Yun Ye bounced along the garden path with a face full of smiles. Li Chengqian was quite worried about his mental state. He had never seen anyone who, after sending gifts to a girl and being exposed to her parents with great loss of face, would still be beaming with joy. Could this fellow have been driven mad with anger? He quietly took two steps away to keep his distance, in case Yun Ye suddenly attacked someone.
“Xiao Ye, that’s just Anlan’s temperament. Haven’t you seen that she doesn’t even give my father emperor face? Though my father emperor reduced some of her allowance, she simply refused to take any at all. She even opened a small plot of farmland over by Tingtao Hall. Although it can’t harvest much grain, she takes delight in it. My mother empress went to persuade her, but she only cried, and afterward still went her own way. Her mother had low status but was still a titled Zhaoyi who often sent her things, which is the only reason she didn’t starve to death. My father emperor says she’s a stubborn donkey. You shouldn’t bother with her.” Li Chengqian actually very much hoped Yun Ye would become his brother-in-law. After all, this was his first friend, and he didn’t want to see either of them get hurt.
How could he know the joy in Yun Ye’s heart? At this moment, Yun Ye was shouting and yelling in his mind: “That’s right, that’s right! A good girl won’t be moved by small favors. Back in the day, my wife was just like this. I didn’t eat breakfast for a month, spent over a hundred yuan buying a rabbit doll to confess my feelings to her. She painted the eyes black with ink, making it look neither like a rabbit nor a panda, and gave it back to me. Then she told the teacher I was acting like a hooligan, causing me to make a self-criticism before the whole class while she watched with a grin. So what? In the end, didn’t she still become the mother of my child? You think I like Li Anlan? If that face wasn’t exactly like my wife’s, would I be chasing after her so eagerly? I must bring her back, absolutely must bring her back. Even if I don’t do anything with her, it would be good just to look at her when I wake in the middle of the night. This kind of wicked thought I dare not reveal to Li Chengqian, or he really would kill me a thousand times over.”
“Who says Anlan didn’t accept my gift? I made six dishes. Only five appeared on His Majesty’s table. Where did that beggar’s chicken go? Don’t tell me Anlan has a habit of throwing away food.”
“Beggar’s chicken? What’s beggar’s chicken? Something to eat?” Li Chengqian seized on the core issue.
“A truly genuine delicacy. You take a one-year-old chicken, remove the innards, marinate it with oil, salt, spices, and cooking wine, then wrap it in lotus leaves, coat it with yellow clay, and put it in a fire. When the clay dries completely, the chicken is cooked. Once you crack open the clay shell, the aroma fills the air. The chicken made in your household can’t even compare.” Since he was in a good mood anyway, he’d give the Crown Prince a culinary lesson.
“Gulp.” Li Chengqian swallowed a large mouthful of saliva, his eyes turning red. He dragged Yun Ye toward the Eastern Palace. Passing by Tingtao Hall, he called out to Cheng Chumo. That fellow was still sound asleep. Several little tyrants beside him were poking his nostrils with grass stems but couldn’t wake him.
Li Chengqian kept a stern face and drove away his younger siblings, then whispered in Cheng Chumo’s ear: “Time to eat.” The fellow immediately stood up and walked out without even opening his eyes.
The Eastern Palace—last time Yun Ye came he hadn’t looked carefully. This time, paying attention, he discovered Li’er was abusing the youth. The buildings were uniformly tall and grand, the door pillars uniformly thick and sturdy, but grass grew on the roofs and the pillars were multicolored. Looking closely, it wasn’t paint—it was peeling paint exposing the old paint underneath. Who knows how many years since they’d been repaired? Inside the rooms it was tidy, just lacking any human warmth. A few half-dead eunuchs stood to the side, greeting the three with eerie, unnatural voices. He didn’t see that beautiful catamite called Chengxin, nor any palace maids under thirty years old. Yun Ye and Cheng Chumo exchanged glances, then looked at Li Chengqian.
Li Chengqian smiled bitterly: “Mother empress says excellence in studies comes from diligence, while play leads to negligence. Master Li Gang says young people must guard against lust. Father emperor says one is born in sorrow and dies in comfort, and wants me to always maintain a vigilant heart, not spending thoughts on external matters. Your younger brother is doing very well now, frequently receiving praise from father emperor, mother empress, and my master. They want me to make persistent efforts to be an excellent Crown Prince of the Great Tang.”
