desire
A month later, Xuanji went to Wenshan Academy alone.
Wen Tingyun was admiring the flowers in the courtyard when he saw a servant leading her there. He smiled slightly and asked, "Have you thought it through?"
Xuanji took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye: "Please help me get rid of my citizenship, Mr. Wen."
Wen Tingyun raised an eyebrow, seemingly somewhat surprised: "Removed from the register?"
“Yes,” Xuanji said firmly, “I don’t want to be a musician anymore.”
Wen Tingyun was silent for a moment, then suddenly laughed: "Do you know how much silver it takes to get out of the household registration? And how many connections you need to pull?"
Xuanji pursed her lips: "I have some silver saved up myself. I can give it all to you, sir. If it's not enough, I can borrow some from my sisters."
Wen Tingyun shook his head, looking at her meaningfully, "After you're released from your social status, how do you plan to make a living?"
This is the question that has been troubling Xuanji. What can she do after she is freed from her citizenship?
Serving as a maid for a wealthy family? She grew up in a music academy, never lifting a finger, and didn't even know how to start a fire or cook.
Go back to her hometown to farm and spin yarn? She didn't even know where her hometown was. The matrons at the brothel once said that she was sold into the brothel when she was three years old, and now she couldn't even remember what her parents looked like.
Marry an honest man? She smiled bitterly. Leaving aside her background, what respectable family would want her?
Even so, Xuanji still wanted to break free of her social status. She thought she could still make a living by selling her poetry. In the past month, too many students had sought out Xuanji to discuss poetry and literature. Even a casually written piece of hers was being sold for 10 taels of silver, which was a year's livelihood for an ordinary family.
"I...I can sell poems," she heard herself say.
Wen Tingyun laughed: "Selling poems? Do you think those who buy your poems are buying your talent? They're buying the romantic escapades of a 'talented courtesan.' If you were just an ordinary woman, who would care about your writing?"
Xuanji bit her lower lip. "Then...then can I be a tutor for girls?" she asked, unwilling to give up.
"A private tutor?" Wen Tingyun shook his head. "What wealthy family would hire a courtesan who has left her profession to teach their daughter? They want well-educated and refined young ladies, not..."
He suddenly stopped speaking, but Xuanji already understood what he had left unsaid.
She is not a woman like that.
"So..." her voice was so soft it was almost inaudible, "I'm destined to be trapped here for the rest of my life?"
Wen Tingyun did not answer. But his silence spoke volumes.
Xuanji didn't know how she got back to the brothel. She suddenly remembered what her nanny used to say when she was little: "You girls are lucky to be born into the brothel. Outside, which woman doesn't live a life worse than pigs and dogs? In this world, it's harder than climbing to heaven for a woman to be independent."
Her fingertips unconsciously traced the window frame, splinters piercing her skin, yet she felt no pain. "Miss Xuanji, Mr. Yishi has sent someone with an invitation," a young maidservant called timidly from outside the door. Mr. Yishi was an instructor at Chunshui Academy and a renowned talent in Jing County.
Unfolding the invitation, she discovered it was a invitation to Chunshui Courtyard for tea and poetry. In the past, she would have been delighted. But now, the gilded lettering seemed to mock her naiveté.
"Would you like to change, young lady?" A maidservant stood to the side, holding rouge and face powder.
Xuanji looked at herself in the bronze mirror. This face, this body, had never been hers. They were the property of the brothel, objects for the guests to admire. Even her prized poetic talent was nothing more than merchandise waiting to be sold.
"No need," she tossed the invitation onto the dressing table. "Just say I'm not feeling well."
The young maidservant's eyes widened in surprise. This was an invitation from Master Yishi, an honor that countless people would kill for.
As dusk settled, the lanterns of the music hall lit up one by one. Therefore, the willows by the river she had imagined were never symbols of unyielding spirit. They were destined to be broken, trampled, and reduced to mud in the wind and rain.
Xuanji is ill. Ever since she returned from Wenshan Academy that day, she has been sitting by the window in a daze, even refusing to attend the zither lessons her nanny had instructed her to attend. Qingxing was frantic, bringing her all sorts of snacks, but she only took one bite of her favorite jujube paste cake before putting it down.
"My sister's gone mad." Liu Qianqian leaned against the door, gently fanning herself with a round fan. "Were Mr. Wen's words truly so heartbreaking?"
Xuanji did not answer, but instead twirled a willow catkin between his fingertips.
Liu Qianqian sighed and sat down beside her. "Do you know why I was able to become your wife?" She suddenly rolled up her sleeve, revealing a hideous scar on her wrist. "When I was sixteen, I cut myself with a shard of porcelain to keep customers away."
Xuanji suddenly looked up.
