Rising Phoenix

Feng Zhiwei smiled coldly as she slowly turned.

When she finally made eye contact, Hua Gongmei’s smile turned stiff.

“I don’t dare.” Feng Zhiwei calmly replied.

Hua Gongmei paused, having thought Feng Zhiwei’s impatient and cold eyes were signs of an explosion. Her sneer deepened and she opened her mouth to speak.

But Feng Zhiwei was already returning to her table, smiling as she called back: “I am afraid that when you lose again, you’ll be too furious and ashamed.”

“You…” Hua Gongmei stuttered, blanking for a moment before barking an angry laugh, “Less talk, since you agree, let us try the simplest Poetry Couplet Contest. To the time of one incense stick, forty lines. Whoever cannot reply loses. I’d like to see how Elder Sister Feng plans to makes me furious and ashamed.”

Couplet contests were not difficult, but a stick of incense burned very quickly. Forty lines in such a short span of time would demand the quickest of reactions and the swiftest of thinking.

Everyone knew that the Hua Family’s young lady was famous throughout Dijing for her quick thinking, and they were all eager to watch this game unfold.

“Alright.” The Tian Sheng Emperor agreed, extremely pleased: “The stakes will be decided later, let’s first have a good luck at both of these young lady’s talent.”

“A quick mind is the quality I respect the most in a woman,” Ning Yi announced, smiling. “The gates to the Chu Mansion will always be open to the winner.”

What did that promise mean? Hua Gongmei’s eyes flashed, her hope kindling anew as Feng Zhiwei pouted disdainfully — this man was playing his tricks again!

“Please.” Feng Zhiwei said, not bothering with any more words.

The incense was lit; cyan smoke curling upwards into the sky.

Hua Gongmei called out quickly.

“Without poetry, one should not have guests to the plum blossoming!”[1]

“A delightful melody will always called down immortals from the clouds!”[2]

“A splashing oar raises misted vapor to a fisherman’s song!”[3]

“The moon blankets a long river as a soft sound calls!”[4]

“Spring cries out to greet the aged peach blossom’s flowering!” [5]

“Autumn wind blows anew to beckon the lotus’s renewal!” [6]

“Poem done, brush is cast aside as laughter faces the heavens!”[7]

“Drink and sword in hand, trampling down the snow!”[8]

“When tea intoxicates, what need is there for alcohol!”[9]

“With the fragrance of books, I have no need for flowers!”[10]

Over ten lines were exchanged in a flash as Feng Zhiwei ignored Hua Gongmei, smiling calmly as she poured out one cup after another.

“Fated are meetings and partings; futile is beauty’s spring before the misted rain!”[11]

“All suffering, right or wrong, stems from love; vain are the eyes frosted by the storm!”[12]

If short couplets could not stop her, then longer ones would have to do. Hua Gongmei grit her teeth.

“I watched you fall, as a sword flying to the west and a dragon dancing to welcome spring. Now I sit, listening to the rain pour beyond the eaves of the pavilion; thick curtains shield against the clarion moon; who left cares for these white hairs that fall like lonely snow!”

“I linger, bidding farewell to the dust. A boat heads east as the phoenix lute softly sounds. Alone, I pour out wine to the moon, forgetting, pretending that the peach blossoms wilted in but a dream. This small pavilion stands lonely in the vast wind.”

“Wonderful!” A voice called out as applause rang out. The skill demanded for the responding composition vastly outstripped the difficulty of the caller; after all, the challenger could have prepared their lines in advance.

Hua Gongmei trembled, but she refused to give up. She turned and stared dazedly at Ning Yi, remembering the moment many years ago when she’d first met Ning Yi. His elegance and temperament had lodged itself in her heart, and from that day all her poems and essays were composed for him — how deep was her affection, yet how cold was reality. Today, with His Majesty’s secret support, she had thought that her dream might come true, but every step seemed awry, and every choice a mistake; everything lead up to this moment when she would lose against this ugly, no name woman!

A deep sadness filled her heart.

“Who knows heaven’s plans or what fate the voyagers meet? The Prince that year — golden belted and violet robed, white jade cup in hand, sharp sword by hip — amidst the red Tree Peony he admired the night’s moon and laughed at fame that comes and goes with the breeze. Who could have known how inevitable the fall of love; but in vain have the bamboo shoots grown, in vain have the zither’s been played.”

This lass, was she finally losing hope?

Feng Zhiwei turned and regarded her opponent. Hua Gongmei perked up when no line was given in reply, but Feng Zhiwei was only pausing to throw back and finish her cup.

The liquor was finished, and the line produced.

“God sighs at creation and ponders the warrants of an afterlife? When we first met you wore a blue jade armlet, a green bamboo flute in hand; glittering eyes met as orioles and swallows sang, but our meeting was forbidden, cursed by the Palace’s cruelty. Lament the gathering of dust; lament the bonds torn asunder like chaff before the wind; if I had known what pain and despair would come, loyal would I have stayed to a life of frost and snow; but let cry the Guzheng’s sorrow!”

When her words were finished, applause and acclamation called forth like the pounding waves of the ocean; and Hua Gongmei tottered backwards a step, her face pale as death. Feng Zhiwei calmly refilled her cup — she had warned her; the waters of the Imperial Palace were deep, and life was easier if one knew when to back down.

But sometimes people refused to take the easy route; Hua Gongmei’s face flashed a dozen expressions before she finally lost control and ranted.

“Your face is as a yellow rotted flower!”

“Your expression is resentful as a cleaver.”

“Your decorum is imbecilic as a child’s!”

“Your expression is resentful as a cleaver.”

“Your language is as coarse as an old shrew’s!”

“Your expression is resentful as a cleaver.”

The square filled with laughter, and Feng Zhiwei tossed her cup accurately at the ground before Hua Gongmei’s feet. “Young Lady Hua, the incense is extinguished, you can stop now. This sister will now offer you a poem that warns of the dangers of romance; hopefully it will entertain you.”

Feng Zhiwei stood and clasped her hands behind her back; the evening breeze fluttering through her sleeves and robe. Under the lantern’s dim light her expression and grace seemed like that of an immortal goddess, and in that moment all the onlookers forgot her poor features and madness, and they only saw a woman standing off in the distance, a great scholar drinking below the branches of a great tree, humming and reciting as they strolled nature’s roads.”

Feng Zhiwei smiled upwards at the prince, and Ning Yi leaned against his hand, gazing quietly, his eyes glistening like water under the faint red lantern light.

“To seek perfection in all ten aspects is to die nine times for every life; it seems at first as awe and glory in all eight directions, but in truth it is a closing of all seven apertures; you will lose all six relations, and your five organs will be tortured until death; your four limbs will fall powerless, and your days will upend your nights as you forget your three meals; in the end, you stand on two lands sharing a gaze. How is it not better to throw away this one heart filled with love!”

The unrestrained number poem shocked the entire square.

Hua Gongmei fell backwards, her hands clutching a table to save her fall. She remained stooped, stunned, until she finally burst into tears.

Ning Yi toyed with his cup, the smile curving his lips as thin as a falling flower.

How is it not better to throw away this one heart filled with love, how is it not better to throw away this one heart filled with love.

This incredibly clever woman had used such a strange way to turn him down.

But this refusal showed him a part of her hidden heart that he did not think she wanted him to see.

This kind of woman was like the Penglai Immortal Island hidden beyond the mountains, seas, and Heavens. Every route hidden behind layers of heavy mist.

A riot of flowers bedazzled the eyes and guarded the approach[13], but as long as he stood high, not even the passing clouds could block his gaze[14]?

[1] 无诗莫邀梅下客!