Either explode in silence or die in silence—this found its best interpretation in Li Chengqian, so much so that later emperors without exception used him as a model to warn their own successors. In Yun Ye’s view, Li Chengqian’s later perverse actions should be largely blamed on the Li’er couple. The strict imperial education completely wore away what little familial affection existed. For a person trapped within high walls and great courtyards, not learning the Turks’ freedom and brutality would be the strange thing. As for catamites, if you don’t let him normally interact with women and only suppress him blindly, under the operation of a young person’s rebellious psychology, such disgusting things appearing would be a natural consequence.
“Haha, who told you to be the Crown Prince? We two brothers don’t have such troubles. At home we live in the good houses, eat the good food. If we want to visit brothels, we visit brothels. If we want to bed beauties, we bed beauties. How delightful!” Yun Ye heartlessly flaunted this to Li Chengqian.
The bitter taste on Li Chengqian’s face grew even heavier. Even the heartless Cheng Chumo couldn’t bear to watch anymore. After all, he was the Crown Prince, a precocious twelve-year-old youth. Though the resistance in his heart grew increasingly intense, he didn’t show it, saying lightly: “It doesn’t matter. One day I’ll be the same!”
This statement made Yun Ye’s heart run cold. One day—when would that day be? When he rebelled? “If I become emperor, I shall indulge my desires as I please. If any minister remonstrates, I shall kill him. Kill five hundred, won’t that settle it?” This utterly foolish statement completely buried him and his imperial dreams. The ancients said it: better to channel than to block! Evil thoughts are like floods and fierce beasts—they cannot be blocked. Even the Great Yu from thousands of years ago understood this principle. How could Li’er, clever all his life, not understand? The youth before him was modest and courteous, elegant and refined, noble and generous in speech and behavior. Who would know a man-eating beast lurked in his heart?
“Therefore, when Heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on any man, it will exercise his mind with suffering, subject his sinews and bones to hard work, expose his body to hunger, put him to poverty, place obstacles in the paths of his deeds, so as to stimulate his mind, harden his nature, and improve wherever he is incompetent.”
Li Chengqian continued reciting: “Men will always make mistakes before they can reform themselves. They are distressed in mind and perplexed in thought before they can rise to action. They must show in their countenance and express in their voice before they can be understood. If within the state there are no law-abiding families and wise counselors, and without there are no enemy states or foreign calamities, the state will invariably come to ruin. From these instances, we know that we are kept in life by sorrow and calamity, and die from ease and pleasure.”
After finishing the recitation, Li Chengqian asked Yun Ye: “Yezi, do you also think Mencius’s words are correct?”
Ignoring the despair in his eyes: “Of course they’re correct, very suitable for saying to others. For example, I can say them to you right now.”
His eyes lit up. Yun Ye knew he understood the meaning. But if later Li Chengqian, while chewing on a chicken leg, said to others, “Therefore, when Heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on any man, it will exercise his mind with suffering…” and so on, Yun Ye would deny to his death that he was the one who taught Li Chengqian to say this to others.
Everyone understands grand principles. If you’re not a natural-born sage, don’t follow the book’s descriptions of how people should behave. Those are literary works used to educate people. One can only say they represent universal values. We can praise the virtues depicted in books, and even occasionally when a sage appears, we can worship them reverently and pass down their virtues from generation to generation.
Knowing the correct path doesn’t mean you must walk it. If everyone walks the same road, won’t that road become congested? At such times, the fellow taking the long way might reach home before you, already sitting on the sofa drinking beer and watching the game, while you’re stuck in traffic and can only pitifully use plastic bags to solve bathroom needs.
Lei Feng was a sage, and we all learn from him. We’ve even heard his spirit has quite a market in America. Helping others to the extent of our ability is our duty as human beings. Deliberately going beyond that exceeds our capacity and might even invite malicious speculation. This was Yun Ye’s baseline for being human.
