Chapter 19: Only fearing the flowers would go to sleep in the deep night (II)

Passing the journey walking and stopping, it was only after ten days that they entered Jiaodongdao, and its waterfront, which, although it wasn’t as dry as Xi’an City, was quite a bit colder. Arriving in Zhucheng county, the sky had just been painted black, and the roads were covered in a thin layer of ice, and even the leaves had fragments of ice suspended on them; on the north face, the waves roared faintly, and beat against the craggy rocks, lacquer-dark and bottomless as an Asura field,^[1] and the clouds that flowed from the snow-covered hilltops were unexpectedly clear, the dense trees suffused with a pale, cold light. Li Shiyi and the others arrived late, and the weather was cold, the evil wind blowing from all four directions and pouring directly down the neck; there weren’t any passersby on the road, and even the small shops weren’t many, and it was quite easy to see the inn ahead, lit brightly by lamplight, and Li Shiyi hurriedly lifted her hands and entered. There wasn’t anyone inside the inn, and the lamp illuminated several cups, as bright as daylight, making the spotlessness of the table and the tables and chairs clearly apparent.

Zhucheng wasn’t flourishing, and this inn was small; looking at it, it seemed to look like a guest house, a small, three-floored, tile and brick building, with an old-styled layout; one floor a restaurant, the second and third floors guest rooms. The outside was a black lacquered wooden facade, and on the signboard was written only the four characters of “food, wine, lodging inn”, and a pale, wrongly-written character was sewn onto a flag, reading “cherry-apple” with its three legs.^[2]

Tu Laoyao tossed the cloth bundle onto the table, and roughly gasped a few breaths; outside had been too cold, and his throat felt a bit ragged, and he rubbed at his bright red nose, and stuck out his head to call, “Is there anyone here?”

The sound of footsteps sounded on the staircase, and a young woman of twenty-four or twenty-five came down, wearing clothes embroidered with black clouds, her hair plaited, her appearance unexpectedly simple, her hand grasping a kerosene lamp, the other lighting it, and, turning the corner of the staircase, caught sight of them and startled, clearly not expecting guests at this late an hour, and only after a while put on a smile, and said, “I’m here.”

She set the lamp on the front desk, and quickly offered up first a few plates of melon seeds and hawthorns, wiping her hands, which, when washing her face just now, had gotten wet, dry on the hem of her clothes, and only then came to receive the guests.

The young ladies weren’t picky about food, and Tu Laoyao casually ordered a few local snacks, leaf mustard knots and radish disks mixed and sliced thinly and made spicy, fragrant roast chickens and roasted meat, dripping oil and fragrant, and, furthermore, a few baked cakes coated in sesame seeds, and a pot of fresh and tasty, arousing green tea, which went along well with the food, the spirit along with the sense of taste together becoming lively, the chills of the fingertips expelled entirely.

Song Shijiu, eating and blinking at once, said, “This inn really is too bright; it’s so dazzling the eyes hurt.”

Tu Laoyao looked around for that young lady, but after seeing her proffer food and return back upstairs, hadn’t seen a trace of her since. A Yin said with a laugh, “What kind of business owner is that? It’s as if candle flames cost nothing.”

Li Shiyi set her chopsticks down, and reached out to shift Song Shijiu’s bowl and chopsticks, and said, “Come sit at this side.”

Song Shijiu let out an “ai”, and sat down at the other side, by chance enveloped in the shadow Li Shiyi cast, the outline of Li Shiyi’s eyelashes right by her hand, and when she blinked, the shadow of her eyelashes gently caressed the back of her hand. She glanced at Li Shiyi’s shadow, and then heard a sound familiar to the bottom of her heart which made her mouth and tongue dry, scalded red by the sweet breath, the heat of fever advancing. She touched the shadow of Li Shiyi’s eyelashes with her little finger, then the tip of the nose, then the lips. There was a feeling, which existed alongside many other, not-so-good ones, such as concealing the truth, avoidance, unreasonableness, hypocrisy, all calmly, but gathered together in one, they turned into the sweetest secret beneath the common heavens, slowly flourishing, entering dreams nightly. Without tasting it, those by that person’s side would become intoxicated; she bit a mouthful of sesame-coated cake, which tasted like chewing wax.

Across from her, A Yin set down her cup of tea, fingers supporting her forehead in a disorderly fashion, rubbing at the space between her brows, and she said, strangely, “This light doesn’t only illuminate, it’s also incredibly fragrant.” Usually, she loved heavy fragrance, her sense of smell three times more sensitive than those around her.

Just as her words fell, a thread of delicate fragrance wound through like a pit viper, attacking from the candle flames all around; Tu Laoyao stuck out his nose and sniffed all around, and saw Li Shiyi’s lowered eyelids move, reaching out her hand to cup the back of Song Shijiu’s head, roughly pressing it towards herself, her other hand pressing at her back, throwing a talisman out. Tu Laoyao was dumbstruck; Song Shijiu turned her head in Li Shiyi’s palm, turning to look back, and saw the talisman suspended in the air, jerking, its tail caught up in the wind, convulsing over and over.

“That’s…” Song Shijiu’s head leaned towards Li Shiyi.

“A wandering ghost.” Li Shiyi turned over the back of her hand to pat the paper talisman, only hearing a burst of north wind, no sound of movement nearby, and the paper talisman fell down, burning to blackened ash. Li Shiyi swept all around, then picked up the chopsticks once more, and picked up a mouthful of spicy vegetable strips, saying to Tu Laoyao, “There are several wandering ghosts in here, but in the night, there’s no point in switching residences; before you sleep, scatter ripe glutinous rice at the four corners of our room, and then at the centre of the beam in front of the door, hang a black donkey’s hoof; usually, wandering ghosts won’t dare to enter.”

