The Golden Lotus, Volume 1

by Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng

  “I feel quite embarrassed by such splendid presents,” he said. “You must really take them away.”

  Laibao and Wu kowtowed and said, “Our master, Ximen Qing, knows only too well that he has no adequate means of expressing his filial devotion to your Eminence. He sends these trifles in the hope that you may at least think them not unworthy to be distributed among your attendants.”

  “Then I will tell my servants to remove them,” said the Imperial Tutor. A host of attendants carried the presents away. “A little while ago,” he said, “there was a little business about some salt merchants at Zangzhou. I think I wrote to the Governor on your behalf. Was the result satisfactory?”

  “Thanks to your Eminence’s gracious intervention,” Laibao said, “as soon as your dispatch arrived, the whole party was set at liberty.”

  “Your master has been at great trouble and expense on my account,” the Imperial Tutor said, “and I have no means of expressing my kindly feeling towards him. Has he any official position?”

  “What position should he hold?” Laibao said. “He is only a simple countryman.”

  “Since he has not,” the Imperial Tutor said, “I shall see that he is given an appointment as a law officer in Shandong. He shall be made Deputy Captain in He Jin’s place. Only yesterday his Majesty placed a few appointments at my disposal.”

  Laibao kowtowed and thanked the Imperial Tutor. “I am most grateful,” he said, “for your Eminence’s extreme magnanimity. If all the members of my master’s household should throw ashes upon their heads and dust upon their bodies, they could never repay such kindness.”

  The Imperial Tutor called for writing materials and filled up a blank warrant of appointment. Then he said to Laibao: “You two have brought me these presents at great inconvenience to yourselves. Who is that kneeling behind you?”

  Laibao was about to say that this was his partner when Wu himself came forward and said that he was related to Ximen Qing, and that his name was Wu Dian’en.

  “So you are related to Ximen Qing?” said the Imperial Tutor. “Well, you look a very respectable person.” He called for another blank warrant and told Wu that he was appointing him an officer of the Imperial Post for the district of Qinghe. This made Wu so excited that, in his thanks, he beat his head upon the ground as though he were pounding garlic in a mortar. Upon another blank the Imperial Tutor inscribed the name of Laibao, appointing him tallyman at the palace of Duke Yun in Shandong. They both kowtowed and thanked his Eminence, and the documents were handed to them. They were told that the next day they must go to the Boards of War and Civil Service, that their papers might be duly registered and their credentials made out, after which they should assume their offices in due course. Finally the Imperial Tutor instructed his Comptroller to entertain the two men with food and drink, and gave each of them ten taels of silver for traveling money.

  In such manner was the administration brought into disrepute during the reign of the Emperor Huizong. Faithless ministers held posts of most responsibility, and the court was besieged by sycophants and men of deceit. Worst of all were Gao, Yang, Zong and Cai. Abusing their position at Court they bartered offices and accepted bribes for setting prisoners at liberty. The bribery was utterly barefaced. Appointments were given to men by the scales, and the price demanded was according to the rank of the appointment. Pushful men and those skilled in intrigue took hold upon all the offices of greatest worth, while those who were competent, wise, capable, and honest might wait for years, and still receive nothing.

  Thus social morals became corrupt. Rapacious officials and their foul underlings overran the empire. Pressgangs and forced labor weighed heavily on the people. Taxation increased, so that the people were impoverished, and bandits and thieves multiplied. The Empire was completely demoralized. So, because of these faithless ministers and men in office, the people of the Middle Kingdom were drenched with blood.

  Zhai took Laibao and Wu to a room at the side of the courtyard, and there entertained them so liberally that they had as much as they could eat. He said to Laibao: “I should very much like to ask a favor of your master, but I don’t know whether he would care to do it or not.”

  “Uncle Zhai,” Laibao said, “how can you say such a thing? You have done so much with his Eminence on my master’s behalf that I am sure he will be only too glad to do anything you like to ask.”

  “I am always ready to do anything I can for him,” Zhai said. “Now, I have only one wife, and I am getting on in years. My wife is always ill and she has not borne a child. What I should like to ask is this: if your master knows of a pretty girl about fifteen or sixteen years old, perhaps he will be good enough to send her to me. I will gladly pay whatever expenses he may be put to.”

