Purely by Accident – Chapter 24
***
The summer night was far from delightful.
I tossed and turned in bed. I threw off the covers, but felt a little too chilly; I drew them back over myself, and grew uncomfortably warm. Once I had repeated this exercise several times, any trace of drowsiness had been driven away completely.
Everything around me was quiet. The only sound in the room came from an insect chirping tirelessly away by the wall. Through the open window, I could see the moon hanging placidly in the sky, full and bright; it looked like some distant, fantastical mirror.
As I gazed at the moon, I was reminded of a line from a famous poem:
The moonlight shines so brightly on my bed
By which two pairs of shoes lie, newly shed.[1]
My eyes fell on the solitary pair of shoes sitting forlornly on the floor, where I’d taken them off just before getting into bed. I wrapped the covers over myself again; in that moment, I felt infinitely, immeasurably lonely.
A shadowy figure flitted past the window, its robes flicking against the lattice.
Inwardly I sighed. It was no doubt some foolish little thief, still too wet behind the ears to know better than to burgle the home of so august a personage as the chief of the fearsome Heiyun Brotherhood. Since I had nothing better to do, I decided to make the most of this diversion.
The door opened softly, and a figure stepped through and began making its way towards my bed. With another inward sigh, I closed my eyes and pretended to be fast asleep.
To my surprise, the intruder, having reached my bedside, simply stood there motionlessly. Several long moments passed; and I grew impatient. I was just about to open my eyes when I felt a hand reach out and tuck a corner of the covers gently into place. Then the hand made its way upwards and gave my ear a squeeze.
Every single one of my hairs stood on end. Abruptly my eyes flew open, and I caught hold of the intruder’s hand and yanked them towards me. Thrown off balance, the intruder fell forwards onto the bed. The very next moment, I was on top of them, a hand around their throat.
The intruder gave a yelp of surprise.
I tightened my grasp on their throat slightly. ‘You impudent little thief,’ I said with a sinister chuckle. ‘Cry uncle now, and tell me your name, and I might just decide to spare your life.’
The intruder said nothing, but made no move to fight back either. Gradually, I began to get the distinct sense that things were not as they seemed. The intruder appeared to be a woman: the body pressed against mine was all soft, firm curves, and the perfume that hung in the air was all too familiar.
A mind-boggling possibility descended upon me. I pulled back a little and studied the intruder in the moonlight that filtered in through the window. ‘Princess?’ I said uncertainly.
The intruder squirmed impatiently beneath me. ‘Light a lamp or something already, will you?’ came a familiar voice.
So it really was the princess. Hastily I let go of her throat, giving it a gentle caress in the process. Then I half-rolled, half-crawled out of bed, slipped on my shoes, and scrambled over to a low table to light the candle that stood on it. In its flickering illumination, I looked back at the bed. The absurdly beautiful woman lying on it, a faint look of irritation on her flushed face, was unmistakeably the princess.
My face split into a broad grin. ‘Princess, what are you doing here?’
The princess sat up and straightened her robes. ‘Why shouldn’t I come here?’ she asked, shooting me a glare. ‘This residence belongs to me, after all.’
‘Oh.’ My heart was bursting with boundless joy. I sat down beside her, all smiles, and inspected her face closely. ‘I thought it must have been because you missed me.’
The blush which had been fading from her cheeks flared into life again. ‘In your dreams!’ she said, flinging another sideways glance at me.
That look was part charming petulance, part pretty vexation; it seemed to hold all manner of unspoken endearments. My heart began pounding in my chest. I reached out to take her hand, but she evaded the attempt. I scratched my head thoughtfully, then simply took off my shoes again and climbed back onto the bed, slipping behind her so I could draw her fully onto my lap.
She fidgeted a little, then seemed to think better of it. Nestling against me, she took hold of the hem of my undershirt and began playing with it, winding the fabric around one finger.
I buried my head in her shoulder and breathed in her scent deeply. Rocking her a little against me, I asked, ‘Princess, princess, what did our grandma say?’
The question took her slightly by surprise. Her hands paused briefly on the hem of my undershirt before she went on toying with it again. ‘You mean my grandma,’ she said. A moment later, she added, ‘Speaking of which, doesn’t that make her your own dear mother, “uncle”?’
The last word was said with laughing emphasis. I winced, recalling what I’d told her earlier when I’d taken her for a petty thief. Reaching up, I stroked her throat soothingly and kissed her earlobe. ‘Does that still hurt?’
‘You and your bandit ways,’ she sighed. She tossed her head slightly, as if my ministrations were making her ticklish, and murmured my name. ‘Wei Zisong…’ Her voice dropped lower and lower until it trailed off. Letting go of my undershirt, she found my wandering hand and caught it firmly in hers. ‘Keep your hands to yourself, and stop squirming,’ she said, but her voice was soft, and there was no force in the command.
‘All right,’ I said obligingly, bringing my lips to her ear and beginning a slow exploration of its contours. ‘It’s just that it’s so hot.’
She wriggled against me. ‘If it’s so hot, why are you pressing up against me like that? That makes no sense.’
