Chapter 5: Chang'e must regret stealing the elixir of life (I)
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.
“Come to speak of it, this is strange as well,” A Yin said, tired of eating melon seeds, idly swinging the handkerchief, “previously, I had a gracious customer, who had obtained a concubine[1] whose beauty rivalled Xi Shi’s,[2] and from what I’ve heard, he couldn’t bear to part with her, passing night after night with music and singing, and it’s been quite a few days since he came here to me. But what I didn’t expect was that, after only a few months, this concubine suddenly caught tuberculosis and died.” A Yin clapped her hands together, the sound sharp and clear, and then parted them like a bird’s wings. “That lord was heartbroken and lost his mind, and buried her grandly. But she’d only been buried eight days when a highly treasured object went missing, and thinking over it, he thought perhaps he had, without meaning to, interred it with her, and hurriedly called for several groups to open the tomb.”
Tu Laoyao gazed at her petal-like, plump and glossy lips, and no matter how strange the events that came out of them were, they seemed to be said with some passion, and unexpectedly, in the suspicious surroundings, the idle, mellow voice was pleasant to listen to. Tu Laoyao unconsciously reached out to grab a handful of melon seeds, bending his back eagerly, and cracked them between his teeth. Li Shiyi shifted her head to cast a look at him, then bowed her head again, spotting the well-behaved Song Shijiu sitting in her embrace, looking at Tu Laoyao, lost in thought, her pouting lips opening and closing with his cracking of the melon seeds.
Li Shiyi raised her head, earnestly listening to the explanation A Yin gave, her index finger precisely and gently briefly touching Song Shijiu’s lip. A Yin, not having taken note of her small action, only frowned and said, “This is where the business gets strange—that group of people sent down started out as disorganised, and even tomb robbers were invited, and each and every one died within the tomb, their faces joyful and clothes dishevelled, and even some underpants had been half removed.” A Yin bit her lip and smiled with interest, shaking her head, and continued, “To hear it told, they were driven insane by that concubine.”
“O-yoh!” Tu Laoyao’s stout chin dropped in disdain.
“And?” Li Shiyi asked impatiently at hearing it, and raised a hand to scratch her brow.
“That master considered it, and found sending the men down again wasn’t reasonable. As it happens, an intimate friend who was similar to me heard I was in the business, and soon afterwards, a letter arrived, inviting me to go take a look.” A Yin pouted charmingly in the direction of the leather envelope on the table, and then in a blink of the eyelids sneered, “That he would bother me to come!”
Li Shiyi’s gaze passed over the envelope once, and without lingering excessively, returned to A Yin’s face, and she asked, “Where?”
“Tianjin.”
Tu Laoyao spit out a mouthful of melon seed shells, and exclaimed in astonishment, “Your ancient business reaches that far?”
“Though peaches and plums don’t speak, a path is made beneath them,[3] have you heard this before?” A Yin cast him a look askance, and continued, “This lady here counts as peaches and plums beneath the heavens.”
“I haven’t,” Tu Laoyao replied, feeling vaguely as if this phrase wasn’t used this way, but unable to distinguish it either way, only only dropping his tone to a soft muttering, and picked up a plump, delicious melon seed and stuffed it in his mouth.
Li Shiyi pondered it for a bit, and then said, “I’ll go. You accept the money, and I’ll take half.”
“What for?” A Yin’s long, well-shaped brows rose, and she stared at Li Shiyi, and continued, “You’re giving away money? Saving me from prostitution?”
Li Shiyi’s slight lips raised as she smiled faintly, and held the brocade bag in her hand, saying softly, “Fresh rhinoceros horn is expensive.”
A Yin was startled for a moment, and she looked away, reluctance still remaining, but as they moved, they softened. Tu Laoyao’s eyes shifted back and forth, and he pursed his lips slyly, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Song Shijiu, like him, was looking back and forth at this and then at that.
Gossip. Li Shiyi raised her hand and lightly clapped the back of Song Shijiu’s head. For the first time, Song Shijiu was admonished, and she was utterly disheartened, discontedly resting her body against Li Shiyi’s shoulder, and buried her face in her clothes, rubbing against them and leaving saliva on them. Li Shiyi shifted her neck without batting an eye, and said to A Yin, “Since I need to go to distant parts, then for these few days, I entrust her to you.”
Song Shijiu strained her ears to listen vigilantly, but A Yin declined her in a firm manner, saying, “In this low-grade brothel of mine, how would keeping a child turn out? Her origins are uncertain, and you’ve already brought her, and anyway, what was inside has already been brought out, perhaps if you go underground once more, you’ll get a general idea of things.” Becoming more excited, she continued, “And, moreover, I took a look at her bones, and they’re quite strange, and it’s quite possible that she has some great abilities, and if it’s good, it could still help.”
“And if it’s bad?” Tu Laoyao gazed at her with great concern.
“Then if that’s the case, that’s the way of nature,” A Yin said with a sigh.
Tu Laoyao couldn’t understand, and asked, “What’s that mean?”
