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After Lord Liu had stormed out of the hall, Scholar Wu stared after him and then stared at Scholar Song. “Song! What on earth is going on? Why are you back so soon? Did you meet the Flower-Crowned General? What does the Marquis of Wu’an have to do with anything? Has Lord Liu gone mad?”
Scholar Song slumped on a chair. “The Flower-Crowned General… it’s Changyu! I could not have been expected to guess that she was Fan Changyu!”
Scholar Shen stopped filing scrolls and came over to join them. “Yes. The General’s name is Fan Changyu. You didn’t know that, Song?”
“No one told me that!” said Scholar Song, desperately, getting up and grabbing Scholar Shen’s shoulders. “Why didn’t any of you tell me that? If I had known the Flower-Crowned General was Fan Changyu—I would have declined the appointment!”
“Why?” said Scholar Shen, pulling away from Scholar Song. “Don’t grab me like that! I’ll take the position, if you don’t want it! Easy money!”
Scholar Song shook his head. “No, don’t take the job! A’Yu is a bully and a thug. She and that matrilocal husband of hers beat me up at the Lantern Festival in Lin’an a year ago! I cannot believe that he dares to pretend to be the Marquis of Wu’an—”
“Hang on, what are you talking about, you fool?” said Scholar Shen. “I am really confused. The Flower-Crowned General has a matrilocal husband, and they beat you up a year ago? And the matrilocal husband is posing as the Marquis of Wu’an? It’s you who has gone mad, Song, not Lord Liu!”
Scholar Song closed his eyes, slumped back on the chair again, and tears ran down his cheeks. “Why must my life be so unlucky? Mother broke off our engagement after Changyu’s parents died—surely Changyu can see that Mother’s decision was reasonable! Why would I marry an illiterate woman who slaughtered pigs for a living? I wasn’t to know that she’d become a General of the fifth rank.”
Scholar Lei had been listening; he put down his brush and joined them too. “What in the heavens…? Song Yan, are you saying that you were once engaged to the Flower-Crowned General Fan Changyu? Wait—you’re both from Lin’an, in Jizhou, that’s right… Gosh, you really missed out badly, didn’t you? No wonder you’re upset.”
“I wasn’t able to attend her triumphal procession, but I’ve been told that the General is very beautiful,” said Scholar Shen, wistfully.
“Do you know what I’ve heard?” Scholar Lei leaned forward and whispered, “I heard the Marquis of Wu’an is having an affair with the General, and he’s been secretly meeting her, although his Majesty hasn’t yet given him permission to re-enter the capital. People saw him at the General’s procession. He threw a ribbon to her!”
“Right!” said Scholar Wu. “That explains it! That’s why you saw the Marquis of Wu’an at the Flower-Crowned General’s Mansion, Song! How scandalous! A surreptitious assignation!”
“No, I saw Yan Zheng, Fan Changyu’s matrilocal husband,” said Scholar Song. “He’s a crippled refugee from Chongzhou! He absolutely cannot be the Marquis of Wu’an, even if he was dressed up like him, and even if Lord Liu bowed to him.”
“When did you come across this matrilocal husband, Song?” said Scholar Lei. “You said it was about a year ago?”
“Yes,” said Scholar Song, slumping back down on his desk.
“Everyone knows that the Marquis’s retinue was wiped out in Chongzhou, about a year ago, and people thought he was dead too, but he reappeared from nowhere, a few months later,” said Scholar Zhong, putting his head out from where he had been browsing the shelves. “Which raises the question of where he was hiding, for those months. Is there a possibility that he was hiding in—what muddy backwater did you come from, Song?”
“Lin’an, Qingping County, Jizhou,” said Scholar Song. “However, Yan Zheng was just a refugee from Chongzhou with no papers—I’ve thought about it deeply on the carriage ride home—at first, I actually believed that he was the Marquis of Wu’an—but he can’t be, no matter what Lord Liu said—he had absolutely nothing, no papers and no money—he was on crutches for months—he allowed Magistrate Cui to treat him with disrespect—”
“How did this man end up in your town anyway?” said Scholar Lei, squinting in thought.
Scholar Song shook his head. “You’ll get an idea of the kind of a woman Fan Changyu is, when I tell you that she found Yan Zheng injured on the ground, and carried him on her back, all the way back to the Zhaos’ house, even though they were not married at that time—”
“This man can’t be the Marquis, then! I’ve seen him, from a distance. He’s really tall, with broad shoulders.” Scholar Zhong left the bookshelves, came over and indicated a height above all their heads. “No woman could carry him home.”
“Although… it’s said that the Flower-Crowned General is freakishly strong, despite her small stature and thin arms and legs,” said Scholar Wu.
They all looked at Scholar Song.
“Changyu regularly slaughtered and transported dead pigs,” said Scholar Song. “She could carry Yan Zheng, easily, even though he’s also very tall.”
The scholars all looked at Scholar Zhong. “So, what does the Marquis look like?” said Scholar Wu. “Maybe that will help.”
Scholar Zhong frowned. “As I say, I only saw him at a distance, during the triumphal parade after he retook Jizhou. From what I recall, he’s young, tall, with a long, thin face, good-looking. All the women in the capital were in love with him, but he always said he’d never marry. He even refused to marry the Princess Royal! Hence, I think it’s unlikely he’d marry a common woman.”
“As I say, Yan Zheng must be a look-alike,” said Scholar Song, relief in his voice. “I told Lord Liu: that’s the only reasonable explanation. Does the Marquis of Wu’an have a body double?”
“Not so far as I’ve heard,” said Scholar Lei, folding his arms. “Tell us more about this Yan Zheng. Are we sure he’s not the Marquis?”