"The old woman said that if I insisted on committing suicide, she would throw me into the lowest-class brothel," Liu Qianqian chuckled. "But later she discovered that the customers loved seeing my unyielding nature—the more unattainable something was, the more money they were willing to spend." She snapped her fan shut. "So the secret is, the most useless thing in this world is pride, and the most valuable thing is also pride."
As dawn broke, Xuanji sneaked out of the music academy.
The lights at Chongzhen Temple were still on.
Xuanji knelt on the prayer mat, her forehead pressed against the cold floor tiles. The Three Pure Ones statues looked down at her, their compassion tinged with indifference.
"Would you like to draw a fortune stick?" The old Taoist priest handed over a bamboo tube.
The bamboo stick made a crisp sound as it hit the ground. "The seventy-sixth divination slip," the old Taoist priest read, squinting, "'Floating catkins, rootless, drift with the current; why bother asking where they'll return?'"
When Wen Tingyun saw Xuanji again, she was tiptoeing to write a poem on the white wall of the academy. The ink was dripping as she wrote the last line, which was "I'd rather be a wild willow dancing in the wind than a withered flower falling to the ground."
"What a wild Liu!" Wen Tingyun's voice startled her so much that she tilted her pen.
Xuanji turned around and looked him directly in the eyes for the first time: "Sir, do you know that even the lightest willow catkins can cross rivers and mountains?" She untied the purse from her waist. "One hundred taels for my freedom. Please keep your promise."
The purse contained the silver notes she had obtained by pawning all her jewelry.
Wen Tingyun gazed at her for a long time, then suddenly reached out and brushed the willow catkins from her hair: "Not enough."
"I know." Xuanji raised her head. "I'll use my monthly salary to pay the rest. I can work as a lowly maid." Wen Tingyun chuckled. "You're leaving your official status just to become a lowly maid?" "Of course not, but compared to a courtesan, a lowly maid is free. Once I've paid back enough money, I'll leave on my own."
"How about we make a different deal?" Wen Tingyun pulled out a blank official document. "Come with me to Chang'an. Be my poetry maid, and I'll return your official status in three years."
The night wind suddenly turned cold. Liu Qianqian hugged Qingxing tightly as she watched Xuanji pack his bags.
"A poetry maid?" Liu Qianqian laughed, snapping her fan shut. "Probably a concubine? I've seen plenty of those literati tricks."
Xuanji's hand paused on the half-folded dress. She looked up, the candlelight flickering in her eyes: "Mr. Wen introduced me to his wife." Her voice was soft, yet like a stone thrown into a calm lake.
Liu Qianqian's fan froze in mid-air.
"Madam said..." Xuanji's fingers unconsciously traced the delicate embroidery on her fabric, "that my poetry possesses a certain spirit, and that she is willing to take me in as her goddaughter." She paused, a faint smile appearing at the corner of her lips, "and that Mr. Wen will treat me with the respect due to a disciple from now on."
The room suddenly became eerily quiet. Qingxing's eyes widened, and she held her breath. Liu Qianqian's round fan fell to the ground with a "thud".
"Adopted daughter?" Liu Qianqian's voice suddenly rose. "Madam Wen? That Madam Wen from the Xie family of Taiyuan?" She abruptly stood up, her embroidered shoes treading over the fallen fan. "Do you know what this means?"
Xuanji continued to tidy up her bundle. A lotus-root-colored ruqun (a type of traditional Chinese dress) was carefully folded; it was a birthday gift from Liu Qianqian.
"This means..." Liu Qianqian's voice suddenly choked up, "You brat, you've walked a path none of your sisters have ever walked."
Qingxing burst into tears and rushed over to hug Xuanji's waist: "Sister Xuanji, I can't bear to part with you."
Xuanji's hands finally trembled. She turned around and hugged Qingxing.
"I will come back to see you," Xuanji said. These words were as light as willow catkins, yet so heavy that Liu Qianqian turned her face away.
Liu Qianqian bent down to pick up the fan, slapped it twice, and suddenly said, "When you get there, don't be foolish enough to believe everything. It's your good fortune that the Xie family woman took you in as her goddaughter, but you still have to walk your own path." She paused, "But... it's still better than here."
Liu Qianqian suddenly strode over and stuffed a package into Xuanji's bundle. It contained a stack of silver notes and some gold and silver jewelry. It was worth at least several hundred taels.
Xuanji hurriedly pushed and shoved, "No!"
"Take it." Liu Qianqian's voice was fierce. "Money is your last resort."
Xuanji clutched her bundle tightly. Amidst the rain, she heard the water clock ticking in the music hall. This time tomorrow, she would be in the Wen family's carriage, leaving Jing County for Chang'an, the city her sisters all longed for.
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