Chapter 23: The Fury of the Cat Lovers
Chapter 23: The Fury of the Cat Lovers
“What is the earth, first of all?”
Yang Xin stood seriously by the table, speaking to a sheet of white paper temporarily pasted on the wall.
Then he drew a circle with a brush.
“We don’t need you to say that; the Red-Haired Barbarians already talked about that long ago. They even talked about latitude and longitude lines. I’ve seen the world map they drew. They say there’s an even more detailed and clear Kunyu Wanguo Tu in the palace. They also said someone sailed around the entire earth. Even that America you bragged about last time, they mentioned it. They just didn’t mention a three-thousand-foot waterfall!”
Wang Wanqing protested.
Xu Guangqi was not home, but he had no other relatives around. Chen Yujie had always been with him and could make decisions in the Xu Mansion.
“Quiet! I’m the one lecturing now!”
Yang Xin tapped the table in front of him with a small bamboo rod.
“Brother Yang, you might as well skip the earth and go straight to the sun, moon, and stars. We are not ignorant country folk. I have met many Missionaries. Miss Wang’s grandfather studied under Li Zhuowu, and Li Zhuowu himself met Matteo Ricci six times to debate Eastern and Western knowledge. She would not be unaware of these things. Miss Fang, as the daughter of Master Jinghan, also comes from a learned family. I imagine she knows all this as well.”
Chen Yujie said.
“It’s fine. What Young Master Yang speaks of is rather novel.”
Miss Fang said gently.
Clearly, she truly did not know. Among the Great Ming scholar-officials, not everyone accepted what the Missionaries brought, like Xu Guangqi did. In fact, the northern Confucians resisted fiercely.
Her father was probably one of those stubborn old men.
“You see, Miss Fang understands!”
Yang Xin said.
Then, under Miss Fang’s speechless gaze, he began explaining the earth again.
Wang Wanqing was dissatisfied at first but was quickly captivated. She sat there eagerly, propping her chin with her hands, listening like a good student. Miss Fang watched intently without blinking. Soon, even Chen Yujie began taking out paper and taking notes. After all, what the Missionaries knew was limited. They couldn’t possibly know many things as clearly as Yang Xin did, even though Yang Xin himself held some things back. For example, he definitely wouldn’t mention Australia, which hadn’t been discovered yet. What if the Missionaries found out? That wouldn’t be good.
He only talked about what was already known.
But even the known things far exceeded what those Missionaries knew.
The latter were not true scholars; they were here to spread their religion, not astronomy and geography.
Yang Xin was truly describing this world to them: the oceans, the continents, the islands, the vast Sahara Desert in North Africa, the endless Amazon rainforest in South America, the wildebeests galloping across the Serengeti plains, even the giant elephant birds of Madagascar, the frozen Antarctic continent, the fantastic Grand Canyon of Arizona, and the thousands-of-miles-long Himalayan mountains.
All of this made the three listeners feel as if they were dreaming.
Especially because his descriptions also included the general history of various places, and were even mixed with various scandalous exposés.
This guy wasn’t a good teacher either. He just talked about whatever came to his mind without any clear order. But what he said was too novel. Soon, all three listeners were led astray, forgetting that the original purpose was to listen to him explain the structure of the solar system. And so he talked for over an hour. Yang Xin himself finally forgot the original point, and the content even strayed completely away from geography, becoming a collection of various scandalous inside stories.
“Burning witches?”
Chen Yujie said in astonishment.
“Yes, actually, most were innocent. For instance, if someone’s marriage proposal was rejected, they could collude with people from the Inquisition to frame the person as a witch, then arrest and burn them. They probably still burn them now. Not just witches, anyone judged by the Inquisition as a heretic gets burned. Including scholars who promote ideas not in line with the Church’s thinking. Just twenty years ago, they burned one. Our Wang Gen, He Xinyin, Li Zhi, and the like, by their standards, would definitely be tied to the stake and burned to ashes. Back then, they even burned all the cats!”
Yang Xin said.
“What? Cats are so cute! Why would they burn cats!”
Wang Wanqing exclaimed in shock.
“They believe cats are the embodiment of witches. Witches can turn into cats.”
Yang Xin said.
“Miss, please do not believe his lies!”
With a strangely accented shout, their door was pushed open. A European man dressed in Great Ming clothing entered first, looking at Yang Xin with unfriendly eyes. Behind him followed an old man in dark blue official robes, with a long-legged waterbird mandarin square on his chest…
“Father Long!”
Chen Yujie stood up and said respectfully.
“Please, place your hand on your Bible and swear that you never burned witches, never burned cats, never burned heretics. Swear to your Yahweh that Giordano Bruno was not burned at the Campo de’ Fiori in Rome.”
Yang Xin extended his hand and said.
“I admit, in the past, some people indeed misinterpreted the doctrines…”
Father Long said.