“Would the Marquis of Wu’an marry a pig butcher in Xigu Lane, Lei?” said Scholar Song, scornfully. “I promise you that it was a real wedding; I saw it with my own eyes. Would he lower himself to become a matrilocal husband?”
All the men tittered, awkwardly. “Why would this Yan Zheng become a matrilocal husband?” Scholar Wu wondered. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Yan Zheng was lame, penniless and at risk of being conscripted, and Fan Daniu—that’s Fan Changyu’s late uncle—was threatening to seize her house, so they both needed to marry quickly,” explained Scholar Song.
“But you’d been engaged to this girl, Song,” said Scholar Lei, his brow creasing. “Surely you could have helped her by marrying her?”
“I generously offered to allow Changyu to become my concubine!” said Scholar Song. “And she was very rude in her refusal.”
Scholar Zhong looked horrified. “I’m not surprised! No wonder she grabbed this other fellow, even if he was lame, if he was willing to make the sacrifice! Was he literate?”
Scholar Song rolled his eyes. “Everyone raved about how beautiful his writing was. Not that most of them had the capacity to read it! I didn’t think it was that beautiful.”
Scholar Lei took a step back from Scholar Song’s desk, looking worried. “Did he, perchance, also write memorials?”
“I guess so. Among other things, Yan Zheng prepared Changyu for the trial against her uncle at the yamen,” said Song Yan. “He composed a seven-step poem. Because Changyu’s illiterate, she had to memorise it, and so I heard about the beans, over and over and over—”
“What was the poem?” said Scholar Shen, curiously. “Do you remember?”
Scholar Song recited: “Boiling beans by burning the beanstalks. The beans are sobbing inside the pot. Both of them were born with the same root. Why rush to torment each other?”
Scholar Zhong’s eyes shone. “You say the uncle was trying to seize the house off his niece, after his brother was killed? This poem gets to the essence of the tragedy! Why rush to torment each other, indeed! Why burn the stalks that join them!”
“Oh heavens,” said Scholar Lei. “A first-rate scholar!”
“But the Marquis of Wu’an is not respected by scholars,” Scholar Song said, with confusion. “He’s the man who slaughtered Jizhou!”
“The Marquis may be bloodthirsty, but he is also the only disciple whom Grand Tutor Tao has ever accepted,” said Scholar Zhong, in reverent tones. “Everyone else fell short.”
Scholar Shen put up a finger and took a piece of paper from Scholar Song’s desk. “I’ve got it! You said this man’s name was Yan Zheng. Yan as in ‘words’, Zheng as in ‘righteousness’, right, Song?”
“Yes?” Scholar Song looked at Scholar Shen questioningly.
Scholar Shen wrote the characters to illustrate. “Those are the central characters of Xie Zheng’s name, shorn of their radicals.” Then he added the radicals. “We know where he was hiding out now, and what name he was using!”
Scholar Song’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed off the chair.
Scholar Lei took another step back. “So, hang on, this idiot here has managed to offend both the Flower-Crowned General and the Marquis of Wu’an, and make a fool of Lord Liu?”
Scholar Zhong took a step away from Scholar Song’s desk too. “It sounds like it. And… I have to say, a chivalrous marriage to a commoner fits the Marquis’s reputation more closely. I never heard that he was a womaniser before. The whole point was that he wasn’t interested in dalliances, only in fighting.”
“But why would the Marquis of Wu’an become a matrilocal husband to some pig butcher?” said Scholar Wu.
“Because it’s clear that the Flower-Crowned General’s no-good fiancé left her high and dry when her parents died,” said Scholar Shen, pointing at Scholar Song’s semi-conscious form. “And if she’s beautiful, brave and strong, and she saved his life… well, why not marry her?”
“Jinx,” said Scholar Lei. “Peh, peh, peh, everything Song touches turns to shit. He gets the easiest job in the world and he fucks it up! Do you think that if I offer, Lord Liu will allow me to take Song’s place?”
Scholar Shen sighed. “I doubt it.”
“I am so unlucky,” moaned Scholar Song.
“No, you’re just a dickhead,” said Scholar Zhong, kicking his leg.
No one was surprised when later, Lord Liu came in and fired Scholar Song.
“You and your family treated the Flower-Crowned General and her family abominably,” he said furiously. “Gongsun Yin told me that your family took money from the Fan family for years and then refused to pay Fan Changyu back after her parents died, falsely saying that she was a jinx, and that the obligation to repay had died with her father. It was only after the Marquis confronted you that you repaid—”
“But what about A’Yu?” said Scholar Song, kneeling on the floor. “Will she not plead for me?”
Lord Liu shook his head. “You’re lucky: the Flower-Crowned General bears you no ill-will—if anything, she’s entertained by the situation—and the Marquis regards you as beneath his notice. However, if you want to keep your life, I’d leave the capital as quickly as possible, because I can’t say the same for Jin Yuanbao and his men. They made it clear that they are looking for any excuse to beat you severely.”
He took Song Yan out of the building by his collar, shoved him out of the door, and threw his bag of books after him.
“So, Lord Liu,” said Scholar Shen, in unctuous tones, sidling up. “Are you looking for anyone to fill the role of instructor in etiquette?”
Lord Liu rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a fool, Shen. If the Flower-Crowned General really wanted to learn about etiquette, she could ask her husband for instruction. Get ready for chaos in the Imperial Court.”
“They’re actually married?” said Scholar Lei, slightly sadly.
Lord Liu nodded. “Very much so. And the Chancellor is not happy. Let’s keep our heads down and keep out of it, men.”