come out, and had not thought to be a little kinder to herself, or to him.

She cried because she was a "flower queen" who still refused to accept her fate, who still, in the midnight hour of her dreams, remembered that she was the daughter of a respectable family. She cried for the surname she no longer dared to acknowledge.

She cried because her parents and brothers had left her one after another, and she had no one to confide in. Looking around, she was utterly alone. She cried because she was still filled with hatred, hating that some people could peacefully and comfortably reminisce about the so-called "abundance and prosperity."

—"Second, this war began in the seventh year of Xuanhe and ended in the fifth year of Jianyan, lasting seven years. Although Great Song has suffered countless deaths and lost a thousand li of territory, in the end, Song will win and Jin will lose!"

Her crying grew louder and louder, more and more unrestrained, more and more heart-wrenching.

She cried for the Bianjing city she had once deeply loved, now destroyed and ruined under the iron hooves of the Jin. The splendor of her childhood memories was gone forever.

She cried for the sweet fruit snacks she could now afford but could no longer eat. She cried for the days and nights she had lain on the ground, afraid to sleep, afraid to make a sound, watching her elder brother fall step by step.

She cried because she, who loved beauty and cleanliness so much, had escaped death several times, and had lived on as a lonely ghost. She cried because all her relatives had died, and she had no home to ask about life or death. She cried because she had dreamed night after night of piles of white bones and heads that could not close their eyes.

—"Third, no matter how many difficulties and obstacles, this resolve will not change. Until the Yellow Dragon is crushed, we will never stop! Let these words be a mutual encouragement to all under heaven!"

She choked and was on the verge of collapse. She could no longer support herself and knelt on the ground. The tears that had been pent up in her heart since the Jingkang Incident burst forth.

Through her blurred, tear-filled eyes, she saw herself kneeling before her parents, just as she had imagined countless times. Her parents were smiling as they performed her coming-of-age ceremony and gave her a courtesy name. She saw herself in a red wedding dress, her elder brother helping her into the bridal sedan chair, and her delicate, jade-like little brother chasing after the sedan and horse.

Her hands clenched the fine silk handkerchief tightly, as if she were holding her father's beard, her mother's black hair, her elder brother's sleeve, her little brother's small hand, the *Analects* her father had bought for her, and the *Classic of Poetry* her mother had asked her brother to copy for her.

Amidst her own crying, she seemed to hear the cheers as her elder brother passed the imperial examinations and paraded through the streets with flowers in his cap. She heard her parents' soft whispers as they trimmed the candle. She heard her father teaching her to "establish the heart for Heaven and Earth, establish the destiny for the people." She heard her mother teaching her to read about wise rulers and loyal ministers, kind fathers and filial sons, friendly elder brothers and respectful younger brothers, and loving husbands and devoted wives.

She cried for the family she could never save, for the past she could never retrieve. She cried because she had lived for seventeen years, half the time learning the loyalty to the sovereign and love of country, the morality and righteousness her parents had taught her, and half the time hating the relationships between sovereign and minister, and the principle of sacrificing one's life for righteousness.

"Lady He."

"...Lady He?"

She looked up, supported by her maid as she stood. It was a familiar young minor official calling her. Song Wanru barely managed to wipe away her tears and heard him console her: "Lady He, are you not from this area...? These are mostly people from Guanxi who died in the Yaoshan battle. You need not be sad. It is probably... probably just a coincidence of names."

Just a shared name.

Just a shared name, that's all.

Song Wanru patted the young maidservant, whose eyes were red-rimmed as she glared angrily, and gently thanked him for his attempt to console her. She did not participate in the subsequent dharma assembly or sacrificial rites, but left the place utterly exhausted. The maidservant was still indignant, and after the crowd thinned, she couldn't help asking why her mistress hadn't gotten angry.

Why? Song Wanru smiled, because she knew what she had been listlessly waiting for all these years—what she had been waiting for had finally arrived.

—To establish the heart and mandate, to continue lost learning and usher in peace—wasn't that precisely the meaning of all those high officials in purple and crimson studying the sages' books? Matters of the future must be carried out by the young sovereign leading the court officials. If the young sovereign could offer such sacrifices, then the world would surely grow better and better from now on.