Tu Laoyao responded with a series of yesses, committing each to memory, only then thinking to toss out his own bewilderment: “Why can’t I see it?”

A Yin laughed delicately, and Tu Laoyao asked, “Can you see it?”

A Yin shook her head. Tu Laoyao relaxed, then asked Song Shijiu, “Then, you can’t see it either, can you?”

Song Shijiu, who had been minding her own business, startled; the had that Li Shiyi had just placed on her head loosely slipped down, and her fingers thoughtlessly played at her neck with enthusiasm, as if set aflame. Tu Laoyao said, aggrieved, “You’re scared dumb.”

“Where is it possibly visible?” A Yin, imitating Li Shiyi, tapped beneath her ear, and said, “It was heard. She’s been able to hear it from the time she was small; her mother said, since she had this ability, should she go study tomb robbing, if she were to hear a ghost, then she’d be able to scamper away, and only this way could she make this sort of living.”

Tu Laoyao, incredibly unfamiliar with this matter, turned two eyes like lightbulbs to pay his greetings to Li Shiyi’s ear, and leaned close to ask her, “What do you hear? A wandering ghost’s words?”

“Footsteps,” Li Shiyi said.

Just as she spoke, the young lady from moments before came down, the thumping sound of movement not small, and, seeing that they were still eating, nodded with a smile, and made her way to the front desk, calculated rattlingly on an abacus. A Yin tossed aside the towel that she had wiped her lips with, and, slender form swaying, approached, leaning against the front desk, three parts charm and seven parts intimacy, and asked her, “It’s just you in this inn? What about your boss?”

The young lady raised her brow, and returned with a smile, “I am the boss. There are also two assistants; the weather has been cold lately, so I let them go home early.”

A Yin asked again, “What’s your name?”

The young lady replied, “Tang Yu; you can call me A Tang.”

“A Tang; it sounds incredibly pleasing.” A Yin leaned towards her, and brushed her hand, saying, “Today’s weather is unbearably cold; aren’t you cold?”

Tu Laoyao, not too far away, tossed aside melon seeds, regarding the floor with disdain, his lips curling, and said, “Luckily it’s a woman.”

Surprisingly, A Tang was startled for a moment, and then drew her hand back, and said with an awkward smile, “I’m accustomed to it, it’s not too cold.” Once she finished, she added, “The beds in the rooms are ready, and the water’s been boiled; if you’re done eating, how about you go get some rest a little early.”

A Yin thanked her with a smile, then laughed as she said a few more words, then came back to sit down. The three others looked at her at once, and she rolled her eyes, and answered, “She’s not.”

The weather was incredibly cold, and the night watch didn’t go out to work, and all around was silent, not even the sound of dogs calling present; A Yin, exhausted by the day, freshened up simply and then got under the quilt, and, just having laid on her back and let out a soft sigh, about to get some rest, suddenly heard the soft sound of the door being knocked on from the outside. She frowned, and suspiciously opened the door, but unexpectedly, it was Song Shijiu carrying a pillow and standing by the door. The young lady’s fine black hair was loose, and she was wrapped in a flimsy shirt and pants, eyes lit with the halo of the lamp’s light, her face rosy, and it wasn’t clear if she was cold or not. She ran into the room and closed the door, and tugged A Yin under the covers, saying softly, “I’m a little scared.”

Saying she was scared at the same time as her eyes shone? A Yin lifted up the quilt, and said, “Speak truthfully.”

“I…I have something on my mind,” Song Shijiu said, pulling at the thread loose at the corner of the quilt, as if pulling at an invisible, intangible emotional thread.

“What do you mean?”

“Seeing her, my heart thunders, and when I can’t see her, my heart itches.” Song Shijiu said it as clearly as she could, but once she finished speaking, she felt it wasn’t entirely accurate. If her response was a pail of clear water, then Li Shiyi was the coal at the bottom; she stood neither far nor close, and could warm herself with the fire, the bottom of her heart rumbling with bubbles; if she were closer, she herself would be boiled, neither her hands nor her feet, the panic inside flusering and agitating her beyond recognition. But if she were further, her face would be splashed with a basin of cold water, and she would lose her enthusiasm entirely.

A Yin had just raised her body, crossing her feet beneath the quilt, and, hearing those words, paused, and covered her upper body with half her own, washing her with the scent of jasmine with her hanging hair, falling by Song Shijiu’s ear, and she gazed at Song Shijiu for a bit, and before long, clearly understanding, raised a brow at her, and said, “I understand, your amorous feelings have been aroused.”

Song Shijiu pursed her lips, nodding in absolute agreement, the smiling expression in her eyes seeming to contain A Yin’s fragrance, the sweetness overflowing from her eyelashes. A Yin laughed, and laid by her side, thinking for a bit, and asked her, “Who? Tu Laoyao?”^[3]

-

< LAST | HOME | NEXT >

- 

Translator's notes:

[1]: 修罗场 (xiuluo chang), a reference to the Buddhist asuras, demigods who became envious of the god Śakra and engaged in battle with him. 

[2]: Probably a miswritten version of 堂 (tang, a hall), as the character for cherry-apple, 棠 (tang), looks fairly similar and is pronounced the same.

[3]: In spoken Chinese, the singular third person pronoun sounds the same regardless of if it’s masculine or feminine; A Yin wouldn’t be able to discern that Song Shijiu was saying “her” rather than “him”.