Duan Ling is woken up by the sound of rain the next day, and realises that he’ll have to wash his pants again, as it’s gotten all sticky. Last night they’d held each other too tightly, and he didn’t keep full control over himself. When he opens his eyes again, he spots Wu Du moving all over the room with buckets to catch the water dripping rhythmically from the ceiling, and he gets up right away, still sleepy eyed. Their first home was like this too, he recalls — it leaked every time it rained.
Wu Du seemed rather unconcerned about it back then, and now Duan Ling can see that he really is just used to it.
In the mountains, when it rains it pours like cats and dogs; first the creeks surge violently, their water rushing to fill the gorge behind the houses, then it washes over the courtyard into the front hall, spilling like a waterfall down every edge of the platform into the canyon miles below. The view is spectacular.
So Wu Du stands in water ankle-deep to light all the lamps, which actually looks pretty nice.
“Let’s head back in a few more days,” Wu Du says. “The peach blossoms in the mountains are all wilted by now, and the house is leaking too.”
“It’s rather nice here.”
They stand in the courtyard looking outside, but there they realise it really is raining far too hard — Wu Du worries that a flood may come. The buildings they’re in have been in a state of disrepair for years, and if silt water starts rushing in, manpower would be powerless against it. After he talks this over with Duan Ling, they decide to climb back down the mountain for now. Otherwise, they may be in a lot of trouble if things should go wrong.
Duan Ling visits the White Tiger one more time, and knowing that he won’t come back often, he makes a vow to bring it back to the capital city to guard the empire once he’s recovered their lost territories; he’ll forge it a pedestal of pure gold, inlay two precious gemstones for its eyes, and build it a temple to keep out the elements.
Duan Ling is still mumbling a prayer but Wu Du doesn’t dare delay any longer. He puts Duan Ling on his back and climbs down the mountain as quickly as possible.
The river has risen sharply overnight by nearly ten feet; muddy water thick with silt rushes at them from every direction, moving the waterline so much that Wu Du can just barely reach the bottom of the river with the pole, as they travel rapidly along the shore once more.
“Should we find some place to get out of the rain?” Duan Ling yells over the din.
“It’s fine!” Wu Du stands at the aft to pole the boat in the rain. “Your lord’s damn good at steering a boat!”
Wu Du used to come and go from the mountains with nothing more than a sampan. When it comes to swimming, he can go toe to toe with Zheng Yan, sailing in the middle of a flash flood with one arm tied behind his back. Their boat steers away from countless rapids with sharp turns through winding paths in the water as they move along with the current.
In the eastern region of the Yangtze, the rainy season has arrived. One night of torrential downpour is followed by a continuous, pattering drizzle, and for days on end their clothes just won’t dry. They heat their clothes by the stove in the cabin, stripped to the waist. After days on the road, Duan Ling is starting to miss home, and it makes him think he really is a conflicted person.
“I wonder how the grading on the exam papers are going,” Duan Ling says.
Wu Du has spent almost the entire time in wet clothes since it started raining, and now he shakes an unlined robe open to prop it against the stove, a deep furrow between his brows. “I’m just worried that the Cai Dog may pull something.”
Duan Ling smiles. “What can he ever pull?”
“If he steals your exam papers so you can’t find it, what will we do then?”
Duan Ling looks like he’s on the verge of laughing. “He probably can’t be that stupid. If the exam paper is lost for no good reason, won’t Chancellor Mu ask about it? None of us are stupid, you know — those who fail to pass the exams have always had the right to check their papers.”
Wu Du answers him with a hum, but the slight furrow between his brows remains.
“And besides, if he’s really going to steal it, it’s not like we can do a thing about that. We can’t exactly stand guard next to the grading officials now, can we?”
That’s true, come to think of it, so Wu Du doesn’t say anything more. The rain gradually subsides, but the water mark on the river remains as high as ever. When the river starts to open up and widen before them, Wu Du doesn’t want to risk travelling by boat any longer and they come on shore, abandoning their boat to hire a carriage to take them back to Jiangzhou.
