Chapter 34: The Spring breeze, blowing yearly (V)

Translator's note: I apologise for the delay in this update; I've had a rather hectic week. The next two chapters will be up over the next two days as usual.

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A half shichen later, the originally bright, sunny day had turned to a drizzle, the wet droplets trying to get in through the window lattices, causing the occasional lovers to disperse. A Luo was still dressed in a crow-dark gown, her long hair combed to one side, and she walked to the table, reaching out a searching hand to hold the purple Yixing clay pot, which had long since been penetrated by the cold, and gently covered it with her hands; the water within sent up fine bubbles, white steam pouring out of the pot. As she sat at the table, A Yin fastened up the clasps at her collar, the practised movements like that of a theatre, at the end of a play, being shuttered. A few strands of hair stuck to the moist nape of her neck, and, with her large, round eyes and plump, rosy cheeks, it was like the scattering of cracked melon seeds as the curtains fell, making one fancifully rhapsodise about the grace of a famous actor from just then.

A Luo took the covered purple glasses and turned one over, pouring a cup of tea for A Yin; her features remained placid and delicate, carrying a seclusion that hid away the mountains and the waters, as if the one who’d been made to toss and turn from sex was someone else. She curved her lips in a smile, and called out to her with incredible aloofness and propriety, “A Yin-guniang.”

A Yin took the tea, swallowing it completely in one mouthful, the fresh, tender tea dregs moistening at the edge of her mouth; she only tugged at her handkerchief to lightly sweep at them, wiping clean the bit of rouge that hadn’t been tasted by A Luo. A Luo asked her, “A Yin-guniang, is this the first time you’ve gone to Wushan with a woman?”^[1] Still erudite and pedantic, the same as Mulan.

A Yin lazily leaned forward over the table, folding her handkerchief into the shape of a rabbit, and then pulled it apart to fold it into the form of a small mouse. After a long while, she imitated her tone, and replied, “How could you be sure?”

A Luo replied, “Just now, when you were head over heels, you called Li Shiyi’s name three times.”

A Yin, startled, replied with a smile, “What?”

A Luo set down the tea by her mouth, and, head bowed, peacefully gazed at her own right hand; she cast a glance at A Yin repeatedly, then gently massaged her wrist. A Yin let out a scoffing jeer, biting her lip as she narrowed her eyes and said, frustrated and disappointed, “This A Yin-jiejie of yours is in fact this sort of strange young lady; both the most carefree and the most careful.”

A Luo didn’t pursue her implication, only furrowed her brows, and said, “Jiejie?”

She naturally didn’t know that, before the average person, A Yin’s seniority was usually that of a married woman, so if she agreed to refer to herself as “jiejie”, it was already an enormous honour. A Luo thought on it thoroughly, and then with a faint smile, said, “I’m over two thousand one hundred and thirty years old now, yet you say you’re my jiejie?”

A Yin hadn’t thought of this matter; her shoulders shook with mirth, and, accepting it readily, she made the correction: “Your A Yin-meimei…” She couldn’t get it out easily, the ice breaking with laughter, her appearance askew, the corners of her mouth awry. She hadn’t laughed this thoroughly or brightly in a long time; it was like she was a young lady who had never experienced calamity before.

A Luo, however, shook her head with a smile, and wanted to say more, but heard Wu Qian knock on the door, saying, “Li-guniang has arrived.”

A Luo nodded, letting out a sound of agreement; with a wave of her right hand, she covered up the remaining scent within, spreading a layer of sweet, fragrant fruity scent. Wu Qian pushed the door open, and welcomed the three of them, Li Shiyi, Song Shijiu, and Tu Laoyao, inside; seeing A Yin, Song Shijiu ran over to her side with small, brisk steps; Tu Laoyao came and sat down opposite, leaving the seat directly opposite A Luo for Li Shiyi.

Li Shiyi never had the inclination to exchange pleasantries, and only said to A Yin, “What?”

A Yin’s expression was incredibly restrained, and after not too many idle moments, it shifted; with regards to the matter of Li Shiyi’s request to investigate Mulan the day before, she spoke, narrating in systematic, full detail, repeating Mulan’s words and reactions. Li Shiyi nodded; it wasn’t much different from what she’d suspected. Therefore, she said to A Luo, “I suspect Mulan isn’t Mulan.”

The bottom of the teacup in A Luo’s hand gently knocked against the table, and only after a brief pause did she put it quietly down, raising her gaze to look at Li Shiyi, frowning as she asked in confirmation, “Mulan isn’t Mulan?”

Li Shiyi asked in reply, “A general who went into battle for twenty years whose skills aren’t too remarkable, who treasures cooking soup and embroidery; take a look, A Luo-guniang—is that common?”