I held her even tighter. ‘Your skin is so cool, hugging you feels so nice.’ A poem came suddenly to mind. I deepened my voice to throatiness, and recited:
‘Her bones as exquisite as jade;
Her skin as clear as ice.
In summer she is ever cool,
Thus she perspires not…’[2]
The princess laughed then, her chest vibrating faintly with the sound. ‘Our resident bandit chief even knows poetry, I see.’
‘Mm.’ I nodded. ‘And that’s just one of my many good points. You’ve made a wise choice of spouse indeed, princess.’
‘Oh?’ She squirmed free of my embrace, and turned to study me with sparkling eyes. ‘Pray tell me, what are all these good points?’ she asked, visibly repressing a smile.
I stretched expansively, leaning back comfortably against the pillow, and began counting out my virtues on my fingers. ‘I’m good-looking and I have a kind heart; thus I am beautiful both inside and out. I can recite poetry and I know how to fight; thus I have both brains and brawn. I have dominion over a bandit stronghold, nay, a whole mountain; thus I am a person of great substance. I am constant in my affections; thus do I conform to the feminine virtue of chastity. No matter the season, my blood always runs hot’ — and here I put my head on her lap, pressed my face against her stomach and encircled her waist with both arms — ‘making me the perfect bed-warmer for winter.’
The princess stroked my hair. ‘And what about summer? You’ll be completely covered in sweat — what good will that do me?’
I wrapped my arms even more tightly around her. ‘You don’t sweat in the summer, so we complement each other perfectly — just like dual cultivation partners in the stories!’[3] I chuckled gleefully, then looked up, my eyes seeking hers. ‘Choose Wei Zisong,’ I said, gesticulating for emphasis. ‘Choose lifetime happiness!’
The princess finally laughed. She reached out and tweaked my cheek, then her expression became stern and her grip tightened. ‘So many other people seem intent on choosing you. Where’s that written explanation I asked for, Wei Zisong?’
And with that, she’d killed the mood completely. I was beginning to doubt whether the princess had ever truly been in love before — how could she be so unreceptive to my flirtatious repartee? I burrowed my head deeper into her lap, mumbling, ‘It’s such a lovely night, let’s not waste it discussing matters of state.’
The princess placed a hand on either side of my head, holding me still; she seemed to find my movements overly distracting. Leaning slightly over me, she gazed steadily into my eyes, her expression solemn.
With a little inward sigh, I reached up and hooked an arm around her neck. ‘Do you want to kiss me, princess?’ I asked, putting on the expression of a shy maiden completely overcome with bashfulness.
A vein throbbed visibly in the princess’ forehead. She sat up straight, cleared her throat, seemed to give the matter some thought, then removed my head from her lap.
Reflexively, I put my head back in her lap. She removed it again, and I promptly put it back yet again. We repeated this several times before she finally gave up and settled for pinching me on the ear to vent her frustrations. ‘You scoundrel,’ she said crossly.
I grinned broadly up at her, and instantly she reached down to squeeze my lips shut. ‘You’re so obviously a rogue,’ she said. ‘Yet the empress dowager wouldn’t stop talking about how upright and honourable you seemed, and how much you stood out from the other young gentlemen she knew.’
‘Really?’ Abruptly I sat up, bringing my face very close to hers. ‘Is that really what our grandma said?’
‘You mean my grandma,’ she corrected with unflagging patience.
‘It’s all the same,’ I said with a smug little laugh. I wriggled my head in excitement, unable to contain my delight. ‘Our grandma has such excellent judgment.’
The princess gave me another of those quick sideways glances. I took her hand and gave it a little tug. ‘Then did your grandmother say when we could get married?’
‘It’s hardly as straightforward as that,’ said the princess with a little frown. ‘Do you think marrying a princess is as simple as you bandits carrying off some poor woman to make her your bride? The empress dowager has given her tacit approval to the match, that’s true, but you still need to win some sort of official honour. Otherwise, people’s tongues will wag.’
‘What?’ My face fell. ‘Doesn’t your family have lots of money? Can’t you just stop the tongue-waggers by stuffing their mouths full of silver?’
The princess smiled, and nodded in seeming approval. ‘Mm, what a brilliant idea. I’ll ask my lord father tomorrow exactly how much silver we have at home, and whether it’s enough to stop everyone’s mouths.’
I was becoming worried. ‘On second thought, better not. If that good-for-nothing Xu Ziqi finds out, he’s going to laugh at me and call me a sponger and a toyboy.’ I rubbed a hand over my face. ‘It seems the most direct path to an official honour is for me to take the imperial examination. Fine. If I have to do it, I’ll do it. It’s just… I haven’t even sat for the provincial-level examination yet, much less the metropolitan-level examination. How am I supposed to take the national-level examination?’
‘You needn’t worry about that,’ said the princess. ‘Every year, the provincial governors have the right to nominate a certain number of scholars directly for the national-level examinations, allowing them to bypass the lower tiers. Your father is the governor of Yinzhou, isn’t he? All he needs to do is write a letter of nomination putting your name forward in accordance with the established procedure.’
