The Golden Lotus, Volume 2

by Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng

  He opened his mother’s chests and took a thousand taels of silver. He gave a hundred to Feng Jinbao and re-engaged Chen Ding to look after the shop. Then he and Yang, with his servant Chen An, took the remaining nine hundred taels and set off for Huzhou at the time of the Autumn Festival. There they bought silk of various kinds enough to load half a boat. Then they came to the wharf of Qingjiang. They moored their boat and went to an inn kept by a man called Chen the Second. They ordered chickens to be killed and called for wine, and Jingji and Yang the Elder drank together.

  While they were drinking, Jingji said to his friend: “You stay here a few days and keep an eye on the boat, and Chen An and I will go to visit my sister who is married to a nobleman at Yanzhou. We shall be back in three or four days.”

  “Yes, Brother, go by all means,” Yang said. “I will wait for you and, when you come back, we will start for home.”

  So Jingji took his money and some presents and set out for Yanzhou. When he came to the city, he lodged at a temple. He heard that the new Sub-Prefect Li had entered upon his office a month before, but that his family had only arrived three days ago. Jingji wasted no time. He bought some food, put it with two rolls of silk and two jars of wine, and gave them to Chen An to carry. Then he dressed in his best clothes, and so, looking very handsome, came to the Prefecture. There he bowed to the gatekeeper.

  “Excuse me,” he said, “but I am a relative of your master’s daughter-in-law.”

  The gatekeeper went at once to tell his master. The young man was in his study, reading. When he was told that his wife’s brother had come, he ordered the servants to take the presents, and told the gatekeeper to introduce the visitor. He put on his ceremonial dress.

  Jingji was taken to the hall, and there he and Master Li made reverence to one another.

  “When I married,” Master Li said, “I was not aware that my wife had a brother.”

  “I was away then,” Jingji said, “buying goods in Sichuan and Guangdong. I was away about a year and did not know that my sister had married. I am sorry. But now I have brought a few trifles and have come in the hope of seeing my sister.”

  “I am only sorry I did not know you before,” Master Li said.

  When they had had tea, the young man ordered a servant to take the presents and the card to Yulou. She was in her room when the message came.

  “It must be my brother, Meng Rui, who has come all this way to see me,” she said. She looked at the card, and it bore Meng Rui’s name. She gave instructions that the visitor should be taken in, told Lanxiang to see that the great hall was tidy, and, when she had dressed, went to see her brother. Through the lattice, she saw her husband with a young man. It was not her brother but Chen Jingji.

  “What can this young man be doing here?” she said to herself. “I must go and see. Even if we are not relatives, we belong to the same part of the world, and whether the water tastes sweet or not, it is the water of my native place. Though he is not my brother, he is my son-in-law.”

  She went in and greeted Chen Jingji.

  “Sister,” he said, “I did not know that you were married and living here.”

  The words were hardly out of his mouth when a servant came and told Li that another guest had arrived. He asked his wife to entertain her brother and went to receive the other visitor.

  “What wind blows you here?” Yulou said.

  When they had exchanged greetings, Yulou asked him to sit down, and told Lanxiang to bring some tea. They talked about the affairs of the family. Yulou inquired after Ximen Dajie, and Jingji told her how his wife and all her belongings had been sent to him. Yulou told him that she had met Chunmei at the Temple of Eternal Felicity at the Festival of Spring, and that she had burned paper offerings there for Pan Jinlian.

  “I often used to tell the Great Lady that she should love you as well as her daughter-in-law,” she said. “After all, you are her son-in-law and not a stranger. But she would believe the gossip that came to her ears, and that is how you came to be sent away. I never heard anything about your property.”

  “It is true that I did have dealings with Jinlian,” Jingji said. “The Great Lady believed what the slaves said and drove me away. Then Wu Song killed Jinlian. If she had still been in that house, Wu Song, however bold a man he may be, would never have dared to go and kill her. That is a fact I shall never forget. Now Jinlian is dead and in Hades, and she will never forgive.”

