Chapter Forty-Three: The Ten, the Hundred, the Thousand, and the Myriad; the Arts of Zither, Strategy, Calligraphy, and Painting

The Chien-tang Shen family is only one of seven prey. At the same time, six other counties — Gouzhang, Wucheng, Xinchang, Tonglu, Lou, and Yongning — all had noble clans like the Shens fall into the tax-master’s snare. The expected gain could reach four hundred million coins. If one adds the ordinary commoners of the Way, along with the annual rent, grain, and tax levied on the other aristocratic families who worshiped the Daoist order, then this one scheme, carried out under the guise of the divine decree from Crane Cry Mountain, could easily put several tens of millions of coins into the tax-master’s private purse!

Li Yifeng’s sharp voice was carried by the fierce cold wind atop the mountain. It did not sound harsh, only chilling. “At present, one measure of rice costs two hundred and eighty coins, enough to sustain a farming household for twenty days. Several tens of millions of coins — hah!”

Xu You thought of himself: after exhausting every hardship and every effort, he had only pried a little over two million coins from Yuan Jie’s hands. Du Jingzhi merely boasted a little, and at once tens of millions flowed into his pocket. Comparing man with man could truly drive one to fury.

But this only showed how wealth in society was concentrated in the hands of a few. Even a middling clan like the Zhan family could be squeezed for vast sums. One could only imagine how stupefying the family fortunes of top-tier houses like the Liu, Yu, Yuan, and Xiao clans must be.

“Could it be that all this was done by methods like Dou Qi’s? The whole world is not blind. The chance of seven pieces of deer meat simply going missing is even lower than the chance that Du Jingzhi is truly a divine immortal!”

“Of course it would not be so simple. The seven pieces of deer meat each targeted different people, so the methods used could not be the same either. Take the Liu family of Yongning County, for instance: their crime was found through evidence that they colluded with the Nether Sea Pirates. A commoner of the Way who had obtained a piece of deer meat was returning home by boat when he was robbed by the Liu family in league with the pirates. Not only did everyone on the vessel, more than thirty people in all, perish, but the deer meat was also seized. After the facts were established, the Governor’s Office in Yangzhou confiscated the Liu family’s assets, took thirty-five million coins from them, and used it to compensate for the loss of the deer meat... and then there was the Gou family of Gouzhang...”

As Li Yifeng spoke at length, Xu You’s expression gradually grew grave. The case of the Liu family of Yongning was plainly a trap. The Celestial Master Sect had colluded with the governor’s office and, with effortless ease, erased an established lineage from the state registers of Chu.

He had lived two lives. Well versed in the classics and the histories, he understood many things and saw through their essence. But history books are more concerned with broad strokes than with local detail, and what they record inevitably lacks far too much precision. As for the Celestial Master Sect, although he knew that before the great reforms of the Northern and Southern branches it had been rife from top to bottom with theft, debauchery, deceit, and fraud, he had never imagined that in order to seize other people’s wealth, it would devise such a vicious scheme utterly devoid of humanity.

Silence fell inside the pavilion. Zuo Wen, standing at a distance, seemed to sense that something was wrong and became tense, already starting to hurry over. Xu You waved him back and said, “Du Jingzhi has such a lofty reputation in the Three Wu region. Why not simply sell the deer meat directly to those wealthy houses, letting each get what it wants? Wouldn’t that be easier than destroying families and annihilating entire lineages?”

“The commoners of the Way who truly believe in the Celestial Master Sect are mostly ordinary folk. They revere Master Du as though he were a deity, and if they had the means, they would certainly be willing to spend a fortune to buy it. But the problem is, they have no money!” Li Yifeng exposed the heart of the matter in a single sentence. “As for the great noble clans and hereditary houses that truly have wealth, their dealings with the Celestial Master Sect are mostly mutually beneficial and supportive. These people are all shrewd beyond compare. If the sum were small — a hundred thousand, a million coins — there would be room for discussion. But to spend several tens of millions, or even a full hundred million coins, on a single piece of deer meat? The talk of a divine deer can deceive only the foolish. How could it deceive them?”

There was a saying that fit this perfectly: what one wants, one cannot afford; what one can afford, one does not want. Heaven’s tricks on humankind have always been this tangled.

