Chapter 29: When will an old friend be met? (IV)

A Yin’s gaze rose, her fawning peach blossom eyes in that moment showing a faint degree of restraint; they didn’t have tearstains, or a sense of aggrievement, and the corners of her mouth rose slightly, reinforcing her boldness and arrogance.

A Luo wasn’t in the best of spirits, and didn’t have the intention of reminiscing; she only gave a parting call to take care, and then gathered up her skirts and returned back to to the house. Song Shijiu and Tu Laoyao looked at each other, not knowing what to do, and only on seeing that slender man briefly brow and extend his hand to see them out took steps out of the residence, shoulder to shoulder with Li Shiyi, who had put away the matter on her mind. As they departed, Tu Laoyao paid attention to A Luo’s meaningful glance, and retreated a step, and hurriedly put the engraved golden calling card into his sleeve.

A Luo, hearing the vermillion door creakily pulled open, and then creakily close once more, paused her steps on the stairs, and after not too long, the man returned to her side, and heard her let out a slight sigh, and say, “Ling Heng; she doesn’t remember me anymore.”

That ghost known as Wu Qian nodded slightly, and reminded her, “She’s Li Shiyi.”

“It’s A Heng who I recognise,” A Luo shook her head obstinately.

Wu Qian said, “If that’s indeed true, then sending her on an errand like this, aren’t you afraid?”

“I am afraid,” A Luo said, nodding, and then immediately laughed delicately, saying, “however, it’s an extreme rarity.” As she spoke, a tri-patterned chicken swaying back and forth trotted over from the foot of the wall, and at the foot of the porch tilted its neck upwards to sun itself; A Luo inclined her head and gazed at it, then reached out her unobtrusive right hand and placed it on its crest; unexpectedly, a strand of a wandering ghost was drawn out from the chicken’s feathers; that wandering ghost was a man, slightly fat and around thirty, and at the moment, was trembling like chaff being sifted, as if he’d been held up by the nape of his neck and bludgeoned, and the free-ranging chicken had become a bit feeble. A Luo smiled, and with a voice like gossamer, said, “What great courage, to secretly listen to my speech.” She shot a meaningful glance at the hen who was at its last breaths after being possessed, feeling unbearably sorry.

Wu Qian was just about to move, and saw A Luo using her fingers to apprehend the wandering ghost by the crown of his head, covering his twisted features, five fingers briefly exerting strength, as if twisting a water pouch; the wandering ghost wasn’t even howling in anguish, simply instantly being turned into sparkling, fine dust, and, blown by the wind, was dispersed in two or three gusts.

A Luo brushed her hands off, figure still slender and constitution weak, just like a frail flower unable to bear the sting of the wind around it. Wu Qian, well-accustomed to it, gathered up the hen on the ground, and asked, “Simmer-fried, or stewed?”

“May as well make it white-cut,”^[1] A Luo replied.

Sijiucheng’s arterial roads seemed to have gathered countless stages for shows; the foot of each street had vivid and charming plays, and with each in its place, they still didn’t seem noisy, but on the contrary, they equally increased the lively warmth everywhere within the city. A Yin lit a cigarette, her physique, similar to a swimming water snake, walking at Li Shiyi’s side, her beautifully made-up brows faintly knitted, her appearance that of a heavy mind.

Tu Laoyao had often met women smoking, but whether it was ladies sitting at the food of a door tapping dry pipes, or the thin old ladies who had previously gone to restaurants to smoke opium, none of them had looked as beautiful as A Yin, the smoke winding around her, as if a thousand kinds of flirtation. He once again smoothed over his hair, which had come faintly loose, and asked Yin-gunainai, “Just now, not agreeing to that foolish King Yama’s theory, and not even speaking before leaving, it doesn’t seem like your method.”

“I was mulling it over.” A Yin drew a breath from the pipe, the thin white cigarette expressing a sense of value like gold.

Tu Laoyao was puzzled. “What were you mulling over?”

“That name, Fu Wuyin, unexpectedly sounds rather nice.” She flicked the cigarette ash away, and said, “How about I take it up and use it.”

Song Shijiu walked at Li Shiyi’s side, not making noise or causing a disturbance, occasionally turning her head to look at the food at the sides of the street, as not having hung what she’d just experienced within her mind in the slightest. Seeing a child passing by was about to run into her, Li Shiyi tugged her arm, drawing her to her side, and unexpectedly opened her mouth first. “What A Luo said just now, did you pay attention to it?”

Song Shijiu cast a gaze at her, and nodded.

“Your origin, would you like to know it?”

Song Shijiu nodded, and said, “I would.”

Li Shiyi unexpectedly was a bit astonished. “Didn’t you say before, that it didn’t matter what sort of monster you were?”

