Compared with his elder brother, Jianglü was far less courteous.
He found fault with everything about the tooth powder: its flavor, the materials used to make the toothbrush, the workmanship, and the plain appearance of the finished articles. They had no patterns or ornamentation at all! How could such things be fit for royalty?
Ying Yang rolled her eyes.
“Heh.”
Jianglü was dumbfounded.
He puffed out his cheeks and complained indignantly, “Fifth Sister, how can you behave like that? I’m your elder brother! You don’t respect me!”
He turned toward Fusu.
“A-Xiong! Look at her!”
Afraid that his elder brother might indulge his little sister but refuse to indulge him—Fusu was ordinarily more gentle and forgiving with his sisters than with Jianglü—he turned again, silently urging the eldest Gongzhu to intervene.
As Bo-Jie, the eldest sister, surely she ought to keep all her younger sisters in line!
Yet it was another of his sisters who struck him down.
“Zhong-Xiong, what you’re saying makes no sense!” Shuhua protested. “Fifth Sister isn’t a craftsman. She received guidance from an immortal and made the tooth powder because she was worried about Damu’s aching teeth. Then we brothers and sisters pestered her, and she put in so much effort to make dozens more jars to give us. If you won’t be grateful, that’s one thing. But how can you turn around and criticize Yangzi?”
The eldest Gongzhu gave a cold laugh.
“You’re usually overbearing and sly. Zhao Ayi has tried to discipline you again and again, but you always take advantage of her affection and indulgence to wriggle out of it. If you keep treating propriety and reason as things of no consequence, one day you’ll suffer for it!”
Fusu’s small, square-round face grew stern.
“Jianglü, our sister gave these to us out of kindness. You have shown a dreadful lack of manners!”
Gongzi Gao joined in, shouting in his babyish voice, “Suffer for it! Bad manners!”
“What’s it got to do with you?” Jianglü roared at him.
Gao froze. After a moment he began to cry softly.
His wet nurse hastily gathered him up and soothed him. As she did, she watched the quarrel among these exalted children with growing alarm, hoping that someone might step forward to intervene.
A kindly soul put her mind at ease.
“What family never has its quarrels? They’re brothers and sisters. So long as they don’t come to blows, it’s only children squabbling. What place have people like us to interfere?”
Tears gathered in Jianglü’s eyes.
“You—you’ve all joined together to bully me! I’m… I’m going to tell A-Mu!”
The eldest Gongzhu encouraged him to go at once.
Fusu said helplessly, “Do you want to miss the Summer Solstice festivities?”
Afraid his foolish younger brother might not understand, he explained, “You’ve been so rude to Yangzi today. If Zhao Ayi hears about it, she’ll certainly confine you until you’ve learned how to behave.”
The eldest Gongzhu, Fusu, and Jianglü had all been born in the same year, yet their behavior scarcely suggested they were the same age.
That was largely because Zhao Furen’s discipline of Jianglü alternated between severity and indulgence. But one could hardly blame Zhao Furen entirely.
Zhao Furen was six years older than her royal cousin. She had been the first woman in the palace to conceive. Counting a pregnancy during her previous marriage, she had been pregnant four times, yet Jianglü was her only surviving child.
Everyone in the palace understood what Jianglü meant to Zhao Furen. They also knew that Mu Taihou and Dawang remembered the protection they had received from Zhao Furen’s maternal family and consequently treated mother and son with tolerance.
The result was that Jianglü had become rather spoiled.
In the past, everyone else had yielded to him.
But since encountering Ying Yang, he had come off worse twice. Naturally, he was resentful. Naturally, he was furious.
Nobody comforted him.
He waited.
Still nobody comforted him.
Even his wet nurse and his attendant nurse made no move to soothe him!
Jianglü was shocked.
Wounded to the heart!
He stamped his foot and ran angrily toward Zhaoyang Hall. His wet nurse, attendant nurse, and the palace eunuchs hurried after him.
After running a few steps, he secretly wiped away a tear.
Then he spun around.
The little procession following at his heels had to brake abruptly and turn with him.
Fifth Sister is a little dwarf!” Jianglü stopped before Ying Yang and declared viciously. “You got everyone to gang up on me! You’re rotten! You’ll never grow any taller!”
He shouted the last sentence as he ran away again.
Fusu, furious, chased after his dreadful younger brother, ordering him to stop.
Jianglü turned his head and stuck out his tongue.
“Bleh, bleh, bleh! Eldest Brother is bad! I’m never speaking to you again!”
He neglected to look where he was going.
His body pitched forward.