“Mulan always disliked dealing with people,” A Luo said. “Her military skills aren’t too impressive; I suspected it before, as well, but I already availed myself of Fujun’s Shentu Command and read through the registry; her birthplace and age, birthday and cause of death, all of them were precisely the same as for Hua Mulan’s.”

Each person had their own individual life figure, and there wasn’t another in the world; this was truly strange. A Yin gently bit the knuckles of fingers, and Li Shiyi’s index finger tapped against the table as well; Tu Laoyao, knees swaying as he blinked wide eyes, didn’t quite understand; Song Shijiu thought for a moment, and then asked, “That registry, could it be that it sometimes has an error?”

A Luo muttered to herself faintly, but didn’t much abstain from the taboo of Mount Tai’s archive, and said honestly, “The archive’s registry is compiled by literary scholars, so naturally there would be errors and negligence; it’s just that, in the countless years, it’s rarely had a single error.”

Li Shiyi nodded to indicate her understanding, and her hands back, folding them before the table, and then asked A Luo, “If the registry which guides hun spirits and ghosts also has errors, then is Mulan’s identity is an unresolved question with no leads?”

A Luo straightened out the wrinkles of her sleeves with the right hand she supported herself with; the group quietly waited for the result of her pondering; only after half an incense time did they hear her open her mouth and say, “That’s not the case. In the heavens and on the earth, of those who can distinguish the genuine or false nature of things, who can see through to the true body, there are only two; one is the right ear of Dizang Wang’s^[2] steed, the Diting beast.”

Li Shiyi silently waited for her to pause; as expected, she shook her head, and said, “Firstly, it’s said that a few hundred years ago, the Diting beast was invited to go fight the Buddha and the Six-Eared Macaque; seeing the Six-Eared Macaque died by violence on the spot, having received a fright, it swore to never get involved in those sorts of matters again. Secondly, after the Dizang Wang was requested to reincarnate, no traces of the Diting were to be found.”

“And the second?” Li Shiyi raised a brow.

“The second is the unusual beast of the ancient Yushiqie’s nose.”

“Yushiqie?” Tu Laoyao couldn’t help but interrupt.

“The Shanhaijing records within it: Yushiqie, to the north of Yang Gu, black in appearance, a snake grasped in each hand, a green snake in the left ear, and another in the right ear as well,” Song Shijiu said. It was said that Yushiqie’s nose was incredibly keen, able to distinguish behaviour and appearance within over a hundred li range, knowing loyalty and betrayal.

Tu Laoyao let out an “ao”, completely defeated; in the past, his own cultured learning level was at rock bottom; with Song Shijiu’s arrival, unexpectedly, cutting in line, going around in circles, he’d still been made into the suppressed, lifeless one.

Everything is determined by fate, and nothing by people, he consoled himself, crossing one leg over the other.

A Luo pointed out, “Yushiqie is an expert in controlling snakes; under the third tile from the right in the back of the eaves in each mountain god temple, there’s a spiritual snake, to monitor the trends of the human world. If you want to search for her, go to a mountain god temple, and play an incantation with a bamboo dizi, and then from the snake’s belly you can transmit your thoughts, and ask to borrow her nose to use.”

“You’re this knowledgeable, yet you still wasted time saying all of this, and didn’t go quickly?” A Yin noticed something off, and inclined her gaze to look askance at her.

A Luo smiled faintly. “Isn’t it Shiyi who’s going?”

A Yin was startled, and asked Li Shiyi, “When did you say you would go?”

A Luo replied, “The business between Shiyi and I was finding and retrieving Mulan.”

Halfway through the recounting, the group understood; for a bit, there wasn’t anything worth saying; the corners of Li Shiyi’s lips curled; she gazed at A Luo head-on, clear and cool, and said, “I’ll go. It’s just that,” Li Shiyi continued, raising her hand to brush away the scattered bangs on her forehead, “I’ve never had any dealings with that strange beast, and I don’t have any friendly ties either; how would she be willing to lend her nose to me?”

A Luo raised her wrist to lightly sip a mouthful of tea; the smile at the corners of her mouth was faintly discernible, and only after a bit did she raise her pale face, and say to Song Shijiu with a smile, “Take her along, and Yushiqie will most certainly be willing to lend it.”

“Me?” Song Shijiu didn’t much dare to believe it.

“Yes,” A Luo’s low voice brought with it a certainty of an important secret, “Jiu-daren.”

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Translator's notes:

[1]: Euphemism for sex; derived from the story of the goddess of Mount Wushan, Yaoji, who died before reaching the age of marriage and was buried on Mount Wushan.

[2]: The Bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha, who vowed to take responsibility for the instruction of all beings in the six worlds, and not achieve Buddhahood until all hells were emptied.