  He gave Laibao a letter and some presents for Ximen Qing, and offered the two men each five taels of silver as traveling money. Laibao steadily refused to accept it. “We have had a present from his Eminence,” he said, “so, Uncle Zhai, pray do not press this upon us.”

  The Comptroller insisted. “That was his Eminence’s own affair,” he said, “this is mine. Let us not stand too much on ceremony.”

  By this time they had finished their meal and Zhai told them that he would send someone to their inn who would accompany them next day to the Boards of War and Civil Service so that they might set their papers in order, and be able to start straight away without having to return to the Imperial Tutor’s palace.

  “The Boards will be more expeditious,” he said, “if I send an order with you.” He called an officer called Li Zhongyu and said to him: “Go with these two gentlemen to their respective Boards to register their appointments and secure the necessary papers. Then report to me.”

  Laibao and Wu Dian’en took leave of the Comptroller and left the palace with the officer. They went to a wineshop in the street near the Bridge of the Heavenly River, and there Laibao offered entertainment to Li Zhongyu, and gave him three taels of silver. They arranged that, next morning very early, they would go first to the Board of Civil Service and then to the Board of War. So indeed they did, registered their names and secured their papers, for, when the officers of these Boards knew that they had come from the Imperial Tutor’s palace, they did not dare delay, but quickly prepared the documents, which were as quickly sealed by the responsible officer and sent down to the other part of the office. In two days everything was settled. Then Laibao and Wu Dian’en hired animals and set off as fast as they could to Qinghe, traveling day and night in their anxiety to tell the happy news.

  One very hot day in the hottest part of summer, Ximen Qing was at home admiring the lotus flowers and drinking cooling wine in the great arbor. Wu Yueniang sat with him in the place of honor and the other ladies, with Ximen Dajie, sat on either side. Chunmei, Yingchun, Yuxiao and Lanxiang were there to sing and play for them.

  The ladies were drinking together when they suddenly missed Li Ping’er. Yueniang said to her maid: “Why has your mistress gone to her room?”

  “She has a pain and has gone to lie down,” the maid told her.

  “Go quickly,” Yueniang said, “and tell her not to lie down there but to come and enjoy the music with us.”

  Ximen Qing asked Yueniang what she was saying, and she told him.

  “Our sister is about eight months gone with child,” she said to Meng Yulou, “and I don’t wish her to do anything that may harm it.”

  Jinlian cried: “Oh, Great Sister, it is far from eight months yet.” And Ximen Qing said:

  “If her time is still some way off, we must send and tell her to come and listen to the music.”

  Soon Li Ping’er came back again. “You must not catch a chill,” Yueniang said to her. “Drink a little warm wine and then you’ll be all right.”

  Wine was poured for them all. Ximen Qing said to Chunmei: “Sing ‘People All Dread the Summer Day’ for me.”

  Chunmei and her companions had just touched the strings; they were opening their rosy lips and showing their w
hite teeth, ready to begin: “All people...,” when Li Ping’er knitted her eyebrows in pain. She did not wait for the song to be finished, but went again to her room. Yueniang heard the song out, but she was uneasy about Li Ping’er and ordered Xiaoyu to go to her room. When the maid came back, she said that Li Ping’er was in severe pain and rolling about on the bed.

  “I was sure her time had come,” Yueniang said, excitedly, “and you said it was too soon. Send a boy to fetch the midwife.”

  Ximen Qing ordered Ping’an to run like the wind and fetch old woman Cai. They did not stay to finish their wine, but all went to the Sixth Lady’s room.

  “Sister,” Yueniang said, “tell me how you feel.”

  “Great Sister, there is such a pain at the pit of my stomach and lower down that I feel as if all my insides were being dragged out of me.”

  “You had better get up,” Yueniang urged. “Don’t lie down any longer. It will not be good for the baby. I have sent for the midwife, and she will be here in a minute.”

  After a moment or two the pains grew worse and Yueniang asked anxiously: “Who has sent for the old woman? Why hasn’t he come back?”

