Chapter 37: The mountains have trees; the trees have branches (I)

The group was silent; Mulan’s obsession was originally this deep, and, after her body was interred and rotted, her stubborn and unyieldingness to be willing to age unexpectedly transformed into the appearance of her youth, which died stubbornly and desperately along with the vanishing of self during death. Washing hands and making soup, riding a horse and carrying an iron spear, was the exchange not more than simply life or death?

Li Shiyi sighed, and, along with Song Shijiu, was the first to leave the tomb; Tu Laoyao picked up the newspapers and followed along after along with A Yin. The remainder was Mount Tai’s seat’s business.

A Luo stood upright in the middle, gazing at the kneeling Mulian, heart beating with fear, and said quietly and softly, “You changed fate without authority, and are guilty of a cime; now, I need to search for and bring back Mulan; under the Shentu’s command, you’ve already calmly considered yourself; bring back Mulan’s hun spirit, and we can discuss punishment then. If I decide like so, will you be convinced?”

Mulian lowered her neck, and said, “Mulian will accept the command.”

A Luo took out a palm-sized token of authority from her sleeve, the surface lacking even a single character, only a black lotus carved into the red sandalwood, the faint scent of the wood dissipating from it. Mulian’s hands folded over each other where she was bowed, and her head gently knocked against the ground.

Coming out from the tomb, it was still sunlight stroked by the spring breeze, hard to be properly expressed with words; everything left underground, buried by loess, became something known only by a select few, unvisited by the sun; coming from the wind, and leaving with the passage of the years.

A Luo held an umbrella aloft, and saw Li Shiyi sitting on the flight of steps in the middle of the courtyard, speaking idly with Song Shijiu, A Yin leaning against the grape trellis, laughing as she listened, and Tu Laoyao tugged at his trouser legs as he crouched, his buttocks swaying under the sun. A Luo shot a glance at A Yin, smiling indifferently as she meant to pass them by and walk out, but unexpectedly it was Tu Laoyao who first felt something wasn’t right, his clumsy mouth drawing a hissing breath, and then calling out to her, “Foolish…A Luo-guniang, you’re going to leave like this?”

A Luo, understanding tacitly the three characters of “foolish Yama” that he hadn’t spoken, rolled her eyes, and dropped her gaze to look at him. “Yes.”

Tu Laoyao shot to his feet, index finger gesturing at Song Shijiu’s place a couple times, and urgently said, “You agreed, you still remember?”

Xiao Shijiu’s identity, she’d long since promised, yet right now she had an expression of not remembering it too well, as if it had completely been cast out of the back of her mind. A Luo lifted her wrist, carefully drawing out the hair that had carelessly gotten tucked into her collar, her fingers arranging it for a few moments, still not replying to Tu Laoyao’s words, only gazing at Li Shiyi from under the umbrella, the corners of her lips curving slightly and gracefully. Li Shiyi lazily braced her forearms on her knees, and said, “It’s not necessary.”

“Ai?” Tu Laoyao turned his head, his mind not hearing the order properly

Li Shiyi said, “Since Mulan wasn’t found and brought back, business wasn’t conducted to its conclusion.”

A Yin swept a gaze at her—she’d always been like this before; if business wasn’t managed to a suitable end, she wouldn’t accept even a single penny.

Stubborn. A Yin reached out a hand to twist her earrings between her fingers, and then looked towards A Luo with a smile, and said, “Business hasn’t concluded; benevolence and righteousness exists, right?”

The final two characters drifted in her eyes carelessly like swimming fish and came to the shadow on A Luo’s inclined face, causing her eyelashes to flutter gently. She gazed at A Yin, half smiling and half not, and said in a light voice, “A Yin-guniang is right.” She pursed her lips, switching the open umbrella between hands, and tilted her head to indicate to Wu Qian to present an envelope, passing it over to Li Shiyi and saying, “Although Mulan wasn’t found and brought back, let everyone be generous in helping each other; although I can’t rely on speech to inform about Shijiu-guniang’s identity, I can still mention a little bit. Please only open this letter after tomorrow night.”

Li Shiyi reached a hand out to take it, and didn’t ask her why it had to be after tomorrow, only nodding as she said, “Many thanks.”

A Luo smiled. “Let’s go.”

The group returned to Beiping as they had left, and rested a night; getting up early, they ate a simple meal of scallion oil noodles; Li Shiyi led Song Shijiu towards the mountain god’s temple to switch noses. Having gone through the yesterday’s cleansing rainfall, even the mountain path was cleansed a good deal, and the new leaves were glossy as vegetables that had been fertilised, finger-wide green insects neighbours with yellow orioles, one at the head of each branch. Song Shijiu had plaited two braids anew, the ends laying orderly on her chest, like an incredibly refined female student, the braids rising in smooth, rich arcs, causing even the swaying of the ends of the hair to have a bit of a half-familiar delicate charm. She walked under the shade of the trees along with Li Shiyi, still clutching her sleeve to cover her nose, only faintly exposing twin, large and round peach eyes. The dappled light and shadow flitted across her pale, tender cheeks, falling on her keen, roaming pupils.

When it was only the two of them remaining, she was always very cheerful; this sort of cheerfulness wasn’t much like the other; in the past, when she’d caught sight of elaborate candy figures, sour and sweet fruits, clear streams and rusling bamboo shadows, she was also cheerful, cheerful enough to want to gather her friends and express it in words. But when she was with Li Shiyi, it always made her want to gather her scattered words and take them back, wanting all things to be a bit quiet, and a bit more peaceful, so that she could be able to slow down the opening and closing of her eyelids, and completely commit every frown and smile to eyes with courtly reverence.