  “Well, it is all over and done with now,” Yulou said; “as the proverb says: hatred should be forgotten and not made more intense.”

  The maids brought food and wine and set it on the table. Yulou poured out a cup of wine and offered it to Jingji with both hands. “Brother-in-law,” she said, “you have come a long way and spent much money on me. Please accept this poor cup of wine.” Jingji bowed to her and took it. Then he poured out a cup for her. He noticed that she always addressed him as Brother-in-law. “Why doesn’t the strumpet take the hint?” he said to himself. “Now let us see what happens.”

  The wine was passed three times, and they had reached the fifth course. They seemed to be getting on very well. Jingji’s face was flushed with wine and, as the proverb says: wine makes desire as deep as the sea and stirs up lust as high as the heavens. There was nobody about, and he began to make evil suggestions.

  “I have thought of you,” he said, “as a thirsty man thinks of water, as a man seeks refreshment from the blazing heat. You remember how, when my father-in-law was alive, we used to sit close together playing chess. We never thought we should have to separate, and that you would be in the east and I in the west.”

  “No, Brother-in-law,” Yulou said, “but don’t forget the difference between right and wrong.”

  Jingji smiled, took some fragrant tea from his sleeve and gave it to Yulou. “Sister,” he said, “if you will have pity on me, take this tea.” He knelt down before her.

  Yulou flushed, and threw the tea on the floor. “Evidently, you have no idea how to behave in a proper manner,” she said. “I was good enough to offer you wine, and now you think you can behave as you like with me.” She got up from the table and prepared to go to her room.

  When Jingji found that she would not do what he wished, he picked up the tea. “I came here to see you,” he said, “but how you have changed. I suppose now you have married the son of a Sub-Prefect I’m not good enough for you any more. When you were the third lady in Ximen Qing’s household, things were very different, weren’t they?”

  He took the silver pin from his sleeve and held it out. “Whose is this pin?” he cried. “If you never had anything to do with me, what am I doing with it? Your name is on it. You and that woman plotted together to share between you all the precious things I left there. They belonged to Yang Jian, and the authorities should have had them. Now you have brought them to this new husband of yours, but wait and see whether I don’t bring you to the place where you belong.”

  Yulou heard this. She knew that the pin was really hers. It was a pin with a gold head shaped like a lotus. She remembered losing it in the garden, but had no idea how Jingji had got hold of it. She was afraid the servants might hear of it, so she smiled at him. She even went over to him and took his hand.

  “Good Brother-in-law,” she said, “why did you take me seriously? I was joking.”

  She looked around, saw that there was nobody about, and said quietly: “If you care for me, I care for you too.” No more was said. They put their arms about one another and kissed. Jingji put out his tongue like a snake’s and made her take it into her mouth.

  “You must call me your dearest husband, or I will not believe you,” he said.

  “Hush!” Yulou said. “Somebody will hear us.”

  “On a boat in the river I have some goods that I have bought,” Jingji said. “We will go to it together. This evening, you can disguise yourself as a servant and come with me. I don’t see why we should not. He is only a civil official and will not make any trouble. He won’t da
re to come and arrest us.”

  “Very well,” Yulou said. “I agree. Come for me this evening and wait at the back of the house. First of all, I will throw a parcel of valuables over the wall. Then I will dress as a servant and come to you by the door and we will go to your boat.”

  Readers, when a beautiful woman takes an idea firmly into her head, even if the walls are ten thousand feet high, she cannot be prevented from carrying it out. But if she rejects it, you may be sitting in the same room with her, yet it will be as though a thousand mountains kept you apart.

  If Yulou had married a fool, a man who was not so attractive as Chen Jingji, Jingji would certainly have succeeded in seducing her, but she had married young Li, who not only had a future in store for him, but was a brisk and lively fellow. She loved him and was quite content with her marriage. There was no reason why she should yield to Jingji. The unfortunate young man told her all his plans, but she deceived him.

  When Jingji had drunk more wine, he went away. Young Master Li took him to the gate, and he went away with Chen An.