Song Shijiu gazed at her, and replied, “As a person alone, naturally I don’t care where I’m from or what my destination is; I like you, but don’t have any responsibility to others. But nowadays, I want to be together with you, so thus I want to know how I born, and how I died; what I avoided, what I’m afraid of, how I can cherish my life, and accompany you at your side.”

Li Shiyi’s pupils dilated, her eyelashes trembling faintly, her outer ears also moving uneasily; Song Shijiu was always like this, adorably blunt, and her bluntness made one unable to resist her; she cleared her throat and shifted her gaze away, and said quietly, “You won’t need to say those words from now on.”

“Why?” Song Shijiu asked, not understanding.

Tu Laoyao recklessly came between them, and pointed at Li Shiyi’s faintly paling earlobe, and said, “She’s embarrassed.”

“Embarrassed?” Song Shijiu looked at the thick-skinned, thick-faced Tu Laoyao, then looked at A Yin, who was watching the liveliness with crossed arms; the state of embarrassment didn’t seem to have any relation to these people, let alone appearing on Li Shiyi’s form, to the extent that, seeing it for the first time, it in fact had a bit of novelty. She circled around Li Shiyi and came to her other side, and widened her fawn eyes, looking at whether or not her right ear had changed colour. Her forehead was gently swatted by Li Shiyi, pushing her away, her indifferent, meaningful gaze sweeping at her in admonishment. Song Shijiu bit her lip, cheerful, even the light and shadows between the ends of her hair joyful.

After three days, they once again returned as guests to A Luo’s residence. Today A Luo had risen early, and was wearing a moon-pale mannequin, and put millet into a blue and white porcelain dish, and was feeding chickens under the plum tree. Only on seeing Wu Qian respectfully and differently bringing Li Shiyi and the others before her did she place her wrists upon the stone table, smiling softly and calling out a greeting: “Shiyi.”

This time she unexpectedly didn’t call “A Heng”, and it seemed like her madness had gotten a bit better.

Li Shiyi held her coat in the crook of her arm, and stood upright like a green bamboo. “Let’s talk.”

A Luo readily and amenable lead them into the home; within the home was decorated in the old-fashioned, Qing style, and the table and chairs were of flowering pear wood, the couches made of wengue wood, the faint scent of wood dispersed from them. A Luo washed her hands at a copper basin, and Wu Qian steeped a pot of Liu’an tea, the scent of the tea faintly evoking that of sandalwood, emitting the heavy sense of meditation. Li Shiyi crossed one leg over the other, and waited for Wu Qian to serve tea, fingers knocking against the table faintly to express gratitude, but didn’t have the intent to be served, and opened the door right to the mountain, immediately getting to the point: “You said, you’re Yama.”

A Luo said, “I’m Yanluo, but not King Yama, just a ghost of a hun soul that was reborn, more or less.”

Tu Laoyao couldn’t resist interrupting. “You’re not King Yama? Folk stories aren’t told like this, aren’t there two deities, Heibai and Wuchang? Niutou and Mamian?^[2] The underworld judges? The Book of Life and Death?”

“There isn’t,” A Luo said with a faint smile.

“There isn’t Ming Fu? You just live within this residence? You don’t go underground?” Tu Laoyao’s disdainful expression was concealed, only seven or eight degrees seeping out.

“To the south of the South Sea, there is the Yellow Springs; at the extremity of the Yellow Springs there is, then, the seat of Mount Tai, and when mortals die, their hun spirits return to Mount Tai. At the seat of Mount Tai, there is Fujun^[3] who wields control, and it is no different from here, only,” A Luo muttered to herself briefly, “there are no chickens. Every seventy-six years I return to the residence at Mount Tai.” A Luo dropped the final syllable, and the others, she wasn’t too willing to explain again.

Tu Laoyao, hearing this, took a great interest, and stretched his neck out and let out an “o”, blinking his eyes a couple times, and bared his teeth slightly. But he heard Li Shiyi say again, “Since you have this sort of ability, then why ask me to look for someone?”

A Luo said, “I am only the underworld official entrusted with those born of the yin, who enter Mount Tai’s archive registry; in the human world, there are spirits bound to order; if they exited Mount Tai’s mansion and took residence in this world, they soon after would not be able to see the light, and, with neither methods nor arts, they would be even a bit weaker than the ordinary person.”

Hearing her say this, Tu Laoyao sized her up from top to bottom, his courage rising up as if blown by the wind, and he spread his body out, raising his ankles and shaking them out, and then called for Wu Qian to bring another cup of tea.

Li Shiyi asked, “The person you want me to look for, who are they?”

“She’s called Mulan,” A Luo said, and continued, “originally, she was from the Northern Wei, and her hun spirit returned to Taishan and entered the archival registry, and lead the spirits as an army.”

