Ying Yang’s own mother remarked, “Judging by the way the eldest Gongzhu, eldest Gongzi, and second Gongzi are growing, they’ll all be more than six *chi* tall by the time they’re eight or nine.”
Nooooo!
The memory of elementary-school children standing 1.7 meters tall in her previous life filled Ying Yang with panic.
Her own father had been eight chi and five cun tall at twenty—196 centimeters. And among the consorts who had borne children so far, only Pu Qizi stood less than seven chi, or 160 centimeters. All the others were at least seven chi and two cun—166 centimeters!
More than once, Ying Yang had overheard her mother, her Ayi, and the attendants gossiping about the consorts’ heights. Previously, she had paid it no attention. Now she was comparing every last one of them!
Tall mothers and a giant of a father—she scarcely dared imagine how tall her brothers and sisters might become, or how quickly they would shoot up.
What if, by the time they were around ten, all her siblings were 1.6 or 1.7 meters tall, while she had only reached 1.5?
…And what if something even more dreadful happened? What if she was only 1.3 or 1.4 meters tall by then?!
Protein! Where is my protein?!
Steamed eggs, boiled eggs, fried eggs—oh, wait, frying was out; they had no iron wok. Then steamed egg custard it would be.
Shrimp, fish, chicken, beef! No more meat paste; she wanted freshly minced meat.
I’ll eat and eat and eat! I’ll stuff myself silly! Let’s see if that doesn’t work!
Wait a minute. Great-grandmother seems likely to kick the bucket next month. There’ll be mourning rites.
And during mourning, I won’t be able to eat meat…
Ying Yang drew in a sharp breath and rubbed her chin vigorously. How long would a great-grandchild have to abstain from meat while observing mourning?
She circled around her mother and tried to sound her out about the rules for a great-grandchild’s mourning. Her mother, face darkening, warned her not to say such inauspicious things.
Ying Yang slunk away. Judging by her mother’s reaction, she could be certain that when the time came, not a morsel of meat or fish would pass her lips.
At least several months without meat…
I choose you!
Tofu!
Her mother crushed the plan with cold, unfeeling ruthlessness.
“Grind shu beans? I think you’re a shu! Go read your books and memorize your lessons!”
Ying Yang pouted and wheedled, “A-Mu, tofu made from shu beans is wonderful food! It’s ever so nourishing!”
Her mother would not listen.
No amount of coaxing, rolling about, or even throwing a full-fledged tantrum could change her mind.
Dejected, Ying Yang climbed up from the floor. While she was changing her clothes, A-Liao murmured, “The eldest Gongzhu, the eldest Gongzi, and the others are playing in the Bamboo Garden. Would you like to go out for a little while?”
A change of scenery might do her good.
Walking part of the way and being carried for the rest, Ying Yang arrived at a courtyard planted with bamboo along the Yongxiang. Several large mats had been spread beneath the trees, and a ring of attendants waited nearby upon the precious little treasures of the royal household.
The eldest Gongzhu waved a stalk of grass and called, “Yangzi! Come quickly! Let’s battle grasses!”
Jianglü, standing to one side, spoke with great disdain. “Tch! What’s so fun about that? Only girls like playing this! A-Xiong, let’s go ride bamboo horses!”
Shuhua, the third Gongzhu, curled her lip and promptly exposed him. “Second Brother couldn’t beat us, so now he wants to run away.”
Jianglü’s face reddened at astonishing speed.
“Wh-who says I can’t beat you little girls?” His eyes darted about. “Yangzi, do you dare compete with your elder brother?”
A-Mu had said that Yangzi had been ill before and could not go outside, so she did not understand many things. He was not to bully his little sister.
Heh, heh. Naturally, he would never bully her! All he needed was to win one round first, to prove how formidable he was and let him throw a little triumph in Shuhua’s face. Then he would let Yangzi win. He would even give her his beloved dove cart!
Ying Yang knew absolutely nothing of the calculations whirling around inside Jianglü’s head.
“I’ve never played grass battles. How does it work?”
The eldest Gongzhu, an enthusiastic devotee of the pastime, explained the rules with shining eyes.
There were two varieties: the literary contest and the martial contest. In the literary version, the players named flowers and grasses, matching one another’s answers in paired phrases; whoever could name the most won. In the martial version, two players crossed their grass stalks, hooked them together, and pulled in opposite directions. Whoever’s grass snapped first lost.
