Shen Biwei was notoriously difficult to summon — she arrived only just before the Grand Princess’s carriage, cutting it as close as possible. Ye Lingbo, finding her, disparaged her again: “If you’d come any later, we’d all have to line up and receive you properly.”
At the fifteenth quarter past the hour of You, the Grand Princess’s ceremonial carriage arrived. It had already been settled that this was to be an ordinary banquet visit, so the awkward episode of everyone wearing court dress to prostrate themselves did not recur. Madam Wei had apparently spent several days cramming on etiquette, with a palace-trained governess stationed beside her to prompt and guide — and managed to comport herself reasonably well at last. She personally welcomed the Grand Princess inside, attending to her throughout: Madam Wei personally waiting upon her, the Princess Consort of Pingjun distributing dishes, the Madam of the Jing Marquis coming to serve the soup, until Madam Shen hurried forward to take it from her, saying: “How could we trouble the honored elder lady with this?”
Nothing else of note occurred during the banquet. When it broke up, however, Shen Biwei was nowhere to be found. Qinglan had a sense of what was happening, and was busy organizing her sisters into the carriages — having been too relaxed at the past few banquets, allowing Wei Yushan to pull back the curtain that one time, and Lingbo’s carriage to go missing entirely — so she braced herself and made sure she kept watch over all of them.
But when she went to find Han Yueqi to say her farewells, she was stopped by a pair of palace maids — both very young, fifteen or sixteen — who said: “Please, Miss Ye, come with us.”
Qinglan followed them around the covered walkway, and found the Grand Princess’s female official waiting there with a lantern, still as a painting from an ancient scroll. The truth was, Qinglan always felt a certain closeness upon encountering someone from the Grand Princess’s side — a temperament cultivated before the Buddha over many years cannot be falsified, and each recognized something of themselves in the other.
The female official was also quite courteous toward her: “Miss Ye, the Princess requests your presence.”
Qinglan already had a sense of what this was about. Reassured somewhat by the official’s manner, she followed her through the covered walkway into the main hall where the Grand Princess rested. The eunuchs and palace maids waited in the outer room; the inner room’s curtains hung low, the incense fragrance dense as a temple’s. The Grand Princess reclined on a sleeping couch with her eyes closed, one maid massaging her legs beside her, and an elderly governess seated nearby, speaking to her.
Shen Biwei stood to one side. When Qinglan entered, she showed no surprise.
“Your Highness, Miss Ye is here,” the female official announced.
Qinglan stepped forward with head bowed and eyes lowered, and performed her bow. Her etiquette was beyond reproach — even Shen Biwei might not quite match it. The female official, seeing this, immediately felt a three-fold increase in approbation — yet the Grand Princess’s expression remained utterly unmoved, and she did not bid Qinglan to rise.
“Is this the Ye family of the Board of Personnel?” the Grand Princess asked.
“To reply to Your Highness: this subject-girl’s father serves as a Vice Minister of the Board of Personnel, and her maternal uncle serves as a Surveillance Censor of the Office of Scrutiny,” Qinglan answered.
At the Zhao household gathering, she had been led somewhat astray by Shen Biwei’s influence and had been reluctant to give her maternal family’s name. But in truth, when answering a noble personage’s inquiry, it was the proper form to state both the paternal and maternal lineages.
“Oh,” the Grand Princess acknowledged. A maid presented tea; she drank some, and then, at her own unhurried pace, said: “A moment ago, Biwei said some things to me that seemed to have some reason behind them — yet I could not quite understand. I asked her who had told her this, and she said you had asked her to persuade me. So I have called you here to explain clearly: what does ‘carrying jade is a crime’ mean, and what does ‘hot potato’ mean?”
If the Grand Princess had been playing the role of an icon in a shrine during all these past days, then this was perhaps the first genuine question she had asked since entering the Flower Season Banquet.
And anyone with even the slightest understanding of power knew the weight of this question.
Qinglan bore it steadily and in full.
