Under the eaves stood a neat row of people, all dressed in bright red yesa robes embroidered with gold. From far away, they respectfully called out, “The Old Ancestor has returned!”
An old man in his sixties or seventies came through the snow, supported by a young eunuch on either side. When he approached, the people under the eaves were about to kneel, but the old man raised one hand. It was covered in brown age spots, with thick knuckles and a broad palm. He gave a slight wave.
“Forget it.” His old, hoarse voice trembled. “It’s terribly cold.”
“Has His Majesty retired?” The leading man in the red yesa took the old man from the young eunuch and carefully helped him toward the room.
“He has.”
The old man was about to step inside when he suddenly stopped before the threshold. He blinked his cloudy old eyes and looked past everyone.
“That is…”
Everyone followed his gaze and turned around. There was a child holding a silk umbrella. He was eleven or twelve years old, wearing thin clothes and shivering from the cold.
“Newly brought into the palace?” the old man asked.
“The Old Ancestor has such sharp eyes. He was just brought in from outside this afternoon. We picked the finest one.”
The old man beckoned to the child. “Are you from Goryeo?”
“Indeed. He was presented as a tribute from Joseon. The Old Ancestor’s eyes must have recovered their youthful sharpness!”
The men in red yesa competed to flatter him, one praising him for being “spirited and vigorous,” another saying he was “still strong despite his old age.”
The child came closer. It seemed he had not yet been properly taught the palace rules. He lifted his head, revealing a pair of limpid, phoenix-shaped eyes. The old man stared at him as though entranced. Then, unexpectedly, he reached out with his withered hand and gently brushed the child’s tender cheek.
“What’s your surname?”
The child could speak Mandarin. His voice was soft and gentle.
“My surname is Jin.”
The old man shook his head.
“Then let it be Zhang.”
The child froze. The men in red yesa hurriedly said, “Zhang it is. We’ll change the registry immediately.”
The old man turned and went inside. The child was pushed along by the others.
The room was extremely large, but only a few candles had been lit. A rough bow and an old saber hung on the wall. The child looked around in curiosity. This did not resemble the quarters of the chief eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial Affairs at all.
The only thing on the table that carried any sense of splendor was a fan with gold characters. It had a red-lacquered frame and a green paper surface, with both sides decorated in gold leaf. Several lines from Mencius had been copied onto it.
The old man took off his roe-deer-skin cloak himself, revealing a red robe beneath with a mang-patterned insignia patch. He was tall, and it was easy to tell that he must have been a robust and imposing man in his youth. Now, however, his back was hunched. With some difficulty, he pointed toward the box of sweets.
“Eat. There’s some silk-nest tiger-eye candy.”
The child glanced at the box. Large silver ingots, crackling sugar, and Buddha-jackfruit candies were all fine sweets.
He wisely rubbed his hands together and obediently asked, “Grandpa, what incense should I burn?”
The old man choked out a laugh. Perhaps it was because the child had called him “Grandpa.” He coughed and wheezed, yet seemed delighted.
“Burn Lengsheng incense. The smoke from Lengsheng incense rises straight upward. It makes people remember old things.”
The child immediately carried the bronze incense burner to the small incense table. He used a pair of tongs to pick out an incense pellet from the incense box, gently placed it into the burner, lit it, and blew on it.
When he turned back, the old man was already asleep, his head tilted to one side against the back of the chair.
The incense smoke curled upward. It really was straight.
The child hugged his knees and squatted beside the incense table, staring fixedly at the smoke. When he was little, he had once heard someone say that when this kind of incense was burned, immortals would ride white cranes down through the smoke.
(1) Huozhe: A term for the lowest-ranking and most humble eunuchs.
(2) Directorate of Ceremonial Affairs: The highest-ranking eunuch institution in the Ming Dynasty, possessing special powers such as balancing the authority of the cabinet and issuing imperial edicts.