“Did you burn them or not? I’m asking, did you burn them or not? Please, place your hand on your holy book, swear to your Yahweh that your Inquisition does not exist, that you never burned heretics, never burned cats. That you never sold indulgences, saying you could buy your way into heaven. That you never preached that not bathing was holy, canonizing a queen who didn’t bathe for forty years and grew worms on her body as a saint. That you never banned Copernicus’s On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, that you never convicted the scholar Giordano Bruno, who supported Heliocentrism, of heresy and burned him. Swear to Yahweh that all these things are false, that they never existed!”
Yang Xin pointed at him arrogantly.
“I…”
Father Long tried to say something.
“Swear! Yes or no?”
Yang Xin said.
Father Long took a deep breath.
“Yes, I admit these things did exist. But I must state, Heliocentrism is indeed heresy. Giordano Bruno got what he deserved.”
He said.
Wang Wanqing gasped, looking at him with disbelief as if looking at an executioner. But clearly, her focus wasn’t on Giordano Bruno. She didn’t know who Giordano Bruno was. She just couldn’t believe someone would burn cute cats. Even Miss Fang looked at Father Long with some shock. She was probably also a cat lover. In fact, in the Great Ming, except for the Hongwu and Yongle emperors, all the emperors so far were almost all severe cat-loving enthusiasts. The Wanli emperor’s Imperial Palace was basically like a cat den right now.
With the emperor setting the example, the common people’s obsession went without saying.
“On the contrary, Heliocentrism is the closest to the truth!”
Yang Xin said.
At that moment, Miss Fang stood up.
“Lord Xu, the day is getting late. My home is outside the city. I must take my leave!”
She bowed and said.
“Give my regards to Master Jinghan for me!”
Xu Guangqi, who had been behind, said with a smile.
Wang Wanqing also stood up to take her leave. However, when Miss Fang was going out, she looked back at Yang Xin and said, “Young Master Yang, do you intend to let us two weak women go back by ourselves?”
“Um, then I shall be your protector!”
Yang Xin quickly said.
Then he also bid farewell to Xu Guangqi and the other.
Before leaving, he exchanged a glance with Father Long. The latter’s gaze was deep and shocked, looking at him as if looking at a little demon.
Soon, the three left the Xu Mansion.
“Elder Sister Fang, why did you leave in such a hurry?”
Wang Wanqing asked doubtfully.
“Silly girl, Long Huamin was already expelled back to Macau by Imperial Edict. Although, in reality, most of them are hidden by local believers and can come and go freely even in this Capital City. But Lord Xu is still an official of the court. Meeting Long Huamin in his home is awkward for both him and us. If we didn’t leave quickly, what were we going to do, stay there?”
Miss Fang said.
“They actually burned cats! That’s simply insane!”
Wang Wanqing said indignantly.
“That’s nothing; there’s plenty more! And their cat-burning brought retribution. Without cats, rats multiplied out of control, and the plague spread by rats killed half of all people in Europe in one go. They called it the Black Death. Even now, the plague breaks out from time to time.”
Yang Xin said from behind.
“And how do you know all this?”
Miss Fang turned back and asked suspiciously.
“Um, I don’t want to make up stories to lie. Actually, I lost my memory before.”
Yang Xin said with a serious face.
“What does your amnesia have to do with knowing these things?”
Miss Fang said.
“You can think of me as a book. My past memories are like a turned page. The present me is a new page. And these things are written on this page. But if you ask who wrote it, I don’t know. Similarly, I don’t know who turned my past page over. In short, these things are clearly written on my current page. And I can guarantee they are all true. But please don’t dig for the origin, because I myself don’t know why. From whence did I come? Where shall I go in death? Why do I appear in this world? What does my appearance mean to this world?”
With a melancholy gaze, Yang Xin looked up at the sky at a forty-five-degree angle, repeating Scholar Lü’s famous lines.
“You’re just a runaway slave!”
Wang Wanqing exposed his true nature.
“And a fugitive with a pile of charges! The Tianjin Military Defense Circuit’s arrest warrant has already been issued to the Capital City. I saw one yesterday!”
She immediately added.
“I’m also your savior! Without me, you would have drowned in the Grand Canal. By the way, the elegance of you stepping out of the cabin holding your little round fan, only to be knocked over by the surge and tossed up… it was like a goddess flying to the heavens, ‘faint as a light cloud veiling the moon; drifting like the wind-borne snow.’ I can still see it clearly before my eyes!”
Yang Xin said very maliciously.
“I’ll strangle you!”
Wang Wanqing shrieked angrily and turned to claw at him.
“Alright, both of you, stop causing a scene. It’s already late. Wanqing, you go home first. As for you, follow me!”
Miss Fang quickly grabbed her and said.
“You’re not thinking of killing me to silence me again, are you?”
Yang Xin said with fright.
Miss Fang’s face instantly turned red.
“Tie him up!”
She said through gritted teeth.
“You can’t do this to me! I’m innocent!”
Yang Xin retreated at top speed, shouting while warily watching the Fang family Household Servants closing in.
“Then shut up and follow me obediently!”
Miss Fang said.