Pei Shaohuai took in the scene before him, and a thought settled in his mind: his father’s analysis had been correct all along — that painting of a hundred farmers at the autumn harvest had indeed been the work of two hands. Grand Secretary Zou had painted it, while Elder Zou had inscribed the calligraphy.
Elder Zou cleared his throat and called out to Pei Shaohuai: “Young friend, please come this way.” His voice had taken on a deeper, more measured quality.
The Elder’s wife stifled a laugh beside him.
Hearing the call, Pei Shaohuai came back to himself. He gathered the hem of his robe slightly and quickened his pace toward the stone pavilion. Having just witnessed the warmth and tenderness between the two elderly figures, the knot of anxiety in his chest had loosened somewhat.
Arriving at the stone pavilion, Pei Shaohuai offered a bow. “This junior pays his respects to Elder Zou and Madam Zou.”
“Ah —” Elder Zou waved a hand in dismissal. “I retired from office many years ago. I am no longer any Grand Secretary or Elder, and I no longer stand on such old formalities. Since we have come to know each other through writing, and since we are here to discuss essays and ideas, we ought to treat one another as fellow scholars and friends.”
He stroked his goatee and continued, “How about this — you may call me Old Master Zou, or Nanju — either will do.”
“This junior gladly defers to your preference.”
“Please, sit.”
A maidservant came from the bank to serve tea, then withdrew at once.
Madam Zou looked Pei Shaohuai up and down with a smile full of admiration — an appraising gaze that carried no offense whatsoever. “I knew you were young,” she said, “but I had no idea you were quite this young. You must be only seventeen or eighteen?”
“This junior turned sixteen this year.”
Madam Zou brightened at this and teased her husband: “Old man, could you write an essay like our Northern Guest here when you were that age?”
“How would I remember such ancient history?” That had been forty or fifty years ago.
Madam Zou counted on her fingers, murmuring to herself: “By that reckoning, when he sits the spring examinations and the palace examination in two years’ time, he’ll be a year younger even than you were… Truly, the willow tips turn green again, and flowers bloom anew — the new generation surpasses the old.”
Then she added, “The essays alone were remarkable enough. Seeing him in person, he is no less impressive.”
Madam Zou made no effort to conceal her admiration for Pei Shaohuai. Listening to her manner of speech, it was clear she was a woman of deep learning and cultivated refinement.
Pei Shaohuai responded with modest deflection.
The two elderly figures conversed as naturally as old neighbors sharing small talk — one sentence here, one sentence there — warm and approachable, so that one felt at once they were simply two ordinary old souls and yet sensed beneath the surface a profound depth of learning: great minds living in quiet retirement among the common world.
By the time the first cup of tea had been finished, Elder Zou asked, “Young Friend Pei must be wondering how we came to know your identity?”
The question piqued Pei Shaohuai’s curiosity in earnest — he genuinely could not tell from which detail in his essays his identity had been betrayed — and so he said, “Please enlighten me, Nanju.”
“You once submitted an essay under your real name. Do you recall?”
Pei Shaohuai nodded. He wondered to himself: surely a similar writing style alone couldn’t have been enough to identify Northern Guest as him?
Elder Zou continued: “That essay merely drew our attention to you. Discovering that you were Northern Guest came afterward. When Pei Zhizhou first arrived here and was met with resistance from the Zhenhai Guard, Northern Guest wrote of the abuses of powerful military commanders seizing farmland. When the summer floods came to Taicang Prefecture and the people raised the embankments and dug drainage channels, Northern Guest wrote of water management policies in Jiangnan. And when foreign merchant ships began docking one after another at the Songjiang shores, Northern Guest began writing about how customs duties had no fixed regulations and were collected entirely at the whim of local officials — and that, left unchecked, this would one day become a grave problem… What a person hears and sees, comes to know, and then puts into writing — a person’s essays reveal the very experiences they have lived.”
“Taken together, all these coincidences pointed to one conclusion,” Elder Zou said with evident satisfaction. “Northern Guest — a guest who came from the Northern Metropolitan Region. Naturally, it could only be you.”
So it was that Elder Zou had not merely studied the essays themselves, but had traced the circumstances behind each one. Pei Shaohuai was filled with admiration, and said sincerely, “Nanju’s perspicacity is remarkable. This junior is deeply impressed.”
