Chapter 125: Fellow Travelers in Misfortune

“So you were fostered in the Cai household from childhood?”

After hearing Cai Rongxue’s story, Li Sanjian fell into deep thought.

It turned out that Cai Rongxue was the youngest daughter of Cai Que, the late chief minister of Song. Of course, Li Sanjian did not know that her father’s name was Cai Que; he knew only that her father had once served as chief minister.

Cai Que was a native of Quanzhou in Fujian Circuit. He passed the metropolitan examination in the fourth year of the Jiayou era, and from that moment embarked upon his official career.

Cai Que lived during a period of violent upheaval in the Song court—a time of surging currents, of sweeping reforms, of abolishing the old and ushering in the new, and of Wang Anshi’s reforms.

He was one of the principal supporters of Wang Anshi’s reform program, and remained steadfast in his backing of it.

The Song court was beset by crises on every side. The movement to revive Confucian learning encouraged the coming of reform, while the rise of the Song literati likewise lent momentum to the transformation of the old order.

For Cai Que, who came from Quanzhou, a prosperous southern center that placed great importance on education, the prevailing ideal among scholars—that learning should be applied to the governance of the world—spurred him, like so many ambitious young men, to throw himself into that magnificent and tumultuous reform movement.

Born into an ordinary family of Song officials, Cai Que’s rise through the bureaucracy was naturally far from smooth. He rose and fell repeatedly, like the tide advancing and retreating.

After passing the metropolitan examination, Cai Que first served as judicial assistant in Binzhou. He later held such posts as Administrator of the Right Wing Affairs Office, Registrar of the Three Classes, Acting Investigating Censor, and Commissioner of the Court of Agriculture.

During his tenure as Investigating Censor, he impeached officials including Han Zhen, Zhang Zongdao, Wang Xiufu, Shen Kuo, and Wang Shao. The number of officials he accused was considerable—even Wang Anshi himself had once been impeached by Cai Que.

Some of Cai Que’s impeachments concerned corruption, misconduct, or violations of the law. Others were motivated by struggles for power and by his desire to strike at political enemies.

As Investigating Censor, Cai Que made impeachment his duty, and in doing so offended many officials at court.

In the fifth month of the second year of the Yuanfeng era, Cai Que was promoted to Assistant Director of State Affairs. From then on, he entered the central government and vigorously advanced Wang Anshi’s reforms.

In the eighth year of Yuanfeng, he was promoted to Left Vice Chancellor and concurrently Vice Director of the Chancellery—in other words, he became the court’s Left Chancellor. His official career reached its peak.

That same year, Emperor Shenzong of Song, Zhao Xu, died in sorrow at the Funing Palace. He was succeeded by ten-year-old Zhao Xu, and the political winds at court immediately shifted. Empress Dowager Gao and Sima Guang seized control of the government. The reformers were then attacked, along with the Yuanfeng faction. As the leader of that faction, Cai Que naturally bore the brunt of the assault. In the calamity that could no longer be stopped, he became the first man to be brought under accusation.

At the time, Cai Que was the court’s Left Chancellor. He was attacked from every side on one pretext or another, stripped of office, and demoted again and again until he was banished to the wild lands of Lingnan.

After Cai Que was exiled to Lingnan, only three people remained at his side: his concubine, Pipa, and the two daughters she had borne him. One of them was Cai Rongxue. Their circumstances were unbearably bleak.

Before long, Cai Que’s concubine Pipa contracted the miasmatic plague of Lingnan and died of it. Cai Que himself fell ill and soon died there as well, becoming a chief minister who perished in exile.

Again and again it came down to this: factional strife, the persecution of political opponents, the destruction of one’s enemies simply because they belonged to another faction.

After listening to Cai Rongxue’s account, Li Sanjian sighed inwardly. Su Shi had suffered the same fate, and Cai Que had suffered it too. Even Li Sanjian himself, born in Qiongtai’s Danzhou, might, at the root of things, have been caught up in the same calamity.

At that moment, he could not help feeling that he and Cai Rongxue were fellow sufferers.

A grand and vigorous reform had turned into factional warfare, into the persecution of political enemies, into a struggle for power and profit. The conflict had grown ever fiercer and showed no sign of weakening even now. Li Sanjian suspected that even Wang Anshi had never imagined the enormous transformation his reforms would bring about. Perhaps Emperor Shenzong’s premature death had also been closely connected to it.

How many wives had been separated from husbands, how many families destroyed, how many people torn apart by life and death because of such things? How many tragedies had they created in the human world?

Why must it be so? Why make everyone suffer?

Li Sanjian sighed inwardly.

“You have an elder sister as well? Where is she now?” he asked Cai Rongxue.

At his words, Cai Rongxue gave a slight shake of her head.

“I was separated from my elder sister when I was very young. I do not know where she is now.”

After Cai Rongxue’s parents fell ill and died in Lingnan, she was first fostered by a farming family. Later, when Cai Jing took pity on the plight of his kinsman and located that household, Cai Rongxue’s sister had already vanished without a trace. It was later conjectured that she had been abducted and sold by a broker, but no one knew where she had been taken, or whether she was alive or dead.

“Miss, please accept my condolences. I…” Li Sanjian paused, then continued, “The old minister Cai should have had other family members, should he not? Where are they? Why did they… why did they completely ignore you?”

Li Sanjian guessed that Cai Que had had many brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. Why, then, had not a single one of them cared for Cai Rongxue? Why had they left her to fend for herself? Even if she had been fostered by such a wealthy relative of Cai Que, surely they should not have treated her so coldly.

