Chapter 2: No More Pretending. Cards on the Table.

Zhang Yuanzhe flared up again.

“You unfilial brat! How did I father a son who spends every waking moment contemplating treason?”

Zhang Heng hastily backed out of reach.

His father drew his sword and turned to Xiahou Liang.

“Don’t stop me. I’ll cut him down today and save my imperial father the trouble later!”

Xiahou Liang stepped between them anyway.

“Calm yourself, my prince. The heir spoke only in jest.”

Zhang Heng had little choice but to say, “Father, my mouth got ahead of me. Please forgive me.”

He wiped the sweat from his brow. This was not his old world. He needed to rein himself in a little.

“The heir knows his mistake, my prince. Please, tell us your plan.” Xiahou Liang steered the conversation elsewhere.

Zhang Yuanzhe snorted.

“I propose that he fall from a horse tonight and break his leg. Naturally, he will then be unable to attend tomorrow’s examination. We may lose a little dignity, but that is preferable to his disgracing himself in the examination hall and dragging me down with him.”

“Break my leg?” Zhang Heng blurted, alarmed by this brilliant plan of his father’s. “Surely there’s no need to go that far?”

“It will not do,” Xiahou Liang said, shaking his head. “His Majesty has already issued a verbal decree. A fall from a horse tonight would be far too convenient. It would only arouse his suspicions. Should someone use the opportunity to accuse Your Highness of deliberately evading His Majesty’s favor, we would have another problem on our hands.”

Zhang Yuanzhe’s face darkened as his plan fell apart.

Seeing that they had reached an impasse, Zhang Heng straightened, brushed the dust off his clothes, and stepped forward.

“Father. Master Xiahou.”

He cupped his hands in a formal salute. Gone was the wastrel’s air; his voice was calm.

“I intend to sit tomorrow’s metropolitan examination. And I intend to take it honestly.”

“You? Honestly?” Zhang Yuanzhe eyed him with open contempt. “Have you been drinking, boy? You never could recite the whole of the Analects, and now you speak of taking the civil service examinations?”

Xiahou Liang looked equally doubtful. He had watched Zhang Heng grow up. The boy was a wastrel through and through.

Neither man believed a word of it. Zhang Heng spread his hands helplessly. His predecessor’s reputation really was in the gutter.

“Father, Master Xiahou—how well do you really know me?”

He turned, walked to the desk, and picked up a brush.

“Give me a question, Master Xiahou. Test me, and you will see whether this can be done.”

“With your learning? We hardly need a test to know you won’t pass. You’re not even as good as I am,” Zhang Yuanzhe scoffed.

“Are you certain, Your Highness?” Xiahou Liang asked.

“Certain. Give me a question.”

Xiahou Liang considered for a moment, then said, “The people alone are the foundation of the state; when the foundation is secure, the state is at peace.”

A brief moment’s thought told Zhang Heng that the line came from the Book of Documents. It was a common prompt in the examinations’ interpretation of the Four Books, and one with strong implications for current affairs.

He immediately began to write.

Opening the Topic — The foundation of a state lies in its people; only when the people are secure can the realm be secure.

Developing the Topic — For there must first be a realm before there can be a sovereign, and there must first be a people before there can be a realm. The people are the root of the state…

…

Concluding Legs — A nation’s peace rests not upon the height and breadth of its walls; the foundation of a reign enduring ten thousand generations depends entirely upon the joys and sorrows of the common people.

Several hundred characters flowed onto the paper before the two men.

It followed the prescribed examination structure: opening the topic, developing it, and so on.[1]

Zhang Heng set down the brush with an inward sigh of relief. Thank goodness he genuinely had the learning now, along with an improved memory and understanding. Otherwise, this eight-legged essay would have finished him.

Xiahou Liang hurried over and bent to read.

His eyes widened.

The first thing he noticed was the handwriting. Zhang Heng had used regular script: rich black strokes, square and clean. It was pleasing to the eye.

