“Yes!”
Li Hongzhuo’s old face was dark. He lowered his head and stepped back a few paces, a cold light flickering in his eyes.
He had supposed that once he held the secret of Ning Chen and the Wu woman emperor, then even if Ning Chen would not work with him in earnest, the man would at least not dare take liberties in front of him.
But it was plain now that Ning Chen had no respect for him whatsoever.
That gentleman had been right. Ning Chen was a man who could not be controlled. Better to be rid of him!
He had made up his mind. The moment he had proof that Ning Chen was carrying on with the Wu woman emperor, he would lay it before His Majesty the instant he got home, and finish Ning Chen off.
Ning Chen, for his part, paid Li Hongzhuo no attention at all… A man already dead was not worth his notice.
His gaze settled on Xu Shuhan, whose face was a study in conflict.
“Let’s do it this way. Our Great Xuan is a land of rites and ceremony, unlike barbarians who understand nothing of manners. I, Ning Chen, have always honored the old and cherished the young, and my character is lofty and pure.”
“Since old Master Xu says a poem in ten paces, then we’ll do as you say… Only, poems hold no challenge for me. You make a poem in ten paces; I’ll make a lyric in ten paces. How’s that?”
The moment the words were out, Xu Shuhan’s old face flushed red. They had not begun and he had already lost half.
Because writing a lyric is far harder than writing a poem!
The faces of Wu’s officials, civil and military, turned ugly. This Ning Chen was insufferable… He actually dared call them barbarians who understood nothing of manners?
Xu Shuhan looked at the Prince Regent.
The Prince Regent gave a slight nod.
Xu Shuhan snorted coldly. “Since the marquis puts it that way, then let this old man have a taste of the marquis’s quality!”
That poem of his had taken several of Wu’s venerable scholars and great classicists days of chewing before they produced it.
He simply did not believe Ning Chen could write a lyric inside ten paces.
And even if he managed to write one, it would very likely be worthless nonsense, and bring humiliation on himself!
Ning Chen smiled easily. “Then let’s begin. Don’t waste time!”
The two of them took their places side by side and looked together at the pillar in the distance.
“Marquis Ning, please!”
Ning Chen did not stand on ceremony. He took one casual step forward.
Xu Shuhan counted one, two, three under his breath and walked toward the pillar too.
But every eye — from the woman emperor and the Prince Regent above to the officials civil and military below — was fixed on Ning Chen.
Because Ning Chen had taken a single step and stopped.
The Prince Regent said in a voice that was neither one thing nor the other, “Marquis Ning, dragging out the time like this is beneath you… At the rate you’re walking, the sky will be dark before you reach the pillar, and we can’t wait that long!”
Hearing the voice, Xu Shuhan looked back, contempt showing on his face.
So this Ning Chen was putting on an act after all.
Ning Chen looked back at the Prince Regent. “A poem in ten paces. You said nothing just now about how long each pace was to take.”
The Prince Regent’s expression stiffened.
Ning Chen said, “Lord Shen.”
Shen Min bowed. “What are the marquis’s orders?”
“Send someone to the Hall of Martial Honor for my bedding. Oh — and bring the chamber pot and the rest of it too. I intend to move in right here, and take my next step tomorrow.”
Shen Min froze where he stood.
The expressions on the faces of Wu’s officials, civil and military, were more remarkable still.
This was the Hall of Sacred Might, where the whole court assembled. You mean to move in here, to eat and drink and relieve yourself here… Have you taken the place for an inn?
On the dragon throne, the woman emperor pressed her red lips together, afraid she might laugh out loud… She glanced down at her belly and thought: your mother is regretting borrowing seed from your father right about now. Your father is a scoundrel.
The Prince Regent’s face twitched. “For Marquis Ning to behave so is hardly fit for polite company. If word of it gets out, I fear it will damage the marquis’s good name.”
Xu Shuhan gave a cold laugh and said mockingly, “A man of learning ought to keep to elegant talk, at ease and unruffled… For the marquis to behave so is truly to make himself a laughingstock before those who know better!”
Ning Chen looked at the Prince Regent, then swept his eyes around the whole court, and at last let his gaze come to rest on Xu Shuhan. He said evenly, “Elegance isn’t something you put on. Only a little bastard puts it on.”