“To reply to Your Highness: it was this subject-girl who asked Miss Shen to remonstrate with Your Highness on her behalf. If anything was improperly spoken, the fault is mine.”
Shen Biwei, hearing this, immediately moved to step forward, and was stopped by a glance from the Grand Princess. She could only stand still.
“Lift your head.” Qinglan heard the Grand Princess say.
Qinglan lifted her head, but kept her eyes lowered. She understood well that the Grand Princess wished to examine her face — not to be examined in return. To raise one’s gaze to royalty was tantamount to impertinence against the sovereign — a principle she had understood since she accompanied her mother to banquets at the palace as a five-year-old. Eighteen years on, she was still the same Ye Qinglan, kneeling below the steps with complete and proper courtesy — except that her mother’s sleeve hem was no longer there in front of her.
She had an excellent physiognomy — the most proper and upright kind of noble young miss, demure and elegant, yet carrying the integrity of a scholar.
“Why did you have her remonstrate with me?” the Grand Princess asked.
“The twenty-four rounds of the Flower Season Banquet are a great event for the capital. The Northern Frontier Army returning to the capital to receive their honors is also a great event for the nation. Two great events coinciding inevitably leads to turmoil and rumor among the people. The common people, ignorant and narrow, do not understand that the Grand Princess presides over the Flower Season Banquet for the purpose of settling the unmarried officers, and not to dissolve marriages between those who have suffered hardship together. The Flower Season Banquet concerns the marital arrangements of great families, and thus ‘carrying jade is a crime’ — it is a ‘hot potato.’ Therefore the court entrusted it to Your Highness to preside over because it trusts Your Highness, and Your Highness also wishes to ease the court’s burden. As subject-women, we ought to devote our best efforts to devising strategies on Your Highness’s behalf, to speak out in honest remonstrance, and to set right what has gone wrong — we may not allow personal interests to weigh upon our minds.”
Qinglan spoke with clarity and precision, thread by thread, and even the female official beside her felt her eyes brighten with approbation.
Yet the Grand Princess’s expression remained unmoved.
“If the matter is so weighty, you had only to remind me to be cautious. Why use the word ‘remonstrance’?” Her voice seemed to descend from a high cloud, perceiving nearly to the very bones. “To advise is to ask me to reconsider. To remonstrate is for a subject to speak bluntly and urge the ruler to correct a mistake.” She lightly identified the deeper meaning in Ye Qinglan’s words: “You too were worried — that I intended to have the Flower Season Banquet serve the purpose of dissolving marriages so the Northern Frontier Army officers could take new wives?”
The hall fell suddenly cold. Ye Qinglan remained kneeling on the floor with eyes still lowered and head raised, and said nothing.
Yet her silence was itself an answer.
“Insolent!” The female official beside the Grand Princess was the first to reprimand: “Who do you think you are, daring to question Her Highness?”
Ye Qinglan kept her eyes lowered, her white face beautiful and calm as a lotus, without the slightest sign of panic.
“Your Highness has no need to dissolve the marriages of the Northern Frontier Army’s officers and have them take new wives,” she said, answering the Grand Princess with perfect composure. “Yet if any marriage dissolution and remarriage appears at the Flower Season Banquet, the world will take it as Your Highness’s implicit sanction.”
She raised her eyes, and looked quietly at the Grand Princess: “The one carrying the jade-crime, Your Highness. The one holding the hot potato, also Your Highness. Born into a royal family, Your Highness has surely long understood this principle. Has she not?”
The entire room was stunned. The female official pointed at her, nearly struck speechless. And indeed — when the palace’s people praised a woman, they most often praised her etiquette as equal to the palace’s own. But if a woman could say what those from the palace itself could not say — then perhaps even the palace women could not remain quite so composed.
“Insolent!” The female official moved to silence her, but was stopped by the Grand Princess raising her hand.
The Grand Princess — who appeared no older than thirty, as vivid as a deep crimson peony — seemed not in the least shaken by Qinglan’s words, and asked with complete composure: “Then in your view, how should this Princess handle herself?”