On the outgoing leg of this journey, Duan Ling’s heart had been all strung up to the great outdoors, the boundless world outside with its majestic views, but on the way back he finds himself ignoring this glorious and extraordinary empire; all he wants to do is cuddle up to Wu Du in the carriage and talk to him. Even though they don’t really have anything to talk about, it just feels different from their trip out of the city. If he’s doing nothing more than draping himself over Wu Du and talking about nothing in particular, absentmindedly squeezing his earlobe from time to time, he finds it kind of fun regardless.
And Wu Du is even kinder than he used to be; he’s no longer surrounded by the aura of hostility that was constantly with him when they first met. He’s like a tiger keeping its aura of death in check, always going along with whatever Duan LIng says, like wax in his hands, never clashing with him.
Thus the days go by and their affection for each other only deepens. Recalling that they still have about five, six days to themselves, and that when they get home they’ll simply spend every day by each other’s side, Duan Ling thinks it’s something quite worth looking forward to.
Jiangzhou is welcoming the first rainy season of the new year, and as they arrive at the city gates Duan Ling almost fail to recognise the harbour — half of it is underwater, while the Black Armours are all covered in raincoats of woven rush as they direct the commoners to higher ground.
The flooding has come earlier than the year before, and its sudden arrival has sowed confusion in the government’s plans. They’d just relocated the capital and finally managed to settle in with much difficulty, so Jiangzhou is even more populous than before. Those formerly rich landlords of opulent mansions in Xichuan had settled in the lowlands in the city after the relocation, and now nearly half of their homes have been flooded out, put in quite a lamentable state by the incessant rain.
Horses gallop to and fro from the city centre to report on the state of flooding in surrounding counties to Yangtze’s eastern region, and almost half of the exam papers that the Imperial College is grading has gotten wet, soaked to a paste.
“Your Majesty —”
Li Yanqiu is in the middle of convening with his officials. Today’s morning assembly has dragged on to the noon hour and they still haven’t been able to break for lunch. The older, senior officials have already been bestowed the right to sit, while the emperor is sitting on the throne and the crown prince is sitting nearby, listening in. To the left of the emperor is Mu Kuangda, the three senior officials of the Secretariat, Ministry of Revenue’s Su Fa, Ministry of Work’s Zhao Xueli, as well as several assistant ministers. To the left is a group of military officers with Xie You at their lead.
“With things the way they are,” Li Yanqiu says, “and the Jiangnan region hit by floods in spring, allocation of grain and rations must be moved to an earlier date. It doesn’t look like this rain will be stopping any time soon. Get it done, then. Who else has something to present?”
The meeting had already lasted through a whole morning, and all the court functionaries are exhausted. Mu Kuangda has demanded that the rich families of the city, as well as those major local clans of Jiangzhou, Jiangnan, Runan, Huizhou as well as Huaiyin collect as much grain as they can to ship to Jiangzhou in preparation for disaster relief in the fall. After all, this year’s rain has come with such fury that it is delaying the spring sowing, and the new rice seedlings are all drowning in their paddies, so there’s no doubt that the summer harvest will be affected. The imperial court will lessen the tax burden, while the landowners will use their money to keep the detrimental effects of this natural disaster at a minimum. That way, even if less food will be produced in the fall, it won’t give rise to refugees roaming all over the country leading to armed uprisings.
After all, Great Chen has been heavily taxing the Xichuan and Jiangzhou regions for the past nine years in a row, levied at seven parts out of ten, and they’re already on the verge of an economic collapse. Having to deal with a natural disaster on top of that hardly makes the situation more optimistic.
Meanwhile the new Minister of Revenue Su Fa and the literati of Jiangzhou are thinking that Mu Kuangda has just finished wrecking Xichuan, leaving its streets strewn with corpses from famines and its people destitute, so he can’t possibly be allowed to ruin Jiangzhou as well.