  “Where is your brother staying?” Master Li asked his wife. “I must call on him tomorrow and take some sort of a present.”

  “He is not my brother at all,” Yulou said. “He is Ximen Qing’s son-in-law, and he came here because he wanted me to run away with him. I told him I would wait for him this evening at the back of the house. I mean to cheat him so that he is arrested as a thief and got rid of finally.”

  “Really, the fellow goes beyond all bounds,” Master Li said. “But without my going to see him, he will come of his own accord and meet his death at my hands.” He went out and told a trusted servant.

  Jingji suspected nothing. At the third night watch, he came to the back of the house with Chen An. He coughed and Yulou answered. Then, over the wall, some silver was lowered at the end of a rope. It was about two hundred taels and had been taken from the official treasury. Jingji had hardly told Chen An to take it, when the watchman’s alarm sounded, and four or five tall fellows came running out, crying: “Thief! Thief!” They seized Jingji and Chen An. The matter was reported to the Sub-Prefect, and he gave orders that the men should be thrown into jail and brought up for examination the next day.

  The Prefect of Yanzou was called Xu Feng. He came from Lintao in Shaanxi. He had taken his examination in Gengxu, and was a very just and honorable man. He came to the hall of justice, and all the officers attended him. Sub-Prefect Li came and signed his name in the register. Then an official came and told Xu about the case, and Jingji was brought in.

  “Last night,” the official said, “about the third night watch, these two men, whose names we now know to be Chen Jingji and Chen An, broke open the treasury door and stole about two hundred taels of silver that are the proceeds of other cases. Then they jumped over the wall, but were caught and arrested.”

  The Prefect ordered his men to bring forward the thieves, and Chen Jingji and Chen An were hustled towards him. They knelt down. The Prefect saw that Jingji was only a young man and very good-looking. “Young fellow,” he said, “where do you come from? What do you mean by coming to a government building to steal money belonging to the treasury? Have you anything to say?”

  Jingji kowtowed again and again and protested he was innocent.

  “How can you be innocent?” the Prefect said. “You stole the money, didn’t you?”

  Then the Sub-Prefect, who was sitting beside Xu, bowed and said: “My lord, ask him no more. The silver was found upon him. Why do you hesitate to punish him?”

  The Prefect ordered Jingji to be given twenty strokes.

  “Men are hard creatures,” the Sub-Prefect said. “They never confess without a good beating. This young man, you see, is no exception to the rule.”

  The attendants threw Jingji to the ground and beat him with a thick cane. He yelled and shrieked. “I never realized what that strumpet Meng was up to,” he cried. “It is she who has done this. Oh dear! Oh dear!”

  Now Xu was a man who had taken a degree and, when he heard this, he thought there must be something underneath. When the young man had had ten strokes, he gave orders that he should be taken back to prison and brought up again the next day.

  “That, I suggest, is the wrong course,” the Sub-Prefect said. “The proverb tells us that men’s hearts are as hard as iron, but the law is heavy as a mountain. If you give him one night, he will take back his confession in the morning.”

  “I know what I am doing,” the Prefect said, and again told the jailers to put Jingji into prison. He was somewhat suspicious as to what was behind this case, and sent a man he trusted to the prison to ask Jingji what it was all about. The man disguised himself as one of the prisoners and spent the night with Chen Jingji.

  “Brother,” he said, “you are a young man and you do not look like a thief. I believe you are innocent.”

  “It is a long story,” Jingji said. “I am the son-in-law of Ximen Qing of Qinghe. The woman Meng, who married Sub-Prefect Li’s son, was one of my father-in-law’s wives. Once she had a love affair with me, and now she has brought ten chests of gold and silver and precious things to Li’s son. Those things once belonged to Yang Chien, and he left them in my father-in-law’s care. I came here to ask for them, but they laid this trap for me and I fell into it. They arrested me as a thief and made me confess. Oh dear! Oh dear! Now I can see the blue sky and the sun no more.”

