Chapter 32: The Spring breeze, blowing yearly (III)

The three indistinct characters dispersed in the tomb chamber; the amorous scent of sweet basil was incredibly improper on the ice-cold yellow loess and stones; Li Shiyi picked the smoking pipe up, and considered it carefully, and then felt the ground faintly vibrate, the sound of swift, uneven, hoofbeat-like footsteps rushed, approaching from the distance with the force of a hot knife through butter. Tu Laoyao’s body trembled violently, and the fat on either side shook as if struck over and over by Lei Gong;^[1] the group gazed at him, bewildered, and saw that he’d fished the Hun’ce Command out from his pocket with some difficulty, pinched between numb fingers, and he said, stammeringly, “F…fuck, it’s shaking!”

Li Shiyi thought to herself this wasn’t good; she held the smoking pipe horizontally across her chest, just having fallen into a defensive stance when she heard a burst of ghostly breeze attack, coming icily behind her head. She pressed her mouth firmly shut, the veins on her temples throbbing; without turning her head, she struck out three cun behind her head with the smoking pipe.

Where the copper pipe fell was a soft, corporeal body; behind her was a brief, smothered groan, and then the ghostly breeze drew back, and in a couple moments, dispersed; then it rushed before her, bringing with it the oppressive sense of a sword being unsheathed, focused and determined. Li Shiyi’s index finger straightened, and, as if performing a sword dance, raised the opium pipe, her head shifting towards the right to barely dodge the ghostly qi’s attack; immediately after, she withdrew a step, the movement of her waist leaning her upper body backwards, going around the ghostly qi and coming up behind it; the smoking pipe rapidly wrote a “ding” character in the air, and with a shake of her wrist, with strength exceeding a thousand jin, she threw it over.

Li Shiyi’s fighting skills were incredibly pleasing to look at; using the “rapid flight of a startled goose and the grace of a swimming dragon” in ci ballads and fu poetic essays to describe it was no more than fitting; a strength that was hard to ignore penetrated through the soft, mild mannerisms, like a whipping willow branch, an innate control emerging; a calm and composed killing resolve seeped out as well, causing Song Shijiu, protected behind A Yin, to, for a moment, forget to move because of its impressiveness.

That ghostly qi settled in a flash; quiet was once again reinstated within the tomb chamber, even a bit more serene and peaceful than it had been before; it was only Li Shiyi grasping the opium pipe who knew that that body-stilling talisman from a moment before had not, in fact, been slapped onto that malicious spirit’s form; this moment’s tranquillity seemed to have a multitude of gazes prying, only waiting for there to be a bit of complacency to strike out a paw from any direction. This sort of passive sensation made her incredibly displeased; she quietly hummed, and, in a few steps, came before the grave, tapping the coffin with the smoking pipe; a descendant nail made an answering sound as it came out, falling to the ground with a ge-deng.

“Don’t touch my jiejie!” a vicious yet anxious voice called, and the sand and wind in the tomb chamber increased.

Hua Mulan. The corners of Li Shiyi’s lips rose, and she stood, pinching a yellow talisman paper.

Mulan had, in fact, never come in front of her to fight hand-to-hand, as if knew in her heart that she couldn’t get the desired outcome. From all around, the hesitant sound of soft yet nimble footsteps sounded, quick as a bamboo torch brought to light; no sooner than one subsided, the next arose in a cluster.

Li Shiyi stood in the centre, faintly turning around in a circle, attentively tilting an ear to listen; the Scenery Door, the Tian Ying star; the Injury Door, the Tian Chong star; the Fear Door, the Tian Zhu star;^[2] east, south, west, and north were all lightly trodden by her, and, at the exact centre of the confluence of the four doors, a faint character “zhen” was written with blood. Tu Laoyao let out a cry of alarm; Li Shiyi said, “A formation for confining people within, restricting people for a short period.”

Just as her words fell, she softly closed her jaw, and she quickly mentally calculated the area, her gaze remaining fixed on the ground, feet pressing down and then rising, the hidden dragon coiling beneath the sand as to determine a location for breaking the formation. Mulan moved along the Earth chart; Li Shiyi went along the Heaven chart;^[3] the Death Door, the Tian Fu star; the Delusion Door, the Tian Xin star; when falling to the lower right corner’s Life Door, her right hand expelled the talisman to control the lampwick, stuck within the smoking pipe and burning to its limit; then she dropped her eyes to move to the centre of the formation, once again, as before, she scooped out a pipeful of cooked glutinous rice, precisely reaching out a hand to clap it onto the empty space before the space between her brows.

