Chapter Twenty-Four: Qin Qi Shu Hua(1)
Innocent contests in the fine arts veil a more malicious intent.
A thundering of iron-shielded hooves pounding against the ground. A ringing of horses neighing shrilly into the air. A peal of high-spirited laughter, as two figures emerged from behind a curtain of weeping cherry trees and soft white dogwood. The larger of the pair was mounted on a fierce charger with a glistening coat of iron gray; his smaller companion rode a fiery little strawberry mare. Neck-and-neck they raced, until at the last minute, the man subtly reined in his own horse, causing the beast to gradually slow down and thus forfeit the contest.
"I saw that!" Sun Shang Xiang cried out, waving her riding whip accusingly in her husband's direction.
Liu Bei tried to look as innocent as possible, whistling naïvely, "Saw what? An exceptionally lovely bird or flower, perhaps?"
Sun Shang Xiang laughed, and had to resist the urge to toss her whip at his smiling face.
"Don't be silly; you know I've got no patience for such frivolous things," she scoffed, her head held high with pride.
Her husband dismounted, and she herself followed suit. As they tossed their bridles toward two waiting servants, Sun Shang Xiang added teasingly, "I was talking about how you purposely let me win the race! Does this mean you don't think I can beat you in a contest without your help, oh venerable Imperial Uncle?"
Before Liu Bei could respond, a pageboy came dashing forward. The lad quickly dropped a bow before the royal couple, while announcing at the same time, "Lord Liu Bei, Lady Sun—the two princes wish to come in and offer their felicitations."
Sun Shang Xiang stopped smoothing over her mare's silky mane, a reluctant frown beginning to creep over her features as she considered the matter at hand.
"No," she at last decided in a brisk tone, after giving the matter a few seconds' worth of consideration.
Now it was Liu Bei's turn to frown, as his young wife nodded at the attending servants to lead both horses to their stable.
"Lady, that wouldn't be the polite thing to do," he objected, but before he could go any further, Sun Shang Xiang laughed while disclosing, "The last time my idiot brothers went to congratulate a newlywed couple, they ended up scaring the bride into a nunnery!"
Liu Bei looked taken aback by her particular revelation.
"I find that hard to believe," he protested mildly. Turning to the pageboy, he instructed, "By all means, welcome them inside."
Sun Shang Xiang sighed.
"Fine. But don't come crying to me after today's ordeal is over; remember, I warned you," she said, putting her hands on her hips.
Liu Bei smiled indulgently at his wife, attributing her pessimism to sibling rivalry.
His smile was quick to slip off, however, when Sun Ce and Sun Quan, toting red-ribboned jars of wine, merrily barreled in…followed by Zhou Yu…followed by Guan Yu and Zhang Fei…followed by Zhao Yun…followed by Gan Ning and Zhou Tai…followed by Huang Zhong and Wei Yan…
Soon enough, what appeared to be the combined forces of Wu and Shu had assembled in the courtyard. Following in their wake was an influx of dancers, musicians, costumed acrobats, and servants bearing tables, stools, and endless trays of food and wine.
Sun Shang Xiang glared huffily at her guilty-looking husband.
"Next time, Xuande," she snapped with mock anger, even as she accepted a tiny platter of assorted sweets from a servant, "when I warn you of something, you'd better listen!"
Cao Cao thoughtfully stroked his goatee as he examined the large canvas map spread over his desk.
"In the end," he murmured, "Jingzhou remains a critical region."
Sima Yi nodded, a burst of charcoal feathers languidly moving through the air as he swished his fan back and forth.
"Currently, it is in the hands of Liu Xuande…whom, I believe, is still visiting Wu," he pointed out.
Cao Cao lifted an eyebrow.
"Are you suggesting that we launch an expedition to conquer Jingzhou right now, while most of its key officers are occupied elsewhere?" he asked.
Surprisingly, his answer was a shake of the head.
"No. If Xi Gu Niang's information is accurate, then the Shu forces aren't planning on remaining in Wu for very long." Sima Yi took a sip of tea. "Besides, Jingzhou has been under the rule of the Liu Clan for generations. Liu Bei is beloved by the citizens, and if we abruptly sweep in and conquer that province, without an ally that its people recognize and accept, we'll risk the chance of rebellion sweeping throughout the entire region."
"There is always…" Cao Cao started to object, but before he could finish, a little soldier came inside and knelt down.
"Your Majesty, there is a fortune-telling master outside who wishes to speak with you," he announced, a note of uncertainty coloring his young voice.
Cao Cao looked befuddled, and for a moment, wondered whether he'd heard the soldier right. Had the strains of war taxed his nerves so badly as to affect his hearing…?
"A fortune-telling master?" the king of Wei demanded incredulously.
