The Golden Lotus, Volume 2

by Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng

  Chunmei heard the noise. Li An told her that he had secured Zhang Sheng. Chunmei, who had just finished seeing to the baby, was so frightened that she changed color. She rushed to the study and saw that Jingji had been killed. Blood was still running over the floor. She screamed. Then she told servants to go for Cuiping. The young wife came. When she saw that her husband had been murdered, she shrieked and then fainted. Chunmei helped her to her feet, sent to buy a coffin, and put the young man into it. Then she gave orders that Zhang Sheng should be thrown into prison for her husband to deal with.

  When General Zhou returned, Chunmei told him of the murder of Jingji. Li An put the dagger before his master and told him what he knew of the story. The General was very angry. He went at once to the hall and called for Zhang Sheng to be brought before him. Without asking a single question, he ordered the attendants to give the man a hundred stripes. So Zhang Sheng was beaten to death. Then he sent to arrest the Tiger. When Liu was taken, Xue’e feared that she too might be arrested. She went to her own room and hanged herself. When Liu was brought before the General, he too was ordered a hundred stripes, and so he died. The news created a great stir in Qinghe and tremendous excitement in Linqing.

  Man should avoid deceit

  For above his head, God waits.

  If they who do all manner of evil

  Received not their reward

  Then all the ruffians in the world

  Would devour each other.

  By this execution, the General rid the district of two devils. He bade Li An go to the wine house and give it back to its original owner, bringing back the things that belonged to him. He told Chunmei to hold a service for Jingji, and afterwards the young man was buried at the Temple of Eternal Felicity outside the city. Then he gave orders that Li An and Zhou Yi should remain at home to look after the place, while he took with him Zhou Ren and Zhou Zhong.

  In the evening, Chunmei and the Second Lady offered him wine before he left. They shed tears and said: “You are going away and we have no notion when you will come back. You must take care of yourself when you are in the battle. The barbarians are very strong, and you must not regard them lightly.”

  And the General said to them: “You who stay at home must be always prudent. Take care of my son. Don’t trouble about me. I take the Emperor’s pay, and I must render loyal service to my country. Whether I live or die is on the knees of Heaven.”

  The next day the troops assembled outside the city. The General took his place at their head, and they marched off. When, one day, they came to Dongchangfu, he ordered a soldier carrying a blue flag to go first into the city. This was a notification to the Commissioner Zhang Shuye that General Zhou’s army had arrived. He came out with the Prefect of the place to receive the General, and they went together to their headquarters. There they discussed the military situation and sent out scouts to get news of the enemy. The next day the army set forth to defend the city.

  When Han Aijie heard of Jingji’s death, she cried day and night and would not take anything to eat. The only thing she could think of was going to the General’s place to see the young man’s body. She thought that if she could only do that she would be content. Her parents tried to console her, but still she insisted that she must go. Han Daoguo sent his old servant to get what news he could. The old man came back and told them that Jingji had already been buried at the Temple of Eternal Felicity. Then Han Aijie determined to go to the temple to burn some paper offerings for her lover. She would bewail him at his grave.

  Her parents could do nothing to dissuade her, so they hired a sedan chair and took her to the temple. There they asked a monk where Jingji was buried, and the monk sent a boy to take them to the grave, behind the temple. Han Aijie got out of her sedan chair and burned some paper money. She made a reverence before the grave and said: “Oh, dearest brother, I had hoped that I might live with you always. Never did I think that you would die so young.” She gave a great cry and fell fainting to the ground. Her parents were frightened and came to help her up. They called her, but she made no answer and they became more frightened still.

  It was the third day after Jingji’s funeral. Chunmei and Cuiping, in two sedan chairs with their servants following, came to burn papers and offer food to the dead. When they came near the grave, they saw a young woman dressed in mourning, lying on the ground, and a man and woman of middle age trying to revive her. But when she got up, she collapsed again in a faint. They were astonished and asked the man who the girl was.

