Qinghe County, Drunken Moon Pavilion.
The name of this establishment sounds elegant, but in truth, its business is so slow it could bore the birds to death. The private room on the second floor was drafty on all sides, with two holes torn in the window paper letting the night wind whistle in. The tea on the table had long gone cold, and no waiter came up to refill it.
Su Bingzhang sat at the head of the table. He was the headmaster of the Luming Academy in Qinghe County, a man who usually carried himself with an air of lofty refinement. But now, his face was set harder than the stone lions guarding the academy's entrance.
A dozen or so men sat in the room, all of them scholars of some standing in Qinghe County. When this lot usually gathered, they would recite poetry and compose couplets, their voices louder than anyone's. Today, they were all struck dumb, each shrinking their necks and staring intently at the cracks between the floor tiles.
Su Bingzhang rapped his fingers on the table three times.
The sound wasn't loud, but in the deathly quiet room, it was rather jarring.
"Have you all lost your tongues?" Su Bingzhang swept his gaze around the room, his eyes settling on an old man with a goatee to his left. "Master Wang, this is a major affair for our Qinghe County. The Tenth Poetry Gathering is upon us, the invitations have been sent out, and we still haven't settled on a venue. If this gets out, what face will we have left?"
Master Wang's hand, which had been stroking his beard, paused. He didn't dare reply.
The matter was indeed thorny.
A few days prior, word had come from the capital. Wang Jin, a Presented Scholar from our prefecture who had left years ago, was returning to his hometown to visit family. This would normally be just a clichéd tale of returning in glory, but this time was different. Wang Jin wasn't returning alone; he was bringing a distinguished guest with him.
The nephew of the Right Vice Minister of Revenue, Young Master Song.
This changed everything.
The poetry gathering was no longer a leisurely affair for sipping tea and reciting verses; it was a stage being set for this Young Master Song. To catch the eye of such a noble guest, to earn a single word of praise from him, would be more useful than ten years of bitter study in a library. This was a ladder to the heavens.
Who wouldn't want to climb it?
But to climb a ladder, you need a ladder first.
"The Shengping Pavilion we originally chose..." Su Bingzhang sighed. "I went to see it yesterday."
Everyone pricked up their ears.
"Unacceptable." Su Bingzhang shook his head, his tone full of disdain. "The vermilion lacquer on the pillars is peeling off, revealing the rotten wood beneath. The stairs groan and creak with every step, as if they might collapse at any moment. What kind of place is that to receive guests? It's a beggar's den."
"Young Master Song is a noble guest from the capital, accustomed to staggering wealth. Leading him to such a dilapidated place, even if he says nothing, he would surely think we are treating him with disrespect. If that first impression is ruined, the path forward is cut off."
Someone below muttered quietly, "But what can we do? The county office won't allocate funds for repairs, and we have no money either..."
"No money, then think of another way!" Su Bingzhang said, somewhat irritably. "Qinghe County is this big; surely we can find one decent venue?"
"Perhaps... Squire Li's garden in the west of the city?" a scholar tentatively suggested. "It has artificial hills and flowing water, the scenery is passable."
Su Bingzhang didn't even look at him. "Vulgar. Squire Li is a salt merchant; the whole place reeks of money. Young Master Song comes from a scholarly family; he despises the ways of merchants most of all. You want him to compose poetry in a merchant's home? Do you want to make him sick?"
The scholar shrank his neck and fell silent.
"Then... what about Yunyin Temple?" someone else offered. "An ancient temple deep in the mountains, quiet and elegant. That can't be vulgar, right?"
"Too far," Master Wang rebutted. "Yunyin Temple is halfway up the mountain. Carriages can't go up; it's a half-hour walk on the mountain path. Young Master Song has a body of thousand-gold worth. Make him climb a mountain? If he gets tired, or worse, falls, which of us could bear the responsibility?"
This wouldn't work, that wouldn't work.
The atmosphere in the room grew even more stifling.
The last few years had been bad, with droughts followed by locust plagues. The surrounding counties were all poverty-stricken. When common folk can't even eat their fill, who has spare money to repair pavilions or build towers? A tour around the entire Qinghe County reveals that aside from the county hall being somewhat spacious, everywhere else is either dilapidated or old. The slightly more presentable places are all private residences of local rich men, their taste so vulgar it makes your eyes hurt.
Su Bingzhang picked up the cold tea and took a sip, frowning at the bitterness.
This was a case of even the cleverest housewife can't cook without rice.
Even if their bellies were filled with brilliant prose, even if they planned this poetry gathering to be the most magnificent affair, without a proper venue, the show couldn't go on.
"Perhaps..." Master Wang hesitated, "we postpone? Say the preparations are insufficient, or..."
"Nonsense!" Su Bingzhang slammed the teacup heavily onto the table, tea splashing out. "How can you even suggest such a thing? The invitations have already reached Presented Scholar Wang; his itinerary is set. Saying we want to postpone now is tantamount to pushing him away. If we offend Presented Scholar Wang, do any of us still want to have a future in officialdom?"
Master Wang's old face flushed red from the scolding, and he lowered his head, pretending to be dead.
Despair.
A sense of powerlessness they had never known before shrouded these self-proclaimed refined literati. This wasn't just a problem of a venue; it was their lifetime chance to turn their fortunes around. They could see the opportunity right at their doorstep, but because their own threshold was too rotten, they couldn't welcome the god of wealth inside.
Some began to sigh, others to wring their hands, and some stared blankly at the holes in the window.
In the corner, a young scholar who had remained silent the whole time stirred.
He was dressed shabbily, his cuffs worn white, his faded long gown ill-fitting. His name was Scholar Lin, a failed Provincial Graduate who held little presence in the academy, usually just there to make up the numbers.
Scholar Lin hesitated for a long time, raising his hand and then putting it down, finally speaking up timidly. "Headmaster..."
Su Bingzhang, already annoyed, looked up impatiently at the sound of a voice. "What is it?"
Scholar Lin swallowed, his voice soft but clear in the quiet room.
"This student has heard... there might be a place that would work."
Su Bingzhang didn't take it seriously, asking offhandedly, "Where? If it's somewhere in this county, forget it. I've seen them all."
"N-no... not in this county." Scholar Lin kept his head down, not quite daring to look at the others' expressions. "The neighboring county... Taoyuan County."
At these words, the room fell even quieter.
Several gazes simultaneously pinned Scholar Lin, filled with surprise, but even more so, with mockery.
Taoyuan County?
What kind of wretched place is that?
It's an even poorer backwater than Qinghe County. There's nothing there but rocks and refugees. I heard they had a famine not long ago. The county magistrate is a muddle-headed fool who only knows how to embezzle money, and his daughter is even more notorious, a local tyrant known throughout the region.
Hold an elegant poetry gathering in a place like that?
Isn't that leading a noble guest into a pigsty?
"Scholar Lin, have you studied until your mind's gone soft?" Master Wang sneered. "Don't you know what Taoyuan County is like? They don't even have a proper tavern there; the streets are full of beggars pleading for food. What do you want Young Master Song to see there? Refugees fighting over scraps, or that Xu family shrew beating people in the street?"
A few low chuckles sounded around the room.
Su Bingzhang also frowned, thinking this student was being foolish and wasting everyone's time.
Scholar Lin's face flushed crimson, but he remembered the wild tales his distant cousin had brought back from Taoyuan County just two days prior, and that exquisitely crafted glass bead he had brought with him.