The corner of A Yin’s lips drew upwards, and she said, “It can’t be that her surname is Hua, could it?”

“Hua Mulan!” Tu Laoyao shouted, “I’ve heard this before, I’ve heard it before, heard it in a tavern; a man who dressed as a woman, the one who went to war, isn’t it?”

“A woman who dressed as a man,” Song Shijiu said.

“Right, right, right.” Tu Laoyao clapped the table, and then after a moment, inclined his gaze again, and said, “What she did, I can’t figure out; not going to be reincarnated, but rather entering your Mount Tai’s mansion’s registry?”

As Mulan was astounding in military service, brave and tactical, and was invited by Taishan Fujun; hearing Tu Laoyao’s opinion, it seemed quite unable to be looked upon. A Luo’s brows knitted, and she said, “Mount Tai’s mansion, isn’t it good?”

“It doesn’t even have chickens.” Tu Laoyao narrowed his eyes.

No chickens meant there was no roast rooster, no stewed chicken soup, no white cut chicken, no steamed lotus-leaf chicken, begar’s chicken, pepper chicken, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, or chicken egg wraps.

A Luo was at a loss for words, and lowered her head, pursing her lips and taking a sip of tea.

“Then, where should I search for her?” Li Shiyi also raised her cup of tea.

A Luo passed her a wooden token, and said, “This is the strip for commanding a hun spirit; if you run into her spirit, you’ll be able to feel it; the qi will cause it to vibrate faintly, and the stronger the qi, the more heavily it will shake. A month ago, ghosts were sent to come report, and said that in the region of Mount Yan, they’d discovered traces of her.”

Li Shiyi caught on the unusual point. “She’s hiding from you.”

“It isn’t that she’s hiding from me, but rather that she’s hiding from herself.” A Luo shook her head, and briefly explained the main matter: “From the time she entered the hun spirit army, for ten battles, there were nine defeats; Fujun had previously appreciated her, and never punished her, but after a long time, it was hard to avoid displeasure.”

Li Shiyi more or less understood, and brushed away the dirt on the wooden token in with her palm a couple of times, then gathered it up and tucked it into her sleeve, then cast an attentive eye to Song Shijiu, who was holding the steaming cup of tea in both hands, and said, “Shijiu’s antecedents, you truly know?”

A Luo pursed her lips. “I’ve never deceived you.”

There it was again. Tu Laoyao rolled his eyes at the heavens.

Li Shiyi agreed, and thought of the “A Heng” of her words, and asked her, “Do you still have words to say to me?”

A Luo wanted to speak, but hesitated, and after a long while, said, “There isn’t.”

Since there wasn’t, Li Shiyi didn’t question more closely; she was always curious, and if it was meant to be known, it would always eventually be known, and what wasn’t meant to be known didn’t need to be known.

A Yin’s thoughts were entirely opposite hers, and only on seeing they’d finished discussing business, she calmly and truimphantly opened her mouth and said, “What was it you called me before? Fu Wuyin? We’ve met before?”

A Luo gazed at her, a faint smile rising in her eyes. “We’ve met before.”

“When?” A Yin asked, strangely.

A Luo blew on the hot tea. “Let’s talk about it in the future.”

“Let’s talk about it now.” A Yin’s rebeliousness had risen three metres.^[4]

A Luo, left with no alternative, said, “In your previous life, you were a young lady from a household in Jiangnan surnamed Fu, during the Qianlong period; your predestined lifespan was short, and at a young age, you became a ghost, and came to my mansion at Mount Tai, and cried at the side of the Yellow Springs for three full days. I was passing through there, and and met you there.”

“Crying about what?” A Yin was startled.

A Luo replied, “You said it was because you’d died before getting married, and were not reconciled with it.”

The entire group went silent; A Yin’s lips parted slightly, and she chewed on two words in the air; A Luo couldn’t quite hear them clearly, but in any case, they weren’t any kind words, and she was a bit embarrassed, and coughed to herself; only then did A Yin’s spirit return to her, and she understood why she hadn’t wanted to say it today. Apparently, she’d been taking into consideration her face.

A Yin gave an embarrassed laugh, and made her customary motion for grabbing melon seeds, and, not brushing against anything, drew her hands back once again and pinched the fabric of her qipao on her arm, and awkwardly said, “This life, it’s also unresolved.”

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Translator's notes:

[1]: White-cut chicken is a type of salt-marinated, steamed dish common to Southern China.

[2]: Guardians of the underworld.

[3]: Taishan Fujun, the Buddhist name for the deity who was the judge of the underworld, known in Daoist tradition as Dongyue Dadi.

[4]: 反骨 (fan gu), literally “occipital bone”, but used to refer to those who are disloyal, heretical, or rebellious.