Chapter 28: When will an old friend be met? (III)

Since they’d returned home, they’d eaten three meals a day in front of a hot furnace, and their taut muscles easily loosened, and unexpectedly they passed a month or two of peaceful days, Song Shijiu and Li Shiyi living in one courtyard, and every morning, Li Shiyi would open the door, always finding her placing a full bucket of water down, cuffs drawn high, raising her lustrous, pale arms to wipe away the faint perspiration on her face, asking after her morning with a smile. In the evening, Li Shiyi would flip through books, and every few days she would present the pastries she’d learnt how to make, waiting for Li Shiyi to try a couple, and then she would sit down, making use of every moment to cut paper and wash brushes for her. When the light was good, she would go to the market to buy seeds, and scatter the seeds onto the entirety of the flowerbeds, saying that once summertime came, they would be bound to be filled with fragrant, luxurious vegetation, and all the rooms would be filled with the fragrance. When the day darkened, she would put down her stool and carry paste, saying Li Shiyi’s window paper wasn’t translucent enough, and needed fresh paste to become as thin as a cicada’s diaphanous, muslin wings, so as to save her eyes from aching for looking at books all day.

The Song Shijiu who’d grown to adulthood in three days of being watched over was the cleverest young lady under the heavens, and had learned A Yin’s ability to discern thoughts from body language, Li Shiyi’s measured pace, Tu Laoyao’s brazenness, and a lack of idleness like Tu-saozi, eagerly attentive as a spinning top whose string had been pulled. At first, Li Shiyi hadn’t been accustomed to it, but after a while, she also came to accept it.

Staying until the start of spring, there gradually began to be a bit of warmth, and only then the Yan Futi whom Tu-saozi had mentioned began to show signs of movement; this time, she didn’t come to the home to pay a visit, as if certain that Li Shiyi had come home, merely sent a young male servant to present a rather oblique calling card, inviting her to come to her residence to chat.

A Yin, who had just sat at the south side of the four-sided table, rolling mahjong tiles between her fingers with a clatter, tossed a two at Tu Laoyao’s head, saying with a laugh, “So, it’s unexpectedly an occasion.”

Tu Laoyao glanced at the pouting Song Shijiu, indicating to her, unfamiliar with it, to hurriedly draw a tile, and then passed over a cup of hot tea to his wife at his side, and only then had a moment to ask Li Shiyi, “Then what about it, are you going or not?”

“That calling card, did you look at it carefully?” A Yin pushed a pair of fives aside with her hand, and continued, “the envelope was pure, engraved gold.”

“What a great person,” Tu Laoyao responded, nodding.

Li Shiyi was disinclined to watch the two of them echo each other and make crosstalk, and held the calling card within her hand, heading out; as she passed the gaming table, she paused behind the clumsy Song Shijiu’s head, and reached out her fingers to point out an eight in her hand, index finger lightly skimming the chinks on the faces like a dragonfly skimming the water a couple of times, and then she said, “This one completes a winning hand, along with this and this; remember that.” Finishing her speech, she drew her hand back, her face still not having any expression, and she turned and stepped out of the door.

The fragrance of her cuff still seemed to linger a bit on her cheek, and Song Shijiu watched her retreating figure in a daze, and heard A Yin, unable to help herself, grumble under her breath, “Fuck her, she extinguished this lady’s winning hand.”

Tu Laoyao, rejoicing in her misfortune, shook his head, leaning his back comfortably against the chair, mumbling to himself and narrowing his eyes at his tiles.

On the second day, they all rose early, eating breakfast and heading towards Yan Futi’s residence; Tu Laoyao had pulled out his newest, full-body raw silk outfit, and even pleaded with A Yin to give him some infused water for his hair,^[1] and piled it high up atop his head, looking a bit like a gentleman; he walked at the front, passing through the alleys he’d wandered through in the past, and, in fact, no one recognised him, making him rather pleased with himself, sitting up and taking notice of it; the skills he’d learnt with Shiyi-jie had, in fact, had made him strive to change outwardly, though he’d remained the same within.

