The chirping of early summer cicadas sang like scorched copper bells, wrapped in the midday heat and swirling around the gates of the General's Mansion. Old Zhou, the doorman, leaned on a thickly patinated jujube wood cane, slumped against the bluestone doorpost. His cloudy eyes, gazing at the sea of people before him, made him feel dizzy. From the hour of Chen to the hour of Si, the line of people trying to solve the puzzles stretched from the vermilion lacquered gate to the old locust tree at the alley's entrance. Scholars in lake blue brocade rolled up their sleeves and argued fiercely. Wang Ermaizi, the Hu Bing vendor, dropped his load and sat on the stone mill, cracking melon seeds and watching the fun. Even Mrs. Wang from the next alley brought a small stool to reserve a seat, saying it was more appealing than the storytelling in the teahouse.
"Everyone, make way! My young lady has ordered!" Chun Tao, holding a delicate round silk fan, pushed her way into the crowd. Her moon-white skirt swept across the melon seed shells scattered on the ground, and the newly replaced pomegranate red velvet flower in her bun trembled and was about to fall. "Listen carefully—my young lady has ordered that anyone who answers the questions incorrectly today will be punished by copying the "Instructions for Women" a hundred times!"
These words were like pouring a bucket of cold water into a frying pan, and the crowd erupted in excitement. Mr. Chen, an editor at the Hanlin Academy, leaped to his feet, his goatee quivering like dry grass in the autumn wind, his voice rising above the cicadas' chirping in the treetops: "I foolishly thought the chicken came first! The I Ching says, 'Tai Chi gives birth to two opposites.' The chicken is yang, the egg is yin. Yang transforms into qi, yin into form. This is the natural cycle of nature. How could yin come before yang?"
"Bullshit!" Zhang, the butcher selling pork, banged his greasy shoulder pole on the ground, startling the old hen pecking at rice nearby and causing it to flutter its wings and run around. "Where did the chicken come from if there are no eggs? My hen laid three eggs yesterday. Could it have popped out from between the rocks?"
"You know nothing!" Mr. Chen fumed, his beard puffing and his eyes glaring, his ivory ring rubbing against his palm. "In ancient times, when chaos first began to form, pure air rose to become the sky, and turbid air sank to become the earth. Only when the first divine chicken broke through the chaos did eggs begin to be laid!"
"A magical chicken?" Old Man Wang, the candied haws seller, heaved his carrying pole onto his shoulder and banged his bamboo clappers loudly. "So, the chicken is Sun Wukong's second uncle? I think the egg must have come first! Otherwise, where would the chicken come from?"
On the second-floor window couch of Tinglan Courtyard, Chen Weiwan sat with her legs crossed, munching on freshly roasted five-spice melon seeds. She listened to the quarrel downstairs and laughed so hard she was rolling on the floor, throwing melon seed shells out the window like snowflakes. "Chuntao, look at that fat guy in the purple robe," she pointed at the bloated, middle-aged man downstairs, her shoulders shaking with laughter. "Yesterday he was quoting scriptures and saying the phoenix came first, and today he's saying the tortoise came first! I'm afraid his wife kicked him out of bed last night and he must have had a brain injury, right?"
Chuntao laughed so hard she couldn't straighten her back, clutching her belly. The silk embroidered with twin lotus flowers slid to the floor. "Miss, look at that blind fortune teller!" She pointed at the old blind man in the corner, shaking his head. "He just took out a compass and spun it around for a long time, saying things like, 'The chicken is the egg's past life, and the egg is the chicken's future life.' He even said your destined marriage is hidden in the eggshell!"
Shen Weiwan puffed the melon seeds she'd just cracked into her mouth. She pounded her chest and looked out the window, only to find Xiefang Courtyard unusually quiet; even the normally chirping sparrows were silent. "Something's wrong," she said, crushing a plump melon seed, her fingertips stained with fine grains of salt. "Can that old, wicked woman Liu hold back? Is she up to something bad again?"
Before she could finish her words, Chuntao suddenly pointed downstairs and exclaimed, her nails almost digging into the carvings on the window frame: "Miss! Look who's here! Liu is here again with that fat guy with a belly full of money!"
The crowd downstairs automatically made way for him like Moses parting the sea. Liu pinched Qian Mandu's arm and pushed him forward, her jade armor almost digging into his sweaty flesh. Her voice was so sharp it could have pierced his eardrums: "You idiot! Answer me right now! If you get it wrong again, I'll rip your mouth off!"
Qian Mandu wore a brand new royal blue satin gown, but it couldn't hide the sweat stains under his armpits. He frantically straightened his crooked kerchief, cleared his throat, and spoke in a deliberately drawn-out tone, his saliva splashing on the faces of the people in the front row: "Everyone, listen carefully! This is the ultimate philosophical debate, and we must trace it back to the Classic of Mountains and Seas—"
"Stop your spittle!" Butcher Zhang spat impatiently. "Let me ask you, which came first, the chicken or the egg?"
Qian Mandu rolled his eyes, shook his head, and recited, "In the Classic of Mountains and Seas, it's written, 'There was a bird, shaped like a chicken, with five colors and patterns, and it was called the Phoenix.' This shows that the phoenix is the ancestor of the chicken. The phoenix lays eggs, and the eggs turn into chicks. So, the egg came first, and then the chicken!"
"A phoenix turns into a chicken?" Chen Weiwan laughed so hard upstairs that she slammed the table and stood up, her round fan almost flying out of her hand. "Master said that the phoenix lays eggs and hatches chickens, so from which egg did the phoenix jump out? Could it be from a dragon?"
Qian Mandu choked at the question, his fat face flushing crimson. He hurriedly pulled a tattered copy of the I Ching from his sleeve and tapped randomly on the pages: "Tai Chi gave birth to two opposites, two opposites gave birth to four images, four images gave birth to eight trigrams, eight trigrams gave birth to... the chicken and the egg! Yes! It was the eight trigrams that gave birth to it!"
"Bullshit!" Butcher Zhang picked up his carrying pole and made a move to hit him. "It's the same as if you didn't say anything! I think you're a liar!"
The onlookers were laughing so hard that they were staggering. One woman was so laughing that she had to lean against the wall and couldn't stand up straight. Qian Mantang was so ashamed that she was embarrassed. Liu grabbed her ears and scolded her bitterly: "You are useless! You fed the dog with fifty taels of silver! You can't even tell the difference between a chicken and an egg!"
Just then, the sound of hurried horse hooves approached from afar. Seventh Prince Xiao Yu dismounted, his moon-white brocade robe billowing in the wind. In his hand, he held a gilded food box, the sweet fragrance of osmanthus wafting from the cracks in the lid. "I've come to give Miss Shen some freshly made osmanthus cakes," he said, looking up at Shen Weiwan on the second floor, a smile in his eyes. "By the way, what insights do you talented scholars have today?"
Shen Weiwan's eyes lit up, and she deliberately put on a stern face and said, "Your Highness is well-read and must know the answer to this age-old question: which came first, the chicken or the egg?"
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