CH 29

Someone has accused you of colluding with the Chief Examining Officers and receiving the exam questions in advance

Yan Shifan was in a bad mood lately, he usually didn’t have a good temperament anyway so now it was even worse. If his concubine did not serve him well, he would have her dragged out and had her beaten. His face was as dark as the bottom of a burnt pot. To the extent that the two men, Yan Maoqing and Wan Cai who were standing in front of him were almost trembling with fear.

Yan Maoqing seeing that Yan Shifan was playing with jade balls in his hands, and hadn’t spoken in so long, he couldn’t help breaking the silence: “Little Ge Lao1, recently, the people made an offering of 200,000 taels, this official has ordered people to cast a gold and silver tree. On the top the leaves and flowers will be entirely gold and white silver….”

He hadn’t finished before being cut off: “What kind of time is it now, lao-zi doesn’t have time to be listening to this nonsense!”

Wan Cai, seeing Yan Maoqing deflated, looked over at Yan Shifan and smiled: “There seems to be something bothering Little Ge Lao, perhaps you could tell us so we can also help you to find a solution.”

“You both have really lived well for too long, you don’t know how the word death is written!” Yan Shifan smiled coldly: “My mother is so ill that she can’t leave her bed, it’s a lingering illness, don’t you both know that?”

Yan Maoqing and Wan Cai looked at each other, they didn’t know why he would suddenly bring this up, especially since ordinarily he had never shown any filial piety.

Wan Cai quickly replied: “Lao fu-ren is very ill, this weighs heavy on our hearts…”

“Idiot! Lao-zi just wants to tell you both, if my mother dies, I will have to go back to my hometown to observe mourning for my mother!”

Yan Maoqing finally understood what Yan Shifan was trying to say. If a parent died, the children must observe a period of mourning, this was right and ulterable, and imperial officials were no exception. If this was the case, you’d have to go back to your hometown and observe a period of three years of mourning before you could come back to your official post. But three years is a long time and things changed very quickly, no one would just leave the position empty waiting for you to come back.

So in order to continue working as an official, in a previous dynasty had created a method to get around this called “Duo Qing”2. When you evoked “Duo Qing” that meant that your official post was too important, and you absolutely couldn’t leave your position, so the Emperor would order by imperial decree, in the name of the country, you must continue working, and there was no need to observe the mourning period. So in successive dynasties and successive generations, anyone who didn’t want to go into a period of mourning would use this method, it was tried and tested.

However, during the Ming dynasty, this method was not upheld, because the Ming dynasty court had a decree – “All officials observing the period of mourning, must not present “Duo Qing” to the Emperor”. That meant that if one or both of your parents died, the period of mourning had to be observed, it didn’t matter if you were a high-ranking official, you must go, and you cannot use “Duo Qing” as an excuse.

So, if Lady Ouyang passes, Yan Shifan was obliged to return to his hometown for three years to observe the mourning period. Yan Song was already eighty years old this year, so he was already far less able before, there were many things that Yan Shifan would actually take care of behind his back. If Yan Shifan had to leave, he was afraid that something would inevitably go wrong in the Yan faction3.

Yan Shifan was very clear that although it seemed like smooth-sailing now, because on the outside he had Hu Zongxian, and on the inside he had his father. The inside and outside of the imperial court looked like a steel tube. They had allies in the highs and the lows of the government. However, there were many eyes coveting their position, secretly hoping that father and son would slip up. And these people would stop at nothing to get a piece of the action.

Yan Maoqing and Wan Cai were both idiots. As soon as Yan Shifan said it explicitly, they finally understood the consequences, they nervously got up and said: “Little Ge Lao, then what should we do?”

If Yan Shifan wasn’t there. They would have lost their backbone, and they could be pulled off the horse anytime, so they were naturally panicking.

“Look at you guys,” Yan Shifan sneered, put down the jade balls casually, then got up and paced about.

“Has the imperial exam results been released?”

Wan Cai quickly replied: “It was just released today?”

“What are the rankings?”

“First place is Qi Yuanzuo, second place is Xu Shixing, and the third is Wang Xijue.”

