Return of the River Goddess: Ode to Suozhao

By Lord Junzi Yize

Willow leaves sway by the eastern tower,

A quiet maiden plays the harp by Luoshui.

Wild geese bearing pearls fall to the vast sea,

The five heroes of Suozhao are all elegant.

Draped in stars with sleeves full of flowers,

In one day, they drink all the wine of Moon City.

Old friends are ten thousand li away,

New guests still come to visit Jiuzhou.

— Xijian’s “Ode to Suozhao”

This poem came from the hand of the previous king, depicting the prosperous glory of our great Suozhao after the Wild Goose Reformation.

The “Ode to Suozhao” has been passed down to this day. From nobles and ministers above to commoners and cloth-wearers below, all are familiar with it by ear. You must know that our great Suozhao is located in the land of the supreme immortals. Every subject possesses heavenly spiritual energy, with embroidered hearts and minds that speak pearls and jade. Even five-year-old children can recite it backwards fluently.

However, this newly arrived child in the Xuan Academy was here to tear down the master’s platform.

Look at him—his glances scatter radiance, his long sighs carry the fragrance of orchids. With that delicate and tender skin, he’s more beautiful than a young maiden. That lustrous complexion, like congealed cream, is more seductive than the black fox spirits of Mount Youdu.

It would be one thing if he simply looked like this, but he insisted on standing straight with a dignified and proper appearance, not knowing what he was trying to achieve.

At this moment, the master rolled his eyes, unable to believe what he had just heard: “You can’t recite the ‘Ode to Suozhao’?”

The boy said, “This junior is ashamed.”

The master placed one hand behind his lower back and extended the other with chopstick-like fingers, twirling his two catfish whiskers: “Say it again—what is your name?”

“Fu Chenzhi.”

“‘Fu’ Chenzhi? Your parents aren’t of the Suozhao Clan?”

The other students might not have caught the subtlety in this, but I heard the emphasis in the master’s words.

That Fu Chenzhi wasn’t of the Suozhao Clan was obvious to everyone because his hair was black.

You must know that the pure hair color of our great Suozhao Clan is all deep azure. As age gradually increases, the hair color becomes lighter and lighter, eventually turning moon-white. Those with extremely strong magical power and qualifications might even turn pure white.

Therefore, from the moment he entered the Xuan Academy, everyone showed expressions of surprise. After all, students who could study here, even if they didn’t come from the royal family, had to have some connection to the One Prime Minister, Three Marquises, and Six Ministers. From the time we started studying until now, within ten li of the Wanzhou Hall, I had never seen the shadow of a single foreign race.

What the master was truly curious about was probably that “Fu” surname at the beginning.

After all, since the Divine Lord built Suozhao, our great Suozhao Clan has worshipped immortal gods and, like them, does not use surnames. Those with surnames are only humans, demons, and ghosts. Although the foreign races that the Suozhao Clan has truly seen are only humans and demons, it’s not difficult to know from various legends and historical records that other races indeed exist.

And what significance does black hair have? When we first started studying, the master said, “Black hair belongs to mortals. Mortals are humans and demons.” Emphasizing surnames like this now, he probably wants to know whether Fu Chenzhi is a demon or human.

Fu Chenzhi said, “This junior lost both parents at a young age and was adopted by a Daoist of the Fu family from Jiuzhou, thus growing up in Jiuzhou.”

Jiuzhou—the lands of the far south and north seas, currently under Han dominion.

Good heavens, this Fu Chenzhi is a mortal!

For a mortal to enter our great Suozhao royal academy, this matter is extraordinary. Hearing these words, not to mention us children, even the master widened his eyes.

However, the master’s father was the former General Marquis. He had been influenced since childhood, well-read in military books, and was a scholar who observed changes and kept deep counsel. After a momentary loss of composure, his calculating eyes rolled: “I saw the Grand Priest personally escort you here. These days, he happens to be descending to the mortal realm to seek knowledge—were you discovered by him?”

“Roughly so…” Fu Chenzhi seemed to have more to say.

“What do you mean ‘roughly so’?”

“The one who discovered this junior was Zong Fengyilang.”

Zong Fengyilang—what kind of official position is this?

I listen to Father King and Mother Queen discuss politics daily, but I’ve never heard this name. Is this from the Ministry of Ceremony or the Ministry of Rites? Forget it, looking at the master’s raised eyebrows, I can already conclude it’s a sesame-seed official. The Grand Priest constantly has a group of followers trailing behind him, and nine out of ten there’s bound to be a Zong Fengyilang among them.