Thus, the morning assembly has erupted in a series of violent debates, but Mu Kuangda is acting like none of it bothers him. He simply stalls with the rest of them without letting anything they say change his mind.
“I have a memorial to present,” and now Su Fa adds.
Li Yanqiu was already planning to dismiss assembly for the day and let their decisions stand as they are, but now that Su Fa has spoken again, every functionary, military and civil alike, are clearly saying “you motherfucker” with the looks on their faces, and Xie You is this close to drawing his weapon. The Jiangzhou army and the Su and Lin clans have always chafed, and now Su Fa is speaking up for the mutual benefit of the land-owning class, so his bearing suggests he’s speaking above them all.
“Present it.” Li Yanqiu though, is exceedingly patient, and he’s mentally prepared to drag this on with Su Fa to the end.
As soon as Duan Ling and Wu Du enter the city, their carriage is driving through water half a wheel deep, and to the left and right of the avenue are commoners moving their belongings to the second floor, with pots and pans floating in the streets. Duan Ling has never seen a flood before, and he feels rather curious about it.
Even in the Mu estate, water had flooded half the buildings. They find Chang Liujun outside, watching the servants move Mu Qing’s stuff to higher ground.
“Where’d you guys go?” Chang Liujun says to Wu Du the moment he sees him, sounding displeased.
Wu Du replies with a question, “We’re flooded?”
Duan Ling exclaims, “Ah!” and hurries off to tidy up their place.
“Wang Shan is on vacation. Chancellor Mu authorised it himself. What business is that of yours?”
“Chancellor Mu authorised Wang Shan’s vacation, but he never authorised your vacation.” Chang Liujun says, chilly, “The palace sent for you. They’ve already summoned you four times. If you still won’t go, deal with the consequences yourself.”
“Who sent for me?”
“His Majesty.”
Duan Ling is woken up by the sound of rain the next day, and realises that he’ll have to wash his pants again, as it’s gotten all sticky. Last night they’d held each other too tightly, and he didn’t keep full control over himself. When he opens his eyes again, he spots Wu Du moving all over the room with buckets to catch the water dripping rhythmically from the ceiling, and he gets up right away, still sleepy eyed. Their first home was like this too, he recalls — it leaked every time it rained.
Wu Du seemed rather unconcerned about it back then, and now Duan Ling can see that he really is just used to it.
In the mountains, when it rains it pours like cats and dogs; first the creeks surge violently, their water rushing to fill the gorge behind the houses, then it washes over the courtyard into the front hall, spilling like a waterfall down every edge of the platform into the canyon miles below. The view is spectacular.
So Wu Du stands in water ankle-deep to light all the lamps, which actually looks pretty nice.
“Let’s head back in a few more days,” Wu Du says. “The peach blossoms in the mountains are all wilted by now, and the house is leaking too.”
“It’s rather nice here.”
They stand in the courtyard looking outside, but there they realise it really is raining far too hard — Wu Du worries that a flood may come. The buildings they’re in have been in a state of disrepair for years, and if silt water starts rushing in, manpower would be powerless against it. After he talks this over with Duan Ling, they decide to climb back down the mountain for now. Otherwise, they may be in a lot of trouble if things should go wrong.
Duan Ling visits the White Tiger one more time, and knowing that he won’t come back often, he makes a vow to bring it back to the capital city to guard the empire once he’s recovered their lost territories; he’ll forge it a pedestal of pure gold, inlay two precious gemstones for its eyes, and build it a temple to keep out the elements.
Duan Ling is still mumbling a prayer but Wu Du doesn’t dare delay any longer. He puts Duan Ling on his back and climbs down the mountain as quickly as possible.
