Chapter 104: A Matchmaking Event or a Poetry Competition?

Matters of state and family are usually handled by men, with little room for them to interfere in the first category. At this moment, though Meng Jun wasn’t interested in his sisters’ poetry gatherings, he could only offer Zhang Yue a helpless look in response to his plea for help. Worse still, he unkindly uttered a lie.
“I’ll be taking up a position in the Five Armies Command this autumn, and I need to gain some experience first. That’s why I’ve arranged to go to the training ground with the two young marquises from the Wu’an Marquis and Yongkang Marquis families this afternoon. I won’t be able to accompany you, third brother. After all, with your eldest sister around, nothing bad will happen to you.”
As he spoke, he stood up and slipped out of the room while Zhang Yue was furious. Before leaving, he turned back, holding the curtain, and winked with a smile. “But don’t worry. The daughters of the Baoding Marquis family are all well-educated and certainly not arrogant. Moreover, your eldest sister has invited several noble ladies for this event on your behalf—something no one else would think of. If your younger siblings find out, they’ll be green with envy. Third brother, be careful.”
Watching Meng Jun escape, Zhang Yue felt both amused and frustrated. Seeing his eldest sister, Zhang Qing, sitting calmly as if she hadn’t heard Meng Jun’s teasing words, he grew even more depressed. He quickly said, “Elder sister, I suddenly remembered I need to visit Mr. Du this afternoon. What do you think…”
Only then did Zhang Qing lift her eyelids slightly and say with a half-smile, “There’s something I haven’t had time to tell you yet. I met the Miss Du family at Qixia Temple before and we became acquainted. Since your fourth sister is holding a poetry gathering today, I already sent someone to invite her. I heard Mr. Du is on duty and not at home today. Even if you respect your teacher, it wouldn’t be right to show up empty-handed, would it? Besides, there are also the daughters of Baoding Marquis’s old friends there, so that your brother-in-law’s brothers can meet them too. This gathering isn’t just for you.”
Du Wan? She’s coming too? Recalling his last experience, Zhang Yue almost ignored what she said next, feeling severe headaches. He almost brought up the old saying about proper boundaries between men and women. But Zhang Qing seemed to read his mind, effortlessly silencing his excuses.

“In half a month, it will be your birthday. Once you turn fifteen, you’ll be a full-grown adult, and by then I won’t allow you to hang around with your sisters anymore. While you’re still young, you should take a good look around—otherwise, once your third uncle goes to the capital and arranges a marriage for you, you’ll end up in a forced union and suffer the consequences. Today, the fourth sister is holding a poetry gathering, with siblings all under fifteen. We usually don’t spend time together, so it’s rare to gather like this. Aren’t proprieties less important than family ties?”
With such reasons, Zhang Yue naturally had no room to object and could only nod in resignation. Preoccupied by this, he didn’t enjoy his lunch properly. Qiu Hen and Hu Po noticed and asked curiously. Upon learning about the poetry gathering in the afternoon, Qiu Hen, who loved to be in the crowd, was overjoyed and dragged Hu Po along, saying they wanted to go together. Zhang Yue, originally worried about having nothing to do in the afternoon, had no objection to taking the two close maids along and agreed almost without thinking.
Before long, it was the late afternoon. Zhang Qing sent someone to call Zhang Yue. Seeing Qiu Hen and Hu Po following behind, she was slightly surprised but said nothing. The siblings talked as they walked. Zhang Qing inevitably mentioned a few noble ladies she cared about, but almost none of them were the eldest daughters.
“Unlike our Zhang family, these families of meritorious officials rose to power under the current emperor. They came from all sorts of backgrounds. Now that they’re wealthy, their eldest daughters are either prepared for the young princes to choose as wives or kept to form alliances with other noble families. Besides, eldest daughters are often too proud to make good wives. If they refuse to obey their third aunts, things will only get worse.”
At this point, Zhang Qing remembered that she was the eldest daughter in her family and had married into a family of meritorious officials. She had been quite satisfied as a wife and couldn’t help but smile, before quickly changing the subject and giving some other instructions. Zhang Yue listened to everything, while Qiu Hen and Hu Po finally realized that this poetry gathering was nothing ordinary. After exchanging a glance, one lost their initial enthusiasm, while the other grew more uneasy.
Qinfang Garden in the afternoon was nothing like it in the morning. The same two old women were still guarding the entrance, but they now wore brand-new clothes. Inside the garden, the shaded paths were spotless; even if a leaf fell, a maid would rush over to clean it up. Zhang Yue had only taken a boat ride in the morning and hadn’t explored further. Now, after crossing the bamboo bridge, surrounded by lush trees, he saw a bustling scene in the delicate bamboo pavilion in the center, which made his eyelids twitch.
“Is the eldest sister here?”

