Chapter 42: Those who love are mocked by those who do not (III)

The pattering sound of the rain was like the quiet music of instruments in harmony; plump hands dredged up from within the vapour, holding the wrung out towel loosely between fingers, stretching forward into the bedding to wipe Song Shijiu’s back clean from top to bottom. Her back was both glossy and tender, having alluring dips and valleys, shoulder blades protruding slightly, but not too much, as if a dove restraining its wings.

A Yin gazed at the red mark, smaller than a grain of rice, on the back of her neck; the bright moonlight smudged it a bit larger, and her absent-minded gaze turned it into the size of a fingernail. It stilled on the skin of the occupied young lady, as if an intruder entirely lacking decorum, and traced over the outline Li Shiyi’s words had drawn, like an uneducated seductress.

The beautiful state of the young lady; the envy and shame in her heart had both long been peeled away, and so she could calmly and meaninglessly use Li Shiyi and Song Shijiu to make jokes; it was only just that today, gazing at this red mark, she suddenly felt the long-absent envy; that envy was incredibly clean, and she was very unfitting.

A Yin turned her hand over to stroke the birthmark over her own shoulder blade; it was small and delicate, like a spot of carelessly marked rouge. Many people had seen this mark; clients had seen it, and A Luo had seen it, but against reason, Li Shiyi hadn’t.

Her back growing faintly cold, Song Shijiu, seeing A Yin was nonplussed, turned her head, and gently called out to her. “A Yin.” She omitted the two characters of “jiejie”, that way that Li Shiyi was accustomed to calling her.

A Yin came back to herself, and she withdrew her hand and switched the water, placing the hot towel back once more, attentively wiping the sweat staining her. The room was silent, even the sound of the wind quiet; after half a tea’s time, she suddenly heard A Yin say, “You’re playing coy with her, aren’t you?”

Song Shijiu frowned, tilting her head to look at her, not understanding.

A Yin shook her head, smiling in self-negation; this bluntness of Song Shijiu’s, what coyness could she understand? In the still atmosphere, she suddenly understood some not too proper things she’d thought of. She finally understood; liking and being together were two entirely different things. Liking was only a thought that rose suddenly in the mind; being together, on