“That is indeed a fine beard, but not necessarily finer than mine.”
“Your servant does not yield.”
“How do you propose to compare beards?”
“Water would be my choice.”
“Go on.”
“Your servant’s beard does not float when placed in water, but goes straight to the bottom.”
“Can that be?” The Magistrate stroked his beard and paused for a moment. “What do you propose should you lose?”
“If your servant loses, then his beard will be the hair around the Magistrate’s prick.”
This time the yayi exploded in laughter. The Magistrate slammed his gavel on the table. “Reckless Sun Bing!” he bellowed, “how dare you say such things here!”
“I deserve death.”
“Sun Bing, directing vile epithets toward an official in his hall deserves severe punishment, but in light of your penchant for straight talk and a willingness to accept the consequences of your speech, I shall show mercy and approve the competition. If you win, all your crimes will be expunged. But if you lose, I shall order you to personally pull out every strand of your beard and never grow another. Do you agree?”
“Your servant agrees.”
“The audience is concluded!” The Magistrate stood up and, like a bright, airy breeze, disappeared behind the screen.
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5
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The battle of the beards was to take place in the spacious courtyard between the yamen’s main and secondary gates. Wanting not to make it too grand an affair, Magistrate Qian invited fewer than twenty of the county’s most renowned members of the local gentry as spectators and witnesses. But word of the battle between His Eminence and Sun Bing spread like wildfire, and by that morning, crowds of commoners had already gathered at the yamen gate, eager to get in on the fun. The earliest arrivals, always awestruck by the power and prestige of the yamen, kept their distance from the site, but as more and more people came, pushes and shoves moved the crowd closer to the gate. Crowds sometimes fall beyond the law. Commoners, who on most days would not dare even to look up as they passed by the yamen gate, now elbowed the gate guards out of the way and spilled into the yard as if a dam had burst. A mass of humanity quickly filled the spacious yard, while even more people arrived to take their place beyond the gate. Adventurous and unruly youngsters went so far as to climb trees and sit on the perimeter wall.
Invited members of the local gentry were seated on catalpa wood benches arranged in a polygonal circle, looking as if they were carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. They were joined by the Judicial Secretary, the Revenue Clerk, and scribes from the Six Boards. Arrayed in a circle behind them were yayi whose job it was to keep the gawkers from surging forward. Smack in the middle of the circle stood two large tubs of clear water. The principals had not yet arrived. Sweaty, oily faces gave evidence of growing anxiety. Young children, like slippery loaches, were wreaking havoc in the crowd with their erratic movements, pressing against the phalanx of yayi and throwing them off balance, like cornstalks bent before a raging flood. Most of the time these men were a ferocious, threatening lot, but on this day they seemed well disposed to the local residents. This strange and unique contest would actually create an unprecedented cordial relationship between the people and those who governed them. Then one of the benches was overturned by the crush of people, sending its occupant, a tall member of the gentry, jumping to safety. He stood there, water pipe in hand, staring cross-eyed at the crowd, his head cocked to the side like a puzzled rooster. Then a fat man with a long white beard fell to the ground, where he began crawling like a rooting pig, managing to get back on his feet only with considerable effort. As he brushed mud off of his silk gown, he filled the air with hoarse curses until his face puffed up like a red mass of dough right out of the oven. One of the yayi was shoved down onto a bench so hard that he injured his ribcage. He screamed like a stuck pig until his fellow yayi rescued him from his misery. The individual in charge of the yayi, Liu Pu, a young man with a gaunt face and dark skin, stood on one of the benches and, in a lilting Sichuan accent,