Chapter 4: The South interprets bones, the North asks of coffins, have you heard of it before?

Translator's note: curious about why I'm working on the earlier chapters? You can find an explanation in the translator's note on the ninth chapter.

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The cloak of the night was like a giant, satiated animal, and within Sijiucheng,^[1] the lamp-light scattered cleanness, and Li Shiyi and Tu Laoyao each returned to their own homes without exchanging words. The winter wind whistled against the wood door, and Li Shiyi, holding Song Shijiu, entered the room, pushing the door open with her foot, and put Song Shijiu on the wooden bed, and from within the willow wardrobe, and took out a camphor-scented buckwheat pillow, putting it beneath her head, then fetched hot water and sat at the bedside and washed her body, seeing she didn’t make any sound, rather clever and obedient, and couldn’t help but reach out her index finger to tip up her chubby, pouting chin, and said to herself, “What sort of person are you?”

Song Shijiu opened her eyes wide, and blew a perplexed bubble of spit. Li Shiyi laughed, her left hand supporting her right shoulder as she got out of the bed, and thought for a moment before she brought in a few coals from outside, and dropped them with a pa-la into the charcoal brazier. Once she completed her task, she was already incredibly tired, and it took all of her willpower to keep keep her eyes open to put the water on to boil, and it was only after that that she let her muscles loosen and sat down in front of the mirror.

Song Shijiu raised her chin, her legs treading, and she struggled to flip herself over, and inquisitively looked her over. In the faint moonlight, she saw Li Shiyi shed her ashen outer coat, hanging it conveniently over the back of the chair, and wrung out a heated cloth and brought it to her right cheek, and the steam fogged up mirror, and without needing to look, Li Shiyi tore at the softened plaster, as if peeling off a piece of painted skin from bone.^[2] Finally, the last bit of paste pulled at her skin before pulling away, leaving behind a faint red mark, the skin beneath the plaster glossy and smooth, pale as if new, and little by little, she wiped away the dust and ash on her face, and then her coal-filled brows, turning the yellow towel black, and it was only then that the beauty^[3] of her complexion appeared. Her face was not markedly stunning, nor gorgeous, still remaining colourless, and of her facial features, one could not choose any good nor bad, but when gathered together, they were actually remarkably handsome and elegant, making one who looked once want to look a second time, unable to look enough no matter what. Song Shijiu blinked, then blinked again, that face engraving itself upon her confused pupils.

Li Shiyi finished wiping her face, then removed her guapi hat, her dog-ragged bangs escaping confinement, parting smoothly. She moved the bubbling pot of water, putting in the towel, and moved towards the door to wash her hair, her movements exceedingly quick, washing clean in only two or three minutes, then tossed the water out, and walked back inside holding the enamel pot. Then, she first brushed her dripping wet, short hair, and then set up the kerosene lamp on the table and carelessly flipped through a few books, the sweet scent of honey-locust spreading as the lamp warmed, winding through her slim fingers.

Song Shijiu had mastered the first word, which most likely was neat; in the dark and forbidding tomb, the noise and disarray in the world of mortals, the turmoil of chaos, she had unexpectedly met an extremely neat Li Shiyi. Drying her hair wasn’t much different from how she had passed being trapped, and Li Shiyi, as usual, went and sat outside the door, breathing for a moment the cool wind, and only then entered and softly and quietly laid down next to Song Shijiu’s body and covered it with a quilt, and seeing that she still had her eyes open, turned sideways to face her, her hand patting her waist in a circular motion, murmured in a low voice, “Sleep.”

Once she’d spoken, she withdrew her hand, and put it next to her face, and not long after, her heavy eyes closed, her breathing steady. Song Shijiu’s short right leg kicked, and she struggled to turn her body to lay on her side, watching Li Shiyi’s hand attentively, and strenuously put her fist against her cheek, and then closed her eyes calmly, and fell asleep.

The wick burnt down to the kerosene, and the last of the light was taken away by the whistling, cold wind, and after a few strikes of the watchman’s clapper, half the thick quilts had fallen down, and without care, a nimble little body clambered off the bed, fair as a lotus root, her round bottom turning over as she came to the ground, supporting herself against the bed as she stood, swaying. The clothes on that little body only covered half of it, and she bypassed the disorderly chair, thoughtlessly walking towards the outside, and then stopped when she reached the flight of steps and thought a moment, her short legs spreading as she sat down on her bottom, breathing in the cool wind as Li Shiyi had before she had gone to sleep, then crawled back up and inside.

