The heart of poetry lay in tone and meter. Keep that foundation intact, and even in another world the poems Xu Qian had banked through nine years of obligatory schooling still came in handy.
Xu Xinnian glanced at him, chin lifted: "A bird up in the sky, a worm down on the ground. The bird swoops down low, the worm gets turned around."
"Pfft..." Xu Lingyue covered her giggle with her hand. But Xu Qian glared at her hard, and she flushed and lowered her head.
...He's too mean with his tongue. I want to wallop him. Xu Qian's mouth twitched. That was a poem the original owner had written at age ten, when the scholar of a grandfather—Aunt's own father—gave lessons to the three Xu siblings (Xu Lingyin had still been a tadpole then). Once, he'd quizzed them on poetry, and this masterpiece was born.
Aunt sneered: "Ningyan, it's not that your aunt looks down on you, but old Xu's family only produced one scholar seed, and that's Xinnian. The two of you—uncle and nephew—write like worms crawling across the page. You can't even write properly, and still you talk of composing poetry." She pursed her lips; even her eye-roll carried charm.
Second Uncle felt awkward and coughed: "Ningyan, our sort shouldn't poke our noses into bookish matters. Today's a day off—how about a spar in the yard?" Which was to say: stop sticking your nose in, kid. Scholar business is beyond you.
"Yellow clouds veil the sun at dusk across a thousand li," Xu Qian said flatly.
Aunt rolled her eyes and went back to her porridge. Second Uncle wiped oil from the little girl's mouth. But Xu Xinnian frowned. A single line told him little, yet the fact that Xu Qian could draft such meticulous seven-character verse was already genuinely surprising.
"North wind scatters wild geese amid falling snow."
Xu Xinnian blinked; a scene took shape before his mind's eye. Xu Lingyue lifted her head, her limpid eyes staring at her cousin in wonder. Xu Qian lowered his head to his porridge and said nothing.
"The rest? What's the rest?" Xu Xinnian pressed eagerly. Like a storyteller slamming his gavel at the best part: come back next time. Enough to make a man want to punch someone.
"I can't write poetry." Xu Qian shot Aunt a casual glance—he certainly wasn't hinting at an apology, heavens no. Aunt just looked especially dignified and lovely today.
Aunt widened her bright eyes and turned to her son: "Is that poem any good?"
Xu Lingyue said softly: "It's full of atmosphere!" She had read little, but even she could tell the opening lines were exquisite.
Seeing how his children reacted, Second Uncle was stunned, staring at Xu Qian without blinking.
"Fear not that ahead you'll have no intimate friend; who in all the world does not know your name?" Xu Qian chewed his dough stick and tossed out the closing lines.
Clatter... Xu Xinnian's chopsticks dropped to the table. "Fear not that ahead you'll have no intimate friend; who in all the world does not know your name..." he murmured, lost in the mood. Xu Lingyue shivered, goosebumps crawling over her hand.
Second Uncle bared a grin: "Damned if that doesn't give a man the creeps." Aunt refused to concede in her heart, yet agreed with her husband.
Such was the power of poetry—a shock to the spirit. Even someone who couldn't write a line, who knew nothing of tonal rules, would feel the hair on their neck stand up at an immortal work. Xu Qian knew the feeling well from school, whenever the anthology in his textbook struck him with a masterpiece.
"Yellow clouds veil the sun at dusk across a thousand li, north wind scatters wild geese amid falling snow. Fear not that ahead you'll have no intimate friend; who in all the world does not know your name?"
Xu Xinnian rose, excited red blooming on his cheeks—making his already exquisite, delicate features look... positively radiant. A masterpiece, truly! He had little gift for the art, but as a scholar, who didn't long to compose a hundred poems in a drunken evening? Hearing great poetry, one couldn't help tapping the table in rhythm.
"You... since when do you write poetry?" He stared dead at Xu Qian, gaze bright, shaken, bewildered.
"When did I ever say I couldn't?" Xu Qian laughed. "A poem I wrote as a child says nothing about me now. I've always had a gift for poetry—I just never showed it."
"So Ningyan is the real scholar seed of the Xu family!" Second Uncle beamed: "Had I known, I'd have put you in the classics and set Cijiu to martial training instead."
Aunt refused to yield but found no strong rebuttal. No—if that were so, I'd fail at letters and the boy at arms... Xu Qian knew the original owner had been a hopeless student; studying was pure waste. And Xu Xinnian was no martial prospect—expecting a pampered cream-puff to lift iron?
"Still, this was Ningyan's poem—now you can leave it at that. Cijiu, you mustn't pass it off as your own. That's not the act of a scholar," said Second Uncle.
Xu Xinnian gave a "hmph" and waved his father off. He turned to Xu Qian: "Let me borrow this poem. I'll make clear you're the one who composed it."
"Composed" is right... Xu Qian nodded: "Go on, take it and strut before the masses." For a scholar, everything is about strutting.
He had planned all along to hand the poem over so Xu Xinnian could court connections; he cared little whose name it bore. Poetry did him little good anyway, which is why he'd held back all month—the circumstances didn't allow it. Spending every day among blade-wielding constables, reciting verse at them would do less good than teaching them a bawdy folk ditty.
"The poem's title?" Xu Xinnian asked.
...I've forgotten it. Xu Qian's face stiffened. "This poem came to me in a flash, so it has no title. Make one up best you can."
After breakfast, Xu Xinnian led his father's beloved horse from the back courtyard and hurried away. Uncle and nephew sparred in the yard, stopping when they'd touched enough to make their point.
"Not bad—your reflexes have grown. To go further, you must step into Qi Refining. But your qi only becomes real through communion with heaven and earth." Second Uncle dabbed his face: "Besides medicinal baths, you'd need a Spirit Refining master to open the Heavenly Gate. Otherwise you'll never reach it." Spirit Refining was the seventh rank of the martial path.
"What are you getting at?" Xu Qian mopped his sweat.
"Back in the Mountain-Sea Campaign I went through fire and water, amassed battle merits, and only then bought a military expert to open my Heavenly Gate." He sighed: "The year I came home, Xinnian was born. These days the world is fairly peaceful—you don't even get a chance to rack up merits, so how will you refine your Qi? Or are you never to start a family? Your uncle is getting on. My one wish is to see you married with sons, to face your late father with a clear conscience."
"I'll take it one step at a time," Xu Qian said evasively. Besides merits, there was another path: throwing money at it. Formula and experts could be settled with silver.
Knights-errant break the law with their strength, so the court kept a strict leash on martial artists. No Spirit Refining master might open anyone's Heavenly Gate in private; for their own kin, they had to file a record with the authorities. Yet officialdom in Great Feng was rotten—greedy officials ran amok, imperial authority withered. Plenty of masters quietly hunted for clients on the black market. Xu Qian's tireless pursuit of money was precisely so silver could stand in for merits. Otherwise, stuck at Essence Refining forever, what use would his iron rod have?
Aunt led her two girls over, under the verandah eaves: "Husband, the sun is warm and pleasant. Take Lingyin and Lingyue out for a stroll, why don't you?"
Second Uncle frowned: "I have things to do."
"Isn't today your day off?"
"I've arranged to drink with colleagues and must leave soon. Ningyan can take them."
Girls from bookish families were usually raised deep in the inner chambers, never free to wander the streets. But the Xu household was a family of warriors, without such rigid discipline.
Xu Qian looked back and met the clear, bright gaze of a girl in the flower of youth. The beauty who outshone her betters pursed her lips, shy and introverted, and lowered her head a little.
"I've nothing better to do," Xu Qian nodded.
Come to think of it, the last time I took a sixteen-year-old girl shopping in my old life was back in the Golden Times days—and even then, she couldn't hold a candle to Xu Lingyue.