She treated Qinglan with propriety, and Qinglan naturally answered in the manner of a counselor.
“Once, Zilu asked Confucius: ‘If the Duke of Wei were to invite you to take charge of governance, what would you do first?’ Confucius replied: ‘Without doubt, to rectify names.’ What I can answer Your Highness is only this one phrase: ‘If names are not correct, speech will not ring true; if speech does not ring true, affairs will not succeed.’ For now, the best course for Your Highness would be first to host a banquet to make known to all the world the original intent behind Your Highness’s presiding over the Flower Season Banquet. Then appoint those responsible for various matters, separately managing the capital’s serving women, the Northern Frontier Army’s officers, commending the Northern Frontier Army’s wives, and selecting a number of them to be given honorary court titles. After that, observe and respond to what unfolds.”
The Analects passage she had cited concerned the Duke of Wei’s state, where propriety and social order had collapsed into chaos, the Duke being muddled and dissolute; Zilu asked Confucius: if the Duke of Wei invited you to administer the state, what would you do first? Confucius answered: first rectify names. Lingbo had not been wrong to voice her frustrations in private — the Flower Season Banquet truly was in a state of disorder. Among the ladies, the senior royal consorts who ought to have presided were ill or elderly; the Princess Consort of Pingjun had not yet taken over the role; Madam Shen was chronically ailing. Among the young misses, Shen Biwei refused to take the lead, Lu Wenyin was forcibly pushing Lu Wanyang forward, and the result was a confusion of noise. On top of all this, the Northern Frontier Army’s return to the capital had made it more of a hot potato than ever.
Had it been only this, Qinglan would not have intervened at all.
But the Northern Frontier Army’s wives were unsettled and anxious; capital officials were hosting banquet after banquet for the Northern Frontier Army officers, plying them with wine and song girls and concubines presented like running water — this endangered the reputation of the Flower Season Banquet, and if left unchecked, serious trouble would follow. Lu Wenyin’s character was deeply crooked, Han Yueqi was preoccupied, and only she, Ye Qinglan, could see it clearly — and knew how to set it right. That was what had prompted this remonstrance.
But the truth was, she had not originally intended to remonstrate at all. Which was why the Grand Princess was now saying mildly: “A fine remonstrance. But why have Shen Biwei speak it for you?”
Qinglan had not been the least bit worried when she entered — every word of this remonstrance had been chosen with care, and the Grand Princess, who had been wise and brilliant even in her younger years, could not possibly have failed to understand it, and certainly would not have held it against her. She smiled as she answered.
“Your Highness naturally would not dismiss a person’s counsel on account of who they are — yet I could not afford to add unnecessarily to Your Highness’s burdens.”
Her present position was awkward — at the nominal age of twenty-four and still unmarried, anyone would be inclined to suspect there was some problem with her. Better to let Shen Biwei speak it, since Shen Biwei was someone the Grand Princess had watched grow up in the great houses, a well-regarded young noblewoman. With this remonstrance delivered through her, her standing before the Grand Princess would be elevated as well.
But Shen Biwei was constitutionally unable to take a single particle of credit that was not hers — and the moment the Grand Princess asked, she had undoubtedly supplied Qinglan’s name without hesitation.
The Grand Princess clearly understood Qinglan’s meaning too, which was why she looked at her with a smile.
“Were you not afraid she might claim the credit for herself? Sisters may have warm feelings, yet the Flower Season Banquet has many complications.”
Shen Biwei, truly bold beyond all measure, even took this moment to turn aside and roll her eyes.
“However the Flower Season Banquet’s ethos may be, it is determined by Your Highness. When the Flower Season Banquet’s ethos is good, so are we. What merit is there in the work falls to whoever performs it — nor is it of any consequence. And Biwei is as broad and open as a mountain hermit — she would naturally not care about such small matters of reputation.”