At this moment, the master swept his gaze around the Xuan Academy and said with difficulty, “Chenzhi, there are no empty seats here. I’m afraid you’ll have to stand for today’s class.”

Fu Chenzhi was about to comply when I patted the empty seat beside me: “Who says so? I have a seat here.”

The master looked troubled: “This… Little Princess, I’m afraid I won’t be able to explain this to His Majesty…”

“No matter, just for today.” I beckoned to Fu Chenzhi with my finger, “You, come sit here.”

I’ve always been used to acting tyrannically in the Xuan Academy, so the master no longer argued with me. He simply supported his forehead, shook his head, took out his books, and began teaching. Fu Chenzhi first froze, then smiled faintly and sat beside me.

I propped up my chin and looked at him several times, discovering he didn’t look like a mortal.

The humans who appear most frequently in Suozhao are the Xuanqiu people from Mount Daxuan, or the Chijin people from the Kingdom of Dayou. The former are completely dark all over, while the latter have completely red skin below the knees. These people have rough features and simple natures. Because of the belief that “those with humble names live long,” their names are also very inelegant.

But this Fu Chenzhi fellow not only has an elegantly distinctive name, he’s also grown up to be so good-looking. Suozhao’s custom is for girls to bind their hair and boys to wear it loose, and Fu Chenzhi is no exception. His shiny black hair hangs over his shoulders, tied only with a silk ribbon at the back of his head. Set against his white lotus-like face, he’s simply extremely beautiful. Noticing my gaze, he turned his head to look back at me, somewhat bashfully: “Please instruct me.”

“Do all Han people look like you?” I murmured.

“My appearance?”

“Tender and pink like a steamed bun.” I smiled, “Happy? You’re more adorable than all the girls of our Suozhao Clan put together.”

Upon hearing this, his little steamed bun cheeks turned pink. But he still furrowed his brow and said seriously: “That’s not a compliment. I’m not white, and Han people aren’t white either.”

“Liar, it must be because you look too unlike a Han person that you were abandoned, then mistakenly recognized as Suozhao Clan by Zong Fengyilang and the Grand Priest and brought back.”

“The reason I was sent here is because…”

Before he could finish speaking, the master had already cleared his throat and thrown several eye-daggers at us, forcing us to stop our conversation.

I placed my book in the center of the desk to share with Fu Chenzhi for reading.

These days, we’ve been studying the literary compositions of Beixiang, foremost of the “Five Heroes of Suozhao.” I’ve always felt that poetry could be learned, but literary compositions are boring. Just looking at those fat paragraphs could induce hundreds of yawns from me. Unexpectedly, Fu Chenzhi listened with rapt attention. No matter where the master walked, his gaze followed closely.

Indeed, compared to studying literature, the Daoist Arts Hall classes are much more interesting.

Because in Daoist Arts class, we spend eighty percent of our time casting spells. As subjects of our great Suozhao, even if I don’t play with water for just the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, I feel itchy all over. Looking at the water jug on the desk before me, I always want to lift the water out of it and turn it into ice shards for a heavenly maiden scattering flowers display. But all the academies in Suozhao have explicit rules: without the master’s permission, magic is forbidden in class. Once caught doing this, I would be punished to copy Beixiang’s self-pitying “Collection of Separated Cranes” a hundred times.

Thinking of various painful lessons from the past, I forcibly suppressed the spiritual energy stirring restlessly within my body and lay on the desk, staring blankly with vacant eyes.

Just as I was about to fall asleep, the master finally stopped his endless talking and walked back and forth in the Xuan Academy with his hands behind his back. This entire class finally reached its most interesting part—copying famous sentences from literary compositions.

As I said before, punishment copying is a painful lesson, so what’s interesting is naturally not the copying itself, but rather: the students uniformly open the lids of the water jugs on their desks, begin circulating their qi, point a finger at the jug, and the water inside flows upward in a column, guided to the ink stick on the inkstone, wrapping around it and rotating. Before long, ink water drips onto the inkstone.

Time for me to shine!

The only chance to cast magic—I must make it spectacular!

I rolled my sleeves up to my elbows, rubbed my hands together eagerly, and was about to create a magnificent cascade when I noticed Fu Chenzhi had also rolled up his sleeves. He poured some water from the jug onto the inkstone, then picked up the ink stick and methodically ground it back and forth…

Witnessing this scene firsthand, all the students were struck dumb as wooden chickens.