  Han Daoguo and his wife made reverence to them, and told them how they had known Chen Jingji, and that the girl was their daughter Han Aijie. Then Chunmei remembered her from the days in Ximen’s house and recognized Wang Liu’er also. Han Daoguo told her how they had come to leave the Eastern Capital.

  “My daughter was a friend of Master Chen,” he said. “Now he is dead, she came to burn paper money for him. But she cried so bitterly that she fainted.”

  They went back to their daughter and again tried to bring her around. After a while Han Aijie spat out a little water and revived. She still sobbed, but not so loud as before. She kowtowed four times to Chunmei and Cuiping.

  “Though I was only his mistress,” she said, “we loved each other truly. I had hoped that I might always belong to him, but Heaven would have it otherwise and decreed his death. Now I am all alone in the world. When he was alive, he gave me a handkerchief on which he had written a poem. I knew he was married, but I was willing to serve only for his amusement. If you doubt me, look at this handkerchief.” She showed it to them and they both read the poem.

  “I gave him a little embroidered bag too,” Han Aijie said, “and he always carried it about with him. It had double lotus blossoms on both sides, and on each of the petals I wrote a word. ‘I offer this to Chen my lover,’ I wrote.”

  Chunmei asked Cuiping if she knew of this little bag. “It was under his clothes,” Cuiping said, “and I put it into the coffin with him.”

  When they had made their offerings at the grave, they took Han Aijie and her mother into the temple to have tea with them. It was late and Wang Liu’er wished to go home. Her daughter would not hear of it. She knelt down before Chunmei and Cuiping and wept. “I do not wish to go back with my parents,” she said to them. “I wish to live with you. Then I can see his tablet every day. We were lovers, and I should like people to say that I had been his wife.” Her tears fell like the water from a spring.

  “Sister,” Chunmei said, “I am afraid you are very young to live such a life. You will be wasting the best of your years.”

  “No, Lady,” Han Aijie said. “For his sake, I would cut out my eyes and break my nose. I shall never marry anyone else.”

  “You go home, old people,” she said to her parents. “I am going with these ladies.”

  “We have been hoping that you would support us in our old age,” Wang Liu’er said, with tears. “We have only just brought you from the Dragon’s Pool and then you leave us.”

  “I will not go back with you,” Han Aijie declared, “and if you try to make me, I will kill myself.

  Then Han Daoguo saw that his daughter had made up her mind. He and Wang Liu’er cried and went back to the wine house. Han Aijie got into a sedan chair with Chunmei and Cuiping and went to the city with them. Wang Liu’er thought of her daughter and wept all the time. Han Daoguo saw that it was late, so he hired two animals to take them back.

  The horses are slow and the heart is eager

  It is a hard road that they travel

  They are like the weed that floats on the pond

  The climbing plant that creeps along the wall.

  The moon over the royal palace looks down Upon their parting

  The parting of those who go to the east

  From those who go to the west.

  CHAPTER 100

  The End of Ximen’s House

  The wealth and splendor of the past

  Are now as nothing.

  The silver scr
eens and golden halls

  Are now the stuff of dreams.

  The setting sun shines on the ruined walls

  And the withered rushes.

  A cold mist shrouds the ancient palace

  And the green moss.

  In the passage below the ground

  The lamp is nearly out.

  The phoenix mirror in the tiring room

  Is locked and sealed away.

  To whom shall I speak of ruin or prosperity?

  The slow moving cloud is a priest’s gown

  And the wind fills its sleeves.

  Han Daoguo and Wang Liu’er went back to the wine house. Their daughter had left them and they had no way of making a living. They sent Chen the Third for the merchant He. Now that Tiger Liu was no more, He had nothing to be afraid of. He came back again to Wang Liu’er. He said to Han Daoguo: “Your daughter has gone and she will not come back. I suggest that, when I have sold all my merchandise and got the money, you had better come back to Huzhou with me. It is better than carrying on this business here.”