The river has risen sharply overnight by nearly ten feet; muddy water thick with silt rushes at them from every direction, moving the waterline so much that Wu Du can just barely reach the bottom of the river with the pole, as they travel rapidly along the shore once more.
“Should we find some place to get out of the rain?” Duan Ling yells over the din.
“It’s fine!” Wu Du stands at the aft to pole the boat in the rain. “Your lord’s damn good at steering a boat!”
Wu Du used to come and go from the mountains with nothing more than a sampan. When it comes to swimming, he can go toe to toe with Zheng Yan, sailing in the middle of a flash flood with one arm tied behind his back. Their boat steers away from countless rapids with sharp turns through winding paths in the water as they move along with the current.
In the eastern region of the Yangtze, the rainy season has arrived. One night of torrential downpour is followed by a continuous, pattering drizzle, and for days on end their clothes just won’t dry. They heat their clothes by the stove in the cabin, stripped to the waist. After days on the road, Duan Ling is starting to miss home, and it makes him think he really is a conflicted person.
“I wonder how the grading on the exam papers are going,” Duan Ling says.
Wu Du has spent almost the entire time in wet clothes since it started raining, and now he shakes an unlined robe open to prop it against the stove, a deep furrow between his brows. “I’m just worried that the Cai Dog may pull something.”
Duan Ling smiles. “What can he ever pull?”
“If he steals your exam papers so you can’t find it, what will we do then?”
Duan Ling looks like he’s on the verge of laughing. “He probably can’t be that stupid. If the exam paper is lost for no good reason, won’t Chancellor Mu ask about it? None of us are stupid, you know — those who fail to pass the exams have always had the right to check their papers.”
Wu Du answers him with a hum, but the slight furrow between his brows remains.
“And besides, if he’s really going to steal it, it’s not like we can do a thing about that. We can’t exactly stand guard next to the grading officials now, can we?”
That’s true, come to think of it, so Wu Du doesn’t say anything more. The rain gradually subsides, but the water mark on the river remains as high as ever. When the river starts to open up and widen before them, Wu Du doesn’t want to risk travelling by boat any longer and they come on shore, abandoning their boat to hire a carriage to take them back to Jiangzhou.
On the outgoing leg of this journey, Duan Ling’s heart had been all strung up to the great outdoors, the boundless world outside with its majestic views, but on the way back he finds himself ignoring this glorious and extraordinary empire; all he wants to do is cuddle up to Wu Du in the carriage and talk to him. Even though they don’t really have anything to talk about, it just feels different from their trip out of the city. If he’s doing nothing more than draping himself over Wu Du and talking about nothing in particular, absentmindedly squeezing his earlobe from time to time, he finds it kind of fun regardless.
And Wu Du is even kinder than he used to be; he’s no longer surrounded by the aura of hostility that was constantly with him when they first met. He’s like a tiger keeping its aura of death in check, always going along with whatever Duan LIng says, like wax in his hands, never clashing with him.
Thus the days go by and their affection for each other only deepens. Recalling that they still have about five, six days to themselves, and that when they get home they’ll simply spend every day by each other’s side, Duan Ling thinks it’s something quite worth looking forward to.
Jiangzhou is welcoming the first rainy season of the new year, and as they arrive at the city gates Duan Ling almost fail to recognise the harbour — half of it is underwater, while the Black Armours are all covered in raincoats of woven rush as they direct the commoners to higher ground.
The flooding has come earlier than the year before, and its sudden arrival has sowed confusion in the government’s plans. They’d just relocated the capital and finally managed to settle in with much difficulty, so Jiangzhou is even more populous than before. Those formerly rich landlords of opulent mansions in Xichuan had settled in the lowlands in the city after the relocation, and now nearly half of their homes have been flooded out, put in quite a lamentable state by the incessant rain.
Horses gallop to and fro from the city centre to report on the state of flooding in surrounding counties to Yangtze’s eastern region, and almost half of the exam papers that the Imperial College is grading has gotten wet, soaked to a paste.