Once she got back up on the bed, her was already much more nimble, and she used her hands and feet to crawl towards Li Shiyi’s side, and she pulled the quilts onto them by herself, laying down on her back next to Li Shiyi, whose hands were folded over themselves over her abdomen, her slender legs crossed, and she stretched out her own legs, wanting to be like hers, but no matter what, she wasn’t able to master it, and finally gave up, entering into dream askew.

The next morning, once Li Shiyi had made herself presentable and put on her disguise, she glanced at the bed with many thoughts on her mind, muttering to herself as she walked in front of the table, flipping through the leather book in her hand until she came to a thumb-sized paper person, and lifted the cinnabar pencil, casually writing a few characters, then read them aloud, and unexpectedly, that paper person turned over and stood up steadily, and courteously greeted her with a voice clear and sharp as a child’s: “Shiyi.”

Li Shiyi let out a breath of surprise, and tapped its head, and said, “Go call Tu Laoyao to come.”

The paper person accepted the order and went, following the leg of the table and sliding to the ground, going along the wall and stopping, then picked up a dried leaf and put it on its forehead, and then ran like a wisp of smoke.

At the same time, Tu Laoyao was making food for his wife, having taken the wooden stool outside, cleaning the cured meat, and suddenly saw at the foot of the wall a small leaf drifting, as if carried by ants, before slowly coming to a stop next to the cured meat, and he watched, bewildered, as that leaf turned over, exposing a small, fine paper person, who bent at the waist respectfully, and said, “Tu Laoyao!”

Tu Laoyao was so surprised he almost jumped up from his stool, and pointing at it, said, “You, you, you…what sort of thing are you!”

The paper person, showing a complete understanding of etiquette, put its legs together, and said, “Shiyi calls you to come.” Its speech completed, it raised the leaf over its head, as if it were a gentleman opening an umbrella.

“Shiyi-jie’s communicating treasure?” Tu Laoyao swayed as he sized it up, and reached a hand to pluck up the leaf umbrella, and only returned it when the paper person resisted, and wiped off both hands on his trouser legs, and walked towards the kitchen, saying, “You…you wait a minute, I was just cooking porridge, I’ll take two bowls to her.”

Not much time passed before Tu Laoyao came out carrying a basket, and, like the paper person, stuck to the foot of the wall and walked towards Li Shiyi’s house. The neighbour’s old hen had just laid an egg, and it croaked in accomplishment, breaking the silence between Tu Laoyao and Li Shiyi as they stared at each other. The corners of Tu Laoyao’s mouth drew back, and, disbelievingly, he extended out a hand to point towards the bed, and said difficultly through his teeth, “This, this is Song Shijiu? The one that I brought back yesterday?”

Li Shiyi nodded, crossing both arms as she stood close to the wall, the sunlight speckling the ends of her hair.

“By my own mother!”^[4] Tu Laoyao exclaimed, approaching the bed and looking upon Song Shijiu, whose face remained round as a silver plate, except her chin, which had pulled back some, so though her looks remained the same, it was as if by some trickery she had grown a size, and, having changed into a set of printed cloth clothes, at this moment her fleshy legs walked along the side of the small bed, her face expressionlessly turned towards him. Tu Laoyao tugged at her hands, then at her legs, then looked at her hair, which had grown past her ears, and no matter what he thought, couldn’t understand it—that child that had been delivered yesterday, how could she have grown a year in appearance in the span of one night?

Li Shiyi curled her lips, shaking her head in exasperation, and walked to the dining table, taking the food that Tu Laoyao had brought and arranging it atop it, bending her legs to sit down, and grasped the bowl of porridge, drinking it all in one big mouthful.

Tu Laoyao still watched Song Shijiu with trepidation for some time, and only then followed and sat down, knocking a salted duck egg against the table, and asked her eloquently, “Don’t you fear that it’s a yaoguai?”^[5]

“I don’t know.” Li Shiyi repeated this sentence once again.

“She’s not eating?” Tu Laoyao suddenly thought of this chance.

“She was already fed yesterday, she’s not eating.”

