Zhao Feng froze.
Give me the money, and hurry up? Hurry up with what?
Gu Zhengchen was no fool. The Ming dynasty's laws and statutes explicitly stated:
If a daughter had been promised in marriage, and a marriage contract submitted or a private agreement made, anyone who then reneged would receive fifty lashes.
If the groom's family reneged, the punishment would be the same.
In other words, once a marriage contract had been drawn up, whichever party backed out first and broke the agreement would receive fifty lashes.
The Ming dynasty had inherited the Tang and Song legal systems, with five punishments: whipping, beating with a heavy rod, penal servitude, exile, and death. Whipping was the lightest, usually administered with thorn switches, bamboo slats, or bamboo rods.
Things had been relatively flexible in the Tang dynasty: the person being beaten could even choose whether to take the blows on the legs, back, or buttocks. The Song dynasty allowed lashes to be converted into blows to the buttocks with a heavy rod. Instead of fifty strokes with a light rod, ten with a heavy one would suffice.
But in the Great Ming, the blows could only land on the buttocks...
Gu Zhengchen was physically frail and had no desire to endure fifty strokes of a thorn switch. Since the Zhao family was so desperate to back out, they could have the money and get on with it.
Gu Zhengchen's actions left Zhao Feng bewildered.
The once meek and submissive Gu Zhengchen had become so unyielding, a steely edge showing through from his very bones!
Having said his piece, Gu Zhengchen turned toward his mother and sister and headed for the door.
"Gu Zhengchen, stop right there!"
A girl's sharp cry rang out.
Gu Zhengchen stopped and looked back. A pretty young girl was glaring at him, her soft lips slightly parted and her face a little pale.
"Ya'er, go back inside."
Zhao Feng hastily reprimanded her. How could an unmarried girl come out so casually?
Zhao Ya'er ignored her father and looked at Gu Zhengchen. "You're only refusing to break off the engagement because you think Father offered too little, aren't you? Tell us how many strings of cash it'll take. Eight? Ten? Fifteen?"
Gu Zhengchen shook his head and looked coldly at his "fiancée." "This isn't about money. When you turned my mother away and refused to lend a hand, weren't you planning to use the opportunity to squeeze the Gu family into breaking off the engagement ourselves? Perhaps you'd already begun looking for another family? Since you've gone this far, why bother worrying about your reputation?"
The expressions on Zhao Feng's and Zhao Ya'er's faces changed.
Zhao Ya'er hurriedly said, "Don't spout nonsense. As long as you agree to annul the marriage contract yourself, I can have Father give you ten strings of cash!"
Gu Zhengchen looked at Gu Shi and Gu Qingqing. "Let's go home."
Seeing Gu Zhengchen ignore her, Zhao Ya'er cried out anxiously, "Gu Zhengchen, the imperial examinations have been abolished! You're just a penniless provincial graduate who'll never get anywhere in life. What makes you worthy of marrying me? Shouldn't you be the one to break off the engagement?"
Gu Zhengchen's gaze sharpened, and he asked Gu Shi, "Mother, give me the marriage contract."
Gu Shi took the contract from inside her robe. "Zhengchen, you must think this through..."
Gu Zhengchen took the contract and unfolded it. It read:
Humbly aspiring to enter your gate of virtue, we hasten toward your lofty walls. To convey our felicitations upon this fitting union, we venture to present this brief letter. Through the mediation of Madam Zhang, Zhao Ya'er is matched in marriage with Gu Zhengchen, joining in the joy of Qin and Jin and gladly forming an everlasting bond...
Both parties consent, with nothing further to dispute. To furnish proof hereafter, this marriage contract is hereby drawn up and retained for reference.
Gu Zhengchen sneered. Looking at Zhao Ya'er, he tore the marriage contract with a sharp rip and flung it toward her. "Remember this: it isn't your Zhao family breaking off the engagement. It's me, Gu Zhengchen, who no longer wants you. I'd rather take fifty lashes than marry you!"
"You!"
Zhao Ya'er's face flushed scarlet with anger, and tears nearly spilled from her eyes.
"Are you satisfied with this outcome, Master Zhao?"
Gu Zhengchen looked back at Zhao Feng, delivered those icy words, then strode out of the Zhao residence with Gu Shi and Gu Qingqing.
Once outside, Gu Shi looked at Gu Zhengchen's resolute face and sighed, swallowing the reproach on her lips.