  Han Daoguo thanked him and agreed. That same day the merchant sold all his goods, collected the money, hired a boat and started back with Han Daoguo and Wang Liu’er for Huzhou.

  At the General’s house, Han Aijie wore mourning with Cuiping. They called each other “Sister” and were very great friends. They spent their days with Chunmei. The General’s little son was now six years old, and his daughter ten. The women had nothing to do but look after these children.

  But the General was away on duty, and Jingji was dead. Though Chunmei had the choicest food to eat and the finest clothes to wear, though she had golden ornaments and jewels and pearls, everything that she might desire, yet at night she was lonely and she could not bear it. The fires of passion consumed her. She saw that Li An was a man full of vigor. After Zhang Sheng’s death, he kept watch over the house and did his duty faithfully.

  One winter day, when Li An was on duty in the office, he heard a knocking at the door and asked who was there. Whoever it was, no answer was given: he was simply bidden to open the door. He opened the door. Somebody rushed in and turned with her back to the light. Li An looked closely and saw that it was the nurse.

  “Nurse,” he said, “what are you doing here so late?”

  “I have not come on my own account,” she told him. “My lady has sent me.”

  “Why did she send you?”

  “Don’t you understand?” the nurse said, smiling. “She told me to come and see if you had gone to sleep. I was to give you these.” She took some clothes from over her shoulder. They were women’s clothes. “They are for your mother. The other day you had much trouble, bringing back all our master’s things. And you saved my lady’s life. If you had not been there that day, Zhang Sheng would have killed her.”

  She put down the clothes and went to the door. But she had hardly taken two steps before she turned around again. “There is something else for you,” she said. From her sleeve she took a piece of silver worth about fifty taels, threw it to him, and went off. Li An could not understand what all this meant.

  The next morning he took the clothes to his mother. She asked him where he had got them, and he told her what had happened the night before. His mother cried bitterly.

  “Zhang Sheng,” she said, “did wrong and he was killed. Now she gives you these things. What does it mean? I am more than sixty years old. Your father is dead, and you are my only hope. If anything happens to you, what will become of me? Don’t go to that place again.”

  “If I don’t go back, they will only send for me,” Li An said. “What shall I do?”

  “I will tell them you have a bad cold,” his mother said.

  “We can’t tell them that story always,” Li An said. “And my master will be angry with me.”

  “Go and spend a few months with your Uncle Li Gui,” his mother said, “and then we will think what we can do.”

  Li An was a dutiful son. He did what his mother told him, packed up his luggage and went to Qingzhou to his uncle’s place. When Chunmei found that the man did not come to her, she sent a boy for him several times. At first the old woman said her son was ill. Then people came and demanded to search the house, so she told them that he had gone to his native place to get some money. Chunmei was very disappointed.

  The days passed quickly. The cold season came to an end, and the days grew warmer. In the first ten days of the first month the General, who was with eleven thousand men in Dongchangfu, sent Zhou Zhong with a letter to Chunmei. It directed his two ladies and their two children to go to him. Zhou Zhong was to stay at home to look after the place and the General’s younger brother would look after the estate. This brother, Zhou Xuan, lived on the estate. Zhou Zhong and Cuiping were to remain with him. Zhou Ren with an escort of soldiers took the ladies to Dongchangfu.

  At last the party arrived safely. The General was very pleased. He found a place for them at the back of his headquarters. Zhou Ren told his master that Zhou Xuan had gone to live at the house and that he and Zhou Zhong were taking care of it. Zhou Zhong was Zhou Ren’s father.

  “Where is Li An?” the General asked.

  “You do well to mention Li An,” Chunmei said. “I was very kind to him. I gave him clothes for his mother, thinking how he had secured Zhang Sheng that night. But one night, when he was supposed to be on guard, he came to the inner court and stole fifty taels of silver. The money, which was on the table, had come from your brother. I sent several times for him and answer came back that he was ill. Then I sent for him again, but he had run off to Qingzhou, his native place.”