Would it not have been better for her own relatives to take her back and raise her than to leave her in another family’s care? At the very least, they could have kept in contact with her. At the very least, they could have shown her some concern.

“My mother was a concubine. I was born of a secondary union,” Cai Rongxue replied bleakly.

So that was the reason, Li Sanjian thought.

The circumstances were much as he had expected. Cai Que had not only two brothers, but also many children. Yet not one of them had cared for or looked after Cai Rongxue. The reason was simply that she had been born of a concubine—and of a concubine who had never been favored by the family. Thus, after Cai Que died, none of his family cared whether Cai Rongxue lived or perished. They simply left her to her fate.

Even after Emperor Zhezong, Zhao Xu, began ruling in his own right, he had granted the request of Cai Que’s son, restored Cai Que’s reputation, and returned his residence and confiscated property. Yet even then, not one member of Cai Que’s family paid any attention to Cai Rongxue, as though Cai Que had never had such a daughter at all.

The distinction between legitimate and secondary offspring? Was it truly so important? Was a child born of a concubine not still their own flesh and blood?

Li Sanjian was secretly angered on Cai Rongxue’s behalf.

After all, he too had been born of a secondary union. Li Qing had never taken a principal wife; he had merely brought Fu Erniang into his household as a concubine. Thus Li Sanjian himself was of secondary birth, born not to a principal wife.

“I have made a fool of myself before you, Master Li,” Cai Rongxue said sadly.

“You need not say that, Miss,” Li Sanjian hurriedly replied. “I had not the slightest intention of mocking you. Miss… what is your name?”

Even now, Li Sanjian did not know Cai Rongxue’s given name. He knew only that her surname was Cai, and that Li Qingzhao had called her an Immortal Exile. Could her name possibly be Cai Immortal Exile? The thought reached his lips, and he blurted out the question.

Who asked a young lady for her maiden name so directly? What a strange man. He carried an air entirely unlike that of anyone else. What sort of person was he?

“I am merely a woman of the inner quarters. How could I have a name?” Cai Rongxue could only answer in this way.

Had she told him the truth outright, others would certainly have thought her frivolous. It was not something a sheltered young woman ought to do.

Besides, that was simply how the world was. Many women had only a family name and no personal name at all, especially daughters of poor households. Even Fu Erniang, Li Sanjian’s mother, was one such woman. As her own son, Li Sanjian did not even know what her true name was. Perhaps she had never had one.

Fu Erniang had been the second daughter in her family, which was why people called her Second Madam Fu. Li Sanjian wondered how many daughters there had been in Cai Rongxue’s family.

“Oh, if that is the case, may I call you Miss Cai?” Li Sanjian said with a smile. “Miss Cai, I truly had no intention of mocking you. The reason is that I too was born of a concubine, just as you were.”

Since Cai Rongxue was Cai Que’s youngest daughter, Li Sanjian could only address her as Miss Cai.

“You were as well?” Cai Rongxue’s expression softened at once, and she asked in some surprise.

At the same time, Li Sanjian’s form of address carried a faintly teasing intimacy, which made Cai Rongxue’s heart flutter. A delicate flush appeared upon her face.

Was it really so surprising?

Li Sanjian wondered inwardly. Her large, limpid eyes were flashing with astonishment—almost with excitement.

Still, her bright, lovely eyes were truly beautiful, so beautiful that one scarcely dared look directly into them.

“My father was named Li Qing. He too was banished with his father to Qiongtai’s Danzhou. I also came here after being demoted…” Li Sanjian then slowly told Cai Rongxue about his own origins.

“Since we are both fallen people at the ends of the earth, why should we have needed to know each other before meeting?”

At the end, Li Sanjian sighed.

Cai Rongxue’s face grew even redder. Fortunately, a thin veil concealed her features, so Li Sanjian did not notice her reaction, and she was spared still greater embarrassment.

The line, “Since we are both fallen people at the ends of the earth, why should we have needed to know each other before meeting?” came from “The Song of the Pipa,” written by the Tang poet Bai Juyi when he was demoted to the post of Sima of Jiangzhou. In that poem, Bai Juyi described how he and the pipa player, both fallen people wandering at the edge of the world, had felt an instant affinity and sympathy for one another. Yet the verse also carried a faint suggestion of mutual attraction, even a trace of playful flirtation.

Thus, when Li Sanjian suddenly spoke those words, their meaning was difficult to fathom.

What… what could he possibly mean?

Cai Rongxue pondered this in secret.

“Miss Cai… what is the matter?” Seeing her suddenly lower her head and no longer respond to him, Li Sanjian asked in confusion.

He noticed that the tips of her ears had reddened, and his puzzlement deepened.

“N-Nothing. You… please continue. I am listening,” Cai Rongxue stammered.

“Really? Nothing at all?” Li Sanjian asked.

“Truly. It is… it is nothing. You… you…”

Her face grew even redder, and she felt as though it were burning.

“Oh, good.”

Li Sanjian then asked, “Miss Cai, what is the name of your foster father?”

To this point, he still did not know his foster father’s name. Was he called Cai something or other?

“Foster father? Master Li, that is too… too…” Cai Rongxue faltered. “How could a daughter dare to speak her father’s name? It would be a violation of his tabooed name.”

How unpleasant, the maid Xiao Qin added silently.

Really, was it so serious merely to ask someone’s name? Li Sanjian thought. Had he not already introduced himself? Why were there so many taboos?

Besides, Cai Rongxue had just mentioned her biological father’s name. Why, then, was she unwilling to say her foster father’s name? Li Sanjian could not understand it at all.