Passed Down Through the Generations
“My grandmother is the Grand Princess, and our eldest sister is the Zhenguo Commandery Princess! And still you carry on with this shameless bullying! She coughed up blood and collapsed before your eyes!
I swear it here and now—if anything happens to my grandmother, I will sooner throw away this life than stand by and watch these heartless, honorless wretches walk out of Dadu alive!”
The moment she finished, Bai Jinchi called for Steward Hao at the top of her lungs.
“Steward Hao! From this day forward, if any of the clansmen come around again or kick up a fuss at our gate, show them no more mercy! Drag them to the magistrate's office on charges of inciting a disturbance, and have them thrown in jail!”
“At once, my lady!”
Steward Hao answered with impeccable deference.
Pointing at the clansmen with the whip still in her hand, Bai Jinchi turned and swept inside.
Steward Hao fixed the stunned, slack-faced clansmen with a cold stare.
“Disperse now, or I will have the constables summoned from the magistrate's office and every one of you dragged away.”
The onlookers gazed at the Suyang Bai clansmen, whose faces had flushed scarlet, and began to murmur among themselves in astonishment.
“The Suyang clansmen have grown far too arrogant. How furious must the Grand Princess have been to cough up blood?”
“Yesterday, when the Commandery Princess shouted that she wouldn't lift a finger to help the clansmen's descendants and would leave the clan outright, I couldn't make sense of it. She might well need her clansmen's support someday—why carry on so? But now it's clear they must have pressed her to get the local officials to release the man who killed someone. Of course she refused!”
“Aigoo, the Bai family is too kind for their own good. The Grand Princess coughed up blood, and rather than seize these conscienceless wretches on the spot, they simply let them go!”
“That's just what I was saying. Wasn't it the same when Fourth Miss Bai was caned? She only laid her whip across people who were tearing the place apart trying to rip out the silver ingots—and for that she took the rod, or so I heard.”
“Can the clansmen truly lord it over people like this? And here in the capital, of all places! The Grand Princess was driven to cough up blood right here in Dadu. Then how will they treat what remains of the Bai family in this city? With a clan chief of that caliber, better to walk out of the clan altogether.”
“What would the likes of you know, stammering away!”
One of the clan elders hurried to offer an excuse.
“The Grand Princess never—”
At once the clan chief seized the elder by the wrist and silenced him.
It would have been useless anyway. To claim that the legitimate daughter of the late Emperor—the present Grand Princess, no less—had merely pretended to cough up blood to move against the clansmen? They would only draw down the crowd's scorn, branded as liars telling every tale under the sun to squirm out of responsibility.
The clan chief shook his head. With the Grand Princess having stepped forward herself, word of the clansmen's tyranny would spread before long, and there would be no way left to free the children now sitting in jail.
He remembered the vow Bai Jingyan had made at Suyang—that unless the clan cast out the young men who had committed these outrages, she would sever herself from the clan entirely.
The Grand Princess had been right. If they lost the Commandery Princess's protection, and word reached the court that the clansmen had tormented the Bai family's survivors in Dadu and driven the Grand Princess to vomit blood? Officials were men who trimmed their sails to the wind. If it came to that, the Suyang Bai clan would be finished.
And yet, even knowing all this, he could not truly cast those boys out of the clan. His own grandson, Bai Qingjue, was among them—how could any man accept such a decision?
“Clan chief, what are we to do now?” one of the elders asked.
The clan chief set his jaw, looked at the guards and Steward Hao standing before the gates of the Commandery Princess's residence, and spoke.
“For now, we return to Suyang. We will deliberate, and only then decide.”
Before long, word reached Lady Dong, Second Madam Yu, Third Madam Li, and Fourth Madam Wang, and all four hurried to the Longevity Court. Fifth Madam Ji, still recovering her strength, could not come herself and sent the elderly maids Madam Guan and Madam Ze in her place.
Fifth Miss Bai Jinshao, Sixth Miss Bai Jinhua, and Seventh Miss Bai Jinse came racing over as well, and the Old Miss arrived hot on the news's heels with her medicine box in hand.
Bai Jingyan, watching from the side, read in her grandmother's manner that she hid nothing from the Old Miss, and told her the truth of the matter. The Old Miss stood as though her soul had left her body for a long moment before she finally spoke.
“If Mother trusts me, then let me place the needles for her sake. Her heart may beat a little faster, but it will be enough to muddy the imperial physicians' reading of her pulse. Once they have gone, I will needle her again and ease the symptoms.”
When the Grand Princess nodded, the Old Miss washed her hands scrupulously clean, drew the gold needles from her medicine box, and began to warm them over a flame.
Bai Jingyan, head bowed, watched her aunt needle the Grand Princess, and asked quietly.
“These gold needles you carry, Aunt—I suppose they've been handed down through your family?”
The Old Miss, evidently not expecting Bai Jingyan to call her Aunt, looked briefly flustered—then broke into a smile.
“They are. My grandfather gave them to my mother before her wedding day, and my mother passed them on to me. There are several sets of gold needles in my grandfather's house that have come down through the generations.”
Bai Jingyan nodded, asked nothing more, and withdrew to one side. There she watched her fourth aunt, who moved her prayer beads and murmured sutras, praying for the Grand Princess's safety. As she looked at her, Bai Jingyan's fingers absently smoothed the letter she carried against her breast.
When Imperial Physician Huang of the Imperial Medical Bureau heard the rumor that the Grand Princess had coughed up blood in her fury at the Suyang clansmen, he arrived with three master physicians—the finest healers in the realm.
