Alcohol is no good thing — drink too much and you’ll dream all manner of chaotic nonsense.
Zhang Zhixu dreamed that Chen Baoxiang had abandoned him on a carriage, then dreamed that wolves surrounded him on all sides. He drew his longsword and hacked and slashed through the night, yet could not break through the encirclement.
When he woke, daylight had long since brightened the sky. He lay alone in the bed, the room perfectly quiet.
“Jiuquan?”
“Master.” Jiuquan pushed open the door and came in, wrung out a damp cloth, and handed it to him. “It is already time for the midday meal.”
The question almost leapt from Zhang Zhixu’s mouth — where is Chen Baoxiang?
But thinking about it calmly, they were not husband and wife. What sort of person wakes up and immediately goes looking for someone?
He swallowed the words back, calmly washed and changed his clothes, then went to sit at the table as usual.
“Hmm?” He noticed the spot where the small table had stood was now empty, while a writing desk had appeared in the side chamber instead. Zhang Zhixu was puzzled. “This isn’t the room I was staying in before.”
“Of course it isn’t.” Jiuquan chuckled. “Yesterday’s wine had a strong kick, and when you stepped off the carriage you were not quite clear-headed. You insisted on walking this way, and Official Chen couldn’t argue you out of it, so she gave you the main chamber and went to sleep in the side hall herself.”
Something like that had actually happened?
Zhang Zhixu was filled with remorse. “Next time I’m like that, just knock me out and drag me away. Don’t let her be put in a difficult position.”
Jiuquan raised an eyebrow, hesitating. “Official Chen didn’t really seem to be in a difficult position.”
Not only was she not put in a difficult position — she had stood watch in the room for quite a long while before going to sleep.
Zhang Zhixu wasn’t sure whether to believe it.
He folded the rumpled bedding, then lit the incense burner to freshen the room, wanting to restore it to its neat and tidy state.
But as he tidied, he caught sight of the remarkable scene near her writing desk.
Paper balls of every size were scattered haphazardly about — some thrown into the waste bin, some rolling across the floor — and ink had been splattered here and smeared there, altogether a great mess.
Hadn’t Chen Baoxiang said she couldn’t write? What had she needed all this paper and ink for?
He shook his head and walked over, picking up a paper ball to toss into the bin.
But as he looked down, he spotted a character showing through the crumpled surface.
Tree.
The brushstrokes were crooked and slanting, stiff and clumsy, but written with great force — the ink had soaked clean through to the other side.
Somewhat puzzled, he reached out and smoothed it open.
Wavering characters wound along the creases of the paper, row after row coming into view. At first glance he couldn’t make out what it was, but reading more carefully —
It was an entire copy of On Trees.
Whoever had transcribed it clearly knew only how to imitate the shapes without understanding them. Many characters had strokes in the wrong places — an ink blot here, a crossed-out error there — and the brush had not been well-controlled, leaving the writing half-smeared.
He stood there in a daze and picked up two more paper balls.
Identical content — only the positions of the ink blots and the mistaken strokes had changed.
He opened the ones in the waste bin. Same again.
Zhang Zhixu stood at the desk for a moment, clutching a pile of papers, and suddenly recalled that day at Zhaixing Tower.
“This humble one has read the great official’s On Trees no fewer than ten times.”
As those words had fallen, the terrace had gone so quiet one could have heard a needle drop.
His eyes shifted slightly. He lowered his head and counted the crumpled pages in his hands.
“Seven, eight, nine…” His knuckle rested on the last one. Zhang Zhixu glanced to the side and easily spotted the tenth page spread open on the desk.
The tenth copy showed great improvement. The strokes were correct, and there were almost no ink blots. Though the handwriting could not be called beautiful, all two hundred or so characters stood in neat rows — bold and vigorous, proud and upright, very much like soldiers beneath a general’s command.
The general cannot read. She cannot know the heart of letters.
But where others could read ten times, she could clumsily copy ten times. Whether she understood or not was beside the point — what mattered was that her admiration for him was no less than anyone else’s.
— Who says she didn’t care? Not a single character had gone unheard.
The frost and ice left behind by the deep of winter had seemed as though it would take years to thaw, but with just one breath of spring wind, flowers bloomed in a great rushing cascade across the ground.
Zhang Zhixu had wanted to rein in his emotions, but the corners of his mouth had lifted high without his knowing and refused to settle back down for a long while.
“You’re awake?” Chen Baoxiang came in from outside, still damp with sweat, warm and flushed from running.
Zhang Zhixu turned to look at her.
Chen Baoxiang raised an eyebrow. Her gaze traveled from his face down to his hands, and she showed no embarrassment, only smiled. “Pretty ugly, isn’t it?”
“Not ugly.”
She was startled. She walked up to him, pointed to his eyes, then pointed to the earthworm-like scrawl on the paper. “You can call this not ugly?”
“Not ugly.” He repeated it stubbornly.
Chen Baoxiang looked at Jiuquan with an expression of utter disbelief. “Has your master gone mad? He’s so skilled at calligraphy — how can he say this isn’t ugly?”
Jiuquan: “…”
How was he supposed to explain to Official Chen the matter of beauty being in the eye of the beholder? Let alone that she was only writing — if she drew nothing but scribbles, his master would still find some angle to praise them.