“Even if they were not stingy with money, they would still have to consider their lord’s reaction. The great clans and hereditary houses already possess enormous influence. To spend so much money buying this flesh of a divine deer said to grant immortality — if they were careless, they could easily draw the attention of the prison laborers from the Office of Censors. How would they answer when asked what they were truly after?”

Li Yifeng lowered his eyelids and said flatly, “Weizhi, tell me: faced with such circumstances, is there any other way besides using schemes?”

“Why was the Zhan family chosen in the first place? Or rather, why were all the chosen targets families like the Zhans?”

“Influential houses too powerful to provoke cannot be touched — families like the Gu, Lu, Zhu, and Zhang are all deeply rooted in the Three Wu region and as solid as bedrock. To move against them would bring immense trouble upon the Celestial Master Sect, and when the Heavenly Master held the tax-master to account, he would have no way to answer. But families too small could never gather so much wealth. At most, they could produce one or ten million coins, which is already the limit accumulated over generations. Against five hundred million in rent, grain, and tax, that is no more than a cup of water cast into a cart of firewood; it helps nothing.”

Li Yifeng said word by word, “Only a family like the Zhans — declining day by day, yet still fairly prosperous in its holdings — is the very best choice. To strike them would not alarm the court, nor provoke public debate in the prefectures. Put any man in that position, and I fear he would also be tempted. Of course, beyond this reason, there are also the matters of Zhan Wenjun and Guo Mian. The background is the most complicated, and the web of entanglement the widest!”

“Yes. Wealth without power is like a child carrying gold through a crowded market — of course it invites wolves to tear at him,” Xu You said. “Still, one thing you have mistaken, fellow Daoist: what makes man different from beasts is precisely that he has things he will do, and things he will not!”

This was tantamount to openly calling Du Jingzhi an animal. Li Yifeng sighed again, knowing it would be difficult to persuade Xu You to keep out of the matter. “I also disagree with many of the tax-master’s actions, and he has grown close to the Great Tax-Master in Crane Cry Mountain, showing great disrespect to my teacher and, by extension, great displeasure toward me. So this time, when the two chief rectifiers and the five great spirit officials were each assigned separate responsibilities for the seven pieces of deer meat, only I was sent to Chien-tang to deal with the most difficult target, the Zhan family.”

Xu You smiled. “The Zhan family may indeed be troublesome, but not to you. You first used Dou Qi to frame them, then secretly bought over Zhan Ting, and took the opportunity to empty the Zhan household. Your methods were clean and crisp, as elusive as a deer’s antlers against the sky, leaving no trace to be found. Admirable, truly admirable!”

“All of this was the tax-master’s scheme. I merely supervised its execution,” Li Yifeng said. He glanced at Xu You, a strange look entering his eyes. “It was only unexpected that you would step in from the side, and then emerge unscathed from the county offices. That made Zhan Ting extremely anxious. Last night he came to me in person and insisted that all of you be eliminated, saying that otherwise the great plan would be ruined...”

“Only Zhan Ting did not expect Zhan Wenjun to return safely... Come to think of it, he had grasped her whereabouts, yet still failed. It seems the Celestial Master Sect is not all-powerful after all.”

Teased by Xu You, Li Yifeng gave a wry smile. “This time, more than a hundred men from the Yangzhou commandery were dispatched at once, handling matters in seven different places. There were not many experts left in Chien-tang. And my stature and appearance are somewhat unlike those of ordinary men, so I could not act in person, but I sent out everyone I could. Who would have thought that the maidservant Wan Qi beside Zhan Wenjun would possess such formidable skill...”

“Your plan was tight and your deployment flawless, without the slightest loophole. How could you make such a mistake and fail even to investigate the people around Zhan Wenjun?”

“Wasn’t it because of that useless Zhan Ting? He claimed to have crossed hands with Wan Qi and said she was at most at the eighth rank, and the others were even less worthy of mention.” Li Yifeng grew irritated as he spoke of it. “At the time I even thought him talented and that he would not fail at such a small matter. I had forgotten the saying: ambitious but lacking in ability. When things are going smoothly, it cannot be seen, but once a little setback or trouble arrives, he immediately becomes like a different person...”