She used the descriptive phrase “courtly reverence” feeling it was incredibly exquisite; generally, there was always that sort of person who came from far away, making you unable to feel her faults, nor able to feel your own virtues.

She drew her scattered hairs behind her ear; before her was a patch of shade, and she saw Li Shiyi reach out a hand to remove the flourishing branches that were obstructing her path. That had swayed, overcome with boredom, and then drew back.

Ai, she really wanted to hold it. Song Shijiu let out a sigh.

The sound of the sigh caused Li Shiyi to raise her head, a brow rising in inquiry. Song Shijiu, unable to find words, said, “The nose I borrowed, didn’t it render a great service?”

Li Shiyi didn’t reply, but on the contrary, pinched her brows, the rubbing causing Song Shijiu’s heart to panic, and she hurriedly raised her glossy eyes to gaze at her, and heard her say, thoughtfully, “Yushiqie is the Lady of the Snakes.”

Song Shijiu nodded.

Li Shiyi inclined her eyes at her. “Then, when you sniff, how is it that you in fact use the posture of a puppy?”

Song Shijiu’s right ear twitched, remembering her appearance when she’d leaned in to Mulian; she crooked her finger and pressed against the tip of her nose, and, in the afterthought, became bewildered.

Within the shade of the trees, her beloved secretly and tenderly smiled, her glance seeming to have some substance, and she went from her nose towards her chin one step at a time, her curled lashes fluttering up and down a few times, as if her chin was raised gently by her fluid glance. Song Shijiu’s expression brightened, and, her heart beating heavily in her chest, she took a small step forward, and in accordance with her expression, raised her right hand, brushing her own jaw, and asked her, “You want to brush my jaw, isn’t that right?”

Li Shiyi shot her a horizontal glance, pressing her lips together and walking forward. Song Shijiu followed with quick steps, smiling, and the fingers pressed against her chin slid, taking Li Shiyi’s place to tease playfully a bit, and, softly and rapidly, she asked intently, “You think I’m very adorable, and your heart likes it incredibly much, and you want to tease me, but you don’t dare to reach out a hand, isn’t that right?”

The continuous chatter of young lady was as if chasing a swimming fish to and fro, even quicker than the hares in the mountains. She wanted to see whether or not Li Shiyi’s ears would redden as they had the last time, but saw her take off her hat first, her bobbed hair flowing down, perfectly covering up both her cheeks. Song Shijiu’s lips twitched, and she drew the sleeve covering her nose back to cover it once more, yet her eyes curved with a full smile, full enough that they were almost about to overflow. For th first time, she felt that she had won against Li Shiyi, and when Li Shiyi took off her hat, faint urgency in her motion, she hadn’t been thinking about the person before her striving for a win or loss in the slightest, only wishing to lose everything to her, and the very best would be to wrap herself up as well and offer it up. Therefore, she cleverly skipped over this subject, slightly delaying the former a bit, brushing against Li Shiyi’s shoulders and started from scratch. “I heard A Luo’s tone, my identity seems to be incredibly serious.” If the “Jiu-daren” in A Luo’s words was the same as the one in Xia Ji’s, then presumably, she must be someone of incredible personage.

Li Shiyi, hearing that the slant of her final syllable had some excitement, shot her an indescribable glance.

Song Shijiu leaned in a bit closer, and pondered for a while, and then struck up a discussion with her. “I don’t know what the reason is, but after all, I was reborn into an extremely rare and difficult time. If I were you, I would take advantage of my missing mortal soul, and curry favour with me, win me over, love me dearly, and become intimate with me, and then when I return to office after living as a hermit on Mount Dongshan, there would be a plum in favour for peaches in return from it.”

As she spoke, she nibbled at her lip as was her custom; hearing the earnestness and tenderness caused Li Shiyi’s heart to stutter, its stutter unimaginable, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and also shivered gently in a way that she couldn’t explain nor express clearly. This gentle shiver caused her caused the corners of her mouth to move like a fine honey ladle, having the curve of the sweet aftertaste of lovers, and even the previously unreasonable tone loosened a few degrees. “Is that so?”

Song Shijiu nodded.

Li Shiyi slowed her pace, gazing at the alley before them, and asked her, “Then, the Mount Dongshan from “returning to office after living as a hermit on Mount Dongshan”, which mountain is that?”

Song Shijiu hadn’t foreseen that there would be this question, and was dazed as if the result of having been struck with a stick. Li Shiyi laughed, and said, “Those vernacular literatures that you looked at didn’t teach you this?”

No, no they hadn’t, Song Shijiu’s mind said weakly; they’d spoken of dragons stranded in the shallows, and the favour of plums in return for peaches, but they hadn’t, in fact, mentioned which shallows they were, which plums they were, or which mountain it was. She gazed at Li Shiyi’s retreating figure, and wilted; Li Shiyi had read the Shijing and the Shujing intensively, and she herself was still incredibly deficient; she couldn’t even reply to a question tossed out at will; she feared that, after a few days, she wouldn’t be able to speak at all.

Bear heavy responsibilities through a long struggle, ah, Song Shijiu, she told herself, gritting her teeth.

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