News that over a hundred agents from the Surveillance Bureau had been surrounded and beaten outside the Yongning Tongyuan Carriage and Horse Company by soldiers from the Jizhou Military Camp — beaten until their faces looked like pig heads — spread faster through the city than Xiahou Zuo’s announcement that he would be auctioning a priceless treasure at the Sanyue River Pavilion.
The main reason was simple: the Surveillance Bureau was genuinely despised. It was a remarkable institution in that regard, for its agents didn’t merely tyrannize and torment ordinary commoners — they tyrannized and tormented officials as well.
In fact, relatively speaking, the Bureau’s people preferred not to waste energy on common folk unless there was something worth skimming off. Otherwise, they found it far more profitable to seize leverage over officials and squeeze them dry — that paid far better than squeezing peasants.
The result was that commoners loathed the Surveillance Bureau with a bone-deep hatred, and the vast majority of officials loathed it just as deeply.
Both pieces of news spread swiftly through every street and alley of Jizhou City. Common people weren’t curious about the priceless treasure — that had nothing to do with them — but they were very curious about the Surveillance Bureau getting beaten, because they found it deeply satisfying.
What did a priceless treasure have to do with the ninety percent of the city’s population who were ordinary people?
Truthfully, not much connection to the wealthy ten percent either, at least not most of them.
But sharp eyes quickly spotted the thread connecting both incidents: both led back to the Yongning Tongyuan Carriage and Horse Company.
The Surveillance Bureau had come to investigate the company and come away badly humiliated, while the item Xiahou Zuo was auctioning might well be connected to Li Chi.
This led many people to wonder: just how deep did the waters run at that carriage company?
Not so hard to guess, really. In all of Jizhou City, no waters ran deeper than those surrounding Xiahou Zuo.
That line was Li Chi’s. Xiahou Zuo thought he was being completely shameless.
The carriage company.
Xiahou Zuo said to Li Chi: “The matter of Master Songming’s seal shouldn’t be dragged out. The word has been put out, but as long as you haven’t actually brought it forward for auction, my father could simply reach over and take it from you directly. As for how you’d explain why you announced an auction and then didn’t hold one — he wouldn’t care in the slightest.”
Li Chi nodded. “I just had Yu Jiuling take Master Songming’s seal to the Sanyue River Pavilion. It was handed over to the proprietor in your name. And I told Yu Jiuling to pass word to the Pavilion’s people that the auction will be held today at noon.”
Xiahou Zuo laughed. “You calculated that my father hasn’t risen yet at this hour.”
Li Chi said, “I have no idea when Prince Yu wakes up. I just assumed he probably doesn’t rise as early as we do.”
Xiahou Zuo smiled. “Still, if there’s only one item up for auction, it feels a bit thin. Do you have anything else worth selling? Throw it in together — the more we can make, the better.”
Li Chi thought it over carefully. His only real treasure was indeed that one seal of Master Songming’s.
He mulled it over for a moment, then asked: “Master Songming’s seal is worth money. Is Master Songming’s calligraphy worth money?”
“Obviously.”
Xiahou Zuo said, “That rubbing of the Ascent to Sparrow Terrace your master gave to President Gao was valued at a hundred thousand taels of silver over a century ago — and that was after Master Songming had already passed. Of course, Dachu didn’t look quite this chaotic back then. Even now, if the Ascent to Sparrow Terrace piece were put up for sale, tens of thousands of taels would come easily.”
Li Chi said, “I had no idea it was worth that much…”
Xiahou Zuo asked, “You have calligraphy from Master Songming?”
Li Chi said, “I do.”
Xiahou Zuo’s eyes lit up with delight. “You’re an absolute treasure trove, you know that? Where is it? How come you’ve never brought it out before?”
Li Chi said, “I didn’t have it before. I don’t have it right now either. Give me a moment — I’ll go write it.”
Xiahou Zuo: “…”
Li Chi said, “Genuine forgeries from Master Songming. Certified.”
Xiahou Zuo said, “You see that pure white cloud drifting across the sky? Does it look like three particular words that describe you?”
Li Chi said, “That’s four words.”
He turned and walked back inside, saying as he went: “I’ll write a few pieces now. It won’t take long.”
Xiahou Zuo: “…”
Once inside, Li Chi glanced at the God’s-Head Saber hanging on the wall and idly wondered if selling that would fetch a decent price too.
He had no intention of selling it, of course — it was just a habit, weighing up what things were worth.
The God’s-Head Saber ranked quite low among the Seven Great Named Blades of the realm, which led Li Chi to think: if he could somehow get his hands on all seven, wouldn’t he be rolling in wealth? Setting up a stall in the street with all seven great blades laid out in a row — what a sight that would be.
Before long, Li Chi came back out carrying several scrolls of rice paper, which he handed to Xiahou Zuo. “Just wrote them. Want to take a look?”
Xiahou Zuo tilted his head back to contemplate the sky. “Do you honestly think that all the distinguished figures and men of letters in Jizhou City are complete fools?”
Li Chi said, “Of course not. We’re selling them as fakes — selling them as genuine would be deception.”
Xiahou Zuo: “You… you do think they’re complete fools.”
—
One hour later. The Sanyue River Pavilion.
Despite the short notice, word that Master Songming’s personal seal was being put up for auction had brought quite a crowd.
The main draw was Master Songming’s enormous reputation. He had once been Imperial Tutor to Dachu’s emperor, yet felt no attachment to power or prestige. He had educated a generation’s greatest ruler and then quietly withdrawn from the world.
To say a single character of his brushwork was worth ten thousand gold pieces would not be an exaggeration.