Why, the only occasion those types of people were invited was when…a family wished to determine whether its son was making a good match or a misalliance.
The young cadet nodded, and Cao Cao leaned back in his seat, puzzled. His eldest son, Cao Pi, was quite happily wed to the stunning Lady Zhen Ji…Perhaps this was his next son, Cao Zhi's, eccentric way of hinting that he would like to get married as well?
Before the third prince of Wei could be summoned for an inquiry, however, Sima Yi spoke up, clearing the confusion.
"That must be Old Man Jia, then," he guessed calmly. Motioning with his fan, he added, "Lead him in, I'm the one who invited him."
"Yes, General Sima," the young soldier said obediently, still looking curious as he exited the room.
Cao Cao deigned a glance toward his gifted strategist, his eyes crinkled with a carefully neutral expression that nevertheless wasn't without traces of bewilderment.
"Shall I offer my congratulations, Zhongda?" he drawled with veiled curiosity.
Sima Yi calmly returned to fanning himself.
"Another day, perhaps—when the groom has been told of this felicitous news," he revealed mysteriously.
Drums, trumpets, and lutes sounded a raucous cacophony, all playing magnificently out of tune and made even worse by the boisterous laughter and cries that joined their melodies. Firecrackers soared into the skies, nearly setting several trees aflame in the process. Acrobats recklessly performed their sword-and-magic stunts, trampling over flowerbeds and scaring a waddling troop of mandarin ducks into the safety of the nearest lake.
Over this chaotic scene of merrymaking, Sun Ce presided like a handsome god of debauchery, waving goblets around, pouring wine for whomever had a cup to hold it, and inviting everybody to eat their fill.
Liu Bei and Sun Shang Xiang exchanged looks, his face dazed and vaguely apologetic, hers wearing an irate I-told-you-so! glare.
"This is…ah, certainly a surprise," Liu Bei spoke up tactfully, avoiding his wife's accusing scowl.
Sun Ce momentarily stopped wrestling Gan Ning for the last spring roll, and looked up to declare cheerfully, "Yeah, well, you two have been so busy ogling each other lately that you've left it up to us to throw the proper post-wedding parties!"
Unfortunately for the first prince of Wu, this brief gloat cost him the spring roll.
"Hey—!" he dived at his rival, trying to salvage the uneaten half from the former pirate.
Before a fight could break out, a new, feminine voice spoke up laughingly, "What's with all this commotion?"
Those within hearing range turned around to face the speaker.
Xi Tian emerged from behind a cluster of flowering magnolias, carrying a white-and-blue porcelain vase from the rim of which peeked out a showy spray of carmine-starred mei branches. She dimpled at all the looks fixed on her, before gently tossing her head to flick a rebellious strand of hair away from her lashes.
"Is this some type of surprise party?" she asked innocently.
Her smiling eyes caught Zhao Yun's glance. The youngest Tiger General responded by playfully distorting his features into a cross-eyed glare, causing Xi Tian to giggle into the red meis she was holding. Apparently, Zhao Yun was still miffed about the incident with having to take the blame for braiding Guan Yu's beard.
"Why do you ask?" Gan Ning called out crassly. "Are you volunteering to provide the entertainment?"
Xi Tian blushed, hiding behind the mei branches so as to blend her scarlet cheeks with the equally scarlet blossoms.
"I am but a humble handmaid; it is not in my place to show off whatever meager talents I might have," she protested. "Rather, in the family that I used to work for, the Young Misses were the ones who would entertain guests and sisters alike. Da Gu Niang(2) would play the qin and sing, while Er Gu Niang(3) usually tended to prefer linked verse poetry…Perhaps Lady Sun might do the same?"
Sun Ce whooped at the mere suggestion that his feisty younger sister try her hand at something so demure as reciting poems.
"This is my Little Sis that you're talking about here," he snorted, before stupidly adding, "If she even knows any poetry, it's probably about war or bossing men around!"
He promptly received a peach to the nose for his troubles, courtesy of none other than the aforementioned Little Sis. Xi Tian laughed into her meis at this interaction between brother and sister, before taking up for Sun Shang Xiang and declaring, "You mustn't speak of Lady Sun like this, Lord Bofu. After all, she is the princess of Wu; she must've had the finest home-schooling in all aspects of qin qi shu hua."
"Normal girls might study qin qi shu hua," Sun Quan spoke up. "Shang Xiang skips her lessons to bother the soldiers or go riding!"
The younger prince wisely dodged after speaking, and the ripe persimmon that his sister hurled flew past him and instead bonked a recovering Sun Ce in the middle of the latter's forehead. Xi Tian managed to halfway cover her laughter with her meis, and Liu Bei, in an effort to assuage his wife's wrath, quickly proposed, "Orchid, perhaps you would like to sing a song or recite some poetry in Lady Sun's place?"