The faces of everyone present darkened. They felt themselves insulted.
Ning Chen shook his head and said with contempt, “This is the limit of what you people can do!”
“A poem or a lyric — what need is there for ten paces? A thing you pluck out of the air without having to think at all, and it takes ten paces?”
“If I needed ten paces to write a lyric, I’d be worthless. I’d cut off my own legs and crawl back to Great Xuan.”
The faces of Wu’s officials, civil and military, showed all manner of things — astonishment, shame, contempt.
The Prince Regent laughed coldly. “So Marquis Ning has already written it?”
Ning Chen spread his hands. “Is that difficult?”
The Prince Regent snorted. “Then let us have a taste of the marquis’s quality.”
Ning Chen nodded. “Good. Then let me show you what the radiance of the bright moon is, and what the glimmer of a firefly is.”
“Once this lyric of mine is out, if old Master Xu still has the courage to speak his own poem in front of me, I’ll count myself the loser.”
Ning Chen laughed coldly to himself. A pellet of a kingdom, with barely a hundred years of history.
Several thousand years of China’s culture and history, the essence panned out of all that shifting sand — is that something you people could ever match? Today I’ll open the eyes of you country bumpkins.
The faces of Wu’s officials, civil and military, turned ugly. The words were insufferable.
Ning Chen clasped his hands behind his back, lifted his chin, sank his breath to his center, and said in a clear, carrying voice:
東風夜放花千樹， 更吹落、星如雨。 寶馬雕車香滿路。 鳳簫聲動，玉壺光轉，一夜魚龍舞。 蛾兒雪柳黃金縷，笑語盈盈暗香去。 眾裡尋他千百度…
The east wind by night opens a thousand trees of flowers, then blows them down again, and the stars come falling like rain. Fine horses, carved carriages, the whole road full of perfume. Phoenix pipes sounding, the light of the jade vessel turning, and all night long the fish and the dragons dance. Moth ornaments, snow-willow sprays, threads of gold, laughter and murmuring going by, and a faint scent going with it. I searched for her in that crowd a thousand times, a hundred times…
When he reached that point Ning Chen paused, looked back at the woman emperor, and said softly:
驀然回首，那人卻在，燈火闌珊處。
Then all at once I turned my head, and there she was — where the lamplight was burning low.
There was a dead silence in the court!
Every one of Wu’s officials, civil and military, wore a look of shock, eyes gone blank, all of them sunk so deep in the world of that lyric that they could not pull themselves out of it.
By now it no longer mattered whether the lyric answered the theme.
What mattered was that once it was out, every man there was made to feel his own smallness, and not one of them dared open his mouth.
The woman emperor watched Ning Chen through the bead curtain before her face, her eyes bright… That last line was addressed to this emperor. Is he flirting with this emperor? What monstrous nerve.
Sure enough, the woman emperor’s mind did not work like an ordinary woman’s.
An ordinary woman would long since have been moved to a puddle.
Ning Chen swept his eyes over the officials of the court, who had all frozen stiff, and let his gaze come to rest at last on the woman emperor.
She had to have been moved by that, right?
It couldn’t be helped. It was all for the sake of his son… A woman with child has to keep her spirits up.
“Good — a fine lyric, a fine lyric…”
Shen Min’s face was flushed with excitement, and he cried his approval aloud.
Only then did the people present come to their senses.
They looked at Ning Chen, each with a different tangle of feeling on his face.
A prodigy!
One step. One single step… and he had produced a song for the ages.
They detested Ning Chen, and yet they were conquered by his gift… and so every one of them wore the constipated look of a man who cannot stand Ning Chen and cannot do away with him either.
Xu Shuhan’s old face went white, cold sweat beading on his forehead, his lips trembling.
Once that lyric was out, it robbed him of every scrap of courage to resist.
The Prince Regent’s face was dark.
As for Li Hongzhuo, his eyes were red with envy. Why couldn’t he write a work for the ages like that?
Ning Chen’s gaze settled on Xu Shuhan. “Old Master Xu, it’s your turn… please! Let me have a taste of the quality of Wu’s immortal of poetry.”
For a man who had wanted to destroy his reputation, who had set out to humiliate him and slap his face… Ning Chen was naturally not going to let him off lightly.
(End of Chapter 353)