Yan Futi’s residence wasn’t far away, and after only passing two streets they arrived at it; the residence was at the alley’s extremity, medium in size, and though the front had been swept remarkably clean, a youth who appeared like a paperboy was urinating in front of the guardian lion at the front, and when Tu Laoyao shouted at him, pulled up his pants and scampered off.

“A great family with a balustrade like this unexpectedly doesn’t even have a single person watching the door,” Tu Laoyao harped on as he stepped forward to knock on the vermillion, wooden door. Just as the sound of the blow emerged, the door was opened from the inside, and within the door as wide as a person was a slender man, who besides being a bit pale, had incredibly ordinary features, enough that after looking him over, one would forget about him. Seeing Li Shiyi, he was startled, and hung his head, bowing and letting them inside.

Within the courtyard was the subtle scent of layered jade and plum, which drifted about faintly, the layout of the items all done with particular attention; Tu Laoyao had just been about to reach out a hand to touch the jade inlay beneath the eaves, overlooking the sensation of heat at his ankles, when an old hen with a protruding behind brushed past him, clucking, and stopped at the edge of the courtyard, striding forward with a spirited and vigorous step and a shaking crest.

“A chicken?” Tu Laoyao exclaimed, startled to stiffness, and then looked attentively; a few roosters strolled down the corridor, unafraid of people, and the chicken at the front, steady and upright, sized him up.

This was inharmonious enough to count as strange, and Tu Laoyao and A Yin exchanged a glance, just about to open their mouths, when they spotted, at the end of the corridor, a frail-figured, luxuriant young woman standing up, clapping her hands to toss out the millet on them, gazing with satisfaction at the plump, stout fowl lowering their heads to peck at it, then raised her hand to draw back the hair at her temples, her chaotic, misty pupils turning to Li Shiyi, and she said, “A Heng.”

The sound brought with it a great degree of huskiness, and though it wasn’t unpleasant to listen to, if it were to be described as food, then it would probably be rice milk, not garish, nor having the strong scent of fish or meat, spotlessly white as a layer of paste, bringing with it a slight degree of inoffensive fragrance. Li Shiyi paused in the steps she had been taking towards her, gazing at her suspiciously; this young lady had some familiarness to her, fair-complexioned and delicate, as if, without much care, her waist would snap; Li Shiyi sifted through her memories for a bit, and finally raised a brow, coming to a verdict: “I’ve met you before, in Xi’an.” In an antique market, overcast and with snow falling, she’d brushed past a young lady with an umbrella raised.

The young lady didn’t comment, only nodding with a smile, indicating to them to follow her into the courtyard. Within the courtyard, the sunlight was bright, and it made her face, lacking sufficient qi or blood, look somewhat transparent; her face didn’t even have faint hairs on it, like the smooth, watery expanse of poreless jade. Tu Laoyao didn’t know why, but his calves inexplicably trembled, his knees knocking, and he firmly grasped A Yin’s cuff; A Yin exchanged a glance with Li Shiyi, inquiring whether or not she should look for an opportunity to investigate her, and Li Shiyi, without a word or movement, shook her head.

The young lady seemed to have an understanding of their minds as if friends with spirits who had never met, and only moved to the stone table and sat down, and looked at them with neither aloofness nor overfamiliarity, and the slender man from just before stood behind her. Finally, Li Shiyi opened her mouth first, and said, “Yan-guniang.”

The person across from her raised her eyelids slightly, a tepid smile held in her eyes, and said, “In the past, you would usually call me A Luo.”

A young lady as beautiful as this, it was a pity she was a fool. That was Tu Laoyao’s unspoken criticism; seeing Li Shiyi’s expression towards hers was that of a complete stranger, she still let out an “A Heng” with one breath, and an “in the past” with another. Looking at Li Shiyi, she had a bit of an unbearableness, and he was just about to open his mouth, when he saw Song Shijiu, concealed behind Li Shiyi, covering up her head, and guardedly asking her, “In the past? What past?”

A Luo, suddenly confronted by the tiger’s roar of Song Shijiu and startled, only shifted her brows, covering up her lips and bowing her head, as if giving a greeting, and said, “Since you don’t remember, then nevermind.”

