Chapter Nineteen: Whose Shadow Belongs to Whom

Last winter was bitterly cold, and little Tiexinyuan’s hands were covered in chilblains. So this year, his mother resolved to build a sturdy house, one of blue bricks and tiles, nothing less would do.

She was not some careless bird, and yet this small courtyard had taken her five years to complete. Now, whoever saw the Yun family’s little home would surely offer praise.

The palace walls were as dark as the brow of a maiden, and the house itself was but a tiny beauty mark upon that brow—lively and charming.

A frail woman, using five years of her spare time, built a place where she and her beloved son could shelter from wind and rain.

The tall walls kept mother and child safe, but they also made all visitors pause at a respectful distance. If the walls brought security, they also firmly separated the two from the outside world.

In this miniature world, everything needed her own hands. She learned to build from masons, to wield the big saw from carpenters, and could even carve neat holes in wood with a chisel.

Because the house was shaped by her own hands, it carried a touch of tenderness. The delicate flower windows, the roof lined with woven reeds—all bore the gentle grace of a woman.

The house was not tall; the imperial rules forbade the Tie family from building high, lest it compromise the defensive strength of the city walls. So when Tiexinyuan stepped inside, he could reach the roof standing on his bed.

Fortunately, his mother was not tall, and Tiexinyuan had not yet grown. Such a little courtyard was enough for them to weather any storm.

When the first rough pear appeared on the tree, the fox made its home beneath the boughs. Every day, it looked up at the growing fruit, and that was when it was most serene.

Tiexinyuan loved best to lie on their roof and read. Since his mother taught him his first word at the age of two, his hands had always held books. He began with the Thousand Character Classic, then moved on to the Primer for Enlightenment. By the time he had mastered the Miscellaneous Characters at four, his mother found she had nothing more to teach him.

For this, she felt both pride and difficulty. According to tradition, a child could only begin formal schooling at seven, but her son was only four, and not a single teacher would accept him. None believed a four-year-old could have read through a dictionary-like book such as Miscellaneous Characters.

A child of four could be naughty, ignorant, but certainly not a liar. If a mother was full of tall tales, no teacher would bother with her child.

Tiexinyuan did not mind. He simply wanted to read, but those ancient texts without punctuation could not be understood without a teacher’s guidance. Even with his unusual intelligence, he could not extract the knowledge he sought from the books alone.

Fortunately, poetry was not so difficult; poems always had breaks, and narrative travelogues he could make sense of.

Since the teachers would not accept him now, he made the most of this time, reading and writing travel notes. The scholars of the Great Song loved such records.

Tiexinyuan could even glean military secrets of the Song and Liao Kingdoms from certain travelogues.

Neither Song nor Liao scholars had any sense of secrecy. The Liao travelogues described the emperor’s Spring Hunt in exhaustive detail, recording even the minutiae of his daily affairs.

By estimating the timing, Tiexinyuan could accurately deduce the emperor’s every encampment and movement during the grand Spring Hunt.

When he read in the Song travelogues about the outer walls of the city, the layout of the high ground, where troops stood guard, where weaknesses could be exploited, he immediately sought out the Gazetteer of Kaifeng Prefecture.

Whether emperor or distant city, they were far from him. Since he now lived in the capital, knowing the structure of this city could only be beneficial.

Having learned to write, Tiexinyuan no longer tempted Tongzi to steal movable type with treats, but turned his attention to every book his family printed besides Buddhist scriptures.

He thanked the meticulous Song scholars, who approached their studies with absolute devotion. Even the smallest flaw was corrected with a spirit of verification repeated a hundred times.

On countless title pages, Tiexinyuan saw the maxim: “Scholarship is the business of a thousand generations.” To them, this was as binding as law.

“The outer city of the Eastern Capital spans over forty li, its moat called the Dragon-Guarding River, ten or more zhang wide. Willows line both sides. White-washed walls and crimson gates forbid passage. All city gates are triple-walled, with winding approaches. Only the Southern Fragrance Gate, Xinzheng Gate, New Song Gate, and Fengqiu Gate are double straight gates—these are the four principal gates, kept for the imperial road. The new city’s southern wall has three gates…”

Tiexinyuan closed his book, marveling at the Song people’s precision. From Southern Fragrance Gate to Xinzheng Gate was 6,368 steps. How did they record such distances? Could it be the author measured each step?