Tu Laoyao, with many thoughts on his mind, replenished a bowl of food, and then, incredibly anxiously,^[6] thought of something: “What sort of origin is it? How about, we go back to that coffin and ask again?”

“Not possible,” Li Shiyi said, shaking her head, and explained carefully, “when a person dies and is reincarnated, there’ll usually be one or two bits of the spirit left in the coffin, and the questions asked of the coffin are asked of this spirit. The form of the spirit is weak, as it’s without its master, and if it opens its mouth to reply, you must first ask where came from, then ask where it went, in order for it to gather a bit of awareness, and only then can it recall things from during its life.”

Tu Laoyao listened distractedly, and his actions as he peeled the eggshell also slowed a bit.

“Once the spirit has some consciousness, it can barely answer one question, and if more are asked, the spirit will have some thoughts, and afterwards, it’s very easy for it to become refined into a po, which assembles into a hun,^[7] after which it will become as is known to the common person—an evil spirit.”

With reluctance, Tu Laoyao understood; in simple terms, a coffin could only be asked thrice, replying once, and asking more wasn’t possible. He slowly let out a sighing breath, and said: “You also have this attention for detail, ah.” With a deep-seated anxiety, he licked his lips. “Then what’s to be done about this?”

Li Shiyi took the bowl and placed it aside, muttering, “Once you’ve finished eating, follow me outside.”

As the world got more challenging, the red-light district, however, got more lively, and in the alley steeped in the scent cloying scent of cosmetics, seeping from the cracks between the bricks and tiles of the wall, and prostitutes with hair piled up with hairpins leaned against it. Tu Laoyao dodged a silk handkerchief, and mockingly nudged Li Shiyi, and said, “That you’re this familiar, it wouldn’t be obvious to see.”

Li Shiyi held Song Shijiu with one hand, seeing that she was holding her throat with her arms, stretching out her little head to inquisitively look around, and used her left hand to press the back of her head down gently, encouraging her to cleverly lean forward and over her shoulder. With a small, moist and warm breath, her curled lashes raised at the same time and her eyes flashed at her neck, and Li Shiyi glanced down, wordlessly stroking her soft waist.

The wooden stairs made a creaking sound, and Tu Laoyao and Li Shiyi both entered into a courtyard, then went up a staircase with loud steps, then detoured through a few wings with carved fretwork, then stopped at the furthest spot. Li Shiyi still didn’t raise a hand to knock on the door, soon hearing from inside a voice that was delicate and silky to the marrow call out, “Come in.”

Inside the room, lily-scented incense sticks burned from behind a veil, and Lu’an tea bubbled, and a melon seed shells were thrown upon the ground, the rind dirtied by a novel rouge, slender, fair legs emerging from the narrow slit of a qipao, ending in a pair of elaborately-embroidered shoes, which swung over the melon seeds. After swinging for only two or three times, the embroidered shoes fell to the floor, and their master tossed the melon seeds in the middle of her hand towards the table, leaning her body against the table, and said, “Oh, where’d that girl come from!”

Tu Laoyao’s spirit was still unable to return and answer, just smelling a burst of fragrant wind, that young lady taking advantage of it to advance forward, and took Song Shijiu in her arms, her legs carrying her back to the low stool, and she caressed Song Shijiu’s hair twice, the affection in her voice almost overflowing as she said, “What a smart girl, ah, is she eating or breastfeeding or not?”

As she spoke, she untied her qipao’s coiled fastenings, and Tu Laoyao let out a shout, covering his face as he retreated backwards, and said, “Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t introduce!”

“Pei!” he young lady spat at him, stopping her actions and holding Song Shijiu and looking at him askance, and said, “If I actually wanted to feed her, I’d also have to have some to feed her with.”

Tu Laoyao looked through the cracks between his fingers, and saw the young woman smiling as she gave Song Shijiu to Li Shiyi, calling to her, “Shiyi.”

Li Shiyi secretly curled her lips, and nodded. “A Yin.”

Tu Laoyao’s heart returned to his abdomen, and only then had the leisure to look at that young woman named A Yin, her bright and intelligent eyes and her delicate and exquisite mouth, her scallion-white nose bridge and the sharp point of her chin, and her lips which seemed to smile to a degree as she talked, gently curling upwards, truly as beautiful as a wife of a bad family.