A body of Master Songming’s authentic works did exist — he had been fairly prolific and left behind no small number of pieces he considered satisfactory — but even during his lifetime his calligraphy had been nearly impossible to obtain for any price.
Outside his gate, whenever refuse was put out, throngs of passionate admirers would rummage through the rubbish without any regard for their own dignity, deliriously happy even to discover a fragment of damaged calligraphy. In practice this almost never happened, because Master Songming burned most of what he wrote each day, preserving only those works he considered truly outstanding.
As the years had passed, his calligraphy continued to surface occasionally, but it was universally understood that Master Songming’s seal was singular — one object, one in all the world.
Some scholars delighted in seals and accumulated many, engraving various pen names onto them, but Master Songming held firmly to the belief that a seal represented a person, and so he had carried only the one seal throughout his entire life.
Cui Tai looked over this remarkably handsome young man before him and wondered: could this truly be the person described in his investigations — an orphan who had struggled through over a decade of poverty before rising to prominence only after arriving in Jizhou?
If that was really so, one had to say that the turns of fortune in a man’s life were truly beyond all reckoning and imagination.
Inside the main hall of the Sanyue River Pavilion, a considerable crowd had assembled. A large portion of those present felt they had no realistic chance of acquiring the seal — not because they couldn’t afford the price, but because they understood their own standing wasn’t sufficient.
The Xu family was represented: Xu Shengyu, who had paid his visit to the carriage company just the night before, had come to see for himself just how bold this Li Chi really was.
The Cui family had sent their own people as well — the Cuis had a genuine interest in the seal.
The affairs of the upper circles and the world of scholars were things common people found hard to understand. They could not grasp how a piece of calligraphy could be worth ten thousand gold pieces, still less how a single seal could be priceless beyond measure, and even less why people of the upper circles would pursue such things with such frantic devotion.
Several great merchants had also arrived, hoping to broaden their horizons and perhaps make the acquaintance of some prominent figures along the way.
The Xie family had come as well, determined to secure the seal at any cost — for the Xie family had deep ties to Master Songming’s legacy.
After Master Songming had retired from the court, the place he chose for his seclusion was the Linglan Garden, built especially for him by the Xie family. To construct an entire estate for one man — only a family of the Xies’ stature could carry off such a gesture in fitting style.
Master Songming spent his final years living in the Linglan Garden and remained attentive to the Xie family throughout. In his last years he had even personally tutored one of the Xie children, a boy named Xie Zhen. Fifteen or so years later, that boy became the youngest Chief Minister in Dachu’s recorded history and held the position for nearly twenty years.
Had the old Emperor not died, had the Crown Prince not been poisoned, had the imperial princes not descended into succession struggles, Xie Zhen would not have died so young.
When the old Emperor died and the Crown Prince with him, Xie Zhen’s stance became pivotal. Whoever he chose would almost certainly inherit the throne. And so he was eliminated — because each of the princes feared Xie Zhen might not choose him, and since all of them shared that fear, they agreed to remove Xie Zhen first and let the rest play out on individual merit.
It was after Xie Zhen’s death that Dachu’s decline began to accelerate — sharply, precipitously.
The old Emperor had been educated by Master Songming himself and was celebrated as a great and enlightened ruler. In his later years he had grown somewhat stubborn, but with a man like Xie Zhen at his side, Dachu had seemed poised for a genuine resurgence.
The old Emperor’s death, in itself, need not have gravely damaged Dachu — for the Crown Prince had been tutored by Xie Zhen, and whatever one might say, he would not have been a foolish ruler.
Yet those who coveted the throne gambled the entire fate of Dachu on their own ambitions. They imagined that seizing the throne was winning, never pausing to consider that no matter which of them prevailed, it was Dachu that lost.
Not even the great hero Xu Ji, who came later, was ever truly able to bring Dachu back.
Once Dachu began to fall, there was no stopping it.
In the Sanyue River Pavilion, the frantic devotion of this assembled crowd of great figures was aimed perhaps not only at Master Songming himself, but at their own longing for the glory Dachu had once possessed.
Outside the Pavilion, a crowd of ordinary people had gathered. They couldn’t see what priceless object lay within, had no idea what it looked like, but that didn’t diminish their curiosity.
Many had abandoned their work entirely just to see what the fuss was about — though what, in truth, did any of it have to do with them?
“Why is one of Master Songming’s seals worth so much money?”
Someone in the crowd called out the question.
The person beside him laughed. “Goes without saying — it must be gold. And definitely big. At least two catties, I’d wager.”
The questioner nodded, finding this persuasive. “Makes sense. Two catties, you say — although if it’s really that precious, probably more than two catties?”
A man who looked like a merchant nearby let out a contemptuous snort. “Peasants. What do you know? You probably think gold is the most precious thing in the world. Let me tell you — Master Songming’s seal is definitely jade. And carved by a master craftsman.”
The two who’d been talking exchanged a glance, both falling silent to avoid exposing their ignorance, though they privately thought the merchant probably had a point. They also imagined the jade seal probably weighed at least two catties as well.
“None of you know who Master Songming was.”
An elderly scholar stood in the crowd, looking somewhat solitary, his hair entirely white.
He seemed to be speaking to himself as he said: “Master Songming’s seal is not gold. It is not jade. It is simply an ordinary piece of Taishan stone — not large at all. And the characters on the seal were carved by Master Songming himself.”
The merchant gave him a sidelong glance and laughed coldly. “And you’d know, would you?”
The old scholar sighed heavily. “You don’t understand why that seal is worth so much. It’s because none of you have ever stopped to think that carved into that seal is Dachu’s unrivaled former glory.”
Everyone in the crowd looked toward the old scholar, most taking him for a self-important fool — one of those people who read too many books and had gone slightly mad and liked to ramble nonsense.
—