The setbacks and troubles Zhan Ting had suffered were inseparable from Xu You himself, so Li Yifeng finally could not suppress his curiosity and asked, “Weizhi, your nature is the very least inclined toward conspiracy and trickery. Yet from what I saw last night, no matter what scheme Zhan Ting used, you took it up with a wave of the hand and broke it so easily. Moreover, your speech and bearing, your temperament and grace, are all greatly different from before...”

He was someone who had known Xu You well from earlier days, so naturally he could tell how great the change had been. To hold back until now before asking was already remarkable.

Xu You had long since expected that he would not escape this reckoning. He lowered his head, sorrow on his face, and said, “Fellow Daoist, I have walked to the edge of the underworld and returned. Though I still appear unchanged, in truth I am entirely another person, from the inside out. The Xu family’s seventh son of the past died amid the blades and flames of that night in Yixing. If the Xu Weizhi of today does not learn to be a little more astute, I fear he would never make it to Chien-tang.”

Seeing that he had touched a painful memory, Li Yifeng no longer cared whether the words were reasonable or not, and hurriedly said, “Weizhi, that was my fault. I should not have said these things to you!”

“No matter. I understand your intent, all of it for my own good.” Xu You deliberately changed the subject. “Fellow Daoist, what exactly is your situation with the governor’s office? Has Guo Mian really been thrown into the prefectural prison and become unable to escape?”

“The Governor Liu intends to make Guo Mian his first sacrifice. The reason is unclear. But he lacked sufficient evidence in hand, so he sought cooperation from the Daoist sect.” Li Yifeng felt guilty, and answered without concealment. “As for investigating secret affairs of all kinds, the believers of the Daoist sect are spread throughout the world; they are truly the best choice. Master Du was already eyeing the Zhan family and Zhan Wenjun like a tiger staring at prey, worrying only about Guo Mian. Upon hearing this, he was overjoyed and agreed at once. He also used the opportunity to have the governor’s office cooperate with the plan against the Liu family of Yongning, and to turn a blind eye to the other cases of plunder in the various counties. As for Guo Mian’s present whereabouts, I only know that he is not in prison. Where exactly he is, that is beyond what I can know.”

The greatest support He Ru had for persuading Xu You was his certainty that Guo Mian would successfully extricate himself; otherwise, helping Zhan Wenjun would bring only harm and no benefit.

Xu You coughed lightly twice. “One last thing: last night, when you entered the Zhan residence and fought that old servant, what rank was his cultivation?”

“At the very least, he has entered the fifth rank and can be called a minor grandmaster... We martial artists know this well: the fifth rank is a watershed, and the difference between those within it and those beyond it is like that between a firefly and the brilliance of the full moon.”

Li Yifeng’s expression was grave. “The four maidservants beside Zhan Wenjun — Ten Books, Hundred Paintings, Thousand Zithers, and Ten Thousand Weiqi — were all gifts to her from Guo Mian. Given Guo Mian’s status, it is not strange for him to have such formidable maidservants. But that old servant was neither one of the Zhan family nor one of Guo Mian’s people. Ever since Zhan Wenjun bought that residence, he simply appeared out of nowhere and took up the post of gatekeeper. He has always kept himself hidden, revealing his hand only last night, and his cultivation is far above mine. So after seeing you, I must immediately set out for Wuxian and report this matter to the tax-master.”

Ten Books, Hundred Paintings, Thousand Zithers, and Ten Thousand Weiqi.

Books, paintings, zithers, and weiqi in order of ten, hundred, thousand, and ten thousand.

A fine set of names, indeed.

In Xu You’s mind appeared the frost-cold Wan Qi, the smiling Hundred Paintings, the sharp-tongued Thousand Zithers, and then that Ten Books, though he had no idea what sort of person she might be.

Ah, though the old servant was probably the real point, he thought with self-mockery. Smiling, he cupped his hands. “Take care, fellow Daoist. If the situation in Yangzhou is not something that can be accomplished, it would be best to withdraw early and return to Crane Cry Mountain.”

Li Yifeng nodded, his figure flashing away in an instant, and his voice drifted back from afar: “You take care as well!”