The Old Miss attended from one side, apprising the men of the Bureau of the Grand Princess's usual habits and describing in careful detail everything she had eaten of late, then deliberated with the imperial physicians over how best to administer her medicine. Imperial Physician Huang regarded her with unconcealed approval; her medical arts seemed closely akin to their own.
Then he remembered the rumor—that this woman was Bai Xiaochui, his senior martial brother Physician Hong's beloved apprentice, returned to the world in a new life—and he studied her again as she conferred with the physicians over the prescription. This woman, with her unadorned air and limpid presence, bore a striking resemblance to Bai Xiaochui. Small wonder the Grand Princess had come to regard her as Bai Xiaochui reborn and returned to her side.
Every child the Grand Princess had borne was gone from the world. She too, surely, had needed someone to lean on.
Imperial Physician Huang wrote out the prescription and instructed the Old Miss on how the medicine was to be decocted and in what dosage. Lady Dong escorted the physicians out of the Longevity Court, then had Madam Jin personally see them beyond the gates.
Afterward the Old Miss needled the Grand Princess once more and made everything ready so that she might rest undisturbed. When all was done, she turned, bowed to Lady Dong and the assembled ladies, and spoke.
“Mother is in my hands now. Please, all of you, go home and rest. She will find the company of so many people trying.”
The Grand Princess, propped against her pillows and turning her prayer beads, spoke.
“You may all go home.”
“Mother, I'll stay and look after Grandmother. I mean to study medicine from Aunt besides.”
Bai Jinse said this as she made her courtesy to Lady Dong, who nodded.
“Very well. See that you don't wear yourself out.”
“Attending to Grandmother is only what I owe her. It is no trouble in the least.”
Bai Jinse answered quickly.
The gathered family paid their respects to the Grand Princess and filed out of the upper chamber of the Longevity Court. Lady Dong frowned, her face clouded with worry, and turned to Bai Jingyan.
“You're not still lugging those sandbags about? They're far too heavy for you.”
“I'm quite all right. I know my limits, and I'll take care not to overstrain myself—so don't worry.”
Bai Jingyan walked her mother as far as the lane, watched until Lady Dong had gone, then turned to Chun Tao.
“Let's go. I must see Fourth Aunt.”
At the entrance of the Rushui Court, an old servant sweeping the grounds caught sight of Bai Jingyan approaching and hurried inside to inform Madam Guan. As though her heart were bound to her son's by a thread, Fourth Madam Wang rushed out the instant she heard that Bai Jingyan had come, certain that she was about to hear news of Bai Qingjue.
She had just reached the entrance of the courtyard when Bai Jingyan arrived.
“Fourth Aunt, why are you standing outside?”
Bai Jingyan asked with a smile.
Fourth Madam Wang clenched the prayer beads in her hand with all her strength.
“I heard you were coming and came out to meet you. Yingyun—quickly, bring the eldest miss a plate of the yangrushu pastries we made just this morning.”
Madam Guan hastened to raise the screen, ushering Bai Jingyan inside, then—quick-witted as ever—slipped away, had Yingyun fetch two garden stools, and stationed herself beneath the eaves with Chun Tao, asking after embroidery stitches.
Bai Jingyan and Fourth Madam Wang sat down on the couch by the window. Bai Jingyan drew the letter from her breast and placed it in her aunt's hands.
Fourth Madam Wang looked at Bai Jingyan, and the rims of her eyes went red. The hands wound about her prayer beads were trembling violently. For a long while she sat dazed, staring at nothing; then she set the beads down and reached out to receive the crumpled letter. Her throat ached as though it would split open.
The instant her fingers touched the paper, Fourth Madam Wang could hold back no longer, and her tears broke free. Then, fearful of staining the letter, she snatched up her handkerchief and hastily dabbed her eyes dry.
She unfolded the letter. There was only a single line of writing upon it—but it was unmistakably Bai Qingjue's hand.
Fourth Madam Wang gripped her handkerchief tight, clutched at her own breast, and bit down hard, strangling the sob that fought to escape her. But the tears fell drip by drip onto the floor, and the tip of her nose trembled without cease. With an effort she lifted her eyes and looked at Bai Jingyan—as though seeking her confirmation that she had truly seen Bai Qingjue alive.
Bai Jingyan nodded.
“His wounds have healed completely. He's grown much thinner than when he left home, but his spirits are as strong as ever.”
At those words, Fourth Madam Wang felt a sob about to tear out of her despite everything, and clapped her hand hard over her mouth. Then she pressed the letter to her chest. Her gaunt shoulders shook; her tears flowed on like a thread that would not break. She suppressed her feelings to the very limit of her strength, lowering her voice as much as she could, terrified that someone—anyone—might hear her weeping.
“I brought it so that you could see him with your own eyes. It must be burned now.”
Bai Jingyan reminded her gently, in a hushed voice.
Fourth Madam Wang nodded through her tears. How could she not know? She knew full well that keeping such a letter was a dangerous thing. The only safe course was to read it, and then bury it deep within her heart.
She wanted to thank Bai Jingyan—but she could not even open her mouth, for fear that the moment she did, the tears would burst forth again.
She was grateful that Bai Jingyan had told her no lie; grateful that she had brought her Aje's letter; grateful beyond all telling that she had brought her word that Aje was truly alive. But for now, all she could do was seize Bai Jingyan's hand in both of hers and squeeze it with all her strength.
Bai Jingyan left her fourth aunt's Rushui Court one shichen later. The letter had been burned by Fourth Madam Wang's own hand.
Her aunt said that from this day on she would never cease her prayers—that she would pray, bead after bead, day after day, that Aje and what remained of the Bai family might live out their years in peace.