The party did not linger long in the Supreme Clarity Palace.
The moment Shen Wen finished speaking with Daoist Master Xu, she turned to go. Jiang Man was a little surprised: since coming out of that room, they seemed not to have entered a single hall. They had come all the way to an abbey—even if only for form’s sake, would she not pay respects at the main hall?
Female Scribe Shen had demanded thirty to fifty catties of precious blended incense outright; surely the incense offering money was never lacking. Today Xu Zhizhen had led her and Huailou on a circuit of the palace, and Jiang Man found it secluded to the utmost—halls solemn, quiet amid the bustle, few devotees, barely a handful of side rooms. On the shore of West Lake, beneath Leifeng Pagoda, occupying such superb ground yet so empty of visitors—clearly the whole abbey’s heart was set on cultivating the Dao.
But the single room where Zhang Changzai had read her face, and the scripture room where Xu Zhizhen had served them tea, were both furnished in antique simplicity, with fewer than four sets of stools and chairs between them. Ordinary grandees surely rarely came to such a place; that Shen Wen poured money into it without stint could hardly be explained unless she had a heart that yearned for the Dao.
Shen Wen’s conduct shocked the world, but Jiang Man had a quiet sense that she was no wanton squanderer. To enter a temple and not worship—to whom, then, was the incense offered?
“Do not hurry off yet, Devotee Shen.” Xu Zhizhen’s voice. “Your humble Daoist begs a moment.”
Shen Wen slowed and turned her head slightly. “Speak.”
Xu Zhizhen said, “Word was sent to the garden some days ago: the gilded statue of the Purple Void Primordial Sovereign is finished. The memorial to heaven was submitted long ago—only the first incense remains unlit. So I thought, why not light it today while we’re here, and let the other devotees come sooner to behold the solemn image?”
At this Shen Wen said only, “I’ve never cared whether the incense is first or second. If it bothers you, light it in my name yourself.”
Jiang Man, listening, was secretly astonished. Gilding a statue cost a fortune; any flourishing abbey managed such a merit only through devotees’ donations and years of the temple’s own saving. Sole sponsorship happened too—occasionally some great house would add a statue an arm’s height tall, with a whole clan’s names carved on the merit stele, and even that was a glory to the family name.
From their exchange, this gilded image of the Purple Void Primordial Sovereign—a full zhang tall, installed in the hall—had been sponsored by Shen Wen alone?
“This is a great merit,” Xu Zhizhen saluted. “Your humble Daoist dares not claim it in your stead. I beg the Female Scribe to light the incense quickly.”
Shen Wen gave him a sidelong look and only shook her head, a thread of very faint laughter in her voice. “However great the merit, what use is it to me?”
“Since it’s of no use to you, why not let someone it would be useful to claim it?”
“Useful to?” Shen Wen’s eyes lifted slightly, swept over Huailou—and came to rest at last on Jiang Man.
Huailou had long since fixed her gaze on her nose and her nose on her heart, as if she were merely some new clay figure installed on the premises—fresh of brow and fresh of color, motionless, exactly like a figurine, so that the eye slid over her unseeing.
Jiang Man was just wondering at this when her gaze happened to meet Shen Wen’s—and she understood at once why Huailou had turned, in an instant, into carved wood and molded clay.
Flustered, she curtsied—and before the words of refusal could leave her mouth—
“Go light the incense.” Shen Wen’s finger tipped toward a side hall in the distance, leaving Jiang Man not a sliver of room to resist, and added, “Carry her books.”
“Yes.” Huailou came back to life as suddenly as she had frozen, took the books from Jiang Man’s hands with perfect ease.
Caught off guard, Jiang Man’s curtsy looked, somehow, like thanks offered in advance for Shen Wen’s arrangement. Where was there any chance to struggle? She was simply carried along with the current, led off toward the distance by Daoist Master Xu and his matter-of-fact air.
Before parting, Jiang Man dared one look back at Shen Wen.
There was indeed the shadow of a smile at her lips—like someone who had seen some novel and amusing toy, or like one meeting again, after long years, a pearl long buried in dust.
Zhang Changzai, presumably, got along well with Shen Wen. A white-haired old Daoist, master of divination—was he, then, what Shen Wen had for a friend?
She hadn’t meant to pry, but the question was already out: “Daoist Master Xu, to see your honored teacher today was like coming face to face with an immortal—I have gained immensely. This devotee observes that Daoist Master Zhang’s face is full and his hair entirely white. Might I ask his age?”
“My master was born in the Jiading era; he should be forty-six or forty-seven this year.” Xu Zhizhen was warm with her, answering whatever was asked. “Did that startle you, Devotee Jiang?”
Jiang Man knew she had given offense. She paused, then curtsied. “It was my own presumption.”
Xu Zhizhen laughed. “Devotees often take my master for past seventy. You see—hair is not to be whitened.”