Xi Tian demurely lowered her eyes to the ground, objecting, "It would be disrespectful for a mere handmaid to attempt such a thing. The lady of the household ought to do it."
"The lady of the household doesn't know the first thing about it!" Sun Ce crowed, and this time, he was smart enough to duck.
Sun Shang Xiang's flying tangerine smacked harmlessly into a tree trunk, at the same time that Zhao Yun stepped forward and relieved Xi Tian of the heavy vase she was still carrying.
"Don't be shy, Orchid…unless you yourself are equally ignorant of the Four Arts?" he demanded, a teasing sparkle in his dark eyes as he set his burden down on a nearby table.
At his dare, Xi Tian plucked a mei branch from the vase to smack him on the lips with its tiny crimson flowers.
"I know enough about them!" she huffed, hitting him again with the meis, this time on his throat.
Then prove it, his eyes playfully dared.
Xi Tian clasped one hand to her heart, still loosely holding on to her flower spray. An expectant stillness descended over the crowd, as the young handmaid paced back and forth—supposedly to conjure up a good medium to demonstrate her knowledge of the finer arts. After a few contemplative seconds, Xi Tian stopped before Liu Bei and Sun Shang Xiang, and began to recite in a sweet, lilting voice:
"One osprey calls, the other does reply—
On the islet in the river pleasant to th' eye
The maiden nice and fair will evidently knit
With the gentleman an ideal conjugal tie."
Here, Xi Tian paused, and turned around to train an expectant look on the young man who'd challenged her to this performance. A few hushed seconds elapsed, during which Zhao Yun quietly began to turn red when he discovered that the attention had been shifted from the girl before him to his own self.
"Is something the matter?" he finally asked, clearing his throat and making a conscious effort to stop blushing.
Xi Tian raised a hand to stifle her laughter at seeing his obvious discomfort, before cooing sweetly, "Really, General, you didn't expect me to finish the poem all by myself, did you? The whole point of linked verse is for different people to supply different lines."
Zhao Yun squirmed in his seat, refusing to meet her gleeful gold eyes as he coughed and stammered, "I am a warrior, not a scholar…I don't know these types of things…"
His words only resulted in Xi Tian giggling harder into her hand, before she smirked and sang out, "You're not going to be let off that easily. Come on, I'll even supply the next lines for you: Being dredg'd up—now from the left, now from the right—Are the floating hearts vari'd in length in the stream."
Much to her surprise, Zhao Yun was ready with a contribution this time. Having been initially caught off-guard by her unexpected revelation that this was to be a linked verse poem, he was determined not to make the same mistake twice. Zhao Yun captured her teasing gaze with his own eyes and held it, as he began to profess in a voice low enough to almost pass off for a whisper:
"I love, nay, I adore the maiden nice and fair,
Be I sober-minded or, at night, in a dream."
By the time his voice had sensually drifted into silence, Xi Tian, no longer so teasing, was as red as he himself had been mere minutes earlier. The poem wasn't going in the direction she'd initially started on; no, she'd meant it as an ode toward Liu Bei and Sun Shang Xiang's recent marriage—the fair maiden with the gentleman an ideal conjugal tie. Yet now, Zhao Yun had taken her words and continued them in the form of a love song…How…Why…?
Zhou Yu, noting Zhao Yun's reticence and Xi Tian's blushing looks, tactfully took up the responsibility of providing the next verse:
"My affections so far being without return,
This wretch'd heart with longing does burn
Lovesickness lingering in the mind in the course
Of long long nights, I lie awake and toss and turn!"
The handsome strategist of Wu finished with a flourish, and Sun Quan picked up where he left off, adding the couplet, "Being gather'd, now from the left, now from the right/Are the floating hearts vari'd in length in the stream."
During the time it took the two Wu natives to compose their respective lines, Xi Tian had hurriedly worked to regain her composure. Slowly, her flaming cheeks returned to their normal color, while she gave what she hoped sounded like an airy laugh and declared, "Wonderful! Who's next?"
Sun Ce made a nervous coughing sound into his wine goblet, as he realized that he was, unfortunately, the one sitting next to his younger brother. All eyes swiveled toward the first prince of Wu, while said prince offered a sheepishly lopsided grin and mumbled, "Um, I'm not exactly very good at this kind of stuff…Ah, let's see…The man tries to impress the pretty girl? Um…He plays the qin and the se(4) and hopes that when she hears she won't hurl…?"
Whoops and merry laughter broke out upon his pathetic finish, before the giggling Xi Tian generously offered to amend his lines.
"I like your general idea, Lord Bofu, but I think it'd be best if you rephrased it…Mmm, I know: Let the qin be play'd and the se be pluck'd so as/To befriend the maiden who's worthy of esteem!"