A Yin seemed to understand Li Shiyi’s intention in coming, and didn’t pay attention to Tu Laoyao, instead twisting her waist and walking towards the dressing box, and rifled through one of the drawers and took out a silk brocade bag, the same as the sturdy one that Li Shiyi had used in the tomb. A Yin pushed it towards her hand and said, “Yes, one qian^[8] of mugwort, one qian of horn obtained from killing a rhinoceros, three qian of sweet basil, half a liang of baijiu, steeped with strips of tobacco for exactly thirty-six days, the same as previously, without a fraction of a difference.”

“He!” Tu Laoyao found a new level of respect for her.

Li Shiyi, following her advice, took the brocade bag, and then, getting right to the point, explained her purpose in coming: “There’s still another matter.”

A Yin’s smile was serene and opaque, and she raised her brows in tacit understanding, and said, “I inspected the bones of the child from just now, which are neither ghost nor human.”

Li Shiyi furrowed her brows, habitually biting the second knuckle of her index finger, silently thinking deeply. “Inspecting bones?” Tu Laoyao couldn’t help but say.

A Yin laughed softly and picked up some melon seeds, and said, “Since Shiyi agreed to bring you, then there’s nothing that shouldn’t be said. Li Shiyi and I make the same living,^[9] it’s just our sects are different; the South interprets bones, the North asks of coffins, have you heard it before?”

“I haven’t.” Tu Laoyao earnestly shook his head. A Yin rolled her beautiful eyes, and didn’t respond. Tu Laoyao looked at her suspiciously and said, “Those who make this sort of living, who prostitute themselves? Not good at the trade?”

“Absolute nonsense!” A Yin tossed the melon seeds, yet the expression on her face didn’t have any anger, and she continued, “other people sell their bodies, what I do is ideal.”

Tu Laoyao choked on a mouthful of saliva, and said, “Doing this sort of shady business, it’s ideal?”

“What do you understand?” A Yin truly couldn’t look upon that stupid appearance of his, and secretly exchanged a glance with Li Shiyi, asking her whether she owed him a great deal of money. Li Shiyi’s appearance still remained colourless, only her eyelids rising faintly, carrying Song Shijiu, about to take leave, when she heard A Yin say, “Since you’ve already come, I have a business case. Lately I haven’t been feeling the best, and I don’t want to struggle, so I’ll just ask, will you come or not?”

She grasped the silk handkerchief and extended a finger, and Li Shiyi returned and sat down and said, “Then explain it.”

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Translator's notes:

[1]: 四九城 (Sijiucheng), literally “Four-nine city”, is a nickname for Beijing stemming from the four gates of the imperial city and the nine gates within the inner city.

[2]: The term 画皮 (hua pi) is used to mean “unmasking”, usually in reference to one’s true face being unmasked. The term is usually used to refer to unmasking negative traits, and there are a number of film and tv series, as well as a short story, about the topic. In the short story, the character being unmasked is a demon who disguises herself as a beautiful young woman by wearing skin with human features painted on it.

[3]: QXHS uses the idiom 青山绿水 (qingshan lüshui), meaning literally “green hills and clear waters”, used colloquially to mean a pleasant scene, usually in nature.

[4]: In this case I’ve gone with a more literal translation of the text, since I didn’t want to risk losing meaning due to localisation. 亲娘啊 (qin niang a) isn’t an expletive, but rather used to indicate surprise in the vein of “holy cow!”.

[5]: Yaoguai (妖怪) is the broad term referring to strange monsters and creatures, including spirits.

[6]: 掏心挠肝 (taoxin naogan) is a turn of phrase used to refer to when someone is incredibly worried about something, it “grasps their heart” and “scratches their liver”.

[7]: 魂 (hun) and 魄 (po) are the two types of soul in Chinese traditional religion and philosophy. According to tradition, hun is the ethereal, yang soul which leaves the body after death, associated with the divine (神, shen), and po is the corporeal, substantive yin soul which remains with the corpse, associated with ghosts (鬼, gui).

[8]: One qian (钱) is equal to one-tenth of a liang (两, known as a tael in english), weighing around four grams (the actual measure varied historically; the weight of a liang was only standardised in 1959 as fifty grams). The term qian is also used to refer to money generally, as coins were measured in relation to the weight of a liang.

[9]: 吃饭 (chi fan) means literally to eat food, but has the double meaning of referring to making a living (via a trade, business, etc).