  “Father told Laian to go,” Daian said.

  “You rascal,” Yueniang cried. “Go and find him at once. What a silly thing to send a little slave on a business like this! Why, he doesn’t know the difference between what is urgent and what is not.”

  “Get a mule quickly,” Ximen Qing said to Daian, “and go yourself.”

  “Even when things are of the utmost urgency,” Yueniang complained, “you go on in the same careless way.”

  Pan Jinlian was thoroughly annoyed when she realized that Li Ping’er was about to bear a child. She stayed in the room only a few minutes and then dragged Yulou out with her. They stood together beneath the eaves, where the breeze gave them a little coolness.

  “How crowded it was in that room,” Jinlian said, “it made the place so hot. Really, one would think they were watching an elephant laying galls, instead of an ordinary woman giving birth to an ordinary child.”

  At last Cai the midwife came. “Who is the mistress of the house?” she said.

  “This is the Great Lady,” Li Jiao’er said, indicating Yueniang.

  The old woman knelt down and kowtowed, but Yueniang told her to waste no time on ceremony. “Why have you been so long?” she said. “Kindly come and examine your patient at once.”

  The midwife went to the bed and carefully examined Li Ping’er. Then she said: “The time has come. Great Lady, have you got ready the paper that will be needed when the child is born?”

  “Yes,” Yueniang said. She sent Xiaoyu to bring what was needed.

  When the midwife came, Yulou said to Jinlian: “Here is the midwife. Let us go in.” But Jinlian would not. “If you wish to see,” she said, “go by yourself. I don’t want to have anything to do with it. She is going to have a child and she is a favored person in consequence. I don’t want to see her. I said that I did not think she had reached the time, and the Great Lady was furious with me. Whenever I think about it, it makes me wild.”

  “I said I thought it was the sixth month,” Yulou said.

  “Then you are a fool too,” Jinlian said. “Let me see. It was the eighth month of last year when she first came here. She was not a virgin. She married after her husband’s death and did not remain any too chaste. She may have been gotten with child two or three months before she came here. Yet they are all quite sure that this child belongs to the family. What I say is: if this really is an eighth-month baby, it may possibly bear some resemblance to our family. But if it is a sixth-month child, even if we get upon a bench to make a god, we still can’t get near it by a head. But when a young animal once gets away from its native place, there’s no tracing it.”

  As they were talking, Xiaoyu came bringing paper bandages and tiny bedclothes. “These are things the Great Lady prepared for her own use,” Yulou said, “now she is giving them to the Sixth Lady.”

  “Oh,” Jinlian said, “one is great and one is small. They seem to have a competition in this baby getting. Rather than produce nothing they would be satisfied with any bit of rubbish. I’m one of those hens that never lays an egg, yet does anybody dare to eat me? Look at them there, stretching and pulling, like a dog gnawing at a bladder. All this fuss and delight over nothing at all.”

  “What are you saying, Fifth Sister?” said Yulou. But Jinlian did not answer. She hung down her head and played with the ribbons on her skirt. Xue’e, who had heard that Li Ping’er was about to bear a child, came bustling over from the back court, hurrying so that she did not notice the step and nearly fell down.

  “Look at that little toady,” Jinlian said. “Why can’t she walk decently instead of dashing along like that? She might be running for her life. If she falls down and knocks her teeth out, it will cost some money. Just because the Sixth Lady has a baby, one would imagine this wretched woman would get a ceremonial hat.”

  At last, the sound of a cry came to them from the room. The midwife said someone must tell the master to get ready a present for her, because the lady had borne a son. Then Yueniang took word to Ximen Qing, who quickly washed his hands and burned incense in a full burner before the shrine of Heaven and Earth and of his Ancestors, and vowed that he would offer a solemn thanksgiving of a hundred and twenty degrees, with prayers for the happiness and prosperity of mother and child, and that the birth might be without danger and accompanied by good fortune.

  Now that Jinlian knew that the child was born and saw everyone in the household happily engaged about the mother and the child, she became angrier still, went to her own apartments, shut the door, threw herself upon the bed and began to sob. It was the twenty-third day of the sixth month, in the fourth year of the reign period Zhenghe.