In the chill of early spring, the lotus plants in the pond had not yet stirred, and the still water mirrored the surrounding pavilions and towers. A gust of east wind swept through, shattering the reflection into rippling strands. Only then did Pei Shaohuai notice the sheet of paper on the stone table — Madam Zou had been painting a scene of a river flowing out to meet the sea.
Unlike other painters who favored bold, sweeping strokes to capture the grandeur of where river met sky and sea, Madam Zou had used a fine brush, stroke by patient stroke, to render the gentle rippling of the water’s surface, with a handful of small boats drifting lazily upon it, carried forward by the slow currents.
“The spirit of this painting comes from Su Dongpo’s verse — ‘Entrust yourself to a single reed, crossing the boundless expanse of ten thousand acres,'” Madam Zou explained, noticing that Pei Shaohuai’s gaze had lingered on the painting. “Compared to rushing rapids and treacherous shallows, what people should fear more is surely the calm and open river — vast, formless, with no sense of where one is headed.”
Elder Zou followed her words: “And that very spirit is precisely why we invited you here today.”
“This junior is all ears.”
“There is no need to be so formal — it is really a small matter.” Elder Zou said, easing the mood. “After I offered my last critique of your essays, you stopped submitting to the Chongwen Quarterly. I worried that my words had perhaps misled you.”
Pei Shaohuai explained: “This junior feared that without genuine progress, continuing to submit would be to merely mark time — and would fall short of the guidance Nanju has given me. Of late, I have also been traveling to broaden my knowledge, and I am working on new essays.”
“In truth, at your current level of writing, you are fully capable of placing in the spring examination and the palace examination,” Elder Zou said. The implication being that Pei Shaohuai’s essays were already very strong — only lacking a certain something by his own measure.
“This junior aspires to more than merely placing.”
If placing in the examination were all he sought, why would he have made the long journey to Jiangnan to study? That slight insufficiency might make little difference in one or two examinations, yet it would matter enormously over the decades of official life that lay ahead.
These months, Pei Shaohuai had devoted himself to the examination essay on policy — for the sake of the career in office that would follow the examinations.
Placing on the imperial list was not the destination.
Elder Zou gave an approving nod and remarked warmly, “Truly a promising young man.” Then he turned to the matter at hand, and offered his guidance to Pei Shaohuai: “When I wrote that you should slow down and go out and walk about for a time, my intent was not to broaden your knowledge… From the scope and range of your essays, you are not lacking in knowledge.”
Pei Shaohuai was surprised to hear this. He had misread the advice.
And how could he — an “outsider” of sorts — be lacking in knowledge?
He listened as Elder Zou spoke in his measured, unhurried manner —
“In the policy examination essay, what most reveals the depth of a scholar’s learning — whether that learning can be brought to bear in practical application — comes down to three qualities: first, freshness; second, precision; third, comprehensiveness.”
“The freshness of your insights, the sharpness concealed within your words — these lie beyond what ordinary scholars can achieve. This shows the breadth of your knowledge.”
“Precision means the rigor of one’s research and the depth of one’s understanding. When I read your essays, I am often struck by your insights — my expectations soar from the very opening lines. But by the time I reach the end, the essay stops abruptly: the main trunk is there, but it has no fine branches to lend it texture and weight. One is left wanting more. If you wish your writing to have both breadth and precision, you cannot skim the surface or swallow things whole — you must immerse yourself fully. Consider how your father manages the waterways: raising the embankments is the main strategy, while digging channels to drain the floodwaters is the complement. He had both in mind from the very beginning.”
“Comprehensiveness means that the roles and functions within the court are bound together in a web of mutual influence, the officials entangled with one another such that pulling on one thread moves the whole. As I noted in my last critique, for instance: the harm of land consolidation lies not only in the privileges of imperial relatives and ennobled families, but also in the burden of the court’s taxation. If, in addressing the question of farmland taxation, one thinks only of the Board of Finance and neglects the other five boards and the nine chief ministers, then even the best proposal will come to nothing.”
“And so when I said you should go out and travel — it was not to see more of the world. It was to contemplate the connections between things, to go deep into them and study them with care… This is what your essays are lacking.”
“The path of the imperial examinations is like this painting. At the outset, you saw rapids and treacherous shallows — dangerous in appearance, but in truth the easiest stretch to navigate. One need only hold the small boat steady and wrestle with the waves, and to seize the lead is to win… Just as in the childhood examinations, where everything is decided by the quality of the essay alone.”
“Now you have passed through a thousand bends and a thousand mountains. You stand at the river’s mouth, where it opens to the sea. It looks like open, easy water, with fair scenery on both banks — but in truth it is an endless expanse, and the most likely place to lead a person astray.”