By the time he finished reading the essay, he was utterly stunned.

At first reading, he could find nothing to fault.

Was this really the wastrel heir he knew?

How was it possible?

His eyes kept flicking back to Zhang Heng.

Zhang Yuanzhe could read, but his ability to judge literary merit was limited. He asked impatiently, “Well, Master Xiahou? How is his answer?”

Feather fan in hand, Xiahou Liang looked solemnly at Zhang Heng.

“The heir’s essay is sound in its interpretation and far-reaching in its insight. He need have no fear of the examinations.”

Zhang Yuanzhe was taken aback.

Xiahou Liang went on, “Your Highness, please compose a poem on the theme of homesickness.”

Poetry was also part of the current civil service examinations.

Zhang Heng could not stop the corner of his mouth from lifting.

A homesickness poem?

Easy.

He already had one.

Still, to spare his father too great a shock, Zhang Heng began to pace, swaying his head as though deep in thought.

One step.

Two.

…

Before his seventh step had quite landed, he swept out a hand.

“I’ve got it.”

Before my bed, bright moonlight gleams;
I take it for frost upon the ground.
I lift my head to the shining moon,
Then bow it, thinking of my hometown.[2]

…

“Ah. This…”

There was not a single obscure word in the poem, nor a single historical allusion. Even a soldier like the Prince of Yan understood it at once.

“A fine poem. A truly fine poem!” Xiahou Liang could not help exclaiming.

“What’s so fine about it?” the prince asked. All he knew was that it sounded good.

“The eye’s confusion of moonlight with frost creates a mood of cold solitude. Then those two movements, raising the head and lowering it, naturally link gazing at the moon with longing for home. It expresses a traveler’s yearning for his native place and loved ones. Were this poem to circulate, the heir’s name would surely be known throughout the realm…”

Xiahou Liang waved his fan with a sigh of admiration. He could hear how effortlessly the lines flowed.

“Nice work on the reading comprehension,” Zhang Heng said with a grin.

Of course Quiet Night Thoughts was that good.

“It’s really that impressive?”

Zhang Yuanzhe continued to study Zhang Heng in bewilderment. Was this actually his son?

“My prince, this is a poem that will endure through the ages! The heir has a gift for poetry.”

Xiahou Liang searched his memory, but could think of no book containing those lines. Perhaps the heir truly had composed them.

Zhang Yuanzhe fell silent. The look in his eyes was starting to make Zhang Heng uneasy.

Next, Xiahou Liang tested him with several questions on the meaning of the classics.

Zhang Heng answered every one without hesitation.

The evidence was right before Zhang Yuanzhe’s eyes. Xiahou Liang would never have prepared questions and answers for the boy in advance.

“You little brat,” he asked, “when did you become so learned?”

He had always thought his son a failure in both letters and arms.

Apparently, that was not the whole story.

Zhang Heng found himself an excuse.

“Father, you’re usually so busy with affairs of state that you pay very little attention to my studies. The truth is, I turned over a new leaf long ago. I’ve been spending my free time working hard and studying diligently. Those rumors that I’m a wastrel are just people repeating what they hear.

“Besides, you never liked seeing me read too much. You thought a son of yours ought to spend more time learning to kill on the battlefield. So I kept my reading out of your sight.”

“What?”

“Is that true?”

Both Xiahou Liang and Zhang Yuanzhe still struggled to take it in. This was so different from the Zhang Heng they remembered. Yet here he stood.

“Father. Master Xiahou.

“I’ve always kept a low profile.

“But now that things have come to this…”

Zhang Heng spread his hands before them.

“I don’t see any point in pretending anymore.

“Cards on the table.

“I’m a born genius when it comes to learning. I’ve spent the last few years hiding my light.”

Silence settled over the hall.

Zhang Yuanzhe and Xiahou Liang exchanged a look. Neither quite believed him.

Wasn’t he out listening to singers in the pleasure houses and strolling the streets with a caged bird every other day?

And yet the proof was sitting right in front of them.