Yan Shifan squinted the eye that was not blind4 and asked, “There is a person named Zhao Su, do you remember if he is on the list?”

Wan Cai had a very good memory, and having seen the list once he could almost memorise the whole thing.

He said: “I remember this person, he was ranked fourth.”

“Fourth…excellent!” Yan Shifan’s mind turned quickly and laughed loudly: “The Emperor wants to suppress this matter, but I want to make it a big deal, let’s see the game play out!”

Both Yan and Wan were confused: “Please explain, little Ge Lao.”

“The night that the Prince of Yu lost his son, it was this Zhao Su who brought his son back, and he now seems to spend a lot of time there. Originally, I thought he was just a young scholar. I didn’t take him very seriously, but after I sent someone to check him out, I found out that he’s a student of Dai Gongwang. Dai Gongwang and Xu Jie are both followers of the School of Mind. The water beneath Zhao Su runs deep.”

“Xu Jie, this old fox5, has been playing dead in front of my father for so long. He’s super slippery and it’s impossible to get a handle on him. In order to win our trust, he even offered up his granddaughter, which made my old father confused, believing that he has no ambitions at all. But in my opinion, there must be a secret connection between Xu Jie and Prince of Yu.”

“And the person that is helping them contact each other is Zhao Su.” Yan Maoqing seemed to understand: “Little Ge Lao means to say that, we must use Zhao Su to pull down Xu Jie and the Prince of Yu?”

Yan Shifan sneered: “Not bad, the exam questions were leaked, the Emperor wanted to suppress the issue, because there are so many problems at the moment, making him worried. Originally, he thought it would be one less issue to look into and he wasn’t willing to investigate the matter. But think about it, if he knew that Xu Jie and the Prince of Yu were secretly plotting behind closed doors, what do you think he will do?”

Jiajing Emperor was very serious about authority, even though he was busy in his search for immortality, he would never let anyone threaten his royal authority, especially one of his own sons. Therefore, any contact between princes and high-ranking officials was strictly forbidden. If the Emperor had any suspicions of this, he would immediately rectify the situation. Yan Shifan had noticed this and that’s why he came up with the idea.

Yan Maoqing sneered: “You are indeed worthy of the title of Little Ge Lao, this is a superb plan, if this works, his Majesty will be very suspicious of Xu Jie and the Prince of Yu, and he will take measures against them, whilst we can just sit back and watch. This way, if you need to leave the Capital, we will not lose our grip on the court.”

Yan Shifan was pleased with himself: “We can say that it was Gao Gong and the others were playing favouritism and we might as well say that they leaked the exam questions as well.”

As soon as Gao Gong and the others fell, the Emperor would also be extremely disappointed with the Prince of Yu. This way, a single net wiped out all the enemies.”

“Just how do we get Zhao Su to admit his guilt? There is still Xu Jie and the Prince of Yu behind him. Should we use force…”

“No need for you to do anything, lao-zi will borrow three knives to kill three people!”

……..

When Zhao Su came out of the Prince of Yu Manor, he ran into Li Song who was waiting outside. Li Song was the grandson of his old lady who helped them cook. He was only fifteen this year. Li shen-zi was from a poor family, so she recommended her grandson to help run errands and do some chores. Zhao Su saw that he was diligent, so he hired him.

Seeing him at this time was a bit strange.

“Why are you here? Where is Zhao Rong?”

Li Song scratched his ears, unable to answer: “I saw him go out earlier, but he still hasn’t come back yet.”

Zhao Su was pretty relaxed so his pageboy had also become complacent, especially since Zhao Su was often at the Prince of Yu manor these days. He couldn’t have Zhao Rong follow him there. So naturally Zhao Rong ran out and about often and Zhao Su hardly saw him these days but youths can be so active.

Zhao Su was also too lazy to discipline him, so he just patted Li Song on the shoulder: “Why did you come to find me, did something happen?”

Li Song smiled: “A guest is here, waiting for you at home.”

Zhao Su was surprised: “What guest?”

“He didn’t want to say, he only said that once you were home you’d know.”

Zhao Su became more and more curious when he heard these words: “Let’s go home and have a look!”

