Qingshan

Chapter 86: Saving the Lone Stone

In the small courtyard of the Taiping Clinic, a crowd squeezed around a tiny Eight Immortals table, packed shoulder to shoulder. Every time Liang Mao'er so much as lifted an elbow, Liu Quxing nearly toppled off his stool.

Steamer baskets were stacked high on the table, buns billowing steam. The moment a lid was lifted, hands shot in from left and right, and the entire basket was cleaned out in the blink of an eye, like a feeding frenzy.

Old Man Yao reached for a bun, but Liang Mao'er's hand blurred past and the basket was already empty. He tried for the next basket, but the Heir had snatched the last one.

Old Man Yao sat with a bowl of millet porridge, sipping it in silent resignation. He'd spent his life accustomed to quiet, sparse days. All this commotion at the Taiping Clinic was still hard to get used to.

They couldn't even eat without chattering. Insufferable.

"Master, why aren't you eating?" Chen Ji asked curiously.

Old Man Yao replied flatly, "I'm casting a reading on all of you."

"But you don't even know the Heir's birth date and hour. How can you read them?"

Old Man Yao smirked. "I don't need birth dates to know you're all jinxing me. Finish eating and get out."

Just then, Anxi Street erupted in commotion. Countless citizens had gathered along both sides, some carrying fruit, others lugging baskets of eggs.

The air itself seemed to boil with excitement. The last time the street had seen anything like this was when the Heir and the Princess first returned.

A moment later, a black ceremonial procession swept past the clinic door. Citizens pressed their offerings on the soldiers flanking the procession, following all the way down the street.

Ning Dynasty law was clear: the Emperor used vermilion-yellow for his procession. Feudal princes used black.

Prince Jing had returned.

"This is bad!" The Heir shot to his feet and crammed half a bun into his mouth, mumbling, "General Wang said the old man only reached Gongyi County last night -- how did he make it back overnight?! Baili, get back to the manor. If he catches us out here, your allowance is finished!"

Baili panicked too, grabbing her skirts and scrambling up the ladder, vanishing over the courtyard wall.

The Heir, so brash and carefree in every other situation, was now a mouse before a cat.

Chen Ji and the others drifted to the front door and watched the grand procession file into Prince Jing's manor. He turned curiously to Old Man Yao. "Master, why is Prince Jing so beloved by the people? Everyone's fighting to give him things."

Old Man Yao pursed his lips. "A lot of people in Yuzhou are alive because of him. Naturally they respect the man."

Just then, a middle-aged man rushed to the door. "Physician Yao! Physician Yao! My father took a fall and we can't wake him -- please, come quickly!"

"Did you bring the consultation fee?"

"Yes, yes!"

Old Man Yao beckoned to She Dakang. "Fetch my acupuncture case. Quickly -- his father won't hold on long."

Once Old Man Yao and the patient's son had departed by carriage, Liang Mao'er began clearing the dishes.

...

...

With Old Man Yao gone, Chen Ji was about to clear the courtyard when a gentle voice sounded from the clinic entrance.

"Chen Ji?"

His body went rigid. The last time someone had come calling like this -- at night -- it had been Shopkeeper Yuan. Had the Jing Dynasty's Military Intelligence Division found him again? But Gui had said everyone who knew his identity had been dealt with.

He turned slowly. The figure in the doorway was not Shopkeeper Yuan's heavy frame.

Instead, he saw a middle-aged man in a worn indigo robe. The collar had been freshly patched, the elbows had been mended, and a plain wooden hairpin held his hair in place. He looked exhausted.

Who was this? Chen Ji had never seen him before.

The man studied Chen Ji, then asked, "What -- you don't remember me?"

Chen Ji hesitated.

The man smiled faintly. "I suppose you wouldn't. When you were small, still in the capital, I used to hold you. Your eyebrows haven't changed. You look like your mother."

Chen Ji's pulse quickened. His uncle? Had his powerful uncle from the Jing Dynasty fled political enemies and come to the Ning Dynasty for refuge? The man certainly looked like he'd traveled hard -- mud spatters on his trousers and boots, every inch of him weathered by wind and road.

But the patches on his clothes? Surely his uncle wasn't this badly off.