With a soft clattering sound, it fell to the ground, like falling dust. The oil lamp on the ground had nearly burnt down, and in the darkness, the faint figure of a young lady appeared, as if drawn out with gold thread, changing from transparent to corporeal, strange enough to make one’s guts shiver. The glutinous rice that Li Shiyi had sealed gathered in the space between Mulan’s brows, and at that moment, she gazed with unrelenting anger at her, her flushed eyes and rising and falling chest both expressing her discontent; Tu Laoyao’s courage, seeing she was unable to move, strengthened, and he raised the oil lamp and moved forward to look at her, attentively glancing at her a couple times; then he said, “It really is the rough-faced shoulder-pole carrier, hah.”

Only then did A Yin understand that man’s meaning; her stature was very tall, and her face didn’t have the usual beauty or grace of a woman either; the sharp angles made her lower jaw distinct, and her shoulders were level and thin, a bit wider than the average young woman’s, some heroism and handsomeness penetrating through; at this moment, she wore a fashionable shirt, the cuffs drawn up, the waist shoved into the pants, and a pair of knee-length leather boots, a head of long hair gathered higher than a ponytail, some ends of hair scattered and brushing against her face.

Li Shiyi, glancing at Mulan’s fingers, tilted her face. “A Yin.”

A Yin’s lips twitch, and from her bundle, she picked out a bag of copper coins; then she pulled out a fine red string, and, along with the copper coins and cooked glutinous rice, presented it; the red string had also been put in black dog’s blood to steep for a full day, and, as she strung up the copper coins, she chanted an incantation at the same time; from Mulan’s left pinky finger, she wound it around the five fingers one by one, then wound it around the thumb and upwards, following her shoulder and back to her neck and hooking it around in three loops, and then concluded at her right hand’s pinky finger. “What’s that for?” Tu Laoyao once again was gaining new knowledge.

“Although she did enter the Taishan prefecture’s registry, and is therefore a ghost, this method is a variation on the Xiangxi art of capturing corpses, and can hold her in place,” A Yin said with a bit of hard-found patience.

“Holding her in place—but then, what about after?” Tu Laoyao asked.

Li Shiyi tilted her head and gazed at him, calm and unruffled in the midst of the chaos. Tu Laoyao loudly swallowed his saliva, crouching down in front of Mulan, and with a faint smacking of his lips, said to A Yin, “I’ll help out; put her up.”

When Shiyi-jie told you to carry, who would dare not to? If worst came to worst, one could go back and use pomelo skins to wash a few times; if you didn’t believe in it, it wouldn’t drive away bad luck.

The group emerged from the tomb, and only after a good deal of time did they move Mulan to the front of the vehicle; the hired coachman, seeing they’d brought along a living person when they came out, and it was also this manner of strangeness, was for a short time startled and unable to speak; luckily, he’d seen a lot, and he also wasn’t someone who talked a lot; with his eyes observing his nose and his nose observing his heart, he got into the car, with shaking hands, started the car.

The back of the vehicle had to sit four people, so of course it was inevitably a bit cramped; A Yin hurried Tu Laoyao to the passenger seat, and the four ladies crowded into a row in the back. Li Shiyi was a bit weary, and, on getting into the car, closed her eyes and relaxed; after a short while, the sound of Tu Laoyao’s snoring arose from the front. Song Shijiu sat at Mulan’s side, and drew back the knee of her right leg near her.

It wasn’t clear if it was that Mulan had been beaten heavily, or if she wasn’t accustomed to foreign cars, but before long she became a bit faint, and Song Shijiu said to her, “If your head hurts, then sleep for a bit.”

Mulan cast a gaze at her, her neck rigid and unmoving; Song Shijiu thought a moment, and reached her hand out, pushing her head to rest against the window; with a light thump, Mulan knocked firmly against it, and gazed at her with incredible resentment; Song Shijiu, a bit embarrassed, compensated for the fault by straightening her body so she faced forwards.

The car’s wheels swayed; Mulan’s eyelids sank, and after a short while, she really did fall asleep. Song Shijiu tilted her face to glance at her, and saw that her mouth was opening and closing, as if she was repeating something in her sleep; she leaned her ear in, and, blinking, committed each character to memory without missing one.

Only at nightfall did the group return to A Luo’s residence; at the residence, only Wu Qian remained, alone, and said that A Luo had gone on business. Li Shiyi gave Mulan over to Wu Qian, and had him lay out a closed formation, and said she’d come again tomorrow to receive the payment from A Luo.