“Careful!” Fusu cried in fright. “Jianglü, look out!”
The eunuch nearest Jianglü had been keeping a close eye on his little master’s movements. Swiftly but steadily, he caught the boy beneath the arms and scooped him up.
Jianglü went flying.
The eunuch took several quick steps forward to absorb the momentum.
Discovering that riding on a eunuch was considerably faster than running on his own two legs, Jianglü gave an imperious little snort and ordered the man to carry him back to Zhaoyang Hall at once.
He was going to complain to A-Mu!
Complain bitterly!
And he was going to tell Damu too!
Watching the little tyrant disappear, Ying Yang made a couple of jokes to soothe her indignant brothers and sisters and let the matter drop.
She had intended to disperse the gathering there. Everyone could return to their own halls and find their own mothers.
Then a thought occurred to her.
Her eyes narrowed, and a wicked grin spread across her face.
You little brat. You started this. Don’t blame me if I use you as my banner!
A few bamboo leaves suddenly appeared before her nose.
“Jie… A-Jie.”
It was Gongzi Gao’s soft, milky voice.
Ying Yang blinked.
She took the little “flower” he had fashioned from slender bamboo twigs and leaves and smiled at his wide-eyed face.
“Fourth Brother, thank you for comforting me.”
Gao was an extraordinarily sweet, soft little creature. He twisted his hands together and lowered his head with a shy smile.
“From now on, your A-Jie will take you along when she plays.”
Gao’s head shot up.
“Really?”
“I promise!”
Who wouldn’t love a well-behaved, fair-skinned little child? Especially one whom the history books themselves would attest had cherished his family.
Leaving the bamboo grove, Ying Yang looked up at the sky.
Blue skies, white clouds. The sun still hung in the east.
She wasn’t sure there would be enough time to do what she had in mind today.
“Tomorrow, then. Tomorrow I’ll make soy milk and tofu. Would you like to come watch and taste them?”
“Elder Sisters and Elder Brother, you should come too. As for Zhong-Xiong, I’ll send someone to tell him. Whether he comes is up to him.”
Fusu said, “Jianglü won’t be able to come tomorrow.”
Ying Yang paused.
“Zhao Furen really does beat him?”
Fusu answered earnestly, “Zhao Furen comes from a great clan and is a woman who observes propriety. How could she allow Jianglü to behave so rudely without teaching him a lesson?”
Shuhua lowered her eyes.
The eldest Gongzhu glanced at Shuhua, then pursed her lips.
…
This was hardly the first time Jianglü had been rude to his sisters.
In themselves, the incidents were small. Among close siblings of similar ages, growing up together, how could there not be occasional friction? If both sides could answer back and settle their differences, there was little cause for concern.
Yet not every child whom Jianglü treated overbearingly had the confidence to fight back.
Fusu was by no means meek. His position was exceptional, and he was dark-complexioned and sturdily built. Having been valued from early childhood, he possessed a natural air of authority.
Jianglü not only dared not provoke Fusu; he admired his elder brother greatly and relied upon him.
Nor did he dare provoke the eldest Gongzhu.
She, too, was a beloved child: the first child born in the palace and the first to survive infancy. Her existence carried a significance of its own. From an early age, she had been taught that, as the eldest daughter, she had a duty to care for her younger siblings and, when necessary, to guide and correct them.
The eldest Gongzhu never indulged Jianglü’s nonsense. After being rebuked several times and discovering that complaining to the adults did him no good, he had learned to behave around her.
With siblings who ranked below him in age and whose birth mothers were of lower standing, however, Jianglü was accustomed to getting his way.
To adults, children’s squabbles and little shoves were hardly worth making a fuss over. A child who fought back would generally suffer no consequences.
But once the adults themselves intervened, that was another matter.
Most adults would not intervene.
Zhao Furen was not like most adults.
Shuhua was articulate, quick-witted, and brave. On several occasions, she had cleverly talked Jianglü into a corner.
Unable to win, Jianglü would return to Zhaoyang Hall, weeping and making a dreadful scene, declaring himself “too angry to eat.”
Two ke after the usual mealtime had passed, Zhao Furen could bear it no longer.
She invited Pu Qizi and the third Gongzhu to visit, presented gifts, and begged Shuhua to coax her elder brother out of his temper.
Jianglü demanded that Shuhua apologize.
Shuhua refused, saying she had not insulted her brother.
Zhao Furen was terrified that missing a single meal might damage her son’s stomach, make him ill, or even take his life.
In a gentle voice, she pleaded with Shuhua to apologize.