  “I would never have believed it of him,” the General said. “Later, I will see about his arrest.”

  Chunmei said nothing to the General about Han Aijie.

  The days passed. General Zhou devoted all his energies to the duties of his office. So careful and diligent was he that he hardly took a minute for dinner in the middle of the day. He had no time at all for lovemaking.

  Chunmei came to the conclusion that Zhou Yi, the second son of Zhou Zhong, was a fine, handsome lad. He was nineteen. She made her eyes and eyebrows carry a message to him and soon began an intrigue. Morning and night, they sat together, playing chess and drinking wine. The only man who did not know what was going on was the General himself.

  The King of the Jin country had conquered the kingdom of Liao in the north. Then he gathered a great force and invaded China from two directions, at the very time of the new Emperor’s coronation. General Nian Muhe with a hundred thousand men came down by way of Taiyuanfu in Shanxi to attack the Eastern Capital. The second general, Gan Libu, came down from Tanzhou and made a raid upon Gaoyangguan. The troops on the frontier gave way, and the Minister of War and the Commander-in-Chief sent desperate orders to the six generals of Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, Hebei, Guandong and Shaanxi, to place their troops in the road of the invading forces and protect the cities. These generals were Liu Tingqing of Shaanxi, who was in command of the Yan Sui army; Wang Bing of Guandong, who commanded the Fen Jiang army; Wang Huan of Hebei, in command of the Wei Bo army; Xin Xingzong of Ho-nan, of the Zhang De army; Yang Weizong of Shanxi with the Ze Lu army, and Zhou Xiu of Shandong with the armies of Qing and Yan.

  When General Zhou realized that the barbarians were massing on the frontier in such strength, and when letters so urgent came from the Ministry of War, he at once marshaled the army and advanced with forced marches. But when his advance guard came to Gaoyangguan, the enemy had already captured that city and there had been a great slaughter there. It was the beginning of the fifth month, and the wind suddenly raised such a sandstorm that the men could not open their eyes. The General was still advancing, when suddenly the enemy attacked. An arrow struck him in the neck and pierced his throat. He fell from his horse dead. The barbarians with hooks and cords tried to secure the body, but the General’s own men recovered it and brought it back on a horse. That day many soldiers were wounded. General Zhou was only forty-seven.


  When Zhang Shuye, the Commissioner, saw that the general was killed on the field of battle, he immediately ordered the gongs to be sounded as a signal for retirement. The roll was called; he found how many soldiers had been killed or wounded, and took the remainder of his forces back to Dongchang. From there he sent a report to his Majesty.

  The killed were brought back by the army. Chunmei and those of her household cried so loudly that the sound shook the skies. They put the general into a coffin and returned his seal of office. Then Chunmei and Zhou Ren took the coffin and went back to Qinghe.

  After Chunmei had gone away, Cuiping and Han Aijie ate only the simplest of food. They kept their word and lived as widows. One day, at the beginning of summer, when everything was fresh and bright and the days were lengthening, they took a walk and came to the summerhouse in the west courtyard. There the flowers were blooming, the orioles singing, and the swallows chattering. The beauty of the scene saddened them. Cuiping was not so much depressed, but Aijie, who was thinking of Jingji, was greatly stirred. Frequently, a familiar scene will produce this effect. She wept.

  While they were in this sad state, Zhou Xuan came to them. “Sisters,” he said, “you must not be so melancholy. You must try to be cheerful. I myself have had several bad dreams these last few nights. I dreamed that a bow was hanging from a flagpole and that the flag was torn in half. I don’t know whether the omen should be taken as good or evil.”

  “It may mean something about the master,” Han Aijie said.

  They were trying to make up their minds when Zhou Ren came to them in mourning dress. He was in a great hurry.