Gold Tiger King - Ch. 6

What is Worth the Price of Gold

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One year had passed since the Battle of Yenmen, and the northeastern city of Taiyuan was assigned to the governance of Li Yuan, duke of Wugong. As the duke prepared to leave his family in Wugong, he hailed for his second son, Li Shimin. The seventeen-year-old lord entered silently through the sliding door of the main building. His father sat on the beautiful yellow cushion.

“You called for me, Father?” Shimin asked.

“Sit with me,” Yuan replied sternly.

Shimin sat in front of his father. Yuan’s head bowed, his gaze slipping to the space between him and his son as if he couldn’t hold it up. The grumpiness on his face was banished by a warm smirk. Then his eyes met with Shimin’s.

“I have chosen you to accompany me and your mother to Taiyuan,” the duke said.

Shimin’s eyes widened. He opened his mouth to speak though the words were too afraid to leave his heart. Yuan’s smile grew until his sclera were but slivers.

“I--I, um…” Shimin struggled. “Thank you, Father. This is the greatest honor.”

The young lord immediately fell forward into a deep kowtow. Yuan patted his son's head.

“Shimin, please,” Yuan urgingly chuckled.

The duke’s son lifted his head. His father’s arms were stretched out wide. Shimin, without a second thought or change of expression, lunged forward to embrace him. Li Yuan hugged his son tightly. Shimin’s eyes eventually closed, but not once did he crack a smile.

In the next room, Li Yuanji, the duke’s third son who was only thirteen at the time, was eavesdropping. Yuanji snuck out of the main building and sent for a messenger.

“I want you to send a message to my brother, Jiancheng.”

“What shall I tell Li Qinwang, my lord?” the messenger asked.

“Tell him he was right.”

#

Three years prior, a man by the name of Xuansui served as a strategist for a general that failed to rebel against the emperor. That man became a poet who once composed a piece about the hag tree Yen-shu would train at. He called it Wugong Qingliu; the Blue Willow of Wugong. Needless to say, the name stuck. Now, Qingliu’s leaves reached so far that it shaded the audience of children that would gather to watch Yen-shu. However, there was a problem. Yen-shu noticed that he wasn’t getting any better. He needed a teacher, but the end of his contract of servitude under the house of Li was nowhere in sight. So, he kept training, and the willow continued to grow.

There was one day where only one person showed up to watch him train, but she was so silent that the eighteen-year-old Yen-shu was startled when he turned to see her standing there. She was like a spirit, beautiful and glowing under the blue canopy. Her smile was soft while her eyes struck like lightning. His heart fluttered, and he quickly bowed before her. The young woman giggled before noticing something beyond Yen-shu. She gasped and scuttled away.

The wings of Yen-shu’s grin fell as if to flap but once. His shoulders drooped as he let out a sigh.

“She’s a beautiful girl,” Shimin's voice remarked. Yen-shu turned to face his rival. “But with my help, you could marry a princess.”

“Maybe I don’t want to marry a princess,” Yen-shu replied, plopping down to sit up against the willow.

“Think it over. You won’t be able to get my help for long.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Shimin crossed his arms and looked up into the web of Qingliu’s branches. “It means that I’m leaving. My father asked me to join him in Taiyuan.”

“Is the Dragon City too high class to bring me along?”

“Ha! Even if it was, you think I’d care?”

Shimin scratched his head and stared at the ground. Yen-shu looked off into the distance then back at his old friend with a squint.

“I want you to come with us,” Shimin finally said.

“You say that like I have a choice,” Yen-shu snorted.

“You do. Father has no plans of taking you, but if I said something, I’m sure he’d allow it.”

“What’s all this about? In case you’ve forgotten the last twelve years of our lives, I’m not exactly free to make those kinds of choices.

“That’s why I’m saying this. I’m giving you the choice.”

“Exactly my point.” Yen-shu shakes his head as he picks apart a blue leaf. “I’m not sure the allowance to choose is the same as the freedom to do so.”

Shimin scoffs. He starts to laugh and sits next to Yen-shu.

“I thought I was the wise one,” the young lord teases.

“Well, I have a lot of time to think nowadays,” said the cub.

“I would’ve thought your mind preoccupied with the likes of that commoner.”

“Ha-ha. No, I uh...it’s just that I’m not getting anywhere with my training.”

“There is little more we can learn from our teachers.”

“No, no. I mean with my kung fu. Like back in Duan Men Jie.”

“Ah, yes. Your...tree punching”

“Yeah,” Yen-shu sighed. “So, whenever my contract ends, I’m going to search for a master who can teach me.”

Shimin looks away from his friend. Pushes his lips forward.

“I see,” he said.

The two sat together in silence as the horizon shone a gentle apricot. From cobalt cloud silhouettes spilled the orange glow of sunset. The faded indigo sky heralded evening’s arrival.

“Well then,” Shimin blurted, hopping up onto his feet. “I’ve decided you're coming with us to Taiyuan.”

“I pray I am not a bother, Li Ye,” Yen-shu snarked.

“Come on,” the young lord chortled.

Shimin motioned for Yen-shu to follow him. Yen-shu pushed himself up off the tree. He looked back toward the commoner residences. After a moment, he proceeded to join his rival on the walk back to the Li Estate.

