Chapter 11: From a long and arduous journey comes peace (I)

Tianjin was incredibly strange; the Western practice of opening the harbour to hunt the seas was, in actuality, it turned out, combined with the high-speed crosstalk, and the scent of phoenix tree wood and fried dough twists mingled together, also accompanied by the scent of golden fried sweets, and Tianjin natives crouched on the sides of the street passing the morning, laughing and calling out “jiejie” regardless of whether or not they recognised you.

It was hard to come just once; A Yin begged Li Shiyi and Tu Laoyao to stay with her a few days in Tianjin and rent a small boathouse; each morning the scent of black coffee permeated the air on the one hand, and on the other, Tu Laoyao stood in line half a shichen to buy baozi that a dog wouldn’t pay attention to, and then she leaned out of the balcony to watch the opera, exclaiming earnestly down to rival immortals. Tu Laoyao was entirely unaccustomed to coffee, to say nothing of imports; even if he were to catch its scent, he wouldn’t be able to smell it; it made his head hurt, and Li Shiyi pulled out a jar of Guzhang maojian tea, which he unexpectedly liked quite a lot, and as he chewed the extremely precious leaves, he furtively cast a glance at A Yin, fearing that if the black liquid entered her stomach, she might actually be ingesting poison.

After several days, the group finally returned to Beijing, and before setting foot in the boundaries of Sijiucheng, he sniffed for a moment, the familiar scent calling out a homesickness in him that he had never felt before, and he sighed and exclaimed for a good few moments.

Li Shiyi rented two rickshaws, intending to take Tu Laoyao and A Yin to a restaurant, but Tu Laoyao could only think of his wife at home, and they parted halfway. He paid his own fare, but didn’t go directly home, just wandered around for a bit, and, hands in his pockets, squatted at the side of the road and fretted. He figured he’d understood it, Li Shiyi’s way of doing things; that wasn’t the manners of a usual well-off person—previously keeping watch over a tobacco stand, who life had made ugly in appearance, with the appearance of a young city resident; attentively following after, this was actually not the case entirely. This business recently didn’t earn a lot, but despite that, money was spent on several expensive train tickets, and there was that cat-shit coffee, expensive enough to make one’s tongue fall out. Li Shiyi and A Yin, mingled together, hadn’t paid any attention, but Tu Laoyao was poor enough that his few coins jangled, and going out he only earned a few pennies, and contrary to expectations…the train ticket he’d left in his pocket, he didn’t know how to talk to his wife about gathering together money to pay back Li Shiyi.

Tu Laoyao watched the passersby for a bit, his hungry stomach crying out loudly, and after thinking for a bit, headed back home—money, well, then earn it.

Arriving home, with its short, cut off wooden wall, its courtyard door which let in the wind, his wife in the courtyard hanging out clothes to dry, and when she saw him, without showing any surprise, simply said, “Go, go, wash your hands, put down your bundle, the food’s inside.”

Tu Laoyao let out an ai, and glanced at his wife’s belly, and wondered why it seemed a bit smaller than it had in his memory, and after giving a couple of replies, went into the house with her. After hurriedly eating two mouthfuls, he hemmed and hawed, and then said directly, “This time, I…”

“This time, what did you finally do? Did you earn all of this?” his wife asked as she spooned up soup.

“Earn, earn?” Tu Laoyao stuttered.

His wife said with a smile, “The Li family’s young lady sent someone to settle the salary, and I didn’t dare to touch it, just put it on that stovetop, but weighing it, it’s very heavy.”

Tu Laoyao’s mouthful of food got stuck in his throat, and he turned his head to look at the the block wrapped up in newspaper on top of the stove, baffled.

Sijiucheng’s alleys were constantly bustling, and a storyteller on a wooden block, preposterous words going from the Tang and Song dynasties through the Ming and Qing, and passing from the Xuanwu gate coup,^[1] entered seven or eight hundred years, but the remaining people moved together, a porter supporting a shoulder pole, an older woman carrying a young child, one after the other crowding together to see the interior. In the restaurant, opposite the storyteller, was a tea shop with boiling tea, and A Yin disdainfully regarded the the restaurant’s tea as no good for eating, tugging at Li Shiyi to come towards the teahouse.

The wooden bench with thick legs was missing a leg, and it shook back and forth with a ge-deng ge-deng, treading on the small cloth shoes which had somewhat of a slender and fine appearance, fair ankles carelessly exposed, appearing pink in the wintry weather, the protruding ankle bones, like the depressed tendon of the heel, fitting closely together on either side and appearing extraordinarily beautiful, shining brightly beneath the warm sun into one’s eyes. The half-sized hands grabbed at the side of the wooden bench, and Song Shijiu swayed from side to side along with the missing leg, and her swaying made the madam of the tea shop rush forward, smiling as she said, “My lady, don’t keep rocking, you may fall.”

The young lady in front of her was around ten years old, a red cord coarsely binding her plait of hair, her cheeks blackened as if they had been rubbed with soot, her facial features, contrary to expectations, well-formed, nose high and eyebrows beautiful, lips a vibrant red, the most striking that pair of unsurpassed eyes, well-rounded and almond-shaped, the ends rising up like a phoneix, each eyelash distinct and covering the full, shining black eyes, the artless innocence giving an untamed mien.

A Yin, across from her, laughed as she said, “Qing-sao,^[2] don’t mind it, if it’s rocked apart, there’s someone who’ll compensate it.” She gazed at Li Shiyi with a smile, her jade-white hand supporting her cheek. Li Shiyi didn’t answer, raising her hand to press down on the swaying bench.