The courtyard was quiet, the examination results had been released today so Chen Zhu must have gone to see and hadn’t come back yet. Zhao Su went straight back to the house. He just opened the door and saw a man with his back to him, who was reading a book in his hands.

That person heard the door open, turned around, and smiled: “You’re back?”

“Little shixiong….” Zhao Su murmured with disbelief.

“Come here.” The tall young man beckoned him over with his fingers with a smile on his face. Once he went over there, he was pulled in for an embrace, and the other even patted him hard on the back a few times: “Did you miss me?”

“Actually I didn’t miss you at all, but look at you, you must have missed me to death, little shixiong.” Zhao Su came to his senses, he couldn’t stop the corners of his mouth from curling up more and more, he reached out to grab him into an embrace again, the two hugging each other, it felt like the olden days.

“You can shut that mouth of yours, our teacher is not here, so my authority is the highest. If you call me little shixiong again, lao-zi will whip you to death!” Yuan Shu said fiendishly. His appearance had shed its infantile look from a few years ago, gradually expressing a mature silhouette, increasingly elegant and tall.

But it was a pity that from the start his only shidi had never taken his authority seriously and expressed surprise instead: “Why have you suddenly come, weren’t you placed in Shanxi6?”

“I’ve completed three years of service, my evaluation was outstanding7, a document came from higher up, I’ve been transferred back to the Capital. I heard that you were taking the imperial examination this year. I thought that you must be in the Capital now. Who knew when I went to pay my respects to colleagues, I found out that they released the results today. I wouldn’t have believed that you even managed to win 4th place.”

Yuan Shu laughed, he looked like he was in a good mood, he didn’t mind even being called little shixiong.

“Luckily, your friend was also at the place where they were releasing the results. His name is Chen Zhu, he asked his pageboy to bring me here so I was able to find this place.”

Zhao Su seized the opportunity: “Transferred back to the Capital so it means you’ve been promoted? You need to treat me to a good meal then.”

Yuan Shu snorted, suddenly grabbing Zhao Su’s chin: “You got a good ranking in the metropolitan examination and I came over as a lucky coincidence. But you look very calm, you’ve not even expressed any emotion at all!”

Zhao Su smiled bitterly, his little shixiong hadn’t matured emotionally at all, it was just for show. Nothing had changed inside, he still had a child’s temperament.

He smacked away the other’s hand and then massaged his red chin: “How can you say I’m not touched. In this lifetime, I only have you, my little shixiong. You’ve been promoted, I should share in the glory with you. Where are we going to eat Yunlai House or Liuquan Pavilion8?”

Yuan Shu listened to the first half of that sentence, his eyes widened and he smiled, but this smile was eroded by the second half of his sentence, he was so angry his teeth were chattering.

He plopped down hard onto the chair :“No need to go anywhere. You sit down now! I need to ask you something, what have you been doing in the last three years?”

Zhao Su was laughing inside but on the outside he sighed and said angrily: “I’ve been out all day hungry even if you’re a penny-pincher and don’t want to treat me to a meal. You could at least let me drink some water.”

Yuan Shu twitched his eyebrow: “You little b*stard, you’ve been crafty since you were a child. Don’t count on me to be soft-hearted. How could the guest of the Prince of Yu manor be hungry?”

He just finished speaking, when he saw Zhao Su looking at him with a smile, it was a warm expression, and he wasn’t teasing anymore.

“Little shixiong, I really did miss you.”

Yuan Shu was slightly startled, and a sour and astringent feeling rushed into his heart. In reality, the two study brothers had only spent a handful of years together. That year when Yuan Shu had passed the metropolitan exam, Zhao Su had missed the opportunity because he got sick from saving Yuan Shu from drowning. A freak accident, and then just like that they had to separate. When they met each other again, they were no longer the two youths that used to study in Dai Gongwang’s study.

Plus, these last few years, Yuan Shu had taken up official post, he had experienced quite a few twist and turns, he had seen a lot and encountered his fair share of tragedies, dealt with all kind of people, the arrogance of the past gradually turned into a restrained arrogance, he felt that the friendship of his youth was more and more precious.