“A hundred steps west from Wheat Market Bridge is the West Water Gate; seventy-three steps to the left stands a well, named Sweet Water Well. Many merchants gather at the West Water Gate, most water is drawn from here, and the well is sixteen feet deep…”

His family’s soup noodle shop was at the West Water Gate. He had been to Sweet Water Well countless times; on reflection, the description was accurate to the step.

“Read ten thousand books, travel ten thousand miles. The ancients were honest indeed,” Tiexinyuan thought, setting down his book. He realized that the old saying, “A scholar knows all things without leaving his home,” was true. Just now, though lying in bed, his spirit had wandered through half the capital alongside the storyteller in the book.

When Wang Rouhua hurried into their courtyard carrying a lunch box, the fox stood up under the pear tree, yawned widely, stretched its legs straight, then ran circles around her. Wang Rouhua had to kick the fox away several times to walk properly, but even then, the fox jumped into the house and stared intently at the lunch box on her arm.

Lately, disaster plagued the Song realm. The emperor decreed vegetarian meals and Buddhist prayers in the palace, so the fox refused to dine with the emperor, preferring to wait at home for Wang Rouhua to bring pork.

Wang Rouhua entered and saw her son with a book covering his face, seemingly asleep. She smiled, gently lifted the lid of the lunch box, and fanned the aroma.

The instant the fox’s drool hit the floor, Tiexinyuan sat up and shouted, “No more spare ribs for the fox today!”

Wang Rouhua tapped her son’s forehead with a grin, “Look at you, fighting with the fox for food.”

Tiexinyuan shook his head, pointing at the fox, “That creature always eats fast and fiercely. I think it’s not a fox at all, but a pig in fox’s clothing.”

Wang Rouhua laughed as she set the dishes on the table, “You took in that fox when you were swaddled. You even fed it with my milk, don’t think I didn’t know. Now it eats a bit of your pork bones and you complain?”

“Just look at it, it’s so fat now it can’t squeeze through its little hole. Every time it enters or leaves the imperial city, the guards have to hoist it in a basket. How can it steal from our house now?”

The fox ignored Tiexinyuan’s accusations, already perched on a bench, sitting upright like a person, its bushy tail waving contentedly.

Wang Rouhua pushed a big bowl in front of the fox, tested the warmth of the meat, and the fox licked oil from her finger before digging in.

Since the family ran a soup noodle shop, Tiexinyuan had no taste for noodles. A big bowl of fragrant white rice and a small bowl of braised ribs made his lunch.

Wang Rouhua frowned at her son’s ravenous eating, placed two boiled greens in his bowl, only for Tiexinyuan to promptly push them to the fox.

The fox yelped, pawed the greens to the floor, and Wang Rouhua could only sigh and pick them up.

Neither of these two ancestors would eat greens. The fox used to eat a little, but after learning from Tiexinyuan, it refused even a single leaf. They were two wolves, meat-eating wolves.

“Master Guo at Southern Fragrance Gate is upright and rigorous in scholarship, an excellent teacher, but his house is far from ours…”

“Master Liang at Shangtuqiao is the most humorous; many children love to study under him. Son, you are not one for restraint, and would be comfortable with Master Liang, but if you go to Master Guo, I worry you’ll chafe under his strictness…”

Hearing his mother searching for a teacher, Tiexinyuan raised his head, “Mother, wasn’t it Master Guo who scolded you two years ago for your wild talk? Didn’t Master Liang mock you for giving birth to a rough gem? You can tell their natures from those words.

One is a self-righteous pedant, the other an ignorant glutton. One turns students into wooden men, the other accepts anyone for a fee. What can I learn from them?”

Wang Rouhua looked troubled, “You’re six and a half now. By autumn, you should bind your hair and start school. If you keep being so choosy, it’ll delay your entry to county school. I don’t mind being slighted.”

Tiexinyuan smiled, “Mother, I read that a student becomes the shadow of his teacher. I don’t want to be a pedant or a glutton, so neither is suitable.

Don’t worry, the road will straighten at the bridge. I’ll surely meet a good teacher.”

Knowing her son’s temperament, Wang Rouhua quickly asked, “Do you have someone in mind?”

Tiexinyuan smiled, “Wait a few days. If he isn’t beheaded and is merely dismissed, then I’ll have my teacher.”