“…Ah-eh-eh, ah-eh-eh, waah… wuh… eh…”
Broken, halting sounds rang out, mixed with the chirping of summer insects — it was a child crying.
In the little classroom by the earthen ridge, a small girl stood there crying, while at the same time feeling as though she were about to drive her pretty young teacher out of her mind with rage.
The little girl was seven this year, her clothes patched and none too clean, her build thin and small, her hair, dry and brittle, tinged a faint yellowish color, tied into two braids at the back of her head — malnutrition, the very reason so many little girls of this era would later be nicknamed “yellow-haired lasses.” She herself hadn’t really wanted to cry; she’d make a few sounds, then try to hold it back, only to let out a few more sobs, tears already streaming down her whole small face.
Yuan Jin’er stood there frowning, lips slightly parted as she stared at the little girl, at something of a loss.
“What are you crying for?”
“What’s there to cry about?”
“Teacher didn’t even hit you!”
“Waaah-eh-eh…”
“Min Chuyi!”
“Eh!”
The little girl startled again, standing there wide-eyed and frightened, tears streaming freely; after a moment: “Wuh-wuh-wuh…”
“You’re driving me mad, hold out your hand!”
Teacher Yuan swung her ruler, and the little girl, terrified, quickly held out her right palm, then received ten sharp smacks from Yuan Jin’er in quick succession — pa pa pa pa — while she pressed the back of her left hand against her mouth. Her right palm had turned red from the blows, and the crying stopped, muffled by her own hand pressed over her mouth. Once the strikes were done, Yuan Jin’er pulled the girl’s left hand — nearly stuffed into her own mouth — away from her face, and turned to the side. “I’m at my wit’s end! Ning Xi, take her outside and wash her hands!”
“Auntie, don’t be angry…”
“Call me Teacher.”
Ning Xi, barely five years old, ducked his small head, pressed his palms together, and bowed properly to Yuan Jin’er. “Teacher Yuan. We’re going now.”
He pulled the girl named Min Chuyi and hurried off; once outside the door, he tugged up her sleeve and blew gently on her right hand a couple of times. “Does it hurt a lot?”
The little girl’s eyes still brimmed with tears; she nodded, then shook her head.
“Blow on it a bit and it’ll stop hurting…”
Not far outside the classroom ran a small stream, and the two children headed that way. Back in the classroom, Yuan Jin’er turned around; the rest of the children all sat bolt upright, too frightened to say a word — the two twins in the back row had even instinctively huddled together on their little stools. In their hearts they thought, Teacher is so scary, so scary, so we absolutely must study hard…
Yuan Jin’er unconsciously planted her hands on her hips and let out a breath. Today she wore a pale white long dress trimmed with lake-green floral patterns, simple and elegant in style, and even the casual gesture of her hands on her hips looked rather charming — but in the eyes of the children watching, it only served as further proof that the teacher was terrifying.
“All right, let’s continue reading: ‘The Dragon Master and the Fire Emperor, the Bird Official and the Human Sovereign. They first invented writing, then adopted proper garments…'”
The children hastily followed along: “The Dragon Master and the Fire Emperor, the Bird Official and the Human Sovereign. They first invented writing, then adopted proper garments…”
“Now, what these lines mean is this: the Dragon Master refers to the ancient Emperor Fuxi. He named his officials after dragons, and so later generations called him the Dragon Master. And the Fire Emperor is Shennong, who tasted the hundred herbs — also called the Flame Emperor…”
Jin’er’s clear voice carried through the room. Small Azure River had only recently been founded, and holding classes here had, in truth, started simply enough. At first, it had been Zhuo Xiaofeng and a few others wanting to learn some of the classics, with Yun Zhu helping to teach and explain during her free time. Being gentle and soft-natured, she’d taught with great patience and care, and the few parents in the valley with children of the right age, seeing this, had also hoped to give their own children a chance to study — and so a fixed venue had gradually taken shape.
By the previous winter, as more and more families had moved into the valley, there were quite a few children of school age as well, and Ning Yi had formally taken charge of establishing a proper schoolhouse. The school had two teachers — one was an old scholar, formerly among the storytellers, and the other, helping out, was Yun Zhu — but by this point Yun Zhu was already pregnant, her belly gradually swelling, and after some persuasion, around the first or second month, Jin’er had been recruited to step in.
And so it was that Jin’er took charge of one of the school’s junior classes, tasked with the basic education of a group of young children. After the spring thaw, when the ice and snow melted, Ning Yi had insisted that even girls should have the chance for basic schooling, to learn some fundamental principles — and so a number of girls had been sent in as well. Confucian thought hadn’t yet developed to the extreme, overcorrected extent it would under later Neo-Confucianism, and at this point, people were still not especially opposed to girls learning a bit, understanding reason and propriety.
It was just that Jin’er’s temperament wasn’t nearly as gentle as Yun Zhu’s. In truth, a woman who’d risen from the pleasure quarters to become a top courtesan, however glamorous that status might seem, had endured no small amount of suffering and beatings in her childhood along the way. Teaching children in a pleasure house was never done with any tenderness — it was pure, relentless pressure, weeding out those who couldn’t keep up batch after batch, and only once a child showed some promise might they receive a bit of gentler treatment.
