Chapter Seventy-six: Lantern Riddles (Part Two)

“Honored guests, please come upstairs,” a lovely young maid greeted Li Sanjian, Ye Mengde, and Zhao Mingcheng with a smile from the colorful pavilion within the Cai Garden.

After a fierce competition, Li Sanjian, Ye Mengde, and Zhao Mingcheng earned the right to ascend to the third floor of the pavilion for the final riddle contest.

Among the four, the examinee from Xiajiang, He Changyan, was actually also qualified to compete on the third floor. However, being over thirty, already married, and with children, He Changyan did not wish to contend with the younger men. So, he found an excuse to quietly withdraw from the competition.

After all, this was merely youthful amusement, and perhaps tonight’s lantern festival in Cai Garden was nothing more than a matchmaking gathering. In that case, why vie with these young men? As he descended, He Changyan mused to himself.

Yet, despite these thoughts, he couldn’t help but secretly hope that his graceful withdrawal might catch the attention of one of the maidens above. It was hardly unusual for a mature man to win the affection of a younger woman, was it? He was only just past thirty, still in his prime—what harm in welcoming a young lady into his household? Even with a wife already, accepting a noble-born concubine was not unheard of. So why not?

While He Changyan indulged in his daydreams, the final round had already begun upstairs. Ten lantern riddles hung high, and Li Sanjian and the others circled the silk lanterns, calculating silently.

The riddles crafted by the Cai family were renowned for their elegance, completeness, and cleverness—never vulgar, lest they disgrace the family name. At this stage, the riddles grew ever more challenging and wide-ranging. One, for example, read: “Disdaining rouge and powder for tainting colors,” prompting the contestants to guess a person’s name from the Spring and Autumn period.

This was not Li Sanjian’s strong suit; he couldn’t solve this one at all, while Ye Mengde and Zhao Mingcheng both quickly guessed the answer: Zhong Wuyan, a figure from the Spring and Autumn era.

However, some riddles that Li Sanjian solved left Ye Mengde and Zhao Mingcheng stumped.

It seemed they were evenly matched; of the ten riddles, each contestant solved seven—a dead heat with no clear winner.

“Haha! Since we three are so evenly matched, why not split the prizes equally?” Li Sanjian said to Ye Mengde with a laugh.

He had grown impatient, eager to collect the rewards and return home to spend the New Year with his mother, Little Sprout, and Shankui. He also hoped to use some of the silk among the prizes to sew fine new clothes for his mother and Little Sprout.

Even splitting the prizes three ways, Li Sanjian would receive a fair share.

“Heh,” Ye Mengde chuckled as well, “I have no objections.”

He glanced at Zhao Mingcheng, who merely snorted and remained silent.

A group of young maids, overhearing, cast synchronized scornful glances at Li Sanjian. Only he seemed fixated on the prizes, and, after all, the outcome was not his to decide.

One maid swayed her slender waist as she hurried inside to report to her mistress.

After some time, she returned, breathless, and whispered a few words into the ear of an older maid.

The senior maid nodded, took up brush, ink, paper, and inkstone, and swiftly wrote another riddle on fine xuan paper, which she then hung high from a silk lantern.

Her calligraphy was neat and elegant, prompting Li Sanjian to marvel at the difference in upbringing—even the maids in wealthy households wrote more beautifully than he did.

“My lady says,” the maid announced, “this is the final riddle. If any of you solve it, the prize will be doubled.”

“And if none of us can solve it, what of the previous rewards?” Li Sanjian quickly asked.

“They’re already yours,” the maid replied, unable to suppress a smile. She had seen greedy people before, but never anyone so attached to such trifles.

How contemptible! The maids’ gazes landed once more on Li Sanjian.

Wine and meat behind red doors, while the bones of the poor freeze on the road! How could the rich ever understand the hardships of poverty? Li Sanjian ignored their looks and turned his attention to the lantern.

Indeed, this was a wealthy household; doubling the reward at a whim. Just ten taels of gold could feed an ordinary family for years, he mused.

“Azure lotus and jade water reflecting each other”—this was the riddle. Beside it, a line in small script instructed the contestants to guess the name of a court figure, and offered a clue: “Far at the ends of the earth, near before your eyes.”

Even so, the riddle was fiendishly difficult.

Cai Rongxue was truly a gifted woman; her riddles were devilishly clever.

