Chapter 174 — Drinking

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Ji Yong swaggered through the covered gallery and into the front courtyard.

A crowd of people came toward him, clustered around an old man.

The old man was of middling height, his hair and beard wholly white yet his complexion ruddy. He wore a straight-hemmed robe of sapphire-blue Hangzhou silk, neither new nor old, a small red-agate bottle hanging at his waist, and his eyes were bright and piercing, with a flicker of the curiosity that belonged only to the young.

The moment he caught sight of Ji Yong he began to chuckle. "Jianming, how did you know I was here? I expressly told them not to breathe a word to you. I hear you've been doing well at the Hanlin Academy? Come, let me have a look—have you improved any?"

"Great-grandfather!" Ji Yong's eyes went wide. He whipped his head around and glared ferociously at Zixi, his whole face saying, 'Why didn't you tell me?'

Zixi shrank back and hastened to explain: "It was the two masters who gave the order—they said it was the Old Master's wish to give you a surprise, so we said nothing."

"A shock I can see well enough, but where the joy comes from I can't fathom!" Ji Yong muttered, and stalked over with a stiff face to make his bow and call out, "Great-grandfather."

Old Master Ji reached out by habit to pat Ji Yong's head—only to find that Ji Yong was no longer the callow youth he had been, but a full head taller than the old man himself. He had to raise his hand to reach, and beaming, he said "Good boy"—a scene that could not help but look a little comical.

Ji Song and Ji Qi lowered their eyes and pretended to have seen nothing.

The others likewise turned their heads away.

The corner of Ji Yong's mouth twitched.

Old Master Ji had already taken Ji Yong by the hand, and as they walked he talked: "Where were you off to? It's rare for the whole family to gather under one roof this year—don't go out to play. Keep an old man company. I've brought several inkstones from Jiangnan, tribute from your eldest uncle. Among them is one of Yishui stone and one of Longwei stone. You can give them a look for me." So saying, he glanced back at the grandsons and great-grandsons trailing behind him and laughed. "Later on, each of you take one for your own use."

At this, Ji Yong's several cousins crowded forward to curry favor, thanking Old Master Ji and complaining that he played favorites. "What use is an inkstone without ink? You may as well be a good host to the end, Old Master—grant us a few sticks of pine-soot ink to go with them!"

"I knew I shouldn't have opened my mouth," said Old Master Ji, wearing the look of a man whose heart and flesh alike were being cut. "Open my mouth and it's a great bleeding of my purse. An inkstone, yes, there's one to be had; ink, no. So—do you want them or not?"

Everyone adored the old master, that merry old urchin, and they laughed and clamored, "Naturally we want the inkstones—and the ink besides!"

The whole party went into the hall laughing and joking.

Ji Yong followed at Old Master Ji's side, grimacing as though his teeth ached.

With anyone else, he would not have given them a second glance before walking off. But before Old Master Ji, whom he had never once bested from childhood up, he felt not only the deference owed to an elder but a kind of respect for the stronger man. Unwilling as he was, he sat down with the old master in the hall.

Old Master Ji leaned toward him and said, "Your examination master, His Excellency Yang, cannot praise you enough. He says you understand farming—that you're no ordinary scholar. He thinks so highly of you that, now that I'm here, I must surely call on him. Tomorrow you'll come with me to pay our respects to His Excellency Yang. We're both from South Zhili—a distant relative is no match for a near neighbor. When you've nothing pressing, you ought to go and seek his counsel often."

What was the point of going?

Every time he went, it was all about farming. He'd been driven to asking every steward who knew a thing about crops, and only by that grace had he escaped exposure...

Ji Yong answered sulkily, "Yes."

Old Master Ji's face bloomed with delight. He paid Ji Yong no more mind and fell to talking with Ji Song and Ji Qi.

The business of going to see Chen Yanzhou naturally came to nothing.

Not only that—Old Master Ji dragged Ji Yong off to call on this person today and that person tomorrow, in the fair name of introducing him to old friends. Ji Song and Ji Qi gave their wholehearted support, so that apart from his hours at the Hanlin Academy, Ji Yong spent all his time keeping Old Master Ji company.

In the blink of an eye it was high summer, and still Old Master Ji showed not the least inclination to go home. His interest only grew keener: he meant to walk every place he had walked in his youth, and the places he had never walked he must walk now, to make up for old regrets.

Just then word came from his people that Chen Yanzhou would be setting out for Zhending in a few days.

Ji Yong was fed up past bearing. He flung out his sleeve—he would play along no longer.

Ji Qi's veins stood out on his temples. He took Ji Yong to task: "The Old Master has only a few good years left. While he can still eat and drink, if we, his sons and grandsons, don't do our duty by him, are we to wait until he's in the ground to show our filial piety? If you dare to be insolent to his face, you can go kneel in the ancestral hall!"

The Ji family ancestral hall was in Yixing.

Ji Yong simply went and knelt in the family shrine, before the portraits of the Ji ancestors.

Ji Qi nearly choked with rage. He hunted high and low for a feather duster to beat Ji Yong with.

Even Madam Han thought Ji Yong had gone too far. She stopped Ji Song, who had come to intercede: "Filial piety comes before all else. If he doesn't even understand that, he may as well be beaten to death."

Ji Song sighed.

Ji Qi gave Ji Yong a beating.

Ji Yong said, "So I don't have to trail Great-grandfather all over the place every day anymore?"

Ji Qi was speechless for a long while.

The moment Ji Yong came off duty, he went to find Chen Yanzhou.

Chen Yanzhou was not at the shop.

Tian Fugui chatted with Ji Yong most attentively: "...the Seventh Master sent for Old Chen to have a word, so he may be a while getting back. Might I ask what business Your Honor has with Old Chen? Shall I pass on a message? Or shall I tell him you came looking for him, and have him call on you tomorrow?"

Should he go and see his aunt?

Ji Yong turned it over in his mind and wandered absently out of the shop.

A carriage drew up beside him, and someone pulled back the curtain and called out, "Ji Jianming, what are you doing here?"

Ji Yong looked up and saw He Yu sitting in the carriage, arrayed in brocade.

Ever since their brawl at the Drunken Immortal Tavern, He Yu had decided that Ji Yong was a man of bold and generous spirit, while Ji Yong had concluded that He Yu was a fellow of some backbone, and so the two had drifted into a casual acquaintance—when Ji Yong passed the imperial examination, He Yu sent a congratulatory gift; when He Yu married, Ji Yong came to drink at the wedding feast.

"Nothing much. Just wandering about." Instinctively, he did not want He Yu to know that this was Dou Zhiwei's stationery shop.

He Yu did not mind. He nodded and said, "I'm off to the Drunken Immortal Tavern for a drink. Care to join me? Chen Zexi is hosting—Xu Zhiji, Yang Yunxiao, and Cai Guyuan will all be there."

Chen Zexi was a Supervising Secretary of the Ministry of Rites, only thirty-two this year. A grandson of the former Grand Secretary Chen Yan, he was one of the most celebrated young talents at court, and the woman He Yu had married was Chen Zexi's cousin.

Xu Zhiji and Yang Yunxiao were Ji Yong's colleagues at the Hanlin Academy, both of them young as well.