Qing-sao said, “So it’s the Shiyi family’s young lady; I’ve had yet to meet her before.”

Li Shiyi said, “This is my maternal cousin’s family’s girl, Shijiu.”

“Hearing it, it sounds like one family,” Qing-sao said with a smile, and wiped her hands on her apron, then, after turning to attend to the tea, only having just started to take steps, thought of some idyl chatter and asked Li Shiyi, “Shiyi, these past few days, did you not put out your vendor’s stand?”

“These past few days there was some business, and so I put away the tobacco stand. Why?”

“I heard my male relatives say, there’s a little miss looking for you; every day she asks after you around the tobacco stand,” Qing-sao said.

Li Shiyi’s brows furrowed, and, out of habit, read her thoughts from her expression; usually, when one called “guniang”, if they used “xiaojie”, then there was a reason for it. Li Shiyi thanked Qing-sao, and exchanged a few looks with A Yin, then led Song Shijiu towards the usual exit of the stand into the alley.

Song Shijiu followed after. In order to deal with her from growing again, the shoes she wore were a bit large, and they hung off her heels, and as she walked they dragged with a pa-ta, pa-ta, making her steps incredibly laborious. She saw Li Shiyi take large, nimble steps, and she was unhappy, and promptly stopped her steps, biting her lip in aggrievement. Li Shiyi heard the lack of movement behind her, and turned her head to look at her, and Song Shijiy turned her head up to ask her, “Aren’t you going to pull me along?”

A Yin leaned her body against the lamppost at the side of the road, shaking her handkerchief as she watched the commotion.

Li Shiyi replied, “You’re ten, I’m not pulling you along anymore.”

But she’d only lived a few days! Song Shijiu, unconvinced, said, “Who said that?”

“This lady here.”

Song Shijiu didn’t have any option, and reached out to drag at Li Shiyi’s sleeve, uncarringly imitating her, and she didn’t know whether it was an illusion or not, but Li Shiyi’s steps seemed to have slowed, making her steps less laborious.

Reaching the mouth of the alley, at a distance, a young woman was suddenly visible. With only a glance, Li Shiyi understood why Qing-sao’s expression just now had been complicated.This young woman, in the clear winter day, held up an ivory-handled umbrella, the handle entirely carved with tree peonies, its surface pure black satin, and there were no other patterns on it. She wore a light blue Western-style dress, and as an outer layer, an expensive sheep’s wool overcoat, her pale wrists exposed from her sheepskin gloves.

Li Shiyi slowly approached, and the young miss, as if recognising her, turned her body and put down the umbrella, and said, “Madam-xiansheng.” On her head, she wore a fashionable foreign hat at an angle, the black lace covering half her face.

Li Shiyi had met all sorts of different people, and colourful beauties were not a novel experience, but there had never been one as graceful and luxurious as the one who stood before her, an inherent heavenly ambiance emanating from her, the shadows painted on her face by the veil both welcoming and repelling attention, giving a sense of being tantamount to a taboo.

Against expectation, her lips lacked blood entirely, and even her eyes were washed of colour. She said, “I have an issue on my mind.”

Li Shiyi thought for a moment, then said, “Let’s go to the teashop; we can sit down and talk about it.”

The tiny stream of boiling tea water mixed and changed colour, and the Xuanwu gate coup still hadn’t been completed, and that young lady listened calmly, then opened her mouth and said, “I’m called A Chun.” Her clear voice was pleasant to listen to, and it carried the beauty and gentle kindness of former times. “I have a matter that preoccupies me, making me toss and turn and become melancholy, but which I can’t think of, only knowing that it’s something underground, in a coffin.”

A Chun’s speech was slow, slow enough that the melancholy between her brows disturbed one, and she continued, “I looked everywhere for local scholars, but they were all useless. I heard that the Northern and Southern school’s current generation were all in Beiping, so I travelled from a thousand li away to implore a master to go and open the coffin, and complete the matter in my heart.”

On the table, Li Shiyi’s fingers had unconsciously drawn a circle, and A Yin, by A Chun’s side, silenltly shifted back, and turned her hand over to clutch a cup of tea, the rim of the cup pressing against her bottom lip, and cast a glance at Li Shiyi, and said soundlessly, “Ghost.”

“I am,” A Chun said in a slow, quiet voice, nodding. “The person isn’t really a person, but the money is real money.” A Chun took out a title deed.

“You said you came from a thousand li away; where?” Li Shiyi asked her.

“Xi‘an.” A Chun gazed at the crowd of people in the restaurant, her expression lingering and with hidden depths. “Chang’an,^[3] my…homeland.”

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Translator's notes:

[1]: The Xuanwu gate coup, also known as the Xuanwu gate incident (玄武门之变, Xuanwumen zhi bian), was a palace coup in 626 CE, during the Tang dynasty, where Prince Li Shimin assassinated the Crown Prince Li Jiancheng and Prince Li Yuanji. The ambush took place at Xuanwu gate, one of the gates of the capital Chang’an (modern Xi’an), and Li Shimin was installed as crown prince shortly thereafter, and became Emperor Taizong when his father, Emperor Gaozong, abdicated the throne a couple months later.

[2]: 嫂 (sao) is a term of address for an elder brother’s wife, or for a married woman about one’s own age.

[3]: Chang’an (长安) is the historic name of Xi’an.