There were so many people in the court, even narrowing it to those in Kaifeng, there were still over a million souls—how could Li Sanjian and the others possibly know all their surnames? Especially Li Sanjian, who had only just arrived in Kaifeng. He barely knew the names of a few ministers, let alone the commoners.

“Far at the ends of the earth, near before your eyes!” The three men could only start from this clue, but even so, the riddle remained all but unsolvable. Zhao Mingcheng, more familiar with Kaifeng and the court, fared a little better, but Li Sanjian was utterly at sea—how could he know who had set the riddle, or whom they kept by their side?

And then there was the phrase “azure lotus and jade water reflecting each other” itself, which was no less baffling.

The three contestants racked their brains to no avail, while downstairs, the onlookers murmured and guessed, offering a wild variety of answers—none correct.

Before them stood a sandglass, measuring out half an hour for their answer. If the time elapsed with no solution, the festival would end, and the Cai family’s prize would go unclaimed.

The sandglass, also called a “sand clock,” was a timekeeping device. The Cai family’s was particularly exquisite, with two glass vessels for the sand, and decorated with two bronze maidens in court dress, kneeling on either side, each holding a pure water vase. As the sand flowed into the lower vessel, clear water was released from inside, trickling from the bronze maidens’ vases to pool at their feet as a tiny, clear stream.

The workmanship was so fine that the sandglass must have been of great value. Li Sanjian couldn’t help but admire it.

All this trouble for a bit of money? Why wrack my brains over this riddle? he thought, growing more disinterested in solving it and simply waiting for the time to be up so he could collect his reward and leave.

Bored, he examined the sandglass intently.

The more he looked, the more he marveled—he would never have imagined Song dynasty craftsmanship could reach such heights. Even in his previous life, this would have been a rare treasure.

The bronze maidens were lifelike, their features so delicately wrought as to be clearly visible; the water flowed gently from the vases, pooling at their feet like a mountain spring in the wilderness. Around the stream, lotus flowers and green grasses were cast in bronze, so real they seemed to be alive.

Wait! As Li Sanjian stared at the spring, a sudden inspiration flashed in his mind.

“Azure lotus and jade water reflecting each other”—to reflect is to illuminate, and illumination is reflection; “azure lotus and jade water” together suggest “pure and bright”—which forms the name Qingzhao.

That’s it! Li Sanjian rejoiced inwardly. Could the answer to the riddle be Li Qingzhao? The surname Li, composed of “wood” under “sun” (in Chinese characters), and “azure lotus and jade water reflecting each other” is a poetic image of sunlight shining on lotus and water—together, Li Qingzhao.

Yet he could not understand what this had to do with the event at hand.

As the time ran out, and no one had spoken the correct answer, a maid shook her head regretfully, preparing to declare the contest over, when Li Sanjian suddenly blurted out, “Qingzhao! Li Qingzhao! The answer is Li Qingzhao!”

At his words, every eye in the hall, upstairs and down, turned to him in astonished silence.

“Yes!” boomed Zeng Gongming from below after a moment. “That’s it, exactly!”

“The riddle is elegant, the answer exquisite! Marvelous! Marvelous!”

“Haha, my friend, your talent is unmatched—we are in awe!”

“See, I told you! He is the foremost scholar of Lingnan!”

The crowd downstairs voiced their agreement—there could be no better answer. In their admiration, they could not help but respect Li Sanjian’s learning.

That such a young man could solve so difficult a riddle—truly, one cannot judge a person by their appearance or the sea by a bucketful of water.

Li Sanjian had, by virtue of his talent, bested all the other scholars; the laurels of this lantern festival were his without question.

Downstairs, the crowd’s gaze fixed on Li Sanjian, while upstairs, the young ladies all turned to look at Li Qingzhao, making her so uncomfortable that her cheeks blushed crimson and she wished she could disappear.

“Immortal... you...” Li Qingzhao glared at Cai Rongxue. “You! You! You actually played a trick on your own sister?”

When Cai Rongxue set the riddle, even Li Qingzhao herself had not guessed the answer. She had been wracking her brains, never imagining the answer would be her own name—a jest from her close friend.

She then shot a fierce glance at Li Sanjian, her eyes like twin swords slashing at his triumphant face.

If you knew the answer, why say it outright? Afraid no one would know your name? Aren’t you a poet? Why not answer more subtly?

Li Qingzhao fumed inwardly, wishing she could drag the annoying fellow over and demand an explanation.

“I never expected anyone to solve it, Sister Qing. Please forgive me,” Cai Rongxue said with a gentle smile.