“Your Majesty —”
Li Yanqiu is in the middle of convening with his officials. Today’s morning assembly has dragged on to the noon hour and they still haven’t been able to break for lunch. The older, senior officials have already been bestowed the right to sit, while the emperor is sitting on the throne and the crown prince is sitting nearby, listening in. To the left of the emperor is Mu Kuangda, the three senior officials of the Secretariat, Ministry of Revenue’s Su Fa, Ministry of Work’s Zhao Xueli, as well as several assistant ministers. To the left is a group of military officers with Xie You at their lead.
“With things the way they are,” Li Yanqiu says, “and the Jiangnan region hit by floods in spring, allocation of grain and rations must be moved to an earlier date. It doesn’t look like this rain will be stopping any time soon. Get it done, then. Who else has something to present?”
The meeting had already lasted through a whole morning, and all the court functionaries are exhausted. Mu Kuangda has demanded that the rich families of the city, as well as those major local clans of Jiangzhou, Jiangnan, Runan, Huizhou as well as Huaiyin collect as much grain as they can to ship to Jiangzhou in preparation for disaster relief in the fall. After all, this year’s rain has come with such fury that it is delaying the spring sowing, and the new rice seedlings are all drowning in their paddies, so there’s no doubt that the summer harvest will be affected. The imperial court will lessen the tax burden, while the landowners will use their money to keep the detrimental effects of this natural disaster at a minimum. That way, even if less food will be produced in the fall, it won’t give rise to refugees roaming all over the country leading to armed uprisings.
After all, Great Chen has been heavily taxing the Xichuan and Jiangzhou regions for the past nine years in a row, levied at seven parts out of ten, and they’re already on the verge of an economic collapse. Having to deal with a natural disaster on top of that hardly makes the situation more optimistic.
Meanwhile the new Minister of Revenue Su Fa and the literati of Jiangzhou are thinking that Mu Kuangda has just finished wrecking Xichuan, leaving its streets strewn with corpses from famines and its people destitute, so he can’t possibly be allowed to ruin Jiangzhou as well.
Thus, the morning assembly has erupted in a series of violent debates, but Mu Kuangda is acting like none of it bothers him. He simply stalls with the rest of them without letting anything they say change his mind.
“I have a memorial to present,” and now Su Fa adds.
Li Yanqiu was already planning to dismiss assembly for the day and let their decisions stand as they are, but now that Su Fa has spoken again, every functionary, military and civil alike, are clearly saying “you motherfucker” with the looks on their faces, and Xie You is this close to drawing his weapon. The Jiangzhou army and the Su and Lin clans have always chafed, and now Su Fa is speaking up for the mutual benefit of the land-owning class, so his bearing suggests he’s speaking above them all.
“Present it.” Li Yanqiu though, is exceedingly patient, and he’s mentally prepared to drag this on with Su Fa to the end.
As soon as Duan Ling and Wu Du enter the city, their carriage is driving through water half a wheel deep, and to the left and right of the avenue are commoners moving their belongings to the second floor, with pots and pans floating in the streets. Duan Ling has never seen a flood before, and he feels rather curious about it.
Even in the Mu estate, water had flooded half the buildings. They find Chang Liujun outside, watching the servants move Mu Qing’s stuff to higher ground.
“Where’d you guys go?” Chang Liujun says to Wu Du the moment he sees him, sounding displeased.
Wu Du replies with a question, “We’re flooded?”
Duan Ling exclaims, “Ah!” and hurries off to tidy up their place.
“Wang Shan is on vacation. Chancellor Mu authorised it himself. What business is that of yours?”
“Chancellor Mu authorised Wang Shan’s vacation, but he never authorised your vacation.” Chang Liujun says, chilly, “The palace sent for you. They’ve already summoned you four times. If you still won’t go, deal with the consequences yourself.”
“Who sent for me?”
“His Majesty.”