“Ye Qinglan, I remember you,” the Grand Princess said, unhurried. “When the palace selected female officials years ago, your name was put forward.”
Ye Qinglan only bowed her head in reply.
“Your Highness’s kind regard — Qinglan is deeply grateful.”
And so the storm cleared and the sun came out. The Grand Princess bestowed fragrant pouches — the palace’s own pattern — as a commendation for the two of them for their remonstrance. The female official personally held a lantern to escort them to the end of the covered walkway, and seemed about to say something, before settling on: “Affairs in this world are like water — tides rise and fall in their season. I hope Miss Ye will set her heart at rest.”
Among women of outstanding ability, there is always a recognition of one another. Ye Qinglan understood that she was offering comfort, and smiled in reply: “I thank the honorable attendant for her kind words.”
The female official, seeing her composure in response, felt even more privately sorry on her behalf. She sent them off, and returning, found the Grand Princess apparently absorbed in reading a food menu — as though this whole sharp-edged and penetrating exchange of remonstrance had already been put entirely out of mind. Unable to contain herself, the official said: “Your Highness, I have heard that Miss Ye is twenty-four years of age this year…”
Palace female officials also reached the age of twenty-five and faced a critical juncture — either released to marry, or remaining in the palace for the rest of their lives. In her view, why not bring Ye Qinglan in as a female official, and then arrange a marriage for her in the Grand Princess’s name? Qinglan would gain prestige, the Grand Princess would gain an able helper, and with her talents and appearance, using her to forge a marriage alliance with a Northern Frontier Army general was not out of the question — would that not be a happy outcome all around?
But the Grand Princess did not even look up, only saying mildly: “Jingrong is being impulsive again.”
The female official was Su Jingrong — the very female official who had previously taken a good opinion of A’Cuo — and being young, she lacked the steadiness of an experienced governess. The old governess nearby, hearing this, cast her a cautionary glance.
Su Jingrong could only take the inkstone from the governess’s hands and grind the ink, while glancing at the food menu in the Grand Princess’s hands, her eyes immediately brightening.
“Your Highness is truly going to host a banquet?”
“Ye Qinglan’s remonstrance was this sound — that if names are not correct, speech will not ring true, affairs will not succeed. If I do not first host a banquet to set the record straight and claim proper authority, how can I do justice to her remonstrance?” the Grand Princess said, placidly.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
As for Qinglan herself — she had no choice but to leave the Wei estate together with Shen Biwei. Shen Biwei, ever one to treat herself as a man, had come on horseback in a practical riding outfit, and personally escorted Qinglan home — which did at least save them from the trouble of having their carriage stopped on the road.
When they reached the Ye household’s gate, Ye Qinglan saw Shen Biwei about to leave and called after her: “Why not come in for a cup of tea and warm yourself?”
“No need — otherwise Lingbo will catch me and give me no end of talking-to,” Shen Biwei said with a free-and-easy laugh, turning to go — and then suddenly turned back, eyeing Ye Qinglan with suspicion.
“What is it?” Qinglan smiled, looking at her.
“Elder Sister Qinglan asked me to remonstrate before the Grand Princess — it wasn’t for that matter, was it?”
“Which matter?” Qinglan asked, feigning ignorance.
Her composed and dignified face made any pressing question impossible, and Shen Biwei could only say: “Never mind. It has nothing to do with you — it’s all Lingbo making trouble.”
Having said this, she did not force the matter with Qinglan further, but turned and swung back onto her horse, frowning: “Where has Lingbo gone again? Don’t tell me she’s scheming something else.”
They all said the Shen women were formidable — the young madam shrewd in her calculations, and the eldest young miss commanding in presence. In truth, they showed strength on the surface while quietly absorbing losses underneath. Just as — without Qinglan even needing to ask — she knew with certainty that Lingbo must be scheming something or other.
Just as she herself, through a remonstrance that rang with loyal devotion, had quietly swept away the gathering that Han Yueqi had arranged with such single-minded determination — the gathering she had agreed upon with Cui Jingyu.