chapter 5

After the family banquet, Fu Qingchuan grew steadily closer to the Li family.

If he was not visiting his father-in-law, he was hosting my younger brother over wine and poetry.

Bai Yuetang naturally accompanied him on every such occasion.

My elder sister teased her for knowing how to manage her husband.

“These days, few sons-in-law even permit a woman to visit her birth family. A husband like yours, who accompanies you home every few days, is rarer still.”

Bai Yuetang only smiled.

Fu Qingchuan treated her wonderfully in public, but they still slept in separate rooms. As a young woman, she could hardly take the initiative in such matters.

Just then, Li Shaoheng returned from his office. Their gazes brushed, and each saw something in the other that had not been there before.

Fu Qingchuan noticed and smiled with harmless innocence.

“I recently acquired a jar of excellent daughter-red wine. If you have no other plans tonight, Brother, why not come drink at my home?”

Such invitations were common. Li Shaoheng thought nothing of it and readily agreed.

The three returned to the Fu residence, laid out a feast, and spent the evening reciting poems about the wind and moon.

When the final notes of Bai Yuetang’s zither faded, Fu Qingchuan applauded. His eyes were hazy; he looked seven-tenths drunk.

Li Shaoheng had also drunk heavily. He stared at Bai Yuetang with naked longing.

The eyes broker passion; the heart plants desire.

At first, love twists the gut with yearning. Once consummated, it steals the soul.

All night, rain beat against the plantain leaves. Each took pleasure in a different way.

Fu Qingchuan sat by the window and brewed a pot of tea, listening to the rain. The moment the eastern sky paled, he rose and walked toward Bai Yuetang’s courtyard.

Caichun stared at him coming from outside, astonishment covering her face.

Then understanding struck. She flushed scarlet and hurried forward with an excuse to stop him.

“Young Master, my lady is still asleep. Please wait here. This servant will wake her at once.”

Fu Qingchuan smiled like a fox.

“Hush. I shall wake my wife myself. Consider it a little pleasure of the bedchamber.”

He stepped around Caichun and pushed open the door.

A man’s and a woman’s garments lay scattered across the floor. Beneath the hanging bed curtains, two clasped hands protruded.

Caichun’s face went from red to white.

“Young Master…”

She had no idea what else she could say.

Fu Qingchuan drew back the gauze and stared at the sleeping lovers beneath the quilt. After a long silence, he turned to the terrified Caichun.

“The affection between your mistress and her brother is truly profound.”

The ghostly chill in his voice drenched Caichun in cold sweat.

Fu Qingchuan locked the pair inside and began preparing a formal accusation.

Caichun slipped away while no one was watching and ran to the Li residence for help.

By the time Mr. Bai and my parents arrived, Fu Qingchuan had just finished writing the complaint.

They stopped him, calling him their worthy son-in-law over and over. They filled the room with soft words, begging him not to announce his own cuckolding to the entire capital.

“Qingchuan,” Mr. Bai said, “you are an imperial official. You may be frustrated in your career for the moment, but with me and your father-in-law behind you, your future is boundless. Why let a lovers’ quarrel and a moment’s anger make you the laughingstock of the capital?”

Father nodded furiously. “Worthy son-in-law, Mr. Bai was your teacher. His kindness is as weighty as a mountain. If not for the monk, then for the Buddha, forgive them this once!”

Fu Qingchuan’s expression was terrible.

“Under the laws of our dynasty, a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife or daughter is to be hanged. You ask me to tolerate what the law itself will not?”

Mother, who had been silent until then, suddenly cried, “Then hang that little whore! She abandoned virtue and seduced him first. How can the blame fall on my son?”

Father ordered her to be quiet. She spat at him.

“If you want my son’s life, you want mine! Hear me well: I kept evidence of what happened all those years ago. If my son dies, not one of you will live!”

Father shouted her down. “Ignorant woman! What could have happened? Mr. Bai showed us kindness, and the Li family repaid it. That is all!”

Fu Qingchuan watched the old couple turn on one another with cold eyes. Mr. Bai remained much calmer.

“Qingchuan, must you report this?”

“I must.”

Father panicked and offered lavish compensation.

“Farms, shops, precious stones, rare treasures—anything I own, anything you want. Nothing is beyond discussion!”

I had certainly never seen him so generous.

Fu Qingchuan would not yield.

“Some things cannot be bought for a thousand pieces of gold.”

Mother looked ready to kneel before him. Only then did Mr. Bai speak at his leisurely pace.

“The woman you married is a daughter of the Li family. The woman who had an affair with Li Shaoheng is a daughter of the Bai family. What, exactly, will you report?”

Everyone awoke as if from a dream.

Mother murmured, “That’s right! The marriage document filed with the authorities says, in black ink on white paper, that the bride was Li Yuanxi!”

Fu Qingchuan sneered.

“Have you all forgotten that the Bai daughter was made a princess and sent to the grasslands for the marriage alliance? If she is not in the khan’s tent but in my rear courtyard, that is a crime of deceiving the emperor.”

Mr. Bai smiled.

“The woman sent to the marriage alliance was my biological daughter. The woman who remained in the capital was my adopted daughter. Her household register is on file. Would you care to inspect it?”

I considered myself worldly, yet even I was stunned by Mr. Bai’s shamelessness.

Then again, how could a good man survive ten years of penal labor in exile?

Mr. Bai dismissed the Fu servants guarding the door and went in to fetch Bai Yuetang.

The sight of his daughter’s tearful face filled him with pain. He helped her up and said gently, “Don’t be afraid. Father is taking you home.”

Mother wept as she struck Li Shaoheng and cursed him for being ruled by lust. Father sighed and groaned, dragging them all away.

Fu Qingchuan leaned against the door with his arms folded. Watching their retreating backs, he laughed until tears ran down his face.

“Li Yuanxi, the life you lived was such a joke.”

I wanted to tell him that I knew.

When I was eight, every grain of sand blown into my mouth tasted of salt.

I had known even then.