“Sister-in-law, we’ve been waiting for you and Brother Yue!”
“Sister-in-law, is this Brother Yue?”
Zhang Yue saw several beautiful young girls standing up to greet Zhang Qing, with many curious gazes directed at him. He had no choice but to meet them one by one under Zhang Qing’s introduction, then quickly glanced beyond the crowd toward the deeper part of the pavilion. In just one glance, he saw Du Wan sitting by the water, staring at the red carp in the stream. Next to her, Xiao Wu, dressed in women’s clothes, was staring at him with a slightly annoyed expression that was quite amusing.
Just as Zhang Qing had said, this poetry gathering wasn’t just a matchmaking event for him alone. Fourteen-year-olds Meng Fan and Meng Tao were also there, along with several female guests who brought their younger brothers. It could be said to be a gathering of young boys and girls.
Among the dozen or so people, Zhang Qing was the oldest. Most of the others were around thirteen or fourteen, with many born in the same month and even more in the same year. They called each other siblings casually. Zhang Yue was introduced by Meng Fan and Meng Tao to a few younger kids, but he thought Zhang Chao would be more suitable for such an occasion—his elder brother, who was about to turn eighteen, should have gotten married by now, but instead he went alone to Jinxiangwei to fight the Japanese pirates. Truly, everyone’s fate is different.
If the last time, during his elder brother-in-law Meng Jun’s birthday, he met a bunch of young marquises and earls, then this time Zhang Yue met a lot of various noble young ladies. However, girls usually didn’t reveal their given names easily, so although he easily gained many “sisters,” he only knew their surnames and birth order. The only one whose name he knew was Du Wan. Yet, there were two girls of similar age sitting next to her, happily feeding the koi fish without even glancing at him.
It was called a poetry gathering, and the theme was the winter jasmine, but many of those present couldn’t write poetry, so they were naturally assigned tasks. Some were in charge of copying, some of timing, some of taking care of writing brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones, while most just watched and joked around. Since everyone’s skill level was limited, they all demanded that there be no strict rhyme rules and complained that regulated quatrains were too long and difficult to write, so they simply decided on five-character quatrains. As for whether what they produced would actually be quatrains, no one cared.
So, as the eldest daughter-in-law of the Baoding Marquis family, Zhang Qing was inevitably urged to start first. Unable to refuse, she smiled and said, “My poem is the most ordinary. If it’s not good, don’t laugh at my simplicity. Um… I’ve got it!”
“Chilly spring days, fragrant blossoms bloom in the wind. I ask you, what do you understand? This flower…”

Seeing Zhang Qing in trouble, Miss Meng the Fourth burst into laughter: “Sister-in-law, with your rhyme scheme, I think three words at the end fit best!” As she spoke, she stood up and said with a smile, “Chilly spring days, fragrant blossoms bloom in the wind. What do you think this means? These flowers symbolize deepest longing!”
As soon as she finished speaking, the room erupted in laughter, but there was little mockery in it. Although they all lived in the Jiangnan region, aside from Du Wan, most of the women did not come from literate families of scholars there. Reciting poems was merely a way to pass the time. With Zhang Qing’s example, the other women grew bolder and quickly copied their poems on the white paper beside them, regardless of their quality.
When it was Miss Meng the Fourth’s turn, she thought for a moment before reciting casually, “Not a noble variety, yet blooms proudly in the cold. Its beauty fades by spring’s end, hidden among the flowers.”
Zhang Yue found it interesting, thinking it had a similar charm to the line “When the mountains are covered in blossoms, she laughs among them.” He had assumed Miss Meng the Fourth was somewhat arrogant due to her talent, but instead, her poem carried a sense of seclusion and non-competition. As he pondered, Zhang Qing whispered in his ear.
“Fourth Sister has always been with Uncle in Beijing. I’m not sure about her past. But a few days ago, Aunt asked me to talk, and her words hinted at something. Uncle has also praised you to me. Regardless of the quality of her poems, Aunt is not in good health, and the other daughters are ordinary. Fourth Sister managed the household while in Beijing—she’s fully qualified as a housewife. Normally I shouldn’t mention a girl’s real name, but hers is Min, which is different from the more elegant names like Fangzhi and Henglan. Just from this one character, one can see her father’s intentions.”
Zhang Yue nodded after hearing this, but then remembered Meng Xian’s earlier words and the subsequent scheme. Seeing Du Wan still chatting and laughing among the girls who weren’t reciting poems, he was puzzled. Yang Shiqi and Yang Rong had once said that Du Zhen was exceptional in poetry and prose, but he had seen her prose while never having the chance to see her poetry. Now that Du Wan refused to write poems, did she really not know how or was she pretending not to?
As he was thinking, he suddenly felt a strong elbow jab. Looking up, he saw it was his turn. He had thought the others’ poems were just ordinary, so he planned to recite something casual to make do, but suddenly, laughter arose.

“Brother Yue, you received many rewards from the palace’s eldest aunt before. Among them was a rare sable fur cloak, said to be a tribute from the Tartars and the only one of its kind in the world. I really desire that sable fur. How about you use it as stakes? I’ll add this sheep-fat jade token given by the eldest aunt as well. We each write a poem, and the one with the better poem gets the prize, what do you say?”
Seeing that it was Zhang Ke, the daughter of Zhang Yuanzhi and his cousin, Zhang Yue felt a sudden shock. When he first met this cousin, he hadn’t paid much attention, never expecting her to challenge him like this. After a moment of surprise, he forced a wry smile.
Since she had come to him, how could he possibly back down?