More importantly, Chen Ji had just shed his identity as a Jing Dynasty agent. He'd just been looking forward to some peaceful days. Why was this person showing up now? The man hadn't bothered to bring him back to the Jing Dynasty when times were good -- what did he want now? Was he planning to rebuild his power base in the Ning Dynasty? That would mean Chen Ji was back to risking his neck.

After a moment's thought, Chen Ji said stiffly, "What can I do for you?"

The man blinked, then chuckled. "You don't even address your elder with a respectful tone? Where's your master?"

The word "elder" only made Chen Ji stiffer. "Master is out. Whatever it is, you can tell me."

The man stepped over the threshold, lifting his robe hem. "Then I'll wait for him here. Do you play Go? A game to pass the time. Your mother was an excellent player -- I imagine you're not bad yourself."

Chen Ji said, "The clinic doesn't have a Go set."

The man smiled. "Of course it does. Second drawer of the cabinet in the main room. Go get it. I'll wait."

Chen Ji's eyes narrowed. To his ears, this sounded like a veiled threat -- the same way Yunyang had placed silver ingots on his pillow the first time.

The subtext was identical: I can come and go from this clinic as I please, and you'd never know.

Chen Ji went to the main room, pulled open the second drawer, and found a Go set exactly where the man had said.

He brought it to the counter, laid out the board, and scooped a handful of stones into his palm. "Guess for color."

The man thought. "Even."

Chen Ji opened his hand. Three black stones. "Wrong. I play black, I move first."

The man said magnanimously, "Very well. You go first. I'll even give you a two-stone handicap."

Chen Ji glanced up at him. "Fine."

The man's Go was formidable. His play was sweeping and aggressive, every stone falling like a mountain crashing down. In sixty-five moves, he had carved Chen Ji's black stones into isolated clusters -- reefs battered by ocean waves, cut off and helpless.

The man smiled at Chen Ji. "Your game needs more polish. Go is about knowing what to sacrifice. Give up the small to gain the large -- that's how you see the bigger picture. If you refuse to let go of anything, you lose everything."

But Chen Ji wasn't listening. He placed another stone amid the isolation. It was the stubbornness of someone who refused to concede, the obsession of someone who'd rather die fighting.

The man paused.

He played a response.

Chen Ji placed another stone.

The man responded again.

Move by move, they traded blows. On the seventy-second move, Chen Ji carved a bloody path out of his isolation and connected his scattered group to another cluster of lone stones.

The man's eyes lit up. "Dragon Swallower? What kind of play is this?"

Chen Ji looked up at him. "Saving the Lone Stone."

The essence of the technique: using the weaknesses in the opponent's formation to carve a path to survival for one's own isolated stones. A single abandoned piece, turned around, could shatter the opponent's entire strategy.

Chen Ji had once won first place in the Luocheng Go tournament, and this technique -- this stubborn, unorthodox art of saving the lone stone -- was his signature. Chen Ji had no head for grand strategy. What he had was sheer tenacity.

He adopted the man's earlier tone and said slowly, "The world is vast. How could there be no room for one small stone? There are only narrow spaces, never narrow hearts."

The man laughed. "Now you're lecturing me?"

Chen Ji said calmly, "I was talking about the game."

In truth, he was angry. Since arriving in this world, knowing nothing of his past, he'd been pulled along by one string after another. He'd barely managed to send Gui and Wu Hongbiao away, barely managed to catch his breath, and now someone else had come knocking.

Just then, Old Man Yao returned with She Dakang. She Dakang carried the acupuncture case on his back, beaming. "Chen Ji, you won't believe it -- that old man's breathing had completely stopped, but Master put two needles in and he came right back... Huh?"

The middle-aged man turned to the door with a smile. "Physician Yao, it's been a while. Your young apprentice plays a fine game of Go. Better than you."

Old Man Yao glanced at Chen Ji. "That would be something... What are you doing here alone?"

"I was hoping you'd take my pulse. I haven't been feeling well lately."

Old Man Yao eyed him. "You go out to procure grain supplies and come back looking like death warmed over?"

Chen Ji froze. Wait.

Procure grain supplies?

What grain supplies?

The man sat down across the counter, visibly drained, and managed a tired smile. "The moment we arrived in the south to levy taxes, someone carried his wife's corpse to the magistrate's gate, claiming our tax collection had driven her to death. The southern gentry treat us like invaders -- the slightest rumor sends them scrambling to resist. Tax collection is no simple matter."