#

Jiancheng and Yuanji waved their parents off as they, along with Shimin and Yen-shu, rode east with a thousand man cavalry to Taiyuan, the Dragon City. Jiancheng was put in charge of Wugong in the duke’s stead. He didn’t say a word to Shimin before they left. Yuanji, on the other hand, loved both of his brothers and shed tears for Shimin as well as his parents.

Around this time, the separatists started to grow significantly in number. Commoners were joined by lords and even generals as agrarian revolts ravaged the once unified land. The Sui dynasty was crumbling, and Li Yuan’s councillors began advising him to formally rebel. Nevertheless, it was the proclamation of his son, Li Shimin, that convinced him to take action.

“Retreating to Taiyuan, we are nothing but a rebel force, but advancing to Chang’an we could command people within the realm.”

Yuan’s hesitation was quelled, and the former duke of Wugong rode to the imperial capital backed by forces from all across the empire. In the year 618, Li Yuan founded the Tang dynasty and became known as Emperor Gaozu. The Dragon City, Taiyuan, was assigned to Shimin’s governance.

Those two years Yen-shu spent in Taiyuan were a blur. He spent his days training as much as he could, reading books about martial arts in an attempt to gleam something new, and attending political events alongside Shimin and his father. Eventually he stopped going to those and spent more time with Duchess turned Empress Dou, learning how to express himself through poetry and art. But the cub was sick of painting. He wanted to fight. The love of his life called to him in the mountains beyond the horizon. He dreamed of the leaves of the blue willow leading him by way of the wind on a great journey. The old fortune teller was right.

“You truly have outgrown this life,” Dou said to him one afternoon as they painted together.

“Huh?” Yen-shu exclaimed.

“I see how your eyes long for the sea. How your heart cries out to fly amongst the clouds.”

Yen-shu lowered his brush. His guilty look found comfort in the cradle of Dou’s smile. She approached him, the cub now two heads taller than the newly crowned empress. Dou put a hand to Yen-shu’s cheek. Her eyes shimmered as they welled up.

“I feel now that you are as much my son as any of those I’ve suffered to bring into this world,” she said like a song. “For that, you must be free.”

Yen-shu smiled and embraced the empress. Though surprised at first, she lovingly accepted.

A week later, Yen-shu was summoned to the Daming Palace in Chang’an. Emperor Gaozu, once known as Li Yuan, descended from his throne to meet Yen-shu. The twenty-year-old servant put his head to the floor as he bowed as low as he possibly could.

“Zhu Zi, Lord of Ten Thousand Years,” Yen-shu said. “I am here to answer your summons.”

“Stand and face me, Long Yen-shu,” Gaozu commanded.

“As you wish, Holy Lord.” Yen-shu rose before his master.

“My wife has brought it to my attention that you have served our family for seventeen years.”

Yen-shu quickly bowed. “Yes, Master.”

“I told you long ago that a man’s tears are golden. Well, a woman’s tears are heaven itself. The empress has cried tears of joy over you becoming a man.” Gaozu lowered his head. “And, if I am to be honest...I am proud of you.”

Yen-shu halted his breath.

“I fear if I prolong this, however, my emotions may claim victory over me,” Gaozu said. “Therefore, I hereby declare your contract fulfilled. The boy...the man who stands before me, he who is named Long Yen-shu…”

Gaozu clears his throat. Yen-shu beams from ear to ear.

“You are free,” declared the emperor.

Yen-shu bowed once more.

“Thank you, Master,” he said shakily. “What you saw in me as a boy was the miracle of my life. I know I am not your son, but…”

The cub could longer hold back his tears. Gaozu smiled as he looked upon the weeping face of the once orphan servant and placed his hand on his shoulder.

“Now you know what is worth the price of gold.”

#

Shimin met Yen-shu in the outer court as he was leaving the imperial palace. Yen-shu was dressed in a casual yet beautifully ornate set of robes pulling a cart toward the stables. Shimin stood arms crossed looking down on him from a bridge just ahead.

“Couldn’t shake the servant thing, I suppose,” he mocked.

“The clothes didn’t fool you, huh?” Yen-shu bantered.

“You know I’m getting married next year.”

“Congratulations.”

“If you’re not there, I’ll kill you.”

“What if I’m already dead.”

“Then I’ll kill you again.”

Yen-shu scoffed. Shimin smirked. The two stared each other down for a moment before Yen-shu waved goodbye. Shimin simply nodded. And as the early morning breeze soared throughout the Daming Palace grounds, a single blue leaf floated past Shimin and landed in Yen-shu’s cart.

“Zaijian, my friend,” the young prince murmured. “I’ll see you soon.”

That night, Empress Dou retired to her quarters only to find something wrapped in silk on her bed. Opening it, she was delighted at the sight of a painting Yen-shu made of her sitting in the shade of the Blue Willow of Wugong. The script on the side read “Queen of Qingliu”.

As Long Yen-shu rode off with his cart in tow in search of a master who could teach him the ways of kung fu, so too began the tale of the Gold Tiger King. Little more than danger and struggle awaited him beyond the safety of the palace. And what came next was the revelation that changed his life forever.

TO BE CONTINUED