“Oh! That game!”
Ying Yang had played it as a child in her previous life. Back then, however, they had never called it by its proper name. They had simply issued childish challenges along the lines of, Ying Yang! Do you dare face me in battle today?
Jianglü froze.
“You’ve played before?”
She’s not a beginner? Could she be an expert?
“My late wet nurse Du told me about it,” Ying Yang replied casually.
Fusu suggested, “Yangzi, why don’t you play a round with me first?”
“All right!”
It was only a children’s game. Who went first hardly mattered. Ying Yang chose a stalk from the grasses the attendants had prepared.
Two green, round stems were crossed and hooked together. One was pulled into a wide figure-eight angle, while the other was held at a much narrower angle.
Snap!
Fusu looked at the broken green stalk in his hand with some surprise.
He had been afraid that Fifth Sister, having never played before, would be discouraged if Jianglü defeated her. He had therefore resolved to let her win a round first.
He simply had not expected his grass to snap quite so quickly.
The eldest Gongzhu pushed him aside, waving her stalk, her eyes sparkling.
“Good little sister! Just look at your posture and technique! You’re every bit my equal! Come, come! Let us sisters have a proper match!”
Pull hard. Relax. Follow the opponent’s force—and then, without warning, give a sharp tug in your own direction!
The eldest Gongzhu’s grass broke.
Jianglü tugged at his elder brother’s sleeve, begging him to go ride bamboo horses instead.
“I want to play too! I want to play too! A-Xiong! A-Jie! Take me with you!” Fourth Gongzi Gao looked from one group to the other, hoping someone would include him.
Neither the eldest nor the third Gongzhu wanted to play with their little brother. Wu Niang was a much better playmate!
“Oh, these girls’ games of ours aren’t any fun! Gao, go play with Fusu and Jianglü. Be good now~”
Gongzi Gao obediently turned his hopeful gaze upon his eldest and second brothers.
“Fourth Brother is still little; he can’t manage a bamboo horse yet.” Fusu rubbed his disappointed little brother’s head. “Shall we play with the dove carts instead?”
Gongzi Gao nodded excitedly.
Jianglü glanced at his three sisters, none of whom spared him so much as a look. Then he glanced at the brothers who were already holding hands and going to fetch a dove cart.
“A-Xiong! Fourth Brother! Wait for me!”
Off he scampered after them.
Everything was peaceful and pleasant. Those who wished to battle grasses battled grasses; those who wished to run about pulling dove carts did just that.
After playing grass battles with the girls for a while, Ying Yang grew tired.
Not physically tired, exactly. More bored.
The eldest Gongzhu, a master of grass battles, keenly detected her opponent’s “fatigue.” Without comment, she won several rounds, then arranged for Third Sister to win the last one before proposing a rest.
“Yangzi, do you want to play with the dove carts too?” The eldest Gongzhu thought her little sister was too shy to ask to try something new.
Ying Yang shook her head.
She had played all these children’s games before. A little was enjoyable when she was in the mood, but too much became mentally exhausting.
The third Gongzhu glanced at her.
“Yangzi, do you want to go back and read?”
Dawang’s gift of a great many books to Wu Gongzhu was widely known. When Pu Qizi heard about it, she began making arrangements to find a well-read Nüshi to attend her daughter personally.
And so the third Gongzhu had begun her first lessons ahead of schedule.
Ying Yang had no idea she had inadvertently drawn Third Sister into an academic arms race. For the moment, she merely looked baffled.
“On such a beautiful day, if I stopped playing with you and hid indoors to read, wouldn’t that be wasting the sunshine, the gentle breeze, the green bamboo—and the company of my brothers and sisters and all the maids and eunuchs?”
The third Gongzhu brightened immediately.
After hesitating a little, Ying Yang muttered something under her breath.
The eldest and third Gongzhu did not catch all of it. They leaned closer to listen.
Only then did Ying Yang, with a great show of bashfulness, confess that she wanted to make tofu for fun, but A-Mu would not allow it.
Tofu? What was tofu?
The eldest Gongzhu’s eyes shone. Entering wholeheartedly into the conspiracy, she lowered her voice.