Then she began reminiscing with Pu Qizi about the days when the two women had been mistress and servant, recalling how many attendants and how much medicine Zhaoyang Hall had sent when Pu Qizi was pregnant.
She admitted that Jianglü was in the wrong. But she had lost too many children. Whenever he cried and made a fuss, she said, it felt as though someone were carving the flesh from her heart.
Then Zhao Furen bent low and formally bowed to Pu Qizi.
Pu Qizi was horrified.
She repeatedly knocked her forehead to the ground, declaring that she would never forget her former mistress’s kindness. Then she took her daughter into a small side chamber to persuade her.
In the end, Jianglü emerged completely victorious.
He agreed to eat.
Zhao Furen bestowed a great many precious trinkets upon the third Gongzhu.
Did Shuhua hate Jianglü terribly because of this?
Not really.
They were brother and sister of the same age, raised in the same palace. They saw one another constantly. Besides, whenever Jianglü received something, whether a small item such as food or utensils or something as valuable as gold, jade, and jewels, Zhao Furen would invariably send a portion to Shuhua as well.
Zhao Furen had even told Pu Qizi that when the third Gongzhu married, she would add several extra chests to the girl’s dowry.
Ah.
There were things that left Shuhua frustrated, yet she had no way to speak of them.
…
“I don’t think that’s necessarily true,” Ying Yang said to Fusu.
Fusu looked surprised.
“Fifth Sister?”
“Apart from a very few exceptional cases, ordinary children don’t keep behaving like Zhong-Xiong if they’re consistently and strictly disciplined. I think Zhao Furen is the sort of parent who disciplines her child fiercely when she’s angry, then feels guilty once her temper has passed and makes it up to him with excessive indulgence.”
Ying Yang knew nothing of the history between Shuhua and her mother on one side, and Jianglü and his mother on the other.
She was judging solely from her own experience.
The last time she had witnessed Zhao Furen striking her son, she had assumed the woman was a “tiger mother,” and that Jianglü was merely misbehaving on that particular occasion.
But after today’s gathering in the bamboo grove, Ying Yang had reconsidered.
Something wasn’t right.
Jianglü wasn’t simply mischievous.
He was a spoiled brat.
And behind every spoiled brat stood an indulgent parent.
A child who was periodically subjected to genuinely strict discipline and conscientious instruction by his mother, however mischievous his temperament, would generally remain kindhearted—or at least have some respect for rules.
Such a child could not be this unbearable every single day.
Moreover, Jianglü’s criticisms of the toothbrushes and tooth powder had not sounded like his own ideas. They sounded like something he had heard an adult say.
Judging by his temperament and manner of speaking, when Jianglü was dissatisfied with something, he would simply announce what he wanted instead. Only an adult would compare two articles and pick apart every tiny detail.
But that last point did not need to be explained to the children.
Fusu and the others fell into thought.
Shuhua could not help murmuring, “It does seem that way… Yesterday, after we returned, Zhao Ayi ordered the kitchens to prepare a great deal of roast meat and sweet drinks…”
Fusu exclaimed, “Fifth Sister, you’re so clever!”
Then he shook his head. His brows drew together in the troubled expression of a little adult.
“But what if Jianglü continues to behave like this? Ah! I’m his elder brother. If I cannot advise and teach my younger brother, then I have failed in my duty!”
The eldest Gongzhu and Shuhua began to worry and blame themselves as well.
Ying Yang stared.
“???”
She held her tongue for a moment, but still could not make sense of it.
“Jianglü’s personality is like that. What has it got to do with any of you? You’re children yourselves!”
Three strange looks met her words.
“It has everything to do with us!” the eldest Gongzhu declared solemnly. “We’re family. We’re brothers and sisters!”
Sensing Ying Yang’s distance from Jianglü, the eldest Gongzhu and Fusu exchanged glances.
One recited from Tangdi:
“The blossoms of the tangdi shine in their splendor; among all the people living now, none are dearer than brothers!”
The other recited from Jiaogong:
“The crimson horn bow bends and springs back; brothers and kin by marriage must not grow estranged!”
Ying Yang fell silent.
…You two are awfully well read, aren’t you?
Ying Yang, who possessed neither their classical learning nor their lofty sense of responsibility, replied with perfect composure:
“Don’t understand a word!”
Author’s Note
The two poems are quotations~
Translator’s Notes
– Bo-Jie, Zhong-Xiong, A-Jie, A-Xiong: Kinship forms of address retained in pinyin. Bo denotes the eldest and Zhong the second in a sibling sequence.
– Tangdi (棠棣) and Jiaogong (角弓): Poems from the Shijing (Classic of Poetry).