  Madam Cai washed the child, cut the navel string, disposed of the after-birth, and then prepared soothing medicine for Li Ping’er. When all was done, Yueniang invited her to go to the inner court for refreshments. As she was about to go away, Ximen Qing gave her a piece of silver weighing five taels and promised that when she came again on the third day she should have a roll of silk. The old woman thanked him effusively and went away.

  Ximen went to see the baby. It was very dainty and white, and he was delighted with his son. The whole household was elated. He spent that night in the apartments of Li Ping’er, and it seemed as though he could not take his eyes off his son. Before dawn he rose, had ten boxes made ready, and sent the boys to his neighbors and kinsmen with the noodles of good fortune.

  As soon as Ying Bojue and Xie Xida received theirs and so learned that Ximen Qing had a son and heir, they set off, taking two steps in one, to offer their congratulations. Ximen entertained them in the arbor. When they had gone, he was about to send one of the boys to find a nurse, when old woman Xue came to introduce one. This was a woman of low degree, about thirty years old, who had lost her own child not a month before. Her husband was a poor soldier who was afraid that when he went to the wars there would be no one to look after his wife. He wanted no more than six taels of silver for her. Yueniang decided that the woman was clean and asked Ximen to pay the six taels and give her the charge of the newly born child. She was called Ruyi’er. Afterwards they sent for old woman Feng to work for Li Ping’er, promising her five qian of silver every month, besides her clothes.

  They were all very busy when suddenly Ping’an came and told them that Laibao and Wu Dian’en had returned from the Eastern Capital. They were at the gate and had just dismounted. Soon they came in with the good news for Ximen Qing. When he questioned them, they told him all that had happened on their journey, and how the Imperial Tutor had given appointments not only to Ximen Qing but to themselves. Laibao produced the sealed documents that they had brought from the Boards of Civil Service and of War and laid them on the table.

  Ximen Qing saw that there were many seals upon the papers, and it was clear that they had come from the court. He had been made a Dep
uty Captain. His brow lighted up and his face beamed. He took the document to show Yueniang and the others.

  “The Imperial Tutor has been good enough to raise me to the position of a Deputy Captain, which is an appointment of the fifth grade,” he said. “So now you are a real lady and must wear the ceremonial dress of your rank.”

  He told them also about the appointments that had been given to Laibao and Wu Dian’en. “Wu the Immortal,” he said, “told us that I should be given a hat of ceremony and have the good fortune to rise from the ground to the clouds. Not more than half a month has gone by and two of his prophecies have come true already.”

  “The Sixth Lady has this boy,” he said to Yueniang, “and he seems to be a good solid lad. After his washing on the third day, we will call him Guan’ge.”

  Laibao came in and kowtowed to Yueniang and the others. Ximen Qing told him to take the documents to Magistrate Xia the next day and told Wu to go to the town Hall. Then Laibao took leave of his master and went home.

  The next day was the day for the solemn washing of the child. The neighbors and relatives all heard that Ximen Qing’s wife had borne him a son and that he had been raised to official rank and they came, one and all, to offer their congratulations. All day long, people came and went without ceasing. As the proverb says: When fortune favors a man, so do other men; but when fortune departs, his friends depart too.

  CHAPTER 31

  Qintong Hides a Wine Pot

  The next day Ximen Qing sent Laibao with the documents to the magistrate’s court, and had a hat of ceremony made for himself. Then he sent for Zhao the tailor and gave him orders to make a colored cloak as quickly as possible. Several men were set to making girdles of office. That day Wu Dian’en went to call upon Ying Bojue and told him all about the appointment he had received. He begged Bojue to borrow some money for him from Ximen Qing so that he could expend whatever was necessary at his office. He promised to give Bojue ten taels for himself. So eager was he, that he knelt down before Bojue. Ying hastily raised him to his feet. “What could be more pleasant,” he said, “than to do things for others? Thanks to Ximen’s generosity, you have acquired this position, and this is no ordinary occasion. How much will you need?”