As Song Wanru said this, the maidservant was astonished to see a nostalgic smile on her face. She had never seen such an expression before; she had only ever seen her mistress's slightly furrowed brow as she gazed at the sparse bamboo outside the window, her dazed look when lowering her head to grind ink, and the sorrow that never quite left her, even when she was smiling and chatting.

The maidservant had always felt her mistress was like a fairy maiden descended from heaven in *Journey to the West*, as if she were far away, as if she might leave at any moment. The maidservant, bewildered, didn't understand what her mistress was saying, but from that smile, her eyes suddenly grew hot, and she nearly shed tears again. She hurriedly rubbed her eyes and, as if to escape, thrust out an object—the white jade hairpin: "That tall gentleman just now threw it back."

Song Wanru was startled for a moment, then turned around in sudden realization, but naturally only saw the excited pedestrians who had just watched the grand sacrifice at Yuetai. The maidservant, clutching the jade hairpin, muttered: "That gentleman was so tall. I've seen the Prince of Yan'an before, but he only had an older-looking face. They say the Prince of Yan'an can eat three oxen in one meal and uproot willows—no wonder that gentleman could carry those two men under his arms…"

"Carry them under his arms?"

"Yes, under his arms. You weren't paying attention just now, miss, but I saw it clearly…"

The maidservant saw her mistress looking at her, those autumn-water eyes full of teasing, and she fell silent, embarrassed. Song Wanru thought her mention of "three oxen" was amusing, and then her mind turned to that man's face.

Wang Zhongfu.

Song Wanru softly repeated the name, Wang Zhongfu. She remembered her father teaching her the *Book of Changes*, pointing to the line "Zhongfu means sincerity" in the *Miscellaneous Hexagrams Commentary* and saying, "Remember this well." Zhongfu, zhongfu—she had heard that those standing there today were all Imperial Academy and Military Academy students; a man with such a name must have a family well-versed in letters. But how had she, in her fluster, handed him that jade hairpin?

Song Wanru next thought of that young gentleman she had met so briefly only several years later. After the Mid-Autumn Grand Sacrifice, the authorities began implementing the previously rumored release of official courtesans. A regular customer came to visit and asked if she was among them. Such matters were always easy to enter the registry but hard to leave, but Song Wanru answered, "Yes."

The regular customer's intentions were easy to guess. In the presence of a beauty, self-styled romantic scholars generally harbored a peculiar psychology—a strong desire for a "chance encounter, to hide away together." But the beauties of the pleasure quarters also always feared that their charms would fade with time. The lavish gifts from young nobles were their means of survival; for years, they had only vied for such gifts from those young nobles. Finding a good man to sell themselves to once more was the last profitable deal for these faded flowers. Otherwise? What else could they do?

—They could also emulate the courtesan Qin Cao, awaken from the yellow millet dream, and see through the vicissitudes of life as one long dream.

Song Wanru had no intention of becoming a nun. Women who left the registry often found it difficult to make a living; whether they "reformed" or not, they often jumped from one fiery pit into another sea of suffering. It was actually more carefree to exchange poems and songs with literati. The sovereign encouraged women to appear in public; she no longer needed to entertain officials at banquets. She lived in seclusion like a layperson ignoring worldly affairs, which made it even harder for pleasure-seekers to catch a glimpse of her true face, and the number of visiting cards only multiplied.

She found it a little amusing.

She grew increasingly fond of strolling through Bianjing City, or sitting by a window in a tavern for an entire day, gazing at the bustling human world. She could no longer clearly remember many things from the past. Sometimes she felt the taste of the sheep's head meat was the same as before, sometimes it seemed different, and she suspected she had misremembered. The young maidservant, simple-minded, asked all sorts of questions, while the servants she hired fretted greatly over the "great matter of her life."

Song Wanru teased him: "When are you going to take a wife?"

The servant stammered, his eyes darting toward the maidservant. The maidservant chirped in agreement: "Yes, yes, I want to attend your wedding feast then."