A general murmur of agreement rippled across her audience, while Sun Ce gave a good-natured shrug of both shoulders and muttered clownishly, "I still like my version better."
More laughter followed his remark, before Liu Bei cleared his throat and recited his contribution.
"The floating hearts, vari'd in length, are
Being chosen, now from the left, now from the right."
On the table, Sun Shang Xiang's hands were slowly tightening into fists, until her knuckles began to turn white. For a while, she refused to raise her eyes, knowing that everybody was now looking at her, wondering whether the biggest tomboy to have come out of the House of Sun, the same tomboy who'd shown shamefully little interest in the Four Arts and everything else that hinted of gentility, would be able to come up with a couple of lines of even remote literary worth.
After she could no longer bear the overwhelming muteness of all her peers anticipating her contribution to their linked verse, she snapped her head up and glared defiantly, first at her brothers, then at her husband.
"What do you all want?" Sun Shang Xiang barked, and could not help the tinge of spoiled rudeness from creeping into her sentence.
Liu Bei started at the open hostility in his wife's voice, but before he could do or say anything, his brother-in-law had retorted in an equally impertinent tone, "It's kind of your turn, Little Sis—or do you need war drums to remind you when to start?"
If looks could kill, the luckless Sun Ce would have long been buried. As it was, Sun Shang Xiang had to content herself with firing off sullenly, "Poetry, hah! How boring it is; I could care less about these types of things!"
"C'mon, Little Sis! I mean, hell, even I came up with something! You should at least try, or are you just trying to ruin all the fun by keeping up this stuck up attitude of yours—?" Sun Ce started to chide in a bossy, big brother manner.
"I already said I could care less about these types of things, didn't I?" his sister exploded at him, her voice noticeably rising an octave with each word.
Xi Tian, sensing the tension in the air, smoothly finished the poem in lieu of the uncooperative Wu princess.
"Let the drum be beaten and let the bell be chim'd," she stepped in, before the sibling spat could escalate into a real fight, "In order the maiden virtuous to delight."
Unfortunately, Sun Ce just had to be stubborn enough to press the issue.
"See? That didn't sound like something you couldn't have come up with—given a year or two with a tutor!" he demanded gloatingly of his sister.
He then proceeded to crow, "Hey, looks like you could learn a thing or two from your new handmaid, huh? Might even become less manly under her influence!"
More jokes and impish bantering were tossed out along that vein, while Sun Shang Xiang glowered and silently fumed.
Finally, when Liu Bei smiled and spoke up in an attempt to defend his wife's ignorance of the fine arts, "There is no need to fault Lady Sun—her specialty is the art of war; I can always rely on the handmaid Orchid as a companion in the arts of beauty," the tomboyish new queen of Shu slammed both fists on the table with a bang. Sun Shang Xiang drew herself to her full height, glared furiously at her husband—and abruptly stormed out.
An uncomfortable silence fell onto the previously festive crowds. Be they Wu or Shu, all looked startled at their hostess's unexpected exit…
…All except for one. Xi Tian alone guiltily dropped her eyes, as if she'd known exactly what she was doing when she'd charmed the men with her doe-eyed recital, and driven an exasperated Sun Shang Xiang away in the process.
1. As defined in the endnotes of Chapter Fourteen, Qin Qi Shu Hua means music, chess, calligraphy, and painting, respectively. These four were the primary arts that all well-educated people were expected to master.
2. Eldest Miss
3. Second Miss
By thus calling the 'young misses of her old household'—in other words, her two older sisters, Xi Lien and Xi Yue—Xi Tian conveniently avoids having to name the two girls, and possibly give her own identity away in the process.
4. A musical instrument with twenty-seven strings.
The 'linked verse poem' being composed is actually a love song called "The Ospreys in Tune," which comes from The Book of Poetry, a collection of poems dating all the way back to the Zhou Dynasty (1100 B.C.-221 B.C.) The nod to qin qi shu hua in this chapter refers back to Chapter Fourteen, where Cao Cao, knowing Sun Shang Xiang's reputation for being a tomboy, asked Lord Xi if the latter's daughter was knowledgeable enough of the four arts to basically make Liu Bei's new wife look like an uncultured wild child.
A/N: I know this chapter was twice as long as my usual installments are, and I hope it didn't drag out as a result. I honestly have no clue how it got to be so ridiculously long; the linked verse scene apparently took up more words than most of my regular chapters! Also, as a warning beforehand, I have to say that from now on, historical accuracy is probably going to be slowly phased out (like the story was all that historically accurate to begin with!) However, the locations and characters that participated in certain battles or events might get switched or moved around to better fit the events in the story. Last but definitely not least, a huge thanks to all my readers.