  The Prefect’s servant went back and told all this to his master.

  “When he mentioned the woman Meng, I wondered what there was at the back of it,” the Prefect said.

  The next day, he came again to the hall, and Chen Jingji and Chen An were brought before him. The Prefect extracted the real truth from the young man and set him free. The Sub-Prefect, who did not know what had happened, said: “My lord, he stole the money. Why do you let him go?”

  The Prefect rebuked his assistant before all the other officers. “I am the Prefect here,” he said, “and I serve his Majesty faithfully. It is not my business to take up your private quarrels, and to brand this innocent young man as a thief. Your son married a woman named Meng, one of Ximen Qing’s concubines, and she brought with her many things that ought to have been handed over to the government. This young man is Ximen Qing’s son-in-law, and he came to claim them. You have no right whatever to make him out a thief and try to have him punished as such. I am not here to do your dirty work. You are an officer and you have children, and you are trying to forward your children’s interests. If this is the way you do it, it is an offense against justice.”

  The Sub-Prefect was ashamed. He flushed and bowed his head. It was a great blow to his pride, and he dared not say a word. Chen Jingji and Chen An went away.

  When the Prefect had retired, Li went home in a furious temper. “This is the son you have reared for me,” he cried to his wife. “He has caused the Prefect to insult me in the presence of all the officers. It nearly killed me.”

  His wife was upset and asked what was the matter.

  The Sub-Prefect sent for his son and told the servants to bring him a thick rod. “Now!” he cried. “That thief you said you caught is Ximen Qing’s son-in-law. That woman of yours brought many things away from Ximen’s house and the young man said in the court that they had belonged to the criminal Yang Chien. He came here to demand them. You told me that he stole silver from the treasury and got me to treat him as a thief. I knew nothing at all of the truth, and the result is that I have been disgraced by the Prefect before all the officers of the court. That is what my son does for me, and I have only been in this post a few months. What use is such a son to me?”

  He ordered his servants to beat the young man, and the blows rained down upon him. His flesh and skin were torn and the blood gushed out. The old lady could not bear the sight, and sobbed and tried to make her husband stop. Yulou stood, weeping, at the corner door.

  When the young man had been given thirty strokes, the Sub-Prefect bade his servants stop.

&n
bsp; “Get rid of this woman at once,” he said. “Let her marry whom she pleases. I am not going to have her here to ruin my family.”

  Young Master Li could not bear this. He knelt down before his parents and cried: “I would rather die than give up this woman.”

  Then the Sub-Prefect ordered his servants to shut up the young man in a room at the back of the house. He was put in chains, for his father meant him to die there.

  “My lord,” the Sub-Prefect’s wife said to him, “you are of official rank, and you are more than fifty years of age. You have only this one son. It is not right that you should let him die for the sake of this woman. When you are old and retired, who will care for you?”

  “No,” the Sub-Prefect said, “so long as he is here, I shall have everybody insulting me.”

  “Then send them away to Zhengdingfu, where our home is, if you won’t have them here,” his wife said.

  The Sub-Prefect agreed. The young man was brought out again and told that he would have to take his wife and leave for his native place within three days.

  When Chen Jingji and Chen An left Yanzhou, they removed their luggage from the temple and went back to the inn where they had left Yang.

  “Yang told me he had received a letter from you saying you were not coming back,” the host said. “He has taken everything and gone.”

  Jingji could not believe this. He went to the river to look for the boat, but it was not to be seen. “What an outrageous scoundrel!” he said then. “Why did he go away without waiting for me?” He had just come out of prison and had no money. So he and Chen An got on a boat and pawned their clothes to pay the passage money. They looked like a pair of stray dogs, like fish wriggling out of the net. All the way along, they asked for news of Yang the Elder, but heard nothing. It was now the end of autumn. The leaves were withered in the woods, and the West wind drove fiercely. It was sad and cold.

  Sadly, the lotus withers

  Leaf after leaf, the Wutong fades

  The crickets chirp in the rotted grass