When A Yin returned, the food on the table had been half-eaten; A Yin went into the kitchen and filled a small bowl with white rice, telling Li Shiyi about the matter of the old tomb on Mount Jinyun as she plucked up vegetables. Everyone listened without a word; only A Luo paused the motion of her chopsticks when the two characters of "A Ping" appeared, looking at A Yin profoundly. Having finished eating, without explaining, Li Shiyi returned to her room, closing the door and making preparations for an entire day; the second day, she only ate a single plain mantou in the room; only when the skies had become tinged with sunset hues did she emerge with slightly swollen eyelids, hands in her pants pockets and descending the stairs in small steps, behind her following Song Shijiu, lightly packed. In the remaining glow of the sunset, A Luo was listening to an opera, the gramophone turning in circles, the high, sharp voice carrying her tender gaze. Li Shiyi walked over, turning a h

The yowls of cats and the cries of dogs drove away the depths of night; the pale dawn light seeped faintly through the sky; the group returned to the small residence from Mount Jinyun, the groaning and creaking, old-fashioned building's stairs moving heavily, rising and falling as it met those arriving back, and only then was willing to fall asleep. The moonlight was covered up partway by the curtains, and it was as if there was a supernatural spotlight, striking the lustrous white calves; Li Shiyi sat at the bedside with crossed legs, watching Song Shijiu wrap the wounds on her ankles with loop after loop of bandages with lowered brows. The young lady's fingertips were more teasing than feathers, softly and pricklingly stroking her ankles, the protruding bones' desire provoked, and the shallowly indented pit bore the weight of the surplus tenderness. Li Shiyi's gaze rose, moving over Song Shijiu's face; she couldn't remember when the last time she herself had b

The night in the mountain city was inky black, the sky low, cut across by dark clouds, the clamour of the bright day swallowed by the treachery, the threat hidden in the mountains like paper cutouts. The Shengsheng lived concealed in the Jinyun mountain range; this mountain was made up of multiple anticlines, the peaks of range after range standing tall, the ancient trees that reached up to the heavens hidden within the sheer cliffs and precipitous rock faces, rugged and strangely beautiful. In the midst of the swaying bamboo, the four people followed the mountain upwards, the trickle of a stream by their ears, the scattered moonlight before their eyes, pressing against the four's brisk steps, as splendid as going for a walk in the spring, when the grass had turned green. Li Shiyi walked at the very front, holding aloft a glass-covered kerosene lamp, an outstretched hand pushing aside the obstructing bamboo; when she grasped the chilly branches and shoots, it was with a slow, accus

Li Shiyi had a rare, lazy sleep; when she woke, Song Shijiu had already wrung out a kerchief and spread it across her face. Li Shiyi opened hazy eyes and tilted her head to look at her; Song Shijiu shifted the kerchief, laid out on her forehead, slightly, the rising steam joining her line of sight. Li Shiyi drew her gaze back and turned her head, the muscles on her neck stretching visibly. Song Shijiu blinked; usually, when she met Li Shiyi's gaze, she was that kind of being unable to hold her own for three or four moments; yet this time, Li Shiyi had withdrawn her forces; even the action of already retreating was done as easily as handling a butcher's cleaver. She tilted her head, immersing the kerchief in the water, soaking it for a few moments and then wringing it out once more, sitting at the side of the bed and passing it to Li Shiyi. Li Shiyi took it with a single hand, closing her eyes and massaging her temples, and then placed it between her eyes and pressed down. Her m

I think, you love me. In her heart, there was a young girl clutching at her cuff, wiping the flower vase that had been impinged on by ash over and over again. But A Yin smiled and turned over, pulling the quilt close, and said, “I think, I’m tired.” She truly wasn’t good at this game of murmuring endearments; so, she had turned her love for Li Shiyi into a secret. Afterwards, the concealment of the secret had been destroyed, and it had been placed into the light of the sun, and had gotten washed out, and no longer counted as her. But this moment, she felt there was another secret secretly emerging just then, relying on that person not minding to take the trouble of watering, as if buds sprouting. The shape of the moon set in the west, and it was a brand new day; the Golden Crow of the sun dazzled and sent out rays of light, ushering the long-distance travelers onto cars and boats. Sweeping water aside and heading west, a bit more than a week later they arrived in Chongqing; the scorchi

When A Yin woke, the sun had already risen three measures; the window curtains had been pulled closed very securely, and the inside of the room was just as dark as the Teng serpent’s cave, but through the sliver of the curtains, the sunshine penetrated both clearly and brightly. It was as if she were weighed down in the spacious void of the deep sea, and what brought a calming scented air was the bubbling stream, and the thread of light was a fisherman’s line that lured her out of the sea. She didn’t know what sort the angling fisherman was, or how he planned to eat her, just as she didn’t know whether the scene outside the curtains was agreeable to the gaze. She wanted to cough quietly, yet her breastbone was numb and couldn’t rise eagerly, and the painful sensation of the bones of her limbs had just emerged from sleep; it was this that caused her to dully remember the matters of the day before. She twisted her ankles; since the past, when receiving an injury, she’d always had this cu