Gu Zhengchen felt as though a weight had lifted from him. The Zhao family was no decent family, and Zhao Ya'er had neither breasts nor brains. The sooner this engagement was dissolved, the better. Had he delayed a few days until the Gu family's fortunes turned around, the marriage would only have become a burden.
There was no time to waste on them. Fail to cut the knot when you should, and its tangled strands would ensnare you!
Back at their home in Dayan Village, Gu Zhengchen entered his room and sat behind the desk, turning the copper coins over in his hand as he pondered a way out.
The Gu family had already reached a dead end.
If things went on like this, he would probably have to head to the Imperial Enlightenment Temple and ask for a chipped bowl to beg with.
The former Gu Zhengchen had possessed no ability to fend for himself. He had adhered to the scholars' philosophy that "a gentleman stands firm in poverty; a petty man, impoverished, runs wild." Apart from reading and writing, he had never so much as touched a hoe.
Stand firm in poverty?
Poverty, my ass!
I don't want to stand firm in poverty. I want money!
Gu Zhengchen put away the copper coins, picked up a brush, and spread out a sheet of paper. He wrote down the dozen or so wealthy households in Teng County, noted their interests, then considered and weighed them one by one.
The Sun Family ran an apothecary and liked well-aged medicinal herbs. That one was beyond me.
The Liu Family owned three hundred mu of land and liked beautiful women. That one was beyond me.
The Wang Family's widow had money and liked handsome men. That one...
Pah!
Beyond me. Absolutely beyond me.
You wicked Gu Zhengchen, don't sully my soul. I'm pure. I still want to earn my way through hard work...
The Liang Family liked opera.
An old opera fanatic, then?
Gu Zhengchen smiled.
I might not know how to sing opera, but I've listened to plenty. Surely bringing out The Legend of the White Snake could get me something in return?
Wait!
In the second month of this year, Old Zhu had issued an edict ordering the Ministry of Rites to reiterate the ban to the Jiaofang Bureau and performers throughout the realm: ancient sages and emperors, loyal ministers, and righteous men were not to be portrayed in theatrical performances. Violators would be punished.
What was Old Zhu thinking? By rights, "ancient sages and emperors, loyal ministers, and righteous men" were orthodox themes. Rather than ban them, he ought to have encouraged everyone to sing about them to their hearts' content. Why forbid them?
Banning orthodox themes was one thing, but the edict had also added that "portrayals of immortals and Daoists, righteous husbands and chaste wives, filial sons and dutiful grandsons, which exhort people to goodness, are not subject to the prohibition." That made things easy. No matter how one looked at it, The Legend of the White Snake did not fall under "ancient sages and emperors, loyal ministers, and righteous men."
As long as there's no political risk. I'd rather not lose my head over a play...
What opera fanatic wouldn't love The Legend of the White Snake?
"May I ask, good sir, where you reside? Another day I'll call to thank you."
"My humble home lies outside Clear Wave Gate, west of the little bridge beside the Qian King Shrine. Such a trifling matter hardly merits notice; how could I trouble your graceful feet to visit my lowly dwelling?"
Humming the tune and trying to capture the right feeling, Gu Zhengchen began writing out the lyrics for The Legend of the White Snake. Only when Gu Qingqing called him to eat did he set down his brush.
Two yellow cornmeal buns, a bowl of thin soup clear enough to reflect his face, and some pitch-black sauce, salty enough to choke on.
Seeing the worry that would not lift from his mother's brow, Gu Zhengchen smiled. "Mother, just leave the family's affairs to me. Don't go out for the next few days."
Gu Shi smiled bitterly. "Zhengchen, eat a little more."
Gu Zhengchen swallowed a mouthful of cornmeal bun that scraped his throat and asked, "Mother, I heard that rich Master Sun in town loves sweets more than life itself. Is that true?"
Gu Shi nodded. "It is. Why do you ask?"
Gu Zhengchen took a sip of soup and caught his breath. "If it's true, that makes things easy. There isn't any white sugar yet, is there?"
"What's white sugar?"
Gu Qingqing looked at Gu Zhengchen in puzzlement.
Gu Shi shook her head. Where would they find white sugar? There was only black sugar and brown sugar.
A plan took shape in Gu Zhengchen's mind.
Although the term "white sugar" had existed as early as the Tang dynasty, the white sugar of that era had not been pure, snowy white, but white tinged with yellow.
Before the Jiajing era, the world had no truly white sugar.
White sugar was good stuff.
One of the hugely profitable trades the Dutch colonizers later conducted in East Asian waters was the white sugar trade. There was no way this stuff wouldn't make money...
Before you continue