Ah. So there really was no way out of this. It seemed your luckless bandit chief was destined to pollute that sacred shrine of scholarship — the examination hall. But there was no way my limited book-learning would earn me a place in the list of successful candidates. I glanced at the princess with some trepidation. ‘You must know the chief examiner then, princess?’
‘No.’
I wanted to weep, though no tears came. Did she really expect me to sit for the examination on my own merits? In the entire history of the Yan Empire, had there ever been a case of a royal princess marrying a candidate who had comprehensively failed the imperial examination?[4]
The princess watched happily as I contorted my features into one tortured expression after another before declaring with a completely straight face, ‘The empress dowager knows him.’
Oh, the empress dowager. Oh, my own dear grandma.
I tugged at the covers again, grinning triumphantly to myself. The princess gave me a gentle tap on the forehead. ‘It’s late,’ she said, her voice low. ‘I should go.’
What? Reflexively, I threw myself bodily at her, wrapping my arms around her waist once more. ‘It’s still early. Let’s do something else.’
‘And what should we do?’ Her voice was very close to my ear.
A good question. I let my arms fall away and frowned at her, perplexed. She gazed back at me with interest, cocking her head to one side. My brain seemed to spasm, and I blurted out, ‘You?”
The moment the word left my lips, I realised I’d said completely the wrong thing. At the dangerous expression that crossed the princess’ face, I shuddered and added weakly, ‘Or perhaps… me?’
The princess burst out laughing, her eyes roving over my chest as she did. ‘Mm,’ she said in a voice rich with feeling. ‘You are a most alluring sight tonight, Zisong, wearing nothing but that undershirt.’
I drew the garment closer around me, unable to think of a response.
The princess still looked as if she was barely holding back another peal of laughter. I took advantage of the moment to tug at her hand. ‘Princess, princess, why don’t you stay here tonight? It’s very late, and you’re so beautiful, it’s far too dangerous for you to make your way home in the dark.’
She flushed and gave a little cough. ‘If I stay, where will you sleep?’ Suddenly she broke into a smile, as if an amusing thought had just occurred to her, and added teasingly, ‘The woodshed?’
I pointed with my lips down at the bed. ‘This is big enough for two.’
The princess indicated neither assent nor disagreement, only took up the hem of my undershirt again and began toying intently with it. That was a ‘yes’, then. My heart filled with so much joy that I quite forgot myself. Spreading my arms wide open, I exclaimed, ‘Come, my lady wife, give your bandit chief a hug!’
Thud!
The floorboards in this house were harder than I’d imagined.
I rubbed my sore bottom, feeling very hard done by, then sat up to look at the heartless woman on the bed. She had actually lain down, turning her face to the wall and her back towards me. She seemed completely at peace.
I called out to her in my most honeyed tones. ‘Princess?’
She was unmoved.
‘Chu Feichen?’
She did not turn a single hair.
‘My lady wife?’
She remained as silent as a rock.
The princess was clearly determined to ignore me; I had no choice but to accept my fate. Getting hesitantly to my feet, I shuffled slowly towards the bed. It really was a big bed: the princess took up only the inner half of it. She lay completely still, as if she truly had fallen asleep. Stealthily, I crept in next to her and dragged the covers over both of us. Then I rolled onto my side, put an arm around her and drew her close to me.
She wriggled against me with seeming impatience, before finding a comfortable spot against which to settle. ‘You’re such a nuisance,’ she mumbled.
Oh, what a difficult girl she was. With a flick of my fingers, I put out the candle, and in the instant before the room was plunged into complete darkness, one would have seen a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.
***
Footnotes:
- In Chinese, 床前明月光, 地上鞋两双. A well-known parodic riff on the famous shi poem ‘Quiet Night Thoughts’ (静夜思) by the Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai (李白), The first line of the parody is identical to the first line of the original poem. The second line follows the same rhythm and rhyme scheme as the original, but departs significantly from its meditative mood: the reference to two pairs of shoes lying discarded is heavily suggestive of sexual activity taking place on the moonlit bed from the first line. [return to text]
- This is a quotation from a ci poem by the Song Dynasty poet Su Shi, set to the tune of ‘Song of the Goddess in the Cave’. See footnote 3 to Chapter 22. [return to text]
- A concept found in Chinese cultivation (修真) novels. In this context, ‘cultivation’ refers to training in the mystical and/or martial arts in order to increase one’s longevity, improve one’s health, and gain quasi-supernatural powers. ‘Dual cultivation’ refers to the practice of two partners engaging in sex in order to enhance and strengthen each other’s vital energies. [return to text]
- In the original text, the chengyu 名落孙山, literally ‘name falling behind Sun Shan’s’. This originates from a tale recorded in On Respecting One’s Elders (过庭录) by the Song Dynasty author Fan Gongcheng (范公偁). In this story, a scholar named Sun Shan sits for the imperial examination alongside a fellow candidate from his home village. When the results of the examination are released, Sun Shan’s name is listed at the very bottom of the list of successful candidates, while his fellow villager failed to make it onto the list at all. When asked how his fellow villager had performed, Sun Shan replies, ‘His name ranks after mine.’ [return to text]
douqi 随笔 