The more Tu Laoyao heard, the more lost he became; even Li Shiyi had a bit of an infringed-upon countenance, and took the opportunity to ask first, “What sort of thing are you? What are you calling masters for? To capture ghosts? Enter a tomb? Since you’re in fact venting your anger, what about the child who’s pretending to be in contact with the supernatural?”

A Luo had never been pelted with questions like this before, and was stunned and startled for a moment, and then reached out a hand to bar the man behind her, saying, “My surname is Yan, my name is Futi, and my nickname is A Luo; I was raised up and born from the depths of the Yellow Springs, within the ten ghost courts.” She thought a moment, and made an effort to make it a bit easier to understand. “The person by your side also called me Yama of the Ten Halls.”^[2]

“Yan what now?” Tu Laoyao scratched his head, and his neck stiffened. With a <i>pu-teng,</i> before the others had even reacted, Tu Laoyao knelt at the front, and said, “Oh, King Yama.”

Having travelled extensively with Li Shiyi, capturing ghosts and fighting E Shou, he’d seen a great number of fantastic oddities of every description, and he’d in fact managed to achieve reason, so regardless of if it were true or false, he could admit when he had lost and was finished.

A Yin and Song Shijiu looked at each other; Li Shiyi held out her arm and looked towards A Luo, as if reckoning whether or not she was, in fact, an able person of reason, or if she was a fool of a woman who’d hit her head and gone mad, showing off her foolishness. Tu Laoyao, surprisingly, regained his spirit, and rose with a mocking smile, gazing at A Luo’s frail, weak form, still having some lack of belief, and looked around, asking her, “Isn’t Yama in the underworld? What’s the point of coming here?”

A Luo, a bit astonished, said, “I’m usually here.”

Tu Laoyao asked, “What do you usually do?”

“Read and evaluate documents.”

“Do you have subordinates?”

“Usually I don’t have many at my side.”

Tu Laoyao awkwardly brushed his bottom lip, letting out a hissing sound of thought, and then pointed at the chickens in the courtyard, and asked, “Then, then what’s this?”

A Luo finally showed a bit of an expression of personality. “A bit of a hobby.”

“Liar,” Tu Laoyao asserted in a quiet voice, approaching Li Shiyi’s side.

“What do you mean?” A Yin moved closer.

Tu Laoyao replied, “I listened to that uncle of mine who died young say, persons of importance usually try to conceal their identity; her being this honest, presumably means it’s fake.” He shot another glance at Li Shiyi, thinking that if Li Shiyi’s face were to hide gold, it would be just as hidden; this was in fact the appearance when something was valuable and important—what sort of grand absurdity was calling out loudly “I’m the Master King Yama”, and having not yet been dragged to the front of a government office?

But Li Shiyi thought for a bit, and fished out the calling card and knocked it against the table, asking her, “Calling me to come, what was the purpose?”

A Luo turned towards her, once again having that great sense of vague intimacy, and said, “I have a good friend, called Mulan; I can’t find her, and I wanted to ask you to help me out.”

Li Shiyi asked again, “For what reason?”

A Luo nodded towards Song Shijiu. “Because of her. Her identity, you’d probably like to know.”

Li Shiyi concealed Song Shijiu without speaking or moving, her face remaining half inclined and half drooping, and it wasn’t clear what she was considering. A Luo knew that, regardless of what she herself was, as long as Li Shiyi were to ponder it, this transaction was already eighty percent given attention to; her mind eased, and she tugged at her clothes and rose, sweeping a gaze at the entourage and clearly about to enter the house. Just as she’d turned halfway, she once again leaned back, and cast her smiling expression at A Yin, frowning off to the side, and said lightly, “I trust you’ve been well since we last met, Fu Wuyin.”

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Translator's notes:

[1]: 刨花水 (baohuashui), used to make the hair soft.

[2]: I’ll be honest, this is kind of a challenge to figure out how to translate into English, but essentially, Yama is the god of death and ruler of Diyu/the Yellow Springs who oversees the “Ten Kings of Hell”, and in Chinese he’s known as Yanluo Wang (King Yanluo). The term 十殿 (shidian) is rendered into English as “chamber” usually, but 殿 is a character for a palace hall, and with the fact that this related to judgment of the dead, I’ve gone with “court” and “hall” instead.