Li Chengqian seemed very excited, having resolved a knot that had troubled him for a long time. Though still a bit confused, his spirits were quite good. Knowing that this little brat full of scheming ideas now needed to think for himself, Yun Ye was about to give him this space to contemplate when a thunderous gurgling sound came. Cheng Chumo glared viciously at the two idiots talking in riddles. It was already past noon and they still hadn’t eaten!
The attendants and officials of the Eastern Palace were going mad. His Highness the Crown Prince of the Great Tang, the Great Tang Marquis, and the Great Tang young master—all three had taken off their outer robes, wearing only tight-fitting clothes and pants, and run into the kitchen to catch seven or eight chickens. The young master was killing chickens, the marquis was plucking feathers, and His Highness the Crown Prince was making a fire, his face covered in soot until he was almost unrecognizable. Oh no! The marquis found a hoe and was digging up the ground, while His Highness the Crown Prince was mixing mud. Were they building a wall? They also ordered lotus leaves for wrapping things. Marquis Yun was coating mud on the chicken bodies, then burying them in the fire. Were they cremating these poor chickens?
They were drinking wine. At least it was grape wine.
The winter chill was dispersed by the bonfire. The gloomy sky rarely revealed a patch of clear weather. In the Eastern Palace garden, three noble youths sat on stones drinking from a jar, occasionally fighting and snatching from each other. When tired, they leaned against old tree roots to catch their breath.
“This is the most beautiful day of my life. Even if I’m punished by mother empress later, it will be worth it.” Li Chengqian, unable to hold his liquor, said with flushed cheeks and pouting lips.
“Nonsense, talking about ‘your whole life’—you’re still a tender sprout, not even a bud yet, and you’re talking like an old man of seventy or eighty. You think you have it tough? When you leave a brilliant name in the annals of history, you won’t say such things. Though His Majesty is destined to become an emperor for the ages, your pressure is indeed great, isn’t it?”
“Strong sons surpass ancestors—that’s what my old man taught me. I don’t believe I can’t surpass my old man. Chengqian, you should have ambition. The Great Tang is surrounded by bastards. Let’s smash them one by one. After smashing so many bastards, I don’t believe we can’t surpass the older generation.” Cheng Chumo never learned anything good from Yun Ye.
None of the three noticed that not far away, beside the bamboo grove, Li’er and Zhangsun stood there. They hadn’t come closer to listen to the three young people talk. The surrounding attendants and palace maids hid far away. Li’er, who had been furious, now had a calm expression, while Zhangsun showed pleasure.
“Do you remember that article my master wrote that we learned in Longyou?”
“You have the nerve to call it an article? It was just a small passage. But it did boost spirits for us young people. Reciting it with wine would suit the mood quite well.”
“What article? When did we recite articles together? Have you lost it?”
“The red sun newly risen, its path shines bright. The river emerges from subterranean flow, pouring forth in vast torrents. The hidden dragon soars from the depths, its scales and claws flying. The young tiger roars in the valley, all beasts trembling in fear. The falcon tests its wings, raising wind and dust. The rare flower first conceives, splendid and magnificent. The Ganjiang sword newly sharpened, giving forth its gleam. Heaven worn as its azure canopy, earth trodden as its yellow expanse. Through vertically a thousand ages, across horizontally eight directions. The future is like the sea, the days ahead are long. Beautiful is my youthful China, ageless with Heaven! Magnificent are China’s youth, boundless with the nation!”
At first, only Yun Ye and Li Chengqian recited in literary tones. After Cheng Chumo joined in, it gradually became powerful and resonant. Finding one recitation insufficient, they opened their throats and bellowed it again. The passage itself had a generous and impassioned spirit, most suitable for loud recitation. The hearts of the young people expanded at this moment. They felt that all petty scheming and base pursuits were beneath their youthful aspirations.
The fire gradually died out. The outer shell of the beggar’s chicken was baked rock-hard by the flames. The chicken was cooked. The three brothers scrambled for it in chaos, cracking open the shell. White, smooth, tender chicken meat lay exposed before the three hungry youths.
Someone came.
The chickens were gone. Li’er walked away chewing a chicken leg. Zhangsun walked away with her hand covering her mouth in laughter. Most hatefully, two attendants carried away a basket of mud lumps. They left behind only three youths staring at each other in dismay and a footprint on each of their backsides.