Jiang Man was thoughtful. “Well said, Daoist Master.”
Over the past two years, Jiang Rao had been constantly on the road. Almost every time her father came home, Jiang Man would find new white at his temples—steady and dignified enough, but the dashing spirit of her memory was gone from him.
And suddenly she was grateful, again, for Shen Wen’s disregard of convention.
Borrowed flowers offered to Buddha though it was, Jiang Man had at last someone to whom she could pray.
Before lighting the incense, Jiang Man washed her hands outside the hall, and moving to the mirror to tidy her appearance, found herself studying it longer than she meant to.
The rouge on her lips had melted away; the faded color made her mouth look somehow less assured in the bronze mirror. Around her lips was clean—naturally enough. Jiang Man had always been careful when eating and drinking; her manner was reasonably refined. Surely she was not the sort to drink a cup of tea and end up with foam all over her mouth.
How had she ever imagined things would go that way?
One hand, still stung to the bone by the wind, covered her lips—and for no reason, Shen Wen’s eyes rose again in her mind.
Shen Wen had brought her here to the Supreme Clarity Palace today—was it all for the face-reading?
Reading what? Her prospects? Or her heart—how much good and evil lay hidden in it?
The statue of the Purple Void Primordial Sovereign was exquisite, its robes and ribbons so lifelike they seemed to ride a gust of wind. Gods and immortals always rode the clouds—dressed in spring-and-autumn robes, never suffering summer’s heat nor winter’s cold, yet with hands as cold as Jiang Man’s own were now. Most statues were cast in bronze on clay cores, some carved in stone—standing that much further from the warmth and cold of the human world.
Jiang Man looked up at it reverently, and felt the Sovereign’s features hard to read: though the eyes had been dotted with light, it only seemed to gaze down on something, its jade face merciful, without reproach—yet neither rewarding nor condemning anyone.
Did the merit accumulated in the common world truly count for anything in Fengdu?
She lit the incense with her left hand and performed the bows, first silently reciting Shen Wen’s merits and praying her wishes be fulfilled; then she stood a while longer, thinking: Mother, Father, be reunited beneath the nine springs. I only pray the Sovereign will keep you both well and at peace from now on, and keep the Jiang family safe through this calamity.
Xu Zhizhen struck the ritual instruments for her, stopping almost the instant her wish was finished. Jiang Man, with the odd feeling of having been seen through, hurriedly bowed to him; he returned the bow with an impassive face, and the illusion was quietly dispelled.
When she came out of the side hall, Shen Wen and the others had long since vanished. Xu Zhizhen walked her as far as the memorial archway they’d passed on the way in, stopped there, and watched her down the mountain.
Though they had known each other only half a day, Jiang Man had gained much and respected him deeply, returning his bows again and again before descending the steps.
Huailou was waiting at the bow. Seeing her, she said, “Lady Jiang, please sit in the cabin.”
Jiang Man was about to decline, but the words paused on her lips; she curtsied slightly to Huailou by way of thanks. She had reached the curtain’s edge while Huailou stayed at the bow—and Jiang Man knew she had guessed right: this must be Shen Wen’s wish.
Inside the curtain, Shen Wen’s cloak lay set aside; she was leafing through the few books Jiang Man had received at the palace that day, without raising her head.
Jiang Man saluted softly. “Female Scribe.”
“Sit.” Shen Wen turned a page, and another, before saying, “This Seven Slips from the Cloud Bookcase—Xu Zhizhen prizes it highly and almost never lends it out. Examination scholars have come begging and he wouldn’t even see them. Apparently you can hold up your end of a refined conversation well enough to catch his eye, if he’s lending it to you to read.”
By then the Iron-Headed Skiff had left the shore; they drew nearer the lake’s heart—and nearer to people.
Jiang Man said, “To answer the Female Scribe: though Daoist Master Xu is young, his learning is outstanding, and he means to spread the Dao and transform the masses—that is far beyond anything in me. I was simply lucky.”
It was true enough. Coming out of the back-room hut on the mountain, it had been Huailou and Daoist Master Xu who talked the most, and when the Treatise of the Exalted One on Response and Retribution came up—a book plain-spoken and simple in principle, which Jiang Man had also read—she had ventured a few remarks. Xu Zhizhen, it turned out, was a patient man: he untangled her questions carefully, then offered on his own initiative the first twenty fascicles of the Seven Slips from the Cloud Bookcase, and added a gift besides—a copied Treatise from the palace’s own collection, one that had been spoiled in copying, he said, with the wrong characters all corrected; unfit to give to ordinary devotees, so Jiang Man should take it merely as a keepsake.
She had always had a gift for drawing goodwill. Whether at Daoist abbeys or Buddhist temples, whenever she had a question in her heart, someone among the practitioners would always spare the time to enlighten her; if she took tea at a shop, the shopkeeper would always send out an extra dish or two. Kindness given, kindness received—Jiang Man was no stranger to others’ goodwill, and so had not thought to refuse.