Jin’er had already drawn on considerable patience, but these children, coming from poor backgrounds to begin with, had seen so little of the world that some of them would simply freeze up, unable even to speak. Jin’er’s own dress at Small Azure River was already extremely simple, but in these children’s eyes she still looked as beautiful as a goddess — and whenever she glared at them, a child would flush red, feeling they’d done something terribly wrong, and burst into tears, wailing loudly — which inevitably earned them another round of discipline.
Fortunately, once they’d been struck a few times, they tended to behave better afterward.
It was just that, having already spent two months under Yun Zhu’s gentle instruction, the children now found themselves unable to shake the impression that Teacher Jin’er was extremely, extremely beautiful — but also extremely, extremely fierce.
Jin’er sometimes felt rather wronged by this, but there was no point showing it in front of a room full of small children — all she could do was keep her face cold and composed and press on with teaching the Thousand Character Classic.
While class continued inside, out by the little stream, the small boy and the little girl had already washed their hands and faces. The girl named Min Chuyi was a refugee who’d come in from outside the mountains during winter; her family had already been poor to begin with, and though she was seven, she was malnourished and terribly timid, growing anxious at the slightest thing — but if no one was watching over her, she was remarkably capable at gathering wild greens, doing chores, and hauling firewood. She stood a head taller than the younger Ning Xi, but somehow still looked more like his little sister.
After washing their hands, the two of them quietly crept back closer to the little wooden schoolhouse. Min Chuyi followed along with the voices from the classroom, straining to recite along: “Yielded the throne, ceded the realm — there was Youyu, there was Taotang. Consoled the people, punished the wicked — there was Zhou Fa, there was Yin Tang…” Encouraged by little Ning Xi beside her, she recited while unconsciously clenching her fist to urge herself on; her voice remained light, but she managed to get through it smoothly all the same.
Ning Xi nodded beside her, then said in a low voice, “Yielded the throne, ceded the realm — there was Youyu, there was Taotang — that’s talking about the story of Yao and Shun…”
“…Who are Yao and Shun?” Min Chuyi asked quietly, and by the end of the question, she looked faintly shy.
“Um… they were two emperors, I think…”
“Then… what’s an emperor?” the little girl asked again, after a long hesitation.
“Uh, an emperor…” The little boy’s lips pressed together, looking a bit stumped…
The sunlight was bright, growing rather hot now, cicadas chirping ceaselessly in the trees overhead. It was just past the start of May, and as noon approached, the day’s lessons had come to an end. The children lined up one by one to bow to Teacher Jin’er before heading off. The little girl who’d cried earlier also came timidly to bow, murmuring a quiet thank-you to the teacher, then went to the back of the classroom to fetch her small woven basket and put it on her back. Not daring to wave goodbye to Ning Xi, she lowered her head and walked slowly away.
The children of the valley came either from military households or from wretchedly poor families. Min Chuyi’s parents had been dirt-poor farmers from near Yanzhou; when the Western Xia forces came, the family had fled in a panic — her grandmother had run back for the family’s one remaining half-broken iron pot and had been killed by the Western Xia soldiers. By the time they encountered Small Azure River’s troops, the family of three had nothing left but the clothes on their backs. Not only thin and worn, but patched over and over — who knew how many years they’d been wearing them. The little girl had been held in her parents’ arms, nearly frozen to death.
The family had no possessions to speak of; once winter came, their only way to survive had been to huddle around the hearth fire at home for warmth — and when the Western Xia soldiers came and burned their house down, that had effectively cut off every path to survival they had left. Small Azure River’s troops had rescued and taken them in, even finding some medicine to pull the little girl back from the brink of a deadly chill.
People who’d endured such poverty were also people who knew how to repay a kindness. After settling at Small Azure River, the taciturn Min couple had thrown themselves into whatever work needed doing, regardless of filth or exhaustion. Having been forged by such hard years, once they had adequate nutrition, they actually proved more capable at their tasks than quite a few of the Wurui Camp soldiers. It was because of this that, not long after, Min Chuyi was given the opportunity to attend school. When they’d received this news, her father — normally silent and showing little emotion — had stroked her hair and wept, choking up with tears; it was the little girl herself who, seeing this, first understood just how significant the moment was, and had been anxious about it ever since, never quite managing to settle into it.
Honestly, compared to Teacher Jin’er’s eyes, which always seemed on the verge of anger, she’d almost rather have her palms struck — that was actually far more bearable.
The children who came here to study would typically go out at dawn to gather a batch of wild greens, then come to the schoolhouse to drink porridge and eat a coarse-grain steamed bun — food provided free by the school. Morning classes had been Ning Yi’s fixed rule, not to be changed, since the mind was sharper at that hour, better suited for learning.
By noon, when class let out, some children ate half a flatbread they’d brought from home, while others went straight off with their baskets to keep gathering wild greens, and along the way, dig for field mice or wild rabbits — a good find of either would count as a real windfall for the day.