Everyone returned to the courtyard residence covered in dust and travel-worn, took baths, and then headed towards Tu Saozi’s courtyard to eat a few bowls of easily-digested lean meat porridge; only then did they relax and tiredly return to their own rooms.

The moonlight and the stars were sparse, and the tired birds had also returned to their nests; the surroundings were calm and peaceful, only the sound of the wind rustling against the new leaves. Song Shijiu kept thinking of the words she’d heard in the car; she was about to exit the door and go looking for Li Shiyi, and had just taken one step out when she heard, from within the west courtyard, the faint sound of human speech, accompanying the permeating fragrance of sugar-roasted chestnuts. Song Shijiu followed the sound, and saw it was A Yin and Tu Laoyao sitting across from each other shelling and eating chestnuts; seeing her come, the expression of getting the taste of her own medicine seemed to be arranged into a Hongmen feast.^[4] A Yin had just shelled one, and passed it to her, saying, “Sit.”

Song Shijiu sat obediently, shoving one into her mouth; the intertwined sweet and salty aroma had been brought warmly by the roasting, and also brought the raspy sense of sugar granules, delicious enough to make her want to swallow her tongue. As she swallowed, she reached out to shell another.

A Yin asked her, “You were going to go look for Shiyi?”

“En.” Song Shijiu chewed the chestnut, and, blinking, said, “There’s something I want to tell her.”

A Yin and Tu Laoyao exchanged a glance, and Tu Laoyao said, “This is you being determined to be good to Shiyi?”

Song Shijiu nodded. “I’m determined.”

A Yin raised her handkerchief and dabbed the corners of her mouth. “If you really are determined, then being ordinary and unremarkable towards her, that won’t do.”

Song Shijiu’s ears pricked, and she no longer attended to eating chestnuts, and doubtfully asked, “What does that mean?”

A Yin sighed, and said with a smile, “Oh, you; you beat me at mahjong, and you beat me at companionship as well. But Li Shiyi is willing to help you, so what choice do I have, then?” Her cheerful talk was profoundly meaningful; what she said seemed to be talking about Li Shiyi mentioning matters of winning at mahjong, while also seeming to be something else. A Yin, too, understood Li Shiyi; in that moment of Li Shiyi placing her hand on Song Shijiu’s arm, she’d understood; in the past, Li Shiyi had always been unaccustomed to leaning on anyone else; in the past, she had often offered a hand, and Li Shiyi had always supported herself on the stone wall. But Song Shijiu’s young, inexperienced body and beauty had, for the first time, broken the defenses in Li Shiyi’s heart, making her and her touch as natural and involuntary as chatting or eating food.

Song Shijiu propped up her face, not understanding too clearly.

A Yin’s disappointment was only a flash; in a few moments, she came back to herself, and said, thinking it over, “Since you have this innate ability, it would be best to strike while the iron’s hot. You don’t know where your shortcomings are now, and this jiejie can’t understand it better; getting intimate with her, if she regards you as an infant, then what can you do?”

Enlightening with perfect wisdom. Song Shijiu gasped in shock, a chill running down her spine, and stuttered, “That, that.”

A Yin raised a brow at Tu Laoyao; although she disdained talking over this matter with Tu Laoyao greatly, in all things it seemed there was an alliance; regardless of if it was in spirit or in foolishness, even if it was the head of a pig, with it there would be laughter, and the mood could be raised a good degree.

Just as expected, Tu Laoyao was laughing animatedly. A Yin once again raised the subject to Song Shijiu. “If you want her to take you as a young woman to like, you’ll invariably need to be somewhat seductive and tempting.”

“Seductive and tempting?” Under A Yin’s meaningful stare, Song Shijiu drew her neck back.

“Seductive and tempting,” A Yin nodded, thrusting her chest out.

-

< LAST | HOME | NEXT >

- 

Translator's notes:

[1]: The god of thunder.

[2]: From the astrological Fengshui method Qimen Dunjia; she’s calculating location via degrees, but because Qimen Dunjia charts can vary wildly based on time, it’s hard to say what exactly these calculations come out to.

[3]: From the divination method Ziwei Doushu; the Earth chart determines one’s decade’s luck, and the Heaven chart is determined at birth, and determines one’s overall fate and luck

[4]: The Hongmen feast, indicating a banquet set out with the intent of murdering the guest, and refers to when the eventual Han emperor, Liu Bang, escaped an attempted murder by his rival, Xiang Yu, in 206 BCE.