Chapter 29

Chapter 29: I Can

“The whole of Nanzhou knows,” said Chun Zhi. “Nanzhou is Prince Ning’s fief. Prince Ning is the local emperor here.” She explained that in Nanzhou, whatever Prince Ning said was law. All the officials took their lead from him. Everyone in Nanzhou knew this.

Although she only sold tofu, people on West Street came to collect protection fees. Everyone knew those fees were collected under orders from officials.

“Did none of you think about reporting it to the authorities?” asked Huo Zheng.

“Report to whom?” She gave a short laugh and said: “Where would we report it? In Nanzhou the officials cover for one another. They are all in the same boat. So long as we common folk can get by, who will go looking for death?” The ones who risked a complaint had all been forced to the end of the road with no other way out.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but then said nothing.

She went on that since Prince Chang’an had come to Nanzhou, he likely would not leave soon. Until he left, they would not be able to set up on West Street. So she would use these days to hire people to build up the courtyard wall.

That very afternoon, she brought in workers to lay bricks. Two young laborers worked for three days and raised the whole wall to a person’s height. Looking at the new wall, she felt very pleased.

Seeing her so happy, Huo Zheng could not help saying: “It is only a shabby courtyard wall. Is that worth this much excitement?”

“Of course I’m happy,” she said. “When the wall is done, I won’t have to fear someone climbing over it at midnight after you leave.”

On the night she first brought Huo Qi home, a thug had climbed the wall and come in to harass her. The memory still made her shiver. But now she would not have to be afraid.

He fell silent. She was, once again, poking him to leave.

Not knowing what he was thinking, she admired the new wall, then went to the East Market and bought flower seedlings to plant in the yard. When they bloomed, the courtyard would look lovely. She had left the Lu Clan, yet she could still live well on her own. For now it was two people. She still had Huo Qi.

Sitting in the room, Huo Zheng read the message Jiang He had delivered. Hearing the sound of hoeing, he looked up and saw Chun Zhi planting flowers. She treated this tiny, broken courtyard like a treasure. [Stop planting flowers. When I am healed, I will take you back to the Prince’s Manor and make you my cook. The manor has every rare plant you can name, all better than these seedlings.] But right now he could not say any of that.

Chun Zhi kept herself busy and felt content. As for Prince Chang’an, no one knew exactly why he had come to Nanzhou. Soldiers patrolled West Street every day, not letting anyone set up stalls or letting ordinary people go out freely.

She rested for four or five days and even redecorated the whole courtyard, but she still could not sell tofu outside. A customer came to the tofu workshop asking if she had any tofu. She decided to make tofu and sell from home, and hang a sign at the gate. Even if customers would be fewer than on West Street, this was a special time. Earning a little was still something.

Thinking that, she went right to it. Over dinner she asked Huo Qi about the name for the sign: “If I hang a sign at the door, what should I call the tofu? Peach Blossom Lane Tofu? Chun’s Tofu? Both sound a bit odd.”

“Linshui Tofu,” said Huo Zheng. “This place is called Linshui Town, and you are selling tofu in Linshui Town.”

“Linshui Tofu sounds good. Let’s do that,” she said. “Can you write? We can write ‘Linshui Tofu’ in big characters on a piece of cloth and hang it as a sign.”

He gave a small, helpless laugh and said: “You want me to write your sign?”

Prince Chang’an’s calligraphy was the kind others begged for at a thousand gold per character, and she wanted him to write a tofu sign.

“You mean you cannot write?” She sounded a bit regretful as she said: “You look like someone who studied. I thought you could write.”

It did not even occur to her that he might not be literate. She added: “Then I will write it myself, though my handwriting is not very pretty.”

Word by word, he said: “I can write.”

“Then why that face if you can write?” she asked, puzzled.

He closed his eyes for a moment, not wanting to keep up the exchange.

She teased: “Don’t tell me your handwriting is ugly too.”

“Shut up,” he muttered.

After the meal, she found a piece of red cloth and called him over to write the sign. He rolled to the table, stood up, and reached for the brush, then glanced at her and said: “Grind the ink.”

“Okay,” she answered, and she ground the ink at once.

Soon the ink was ready. He took up the brush and wrote “Linshui Tofu” in four big characters on the cloth. The strokes moved like coiled dragons and lively snakes. The writing was bold and grand.

Chun Zhi did not know calligraphy well, but she knew this was beautiful. She praised him without holding back: “You have great handwriting. You must have read many books. If you took the Imperial Examinations, you might even become Top Scholar.”

“What is so good about being Top Scholar?” he said with disdain.

“No scholar in the world does not dream of being Top Scholar,” she said. “If you come out Top Scholar, you can become an official. Once you are an official, you can soar and rise step by step to the top.”

“Like Lu Jing Yun?” he asked.

She paused and said: “Or not like him.”

“It is a pity I cannot take the Imperial Examinations in this life,” said Huo Zheng. “I cannot be Top Scholar.”

“Why?” she asked.

[Because I am the current emperor’s Seventh Prince, Prince Chang’an by imperial decree. What prince goes to sit the Imperial Examinations?] He did not say it. Chun Zhi thought she had touched a sore spot, that he might be the son of a criminal or that his family had met some disaster, so he could not sit the exams.

She took a breath and tried to comfort him: “It’s all right if you cannot take the Imperial Examinations. There are many trades in the world, and every trade can have a top scholar.”

“For now, I do not want to hear the words Top Scholar,” he said.

“Okay, okay,” she answered at once. She dried the cloth with “Linshui Tofu,” cut it to size, slid in wooden slats, and made it into a small flag to hang at the door. She planned to start selling the next day.

But as soon as she opened the next morning, a gang of men burst into the tofu workshop, fierce and loud. The leader was a fat man with a big head and thick ears. He shouted: “This tofu workshop was my mother’s. I am here to take it back. I don’t care who you are. Pack up your things and get out now.”

The customers who had come to buy tofu were scared away at once.

The fat man reached to flip over her tofu basket, but Chun Zhi slammed her hand down and stopped him. She recognized him. He was Wu Xin, the former owner’s son. He loved to gamble and lost everything, which forced his mother to sell the tofu workshop and return to the countryside.

“I bought this tofu workshop six years ago,” said Chun Zhi. “Both sides signed and pressed their fingerprints, and the Yamen stamped the deed.”

“You say you bought it. Where are the house deed and the land deed?” Wu Xin shouted.

Only then did she remember. When she bought the workshop back then, the papers were written under Lu Jing Yun’s name, and both the house deed and the land deed were kept by the Lu Clan. She hesitated for a moment.

Wu Xin roared even louder: “This woman has seized the house my mother left me. Brothers, smash it. We are throwing her out today.”