“Consider this: beyond the examinations lies your career in office — like passing from the river into the open sea. If you do not know where you are going, there will inevitably be undercurrents to carry you along.”
Pei Shaohuai listened intently, taking each word to heart. When Elder Zou finished, he sat in quiet thought, turning the words over slowly and carefully, and for a long time said nothing. The cup of tea on the stone table had grown cold, its surface stirring with small ripples. Pei Shaohuai picked it up and took a sip without noticing the chill.
These words were the full and generous guidance of a wise elder in this world — offered with sincere goodwill.
Pei Shaohuai said with genuine gratitude: “Thank you, Nanju, for showing this junior the way. I have taken every word to heart.”
“There is no need to thank me, Young Friend Pei. We two old souls have nothing but time on our hands, and when we come across a fine essay, we cannot help but indulge ourselves in commenting on it. If it has been of any use to you, that is the best we could hope for.” Elder Zou said. “Whenever you are free, you are welcome to come and sit with us awhile. The grounds may be small, but there is the shade of willows and a cool pavilion waiting.”
“This junior is most honored.”
Madam Zou playfully undermined him: “He simply wants someone to chat with and keep the loneliness at bay. Not many people can follow all his roundabout thinking, you know.”
As the midday meal approached, Pei Shaohuai rose to take his leave, expressed his thanks once more, and departed.
The two elderly figures watched him go, then continued their quiet conversation.
“Old man, it has been quite some years since I’ve seen you take such care in guiding a young person.”
“One must first encounter someone of upright character and true intelligence before one has the chance to offer any guidance, mustn’t one?”
In the days that followed, Pei Shaohuai took to visiting the Zou household regularly, sending his calling card the day before each visit. Elder Zou was always delighted to see him, and would say: “When I speak to the others, they always need half an age to understand what I’m saying. Talking with you is a genuine pleasure… Come, sit down — I came across a fine jar of wine yesterday, you must try some.”
He treated Pei Shaohuai quite like a friend who bridged the gap of generations.
Because Pei Shaohuai sent his card a day in advance each time, Elder Zou eventually grew impatient with the formality: “The boy at the gate already knows your face, and you know the way to my home well enough. What is the point of sending a card each time? From now on, just come directly — there is no need for such ceremonious formality.”
When the two of them fell to discussing Da Qing’s policy of opening maritime trade, Elder Zou expressed strong support, saying: “Engaging with the world beyond our seas, and selling our tea and silk to the various tributaries, can greatly benefit the livelihoods of Da Qing’s people.” He then asked Pei Shaohuai his own view.
“In this world, people come first, and from people comes knowledge.” Pei Shaohuai’s reply seemed to go off in a different direction — but Elder Zou’s eyes lit up at once, and he urged him to continue.
Pei Shaohuai said: “Where there are people, knowledge tends to arise. And wherever there is knowledge worth having, it is worth exploring — and taking whatever is best from it for our own use. This, in this junior’s view, is where the true benefit of opening maritime trade lies.” The benefit lay in learning from the knowledge that existed beyond their shores.
“Excellent! Excellent! Excellent!” Elder Zou was unstinting in his praise.
At the Donglin Academy, Tian Yonglu came to the classroom to look for Pei Shaohuai, but found him absent. Beneath Pei Shaohuai’s desk, he spotted two discarded draft essays that had been left behind. He picked them up and began to read.
He nodded approvingly as he went, muttering to himself: “Junior Brother Pei’s writing is really quite impressive — no wonder people say he ‘strongly echoes the style of Northern Guest’… Why would anyone throw away such a fine essay?”
He thought he would ask Pei Shaohuai to revise them and submit to the Chongwen Quarterly.
“Senior Brother Tian! Senior Brother Tian! Northern Guest!” A junior student came running in, breathless with excitement. “Northern Guest has submitted a new piece — go quickly to Chongwen Hall and see!”
Tian Yonglu set the discarded drafts back on Pei Shaohuai’s desk and rushed off to Chongwen Hall with eager steps.
Several senior students were already reading the submission, and he had no choice but to wait anxiously for his turn.
When the manuscript finally reached his hands, he unrolled it and began to read — and paused.
Tian Yonglu rubbed his eyes. He was not seeing things. He read on — how was it that this essay felt as though he had read it only moments ago? The language was more refined, but the ideas were the same.
He looked to the end of the page. There it was: the seal of Northern Guest.