But now that Shen Wen raised it, she felt a flicker of worry.
Ought she not to have taken someone’s book at all?
Shen Wen gave her a cool, noncommittal look and changed the subject. “What did he tell you to read?”
“Daoist Master Xu said the Dao and virtue section and the Three Caverns scriptures section of the Seven Slips from the Cloud Bookcase would be of great benefit to me, and that I should read them closely.” Jiang Man answered truthfully as ever. “His words were earnest; the kindness was hard to refuse. Xiaojiu did not dare decline.”
Having said it, she stole a glance at Shen Wen. She didn’t know whether this would anger her, and could only take double care with her words.
“Those fascicles are dense as mud.” Shen Wen’s brow creased slightly—but she said, “You’ve nothing much to do in the garden anyway. Read them if you like.”
Jiang Man hadn’t expected her consent, and answered without thinking: “Thank you, Female Scribe.”
Shen Wen looked up.
Jiang Man pressed her lips together, faintly guilty, and lowered her head a little—then felt her cheeks heat.
Repressed as she was, she couldn’t quite suppress the thrill of one peering up the well-shaft at a glimpse of fortune she wasn’t owed; the corners of her mouth simply would not stay down, and the smile that escaped only added, unbidden, a few degrees of shyness.
“Fascicle seventeen.” Shen Wen no longer looked at her, turning pages as she spoke. “In the Three Caverns scriptures section, the seventeenth fascicle has three scriptures that are, on the whole, among the plainer ones. Read them through first; when you can explain their principles in your own words, tell me.”
Jiang Man assented, then asked, “Spoken aloud, or as a written essay?”
Shen Wen paused. “Spoken. Your handwriting—beautiful as it is—the content always gives me a headache. Two more essays and I’ll be growing wrinkles.”
Jiang Man dared not banter carelessly. “Yes. I am ignorant.”
“You’re not afraid of examinations, though.”
Her eyes came up to find Shen Wen watching her—brows and eyes cold, yet with a thread of warmth in the words. She must be in an excellent mood today, Jiang Man thought, and let herself answer more easily. “Whatever the Female Scribe teaches is learning for practical use. Xiaojiu hasn’t the leisure to be grateful enough—where would fear come from?”
Shen Wen laughed softly. “Then tell me—where, exactly, do these Daoist scriptures prove ‘practical’?”
Jiang Man froze. She had never doubted that whatever books Shen Wen assigned would be needed later. But where they would be useful—how could she possibly answer?
After a moment of stammering, her mind blank, Jiang Man said, blushing, “Perhaps… they might amuse the Female Scribe. Even if I make a fool of myself, at least I won’t be accused of being unable to appreciate a mood, and spoiling the Female Scribe’s pleasure.”
“Oh?” Shen Wen smiled, leaning her cheek on her hand, her body tipping forward until only one book’s width separated them. “Do go on. For jokes and storytelling, one hired performer from any teahouse or wine house would do it better than you. As for discoursing on Laozi and Zhuangzi, on mystery and principle—I don’t lack for retainers; why not talk with them? Why must you be the one to amuse me? So—are you appreciating a mood, or stirring one?”
The cabin was not wide; Jiang Man had nowhere to retreat. She could only lift her head.
And lifting it, facing those eyes, she could not help but look away again.
That gaze was like winter mist on the lake: cold and clear, yet holding within it the rise and fall of Lin’an’s splendid lights. An inexplicable brightness drifted like hidden fragrance—wind it was that stirred the mist, and wind again that tugged the scent.
A pity Jiang Man was not the wind.
Jiang Man’s little boat drifted on West Lake, chasing helplessly through the fog after points of glittering light—perhaps misted rain, perhaps candle flames, perhaps only shadows of light. And those points of brightness, like hope spilling through the gaps of fingers: she reached out to grasp them, and grasped only fog.
Her wet hands ached to the bone, and the far-off wind, without meaning to, came to her rescue. The mist seemed stroked apart—or perhaps dissolved of itself—and Jiang Man chased the light, chasing what the light truly was.
It is snow in the fog.
“My learning is ordinary; I cannot match the retained guests of your household. I sit at the bottom of a well and cannot discourse on the legends of court and council. As for moods and charm, I fear I understand nothing at all—I cannot amuse the Female Scribe.” Jiang Man looked over.
Snow swam in her eyes.
She had only sought, and followed, and watched from far away—and over time, this gazing, this barrier between them, had become a kind of intimacy no words could name, as if the mist were a ribbon drawn tight by the wind, and the lake water turned to a few inches of tenderness within reach.
“As for stirring the Female Scribe’s interest…” Jiang Man looked at her. “I make bold to say—on this shell alone, I might manage a few parts.
“Xiaojiu, to Female Scribe Shen—” she held her gaze, “—has always, I think, been stirring.”