The servant's face turned crimson, a breath stuck in his chest.

Men marrying and women being given in marriage seemed only natural, but she simply didn't want to settle. Her savings were still enough to last a lifetime, as long as no unexpected troubles arose—perhaps that was why those sisters had returned to their old trade; after leaving the official registry, they became private courtesans. "Let myself be free for a while, and worry about it when I can't go on," Song Wanru told herself. And she wasn't the only one being free; sometimes she felt the rumored sovereign was also quite unrestrained.

—How was it that this unrestrained sovereign had become a restoration-era ruler?

Spring passed and autumn came; time flew by. The century-old affairs of the dynasty were suddenly settled—the Western Xia was recovered. This wasn't news Song Wanru learned from the official gazette; she heard about it at the Wuyue Temple. When that scholar shouted loudly in the temple, almost everyone inside erupted.

Song Wanru turned to her bewildered but excited maidservant and said, "There's hope now to avenge the shame of the Jingkang Incident."

She was behind a gauze veil, but those who knew her could still recognize her. The remark was casual, but someone nearby heard it and sneered: "So a singing girl knows the shame of national subjugation?"

Song Wanru turned to look; it was a regular customer from the main tavern where she had once been the top courtesan, also the "sweetheart" of one of her fellow sisters. She smiled, nodded without arguing, and simply turned and left.

The maidservant asked her what a "singing girl" was. She paused and replied, "A woman like me, I suppose. A survivor."

The maidservant thought for a moment, then widened her eyes and said, "I'm a survivor too."

Young Master Pan still hadn't given up—though calling him "Young Master" was no longer appropriate. It was the tenth year of the Jianyan era, and he was no longer the youth under twenty he had once been. Song law was lenient toward female-headed households. After leaving the registry, Song Wanru had managed to open a tea house, relying on her sworn elder sister, who had married a squad leader, and this Master Pan to avoid having it forcibly taken in the vast Bianjing City. She couldn't very well shut the door in his face, so she picked up her zither and asked him, "I'm quite good at the Yellow Bell mode; what would you like to hear?"

Master Pan was silent for a long moment, then said, "Why not the 'Green Jade Case' you used to play?"

"In the past, I played for a living; now, I play for friends. For friends, the piece must suit the occasion." Song Wanru's hand swept across the strings, producing a stirring prelude, and she pressed the strings and said, "The soldiers are on a northern expedition; 'Clearing the Four Passes' suits the occasion perfectly."

Master Pan looked at her gloomily, saying nothing. Song Wanru sighed with a smile: "I'm almost unable to reciprocate the festival gifts you send—your wife is very generous; she's a good person."

"I just want to know what kind of man you truly favor… Surely you won't be alone forever."

Alone forever? Perhaps. She was already past twenty, no longer a young maiden.

"Eastward a thousand riders come; my husband rides at their head. How to know my husband? A white horse followed by a black colt."

Nowadays, when people in Bianjing City spoke of soldiers, they no longer called them "branded convicts." It was good for a cherished daughter to marry a scholar, but marrying a fighting man seemed acceptable too. Hadn't the famous Secretary Yu, who had placed third in the palace examination, married General Zhang's daughter? Others said that if you couldn't get into the Imperial Academy, the Military Academy was a good alternative. Someone's seventh aunt's eighth uncle's brother-in-law was in favor with the sovereign, and he said that a certain Wang fellow, a Military Academy graduate who served as a guard by the sovereign's side, had changed his name and followed General Han to become a commanding officer—he was probably on this northern expedition too!

The idlers in the tea house chorused: "Wow!"

Song Wanru suddenly remembered that tall, courteous gentleman. Listening to the commotion downstairs in the tea house, she asked the maidservant beside her: "Do you still remember that gentleman we met at the Mid-Autumn Grand Sacrifice at Yuetai in the fifth year of Jianyan? The very tall one?"

The maidservant, now the wife of the servant, shook her head blankly. Song Wanru looked at the three characters "Wang Zhongfu" she had written in thick ink before her, sighed, and realized she had also mostly forgotten what he looked like.