“Ohhh! Little Sister has learned another new thing from the immortals!”
The third Gongzhu asked curiously, “Is it something for the teeth to eat too? Does it have that bitter fragrance?”
The eldest Gongzhu could not understand her sister’s strange fondness for bitter flavors.
“No bitterness! It should have honey! The bamboo-salt tooth powder with cooked honey that Yangzi just sent us is wonderful!”
In the past, she had used salt water to rinse her mouth. She would turn her face away and wrinkle her nose, and only after her wet nurse coaxed her and her mother threatened her would she reluctantly submit.
Now that she had tooth powder made with cooked honey and bamboo salt, nobody needed to coax or threaten her. Whenever she had a spare moment, she longed to spoon some into her mouth and hold it there. If she could not do that, even a little lick would be nice!
Her wet nurse was a capable woman with a talent for cooking. After trying the powder a few times, she privately remarked that if it could be used in a dish, the result would surely be a meal fit for immortals.
The eldest Gongzhu was instantly tempted. She ordered her wet nurse to make her a portion of this “immortal cuisine.”
Nobody dared move.
The gift from Huicao Hall had consisted of more than a few jars of tooth powder. It had arrived accompanied by a long string of warnings. Once the attendant finished reciting them, she had also presented a length of silk inscribed with something Wu Gongzhu had expressly ordered written down: a set of “precautions.”
The eldest Gongzhu had no patience for listening to such things. Her attendants, however, were so alarmed that they memorized every word.
Wu Gongzhu had said that tooth powder must not be consumed in large quantities. If too much of it entered the stomach, there was a risk of gastric bleeding, stomach ulcers, and other dreadful consequences.
Ji Meiren, the eldest Gongzhu’s birth mother, gave her tantrum-throwing daughter a sound spanking. Then she turned around and laughed, praising Wu Gongzhu for being such a thoughtful little girl. Having finished laughing, she declared that nobody was to give the eldest Gongzhu another opportunity to eat tooth powder. Anyone who did would be treated just like the likes of Feng and Rui.
In any event, the eldest Gongzhu did not brush her own teeth. The newly appointed maid responsible for brushing them needed only to withstand her mistress’s threats and bribes and carefully control the amount of powder used.
[Ding! One genuine favorable review received!]
Ying Yang froze.
“The taste is good, but it’s a little troublesome,” the third Gongzhu said with a worried expression. “One of my teeth is loose. It’s rather frightening when I brush it.”
After thinking a moment, she added, “But the gum around that tooth used to be swollen and sore. I followed Wu Niang’s instructions and applied some of the paste for one ke, and then it wasn’t swollen or painful anymore!”
The three boys, who were alternately running circles with their dove carts and jerking the cords to make the little carts “fight,” overheard her. They immediately began chiming in with their own opinions.
The steady, dignified Fusu said that the tooth powder left his mouth wonderfully fresh. It truly worked, and he liked it best of all. He could not bear to enjoy such a delightful thing alone, so he had strongly recommended that his A-Mu use it too.
Although his mother had said nothing after trying it, there was a clear difference: at first Fusu had had to persuade her to use it; now she used it of her own accord after meals. Surely that proved that she liked this novel invention as well.
After a pause, Fusu asked, rather bashfully, whether his little sister might share some tooth powder with him in future. What did she like? He would try to obtain it for her. As her elder brother, he could hardly accept her gifts without giving anything in return!
[Ding! One genuine favorable review received!]
Ying Yang: “???”
Wait. So the two favorable reviews I got earlier weren’t from either of you?!
Author’s Note
The dove carts noble children played with were quite exquisitely made. Next time I’ll write about the little ones riding bamboo horses, hehehe.
Translator’s Notes
– Shu (菽): An ancient term for beans, particularly soybeans. Ying Yang’s mother makes a pun on the word when she scolds her.
– Dou cao (斗草), “grass battles”: A traditional children’s pastime involving either competitive naming of plants or pulling hooked stalks against each other until one breaks.
– Jiu che (鸠车), “dove cart”: A wheeled children’s toy, often made in the shape of a bird and pulled by a cord.
– Nüshi: A female attendant with literary training; retained in pinyin.
– Ke: A traditional division of time; in the passage, one ke is approximately fifteen minutes.