“Then it’s deserved.”
As they left the Zidefenglou,[4] it was high noon, and outside the brothel, several rickshaw coachmen were crouched against the wall, taking a moment to rest and cool down, waiting for the high officials and the noble persons to come out, and seeing a young woman holding an infant come out, couldn’t help but look a second time, and then at each other, an indescribable expression on their faces. One of them said, “The young woman who came out of A Yin’s room comes every moth, and to hear Xiao Cui say it, as soon as she comes the door is locked, and she doesn’t come out for several shichen.”
“So that’s her type?” another replied with a loud laugh, as if intentionally delivering the words to to Li Shiyi’s back. Several coachmen roared with laugher, and Tu Laoyao rubbed his sleeve with annoyance, wanting to reply, but heard a crash, a basin of cold water from the brothel above having splashed down with a rustle, happening to pour onto several of the coachmen.
Several of them raised their heads and gazed upwards, and saw A Yin leaning against the banister with a smile, and she said, laughingly, “This lady’s bathing water, bestowed on you as a drink. If indeed one day I can trick Li Shiyi into my bed, I’ll thank you with another bucket!”
Once she finished speaking, she charmingly lifted her shoulders, raised her chin and pulled her hands back, closing the shutters with a bang. The coachmen, flustered and discomfited, began to swear, and Tu Laoyao, who hadn’t any experience with this kind of world, neither advanced nor retreated, and saw that Li Shiyi didn’t even lift an eyelid, pursing her lips and smiling faintly, and only then did his spirit return and he joined her to walk back together.
Tu Laoyao looked at the side of Li Shiyi’s face, and, without knowing why, felt as if her appearance wasn’t as repulsive as it had been before, and not only was she not ugly, the faint scent of a thought-provoking tea seemed to appear, and although he didn’t often drink tea, he felt as if Li Shiyi was probably high-quality tea, the lingering effect pleasant and long-lasting, the aftertaste drawn out. Thoughtfully, he used his elbow to nudge Li Shiyi, and said, “Shiyi-jie.”
“En?” Li Shiyi hummed.
“Are you really going to Tianjin?”
“En.” The sound from before was repeatedly calmly once again.
Tu Laoyao looked her up and down, and then said, “A frail young woman like yourself, why do you have these sorts of dealings? Going underground over and over, aren’t you afraid?”
“I’m not.” Li Shiyi shook her head.
“Why? Mysterious things like that, they really scare a person.” Tu Laoyao waited a long time, and, unexpectedly, Li Shiyi’s lips rose faintly and she smiled, that smiling expression lasting for only an instant, and made Tu Laoyao lose his spirit without reason.
He saw Li Shiyi unhuriedly purse her lips, and her clear and bright eyes lowered, eyes squinting slightly, and said, “Warlords fragment the country, killing people like scything flax, bodies floating all around, isn’t that scary? The world is in chaos, famine, people starving all over, exchanging children for food, isn’t that scary? Gentlemen running about, taking women by force, using them like trifles, isn’t that scary? If you aren’t afraid of people, what’s the point in being afraid of ghosts?” Finishing the final syllable, she sneered, barely audible. Tu Laoyao, dazed, remained still, his mouth open wide enough to fit an egg in it. Li Shiyi stopped walking, her brows knitting, and said, “What are you doing?”
Tu Laoyao said, “Shiyi-jie, you…have you studied?” He couldn’t make sense of a single word of what she had said, only knowing that words poured out four by four, indicating clearly that she was a cultured person, and that she was studied.
Li Shiyi shot him a look, her steps continuing forward. The long and short sentences that fell upon her ears, she paid no attention to, but the small person she embraced raised her head and earnestly and attentively listened, her small mouth following along, making itself round and then flat, one word round as a coin, the next pulled thin like a chopstick. Beneath the punishing noon sun, the words illuminating the listless atmosphere were full of hope. Li Shiyi heard the young child next to her ear clear her throat gently, followed by the sound of a soft voice: “I can.” The sound was very thin, and the final sound of the syllables was the same as Li Shiyi’s, and the modulation as delicate and coy as A Yin’s, as sweet as wine that had been stored for many years.
Tu Laoyao stood frozen on the spot, and, covering his mouth with his hand, retreated half a metre. Song Shijiu raised her small head, and, mouth pouting like a fish eating, hugged Li Shiyi’s neck, repeating a second time with some difficulty, “I can speak now.”
Li Shiyi didn’t even bat an eye, and said plainly and with agreement, “Do you want me to clap?”
Translator's notes:
[1]: 姨娘 (yi niang) can refer to a maternal aunt, but in this context, I’ve assumed it refers to the older usage of a father’s concubine.
[2]: Xi Shi was one of the Four Beauties of ancient China, among which she is ranked the first, and was reportedly part of an espionage operation which brought down the State of Wu in 473 BCE.
[3]: An idiom which indicates that a person of true worth attracts admiration.
[4]: 自得凤 (zidefeng) translates roughly as “Contented Phoenix”, and is the name of the brothel (楼, lou).
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