She only remembered that he was a man who, at a single glance, made one think of the poem "Mulberry on the Lane."

She grew increasingly fond of wearing a veiled hat and slowly strolling through Bianjing City with her maidservant and servant, or sitting in the tea house for an entire day, gazing and listening to the bustling human world. Many in Bianjing knew that this small tea house was opened by a former top courtesan who had left the registry. If you were lucky, you might hear her playing the zither or flute upstairs; if you were even luckier, you might even get tea brewed by her own hand. Even during the great northern expedition, the city remained peaceful and lively.

When the sovereign launched the northern expedition, Bianjing was initially in chaos. Price gouging by wealthy merchants, rampant rumors—all sorts of strange phenomena were the norm. For the first two months, Song Wanru was too disturbed by the noise from the tea house to play her zither, and she was openly investigated twice by the Imperial City Office. Then one night, as she was reading by candlelight, she saw flames leaping into the sky in the city.

Song Wanru was panicked for the first time in a long while. Later, when she heard that the sovereign was encamped outside the city, unmoved, and that the ministers had quickly resolved the situation, she suddenly realized that Bianjing had indeed been at peace for far too long.

—Was it now our turn to launch a northern expedition? If this campaign succeeded, would we finally usher in an era of great peace?

And indeed, that was what happened. The days of constant alarms soon passed. The official gazette brought good news so frequently that it no longer sparked discussion in the markets. By the end of the year, Bianjing was as lively as ever. Continuous reports of military victories, the capture of Yuancheng and Taiyuan on New Year's Eve… Whether they had agreed with the northern expedition or not, almost everyone said the sovereign was a figure comparable to Emperor Wu of Han or Emperor Taizong of Tang, a true dragon born under auspicious signs.

Song Wanru could no longer clearly remember many things from the past. Sometimes the taste of the sheep's head meat seemed the same as before, sometimes it seemed different, and she suspected she had misremembered. The bustling Bianjing before her eyes gradually covered over her old memories. She had heard that someone had written a book for the sovereign about the old dreams of Bianjing. In her leisure, she had once been inspired to write about the present day, but after countless revisions, even after the Jin were pacified, she still hadn't finished it—there was too much worth writing, too much she wanted to add and also too much she wanted to cut.

At the Great Compassion Feast at Xiangguo Temple, when she mentioned this to her sworn elder sister, who had come with her, the sister smiled and said, "Your thoughts are all jumbled—could it be that there's something else worth pondering?"

They were standing in the side corridor of the main hall. The distant sound of monks chanting sutras drifted over, while nearby, the laughter and chatter of men and women, old and young, filled the air. Song Wanru gazed at the intricately carved buildings and figures on both sides, and a memory came to her of her father holding her as a child, attending this very feast. He had pointed to a dancing woman in a mural and joked that when she grew into a graceful maiden, some lucky young man would be blessed.

She had been young then, but she had already read the *Book of Songs*. Blushing furiously, she had burrowed into her mother's arms, hearing her elder brother laugh from behind: "He must be a gentleman riding a tall horse, with an imposing bearing, to catch the eye of our graceful Wanru—"

"Miss—"

She turned around in a daze. Where her brother and father had once stood, there now stood a man with an imposing bearing. The brief encounter from years ago suddenly overlapped with the present, and he too was flushed and flustered.

"Miss, may I ask your name… uh," he blurted out, then, as if realizing his rudeness, hastily corrected himself, "No, I…"

More than twenty years of tangled memories drifted away like smoke. Her clear, bright eyes looked over, carrying a natural, breathtaking beauty, the serenity of one who had read widely and seen the world, and the clarity of one who understood her own heart. Just standing there in the noisy, bustling crowd, she seemed to pierce through those years of splendor, filth, chaos, sorrow, and peace, as stunning as a painting of a beauty in a prosperous age.

She, nearly twenty-five, suddenly felt like a girl in the first flush of love. Behind her gauze veil, she felt a long-lost shyness, fluster, and joy—

"Song Wanru."

Standing in the enchanting, peaceful light of Bianjing City, she said softly, "My surname is Song, my given name Wanru."