Peach blossoms budding in spring, willows drooping low. The small courtyard by the Qinhuai River, beside Wuyi Alley, had welcomed a new tenant these past few days.
Qinhuai’s Wuyi Alley had always been one of Jiangning’s landmark districts. The alley itself wasn’t especially wide—nowhere near as grand or spacious as places like Vermilion Bird Street or the Confucius Temple district—but it was precisely because of this that it retained so much less of the vulgar, money-tainted air of the marketplace, carrying instead an atmosphere steeped in literary refinement, beloved for a thousand years by scholars and men of letters. “The swallows that once nested before the halls of Wang and Xie now fly into the homes of common folk”—the romantic elegance of the Eastern Jin, remembered across a millennium. In truth, now that the place had become something of a symbol, plenty of visitors came by daily to tour and reminisce, so the genuinely secluded tranquility one might imagine was, naturally, no longer entirely possible.
As the old poetic line suggested, Wuyi Alley today could no longer really be called the exclusive domain of great families like the Wang and Xie clans of old. But given its enduring fame, the land here still commanded a value every bit as precious as gold by the inch. Nowadays, securing a place here generally required real background and standing; even a wealthy upstart eager to buy himself a taste of literary refinement would find it nearly impossible without some connection to officialdom. So although this particular courtyard appeared unassuming from the outside, whoever had managed to move in was, naturally, someone with connections of a certain caliber.
The courtyard’s design was understated and old-fashioned in appearance, but this restraint was purely external—inside, the layout revealed considerable refinement, with an intricate, thoughtful arrangement of space. Bright colors were used sparingly, yet the whole place carried a distinct air of scholarly culture and lived-in warmth. The rear of the courtyard bordered the river; the view, though modest at first glance, was in fact quite pleasing, opening up a vista that put the mind at ease the moment one looked out upon it.
At this moment, people were still busy moving things about the courtyard. A middle-aged woman in a grayish-blue cloth dress walked through, frowning and calling out instructions, until she reached the innermost room facing the river, where she paused to glance in through the window. Inside, a woman sat before a bronze mirror, having just changed out of her male attire, letting her hair down as she went about her toilette, absorbed in her own reflection.
The middle-aged woman knocked and entered, doing her best to appear displeased—though, in truth, she genuinely was somewhat put out. “Where’s Chunmei? Why isn’t she here?”
“She just went to wash up—I sent her out to pour water, then had her bring in some paper and ink. Things are piled up deep in there; she’s probably still hunting for it.” The woman smiled at her reflection in the mirror. “Did Mother have a good time out today?”
“I did not! I’ve told you before not to keep going out alone dressed as a man, and yet you go and do it again, again! And that useless girl Chunmei, too—I told her to go with you, and she didn’t, wait until she gets back, I’ll give her a piece of my mind…”
“It’s not Chunmei’s fault—I gave her the slip myself. She was crying when I got back, probably afraid you’d scold her, Mother… And I wasn’t exactly alone either—I ran into Brother Yu today, and he tagged along.”
“Crying, was she…” The middle-aged woman mimicked her tone with a scoff. “Maybe the first time or two she actually cried. You say this every single time now—do you think she’s really crying anymore?… And that Yu Hezhong is no good either. The moment he lays eyes on you, he’s like some dog sniffing around for a stray cat, all bows and smiles…”
“Brother Yu is actually quite decent, nothing like Mother makes him out to be. Besides, it’s cats that go sniffing around for strays, not dogs—dogs don’t do that, dogs only—” The woman broke off mid-sentence, laughing at herself, clearly reluctant to voice the crude phrase aloud.
“Right, like a stray-chasing cat, all bows and smiles… If it weren’t for the fact that you two go back a ways, I wouldn’t even let him through that door. Sigh, it’s not that Mother’s unreasonable—it’s just that this Yu Hezhong isn’t good enough for you. There’s no harm in you keeping some old fondness for him, no harm inviting him to a few gatherings either, but his talent and family standing simply can’t compare to the others. There’s no sense losing face over him, and yet you keep protecting him, and the more you protect him, the more he’ll want, until he actually starts believing you’re genuinely fond of him.”