In fact, there is still a knot in his heart. Zhao Su was supposed to go to the exam with him back then, but he was delayed by that illness. Three years were wasted in vain. Yuan Shu had never let this go, but he was young and proud, even if he felt guilty he didn’t know how to express it, so he suppressed it deep down, and he didn’t even write the letter. He had left home at a young age, to follow Dai Gongwang on his travels, even though he had siblings at home, they were not particularly close to his heart, if there was someone who he really felt close to, it was only this shidi.

“I’m sorry,” Yuan Shu finally said it out loud.

“What’s there to be sorry about, if other people saw you acting like a child, they would think that you’d done something awful to me. Isn’t it just treating me to a meal, penny-pincher, alright, I’ll treat you then, let’s go!” Zhao Su sighed, pulling him towards the door.

He also knew the reason for the awkwardness in Yuan Shu’s heart, but he didn’t take it seriously at all. Taking the exam three years later meant that he had more time to prepare. The incident back then was an accident. Besides, since then, this little shixiong had never caused trouble or acted unwillfully again, that meant he had learnt his lesson and he had grown up.

Yuan Shu didn’t react for a moment, he lost his usual sharpness, and let him pull him along. In that moment, he discovered that the other’s originally youthful hand had gradually revealed the outline of an adult’s silhouette, which had become more slender and beautiful.

The two had not seen each other for a long time, so naturally had a lot of things to say to each other. When they arrived at Yunlai House, they bumped into Chen Zhu and some others, and were pulled in with them, unable to leave so they ended up drinking together. It turned out that in addition to the first place, Qi Yuanzuo, Xu Shixing took second, Wang Xijue took third, followed by Zhao Su and Chen Zhu. The names of these people were all next to each other, and they all knew each other. It is naturally more lively to get together, plus a former court examination graduate, Yuan Shu was also present. Everyone was about the same age, so this meal carried on until dark.

In the following days, Zhao Su was either made to go socialise with other scholars by Chen Zhu, or he was made to meet Yuan Shu’s peers. This was to prepare for his future career, so although he had finished the metropolitan exam, he felt more tired than he did before the exam. After a few days of this, he felt overwhelmed.

One day, Zhao Su finally had the opportunity to relax and was reading a book. He was preparing for next month’s court examination. Yuan Shu sat lazily practising his calligraphy.

A faint fragrant scent blew in from the window, the two didn’t speak, they were just happily enjoying the calmness.

Yuan Shu finished a line of calligraphy, he lifted his head and saw that Zhao Su was fully concentrating on his book. He was extraordinarily serious and handsome, Yuan Shu couldn’t help but smile and said: “This is a rare sunny day, you…”

Before he could finish, they heard banging on the door. After a moment, Li Song ran to open the door. He’d just opened the door and shouted but was pushed backwards.

The two of them saw that something was up, so they went outside to take a look, where they saw a group of people coming. They were wearing flying fish robes9 and carrying an embroidered spring knife10, expressing an aggressive aura.

Yuan Shu’s face dropped: “The Embroidered Guard?!”

“Which one of you is Zhao Su!””

“I am.”

The guard looked him up and down and then pointed: “Arrest him!”

“Wait!” Yuan Shu said, he walked forward, standing in front of Zhao Su. “What crime has he committed?”

Perhaps it was because Yuan Shu didn’t look like an ordinary commoner, the other person looked at him but didn’t say anything.

Zhao Su’s heart skipped a beat, he took out an embroidered pouch containing some loose silver from his sleeve, handed it to the guard, and said, “Da-ren, the Embroidered Guard Commander, Liu Shouyou, Lui da-ren is an acquaintance, could you tell us what is going on?”

The guard’s expression eased a lot: “So you know Liu da-ren, however, this situation is particularly delicate. It’s in regard to cheating in the metropolitan examination; the Emperor has ordered a thorough investigation.Someone has accused you of colluding with the Chief Examining Officers and receiving the exam questions in advance. So that’s why you were able to pass with honours, so you must come with us.”

The information was shocking and Zhao Su’s face couldn’t help turning a little pale, but in the end he didn’t lose his composure: “Could you tell me the name of my accuser?”

The guard did not intend to conceal the information and replied: “His name is Zhao Rong.”