Min Chuyi, of course, had no lunch to eat. Even though Master Ning had once personally told her father that children ought to eat at least something at midday, to help them grow up strong, families who’d long survived on only two meals a day still found such a luxury hard to grasp — even the food the valley distributed to them, insufficient as it already was, would have been enough to give the family of three an extra meal at noon. But the Min couple simply gathered up the grain quietly and set it aside without touching it.
Once, Min Chuyi had overheard her parents quietly discussing whether they ought to return this grain. After nearly half a year here, they worried about the predicament facing the valley — word was that the grain stores were already running low. At the same time, they also worried about the possibility of the valley being attacked by the Western Xia. People of simple means, capable of only simple reasoning, couldn’t work out much of the bigger picture — but this place, which didn’t bully them, gave them grain, even gave them new clothes, and even worried that their child wasn’t eating enough — to them, it already felt close to paradise.
They were terrified that one day this place might cease to exist. In the end, the grain was never returned; her father simply took on more and more work each day. When he came home, though, there was a certain quiet satisfaction about him, and her mother would occasionally remark, “Master Ning is such a capable man — surely he won’t let anything happen to this place.” There was hope in her voice as she said it. To them, hard work had never been something to fear.
The children gradually dispersed. Jin’er picked up a small bag for holding books, then lifted Ning Xi up into her arms. Ning Xi squirmed a little in her embrace. “Auntie, I want to walk by myself.”
Jin’er glanced at him, pressed her lips together, and set him down, then took his hand instead. As the two of them walked out, a nearby female soldier fell into step behind them.
“All grown up now, huh? How did it feel, spending time with that little girl?”
“…She’s really slow.”
“Oh.” Jin’er nodded. “Mm, she really is slow.”
“Auntie, what does ’emperor’ mean?”
“Emperor, ah, well — the old texts say, huang means ‘above,’ and di means ‘below.’ Above and below — originally it meant heaven and earth, that was the first meaning…”
“Then why is huang ‘above’ and di ‘below’?”
“That’s just what the old texts say — the old texts are the ultimate authority, how would I know? Go ask your father sometime, if you get the chance. But nowadays, huangdi just means a great official — a very, very great official, the greatest official of all…”
Passing through the small fence surrounding the schoolyard, the mountain path wound its way down; the children were running along excitedly, the girl with the little basket on her back among them — small in stature, but walking quite briskly. When Ning Xi glanced over, the little girl turned to look back as well, though whether she was actually looking this way, it was hard to say. Ning Xi, tugging Jin’er’s hand, turned his head and said, “Auntie, they’re going to gather wild greens and firewood, right? Can I go help too?”
“You want to go? … If you go, they’ll have to send someone along with you again…” Jin’er glanced back at the female soldier trailing them. “Tell you what — go ask your father. But today, go home and keep your little sister company.”
“Okay.” Ning Xi nodded. “I wonder if my sister cried again today. Girls always like to cry…”
The little girl with the basket on her back and the group of children had already run off into the distance; a bit further, out in the river valley, ranks of soldiers were drilling, letting out shouts of exertion. Jin’er and Ning Xi walked toward a courtyard on the hillside not far off; the mountain breeze felt cool and pleasant, and in the courtyard stood a great tree with a swing hanging from it, swaying gently in the wind. A window facing the courtyard was open, and inside, the man who was both husband and father sat bent over his desk, writing something. Jin’er and Ning Xi noticed a man standing outside the courtyard as well — a Wurui Camp soldier. Jin’er recognized him vaguely; his name was Luo Ye, the founder of a small group within the army called the Huayan Society — likely here to see Ning Yi.
Ning Yi didn’t usually handle business here at home; only occasionally, when it was convenient, would he have someone come to see him — and this was likely because lunchtime was approaching.
Little Ning Ji was playing with pebbles under the eaves.
“Ah, my sister isn’t crying.” Not hearing the usual sound of crying from the courtyard, Ning Xi looked rather pleased and let go of Jin’er’s hand. “I’m going in to see my sister.”
Seeing her brother return, little Ning Ji got up from the ground, about to speak, then seemed to remember something and pressed a finger seriously to her lips to shush him, pointing toward the room behind her. Ning Xi nodded, and the two of them, one big, one small, crept quietly into the room.
Jin’er nodded to Luo Ye waiting outside the courtyard, then pushed open the gate and went in.
A while later, Ning Yi set down his brush and opened the door, calling Luo Ye in.
It was the second day of the fifth month. Everything at Small Azure River, on the surface, seemed ordinary and calm. At times, it was even easy to forget, in a moment of quiet, the great upheaval sweeping through the wider world outside.
In the study, having invited Luo Ye to sit, Ning Yi poured a cup of tea and set out a few pieces of tea confection, asking with a smile, “What’s on your mind?”
“I’ve been thinking for several days now about the matter of grain in the valley. I might have an idea — I wanted to speak with Master Ning about it privately.”
Ning Yi, not yet seated, tilted his head slightly at this.