The middle-aged woman rattled on. “People are like that—once that kind of misplaced hope takes root, and it never comes to anything, it always ends in pain. Him suffering wouldn’t bother me in the least—plenty of young men in the capital adore you, but you, Shishi, there’s only one of you, and heartbreak is bound to happen somewhere. Mother couldn’t care less if those men live or die over it—if a man neglects serving his country and pours all his heart into chasing women instead, good riddance to him! But you, Shishi, you’re too softhearted—if this Yu Hezhong ends up heartbroken down the road, you’ll feel guilty about it, and Mother’s only thinking of you here. Better to cut it off cleanly when the time calls for it—might as well let him give up this notion of his early, save everyone the trouble. Look at this trip of yours, meant for you to relax and unwind, and he tags along anyway, and you go off with him alone besides—isn’t that just inviting the wolf into the fold…”
“Brother Yu’s family lives right here, and it’s only natural he’d tag along when he has some free time… Besides, your daughter was dressed as a man—rather unremarkable-looking, if anything. If Brother Yu still had designs even under those circumstances, he really wouldn’t be very discerning…”
Amid this bantering exchange, the woman had already let her long hair down and finished removing most of her makeup and disguise. In her male attire, her chin had appeared somewhat pointed, her forehead a touch high—had she truly been a man, she’d have looked rather gaunt and thin. This, in fact, had been quite deliberate on her part; her forehead was naturally a bit high to begin with, something that wouldn’t show at all when dressed as a woman, and even in male disguise could be lightly powdered to conceal. But she’d intentionally emphasized the high forehead and small chin, so that although she remained beautiful, the effect came across as somewhat jarring, off-balance.
Having now restored her appearance, letting her hair fall loose, she’d returned to the image of a gentle, elegant beauty, bantering playfully with her mother, her smile carrying a languid, sharp-witted charm. At that moment, the door opened once more—apparently the maid named Chunmei, bringing in brush, ink, paper, and inkstone. Seeing the middle-aged woman, she lowered her head, set the four scholarly treasures down on the small table by the side, and moved to help grind the ink. Li Shishi, without breaking the flow of conversation, gave a subtle wave of her hand, and the maid retreated backward out of the room, letting out a quiet breath of relief once outside. No scolding for her, then.
This middle-aged mother figure was surnamed Li, given name Yun, who had taken in Li Shishi at the age of five and understood her adopted daughter’s temperament perfectly well. She knew Li Shishi’s remarks about Yu Hezhong were mostly in jest, with barely a serious word among them, and she caught, without fail, that small deliberate gesture just now as well. She pursed her lips, having no real inclination at the moment to scold the little maid, and simply shook her head.
“Not a single serious word in that whole exchange—Yu Hezhong doesn’t have the nerve for anything of the sort… Look at him, his poetry’s mediocre, his character unremarkable, and now he doesn’t even have the courage to act on anything. Shishi, the sort of people you associate with, honestly, why bother with him at all… And besides, with men, you never know when one of them might suddenly work up the nerve, throw caution to the wind…”
The woman sat down at the small table, poured tea into the inkstone, and began grinding the ink, letting out a soft laugh. “And if he really did have that kind of nerve, what would it matter if your daughter simply gave herself to him?”
“Shishi, with the reputation you carry now, that would be the death of him…”
“Better to die a romantic death, then.”
The setting sun streamed in through the window. The woman, dressed in a long pink gown, sat before the small table, picked up the goat-hair brush beside her, examined it a moment, then touched its tip lightly with the tip of her tongue—a simple, elegant gesture, yet carrying within it an indescribable, alluring charm. The mother beside her frowned slightly. “Stop licking it like that, I’ve told you about that habit before…” But the woman had already dipped the brush into the ink and begun sketching across the white paper.
“…Life is hard, and being human isn’t easy either, Mother. I know Brother Yu has this shortcoming or that, but are we really such a precious, exalted trade ourselves?”
The middle-aged woman’s brow furrowed sharply. “It absolutely is a precious trade! Shishi, you are a precious, exalted person now—ask anyone, they’d all say the same!”
“I don’t feel that way at all.” Her back turned to her mother, sunlight streaming in through the window directly ahead of her. “It’s… it’s just a trade, Mother, nothing more. As for Brother Yu and the others chasing after me, that’s their own business—if he finds it enjoyable, if he finds it interesting, whatever comes of it later, he’ll have to bear that himself too. I’ve simply given him what he wanted, treated him as a friend, an older brother—of course he’d be grateful to me for that. And if I really did cut things off with him as you suggest, for his own good, all he’d remember afterward would be the bad in me, and he wouldn’t be any happier for it either. Whether that’s really the better thing to do is hard to say for certain…”
She thought for a moment. “Everyone divides the affairs of this world into ranks and classes, just as Mother says—I’m a precious, exalted person now, someone of the upper tier. When they come to our Fan Tower and get to see me, chat with me, they feel they’ve done something upper-tier themselves. My association with Brother Zhou and the other talented men is seen as an upper-tier affair; my association with someone like Brother Yu is seen as middling, or lower-tier. Mother, I rarely think of things that way myself—I feel everyone should really be the same—but since everyone else does think this way, I can hardly change that. Brother Yu feels it’s a matter of great pride to associate with me, feels he’s done something upper-tier himself, and that makes me happy too, because I’ve given him this chance, this upper-tier experience, in his one life.”
“Having done something upper-tier, having had that upper-tier happiness he imagines—well, then there should be upper-tier troubles and hardships to match. If he’d spent his whole life instead in the middling tier, married an ordinary wife, become some minor official someday, done nothing but ordinary things, never once glimpsing a Chief Courtesan in a pleasure house—then naturally he’d have had middling joys and middling troubles instead. As for me, Shishi, having grown up the way I have, I couldn’t even say whether I’m upper, middling, or lower tier myself—I always have my own troubles too, and if I look carefully enough, my own joys as well. By letting Brother Yu and the others feel they’ve become upper-tier people, by giving others joy and satisfaction, I feel I’ve accomplished something of my own too…”
“Mother, you say I should cut ties with all this, and I understand well enough that Brother Yu, in your eyes, can’t compare to those great talents. Of course I enjoy Brother Zhou and the others’ poetry and conversation, their literary flair and insight. But what I like about Brother Yu isn’t any of that. I keep in touch with him because he’s a childhood friend. Isn’t that exactly what old friends should be like? With this flaw or that, of only middling talent, no matter how hard he tries never truly becoming a genius—well, who gets to grow up knowing geniuses like Brother Zhou, Brother Ji, or Brother Tao from childhood anyway? Wasn’t I myself once called ‘Radish Head’ as a child? Ha, ‘Radish Head of the Wang family’… ‘Radish Head of the Li family’…”
Mother Li frowned. “You were already quite pretty back then—’Radish Head’ didn’t mean you were ugly…”
Li Shishi continued painting, not bothering to answer. “Knowing Brother Yu, staying in touch with him—sometimes it makes me feel I possess some noble character, that I can remain loyal to an old friend like this without abandoning him. People would say things like: ‘Oh, why on earth does Li Shishi show such favor to Yu Hezhong?’ ‘Don’t you know? Because Yu Hezhong knew her since childhood—so even though he’s a bit lacking, Li Shishi treats him very well.’ They always think well of me for it, and honestly, that makes me feel a little happy too…”
She laughed as she spoke. “Mother, you know this about me—ever since I started learning the zither as a child, I’ve always loved that kind of praise. I’m a rather vain person, really…”
“All these fine arguments, and still just an excuse in the end…” Mother Li rubbed her temples, sighing. “Let’s not talk about this anymore, do as you please… So, you two went to the old alley today, right? Did you see anything?”
“Same as always, not much different from before—shame the old man who used to teach the zither there isn’t around anymore…” As she spoke, her brush kept moving, and a painted scene of the alley had already taken shape beneath her hand. She thought for a moment, then dotted in a few human figures. “Mm, I did run into one person I used to know…”