his master. I think he wanted to be familiar by calling me Old Zhao, but I was sitting in a chair bestowed upon me by the Emperor Himself. Having no choice, he had to settle for “old sir.” A wily son of a bitch. With an almost imperceptible wave of my hand, I said, “Bring everything in.”
Mimicking a stage voice, he announced loudly:
“Bring the old gentleman’s things inside!”
Like a line of black ants, the yayi entered the compound carrying everything I had requested from Excellency Yuan. Each item was presented at the door for my approval:
A purple sandalwood stake five feet long and five fen wide, like the metal spike used by the Tang general Qin Shubao. The absolutely indispensable item.
A large white rooster with a black comb, legs tied with a strip of red cloth, which lay in the arms of a fair-faced yayi like a bawling, unhappy baby boy. A rare breed, one of which they had managed to find somewhere in Gaomi County.
New leather straps that still gave off the pungent smell of tanning salt, light blue in color, as if grass-stained.
Two wooden mallets with a reddish luster that had been used in an oil mill as far back, perhaps, as the reign of the Kangxi Emperor, two centuries before. Made from date-wood knots and in constant contact with oil, they had by now drunk their fill and were heavier than their metal counterparts. But they were nonetheless wood and not metal, and thus more yielding. Hardness with a bit of give was what I had specified.
Two extra-large baskets, each filled with a hundred jin of the finest white rice. The unique fragrance and blue tinge were proof that it had come from Tengzhou Prefecture, which produced rice of a quality unmatched anywhere in Gaomi County.
Two hundred jin of flour packed in four gunnysacks stamped with the Tonghe Refined Flour Mill trademark.
A basket of red-shelled eggs, one of which, a first egg, was stained by real blood. Just seeing it evoked the image of a little red-faced hen straining to lay her first egg.
A sizeable cut of beef on a large platter, the sinews in the meat seemingly still vibrating.
An enormous cauldron, carried by two men, big enough to cook a whole cow.
Song Three was carrying half a jin of ginseng under his clothes. He took it out and handed it to me. Even through the paper wrapper, the bitter smell of fine ginseng was strong.
“Old sir,” Song Three said as his face lit up, “your humble servant personally visited the herbal shop and kept his eye on Qin Seven, that wily old fox, as he opened a catalpa cabinet with three locks and selected this ginseng from a blue and white porcelain jar. ‘If it’s not the real thing,’ he said, ‘you can twist my head right off my shoulders.’ This is prized ginseng. Just by carrying it next to me this little while and smelling its fragrance, your humble servant grew light on his feet, sharp-eyed and clear-headed; I felt like I was becoming an immortal. Just think what eating it could do!”
I peeled back the paper wrapping and counted the gnarled brown roots whose necks were tied together with a red string: one, two, three . . . five . . . eight altogether, each as thick as a chopstick at the top and as thin as a bean stalk at the end, from which a beard of fine hairs fluttered in the slightest breeze. Half a jin? I don’t believe it. I gave the man a cold glare. Well, the bastard bent at the waist and, with an unctuous smile, said softly:
“Nothing gets past the gentleman’s eyes. These eight roots only weigh four liang, not eight, but that is all Qin Seven had in his shop. He said you could boil them in water, pour the liquid into a dead man’s mouth, and he’d jump out of his coffin—do you think, sir . . .”
I waved him off without saying a word. What was I supposed to say? Chief yayi like him are craftier than demons and sneakier than a monkey. He got down on one knee to pay his respects. That, he thought, made up for the shortage. The swine was getting away with at least fifty liang of silver from the ginseng alone. But then he took a small chunk of silver out from under his clothes and said:
“This, old squire, is what your humble servant was given to buy pork,