Chapter Three: The Prince

At midday, the servants filed in from outside carrying several food boxes. They had brought back no small amount of food from the West Market, and now, opening the boxes, began setting the dishes out one by one on the square table, which in an instant found itself locked in a "three-way standoff" with the brush, ink, and painting supplies and the tea bowls and jiang pot already crowding it. Yet the territory was truly limited, and the various dishes had no choice but to pile up in layers, "wedged in wherever a gap allowed."

Having gone to great trouble to get the dishes settled, the Zhang siblings — chopsticks and bowls already in hand, mouths watering at the dazzling array of food — were just about to dig in when Lu Jing suddenly discovered his painting was pinned underneath the dishes. The servants scrambled to move the plates aside one by one, which prompted Zhang Ning to protest anxiously, "It was doing fine as a table mat — saves the trouble of wiping the table after we eat."

Lu Jing, hearing this, shot back, "You're in that painting."

Zhang Ning's face fell, and she shook her head. "Don't say that, my lord. You made me look so ugly, it's perfectly suited to being used to keep the dishes from staining the table."

"That's the artistic conception — you have to look at the whole conception..." Lu Jing was still trying to salvage some ground, but before he could finish, Zhang Ning had already rolled her eyes.

"What is 'artistic conception'... My stomach is empty right now. Can 'artistic conception' fill it?"

Lu Jing was left speechless for a moment. The young lady had already declared her stomach empty, and his talk of "artistic conception" seemed to have fallen on the ears of an ox playing to a lute.

Speaking of the lute, Lu Jing had originally planned to bring the qin from his study along as well, but then he thought of Boya and Zhong Ziqi, the legendary bond of a musician and the one true friend who understood his music — and, glancing at the siblings before him, finally abandoned the idea. Thinking back on it now, that had truly been the wise choice.

After yet more effort, the three of them finally sat down to eat. When had the Zhang siblings ever tasted such delicacies before? They fell upon the food with ravenous abandon, and against Lu Jing's elegant, unhurried chewing, they looked for all the world like famished ghosts reborn.

Lu Jing glanced sideways at Zhang Ning and couldn't help shaking his head. "They say you're Xi Shi reborn — if Xi Shi ate the way you do, forget bewitching the King of Wu; it would be a miracle if the king weren't frightened to death instead."

"Listen to you, my lord... shouldn't one eat one's fill before trying to bewitch a king? One needs strength to work, after all..." She spoke with her mouth still stuffed with food, so the words came out somewhat garbled.

Lu Jing had no choice but to concede — his refined Fanyang Lu upbringing left him utterly defeated when it came to the matter of eating. It was, after all, his own money that had bought the food, yet somehow he ended up feeling like he was eating someone else's leftovers. And so he resolved then and there that next time, he would absolutely have to be quicker with his hands — while he could hardly hope to surpass the siblings entirely, he would at least have to hold his own against them.

After the meal, thoroughly at leisure as always, Lu Jing watched the rain beating against the banana leaves outside the window, the leaves swaying in the wind, and on impulse, moved by the scene, he recited a line of Wang Wei's poetry:

"After fresh rain on the empty mountain, the air turns cool with coming autumn. Bright moonlight filters through the pines, clear springs flow over the stones. Bamboo rustles as washerwomen return, lotus leaves stir as fishing boats descend. Let the fragrance of spring fade as it will — the prince may yet remain."

He had merely been reciting to himself, but it happened that, thanks to Lu Jing, Zhang Ning was spared the trouble of clearing away the dishes and bowls after the meal — his servants had taken care of everything. Having stolen this rare half-day of leisure, she too now found herself among the ranks of the idly restless, and so it was that she caught, quite by accident, a snatch of Wang Wei's "Autumn Twilight in the Mountains." What did Zhang Ning know of poetry? She immediately voiced her confusion.

"My lord, you really are strange. What mountain, what evening — this is Liquan Ward in the city of Chang'an, where would there be any mountain? And we just had lunch, not dinner — how could you forget that so quickly?"

Lu Jing had not expected this at all, and froze for a moment. His servants had taken over the entire business of clearing up after the meal, and somehow this had still managed to produce such a "complication"? He could only "condescend" to explain to Zhang Ning: "This is a poem by the great poet Wang Moji. It describes his state of mind. I, Zihe, simply felt that it struck a chord in my own heart — that's all, I was just reciting it aloud without thinking."

"Aning doesn't know who Wang Moji is, so what state of mind is yours? And are you a 'prince,' my lord?" Zhang Ning seemed to be growing ever more interested — after all, in her seventeen years of life, she had grown intimately familiar with clay and pottery, but had never crossed paths with poetry, letters, ritual, or music. Today, thanks to Lu Jing, it was as though an entirely new window had opened onto her life.

"'Prince'... I suppose I am!" Lu Jing pondered for a good while before continuing: "It means that though the spring scenery is beautiful, one need not cling to it — autumn has its own beauty too. As long as one's heart is at ease and content, one may linger to enjoy the view whether it is spring or autumn."

Lu Jing made his utmost effort to render that profound, meditative sentiment in terms Zhang Ning could grasp. To his surprise, she shook her head again. "But it's neither spring nor autumn right now..."

"Ah..." At this, Lu Jing found himself thinking once more of that qin back in his study...