Old Man Yao walked behind the counter. "Taking people's money is like killing their parents. What they really fear isn't the tax itself -- it's that you'll re-survey their landholdings."

Chen Ji was growing more confused by the second. He'd clearly identified the wrong person.

Who was this? Dust-covered, dressed in rags -- some kind of tax official? Or perhaps...

The man placed his wrist on the counter. "The grain itself is manageable -- just requires extra legwork and persuasion. But the front lines need glutinous rice, and that's where we're truly stuck."

Old Man Yao pressed three fingers to the man's pulse. "Can't find glutinous rice?"

The man explained, "Too many border fortifications were destroyed by the Jing Dynasty this year. Rebuilding the walls requires enormous quantities of rice mortar. After this summer's floods, many families can barely feed themselves. How can we expect them to spare rice for wall construction?"

He sighed. "In truth, there was enough rice. But the initial autumn shipment was diverted to the capital -- sent to His Majesty for renovations to Renshou Palace and the imperial mausoleum."

Chen Ji was puzzled. This man seemed to be on remarkably familiar terms with his master, speaking freely about sensitive matters. And Old Man Yao, who normally silenced careless talk, made no move to stop him.

Chen Ji knew that glutinous rice was classified as a strategic material in this era. Every batch of mortar used to repair city walls was made on-site by cooking glutinous rice with slaked lime and limestone. The branched starch in rice mortar provided exceptional adhesion, and after three years of calcification, structures built with it could stand for a millennium.

But in this era, countless people couldn't even fill their stomachs. Glutinous rice was survival food. Diverting it to build walls meant people would starve.

The man coughed. Old Man Yao ordered, "Pour him some tea!"

Chen Ji went to the kitchen, returned with a cup of warm tea, and set it before the man, head lowered deferentially. "Please, have some tea."

The man looked up and smiled. "What's with the sudden politeness? A moment ago you were lecturing me."

Chen Ji cringed. "That really was about the game. I didn't mean to lecture."

The man pointed at him with an amused finger. "A little swagger in a young man is perfectly normal. No need to be this humble."

Chen Ji said hurriedly, "No swagger at all, none."

Old Man Yao looked puzzled. "What happened? What did this brat say?"

The man laughed. "Who wasn't like that in their youth? When I was young, I was always coming to you for treatment. When His Majesty picked fights with the Second Prince and made me charge in first knowing we'd lose, I got thrashed something terrible."

Chen Ji drew a sharp breath.

This was Prince Jing.

But he could not reconcile the plain, unassuming man before him with that vast, imposing manor. No airs, no temper -- he could have been any neighborhood squire. Nothing like what Chen Ji had imagined.

Prince Jing turned to Old Man Yao. "How am I?"

Old Man Yao said mildly, "I'll write you a few prescriptions. Rest for a while. But stop running around. If you don't rest soon, you'll have serious problems."

Prince Jing shook his head. "Some things can't wait. The Jing Dynasty cavalry will ride south again next spring. If the walls aren't repaired before then and Chongli Pass falls, many will die. Even the capital will be in danger."

Old Man Yao said dryly, "I'm only giving advice. Whether you listen is your business. But I'd suggest you stay in Luocheng for now. You can discipline Yunxi and Baili while you're at it, before they play themselves into real trouble. While you've been away, the two of them have been climbing over walls and sneaking out every night. It's been disturbing my sleep."

Chen Ji: Huh?

Wait. Old man, did you just stab them in the back?

He turned to Prince Jing, whose expression had darkened considerably...

Prince Jing spoke slowly. "What exactly have they been up to--"

Before he could finish, sounds came from the back courtyard. Someone was climbing over the wall.

The Heir's voice followed: "Strange -- Father's procession came back but he didn't? What kind of mix-up was that? Made me climb an extra wall for nothing. Chen Ji, come play cards! I'm going to clean you all out today... hic!"

The Heir walked into the main hall, saw Prince Jing, and the shock made him hiccup.

Prince Jing turned a white Go stone between his fingers. His voice was level, his authority absolute. "Climbing walls? Cards?"

The Heir dropped to his knees with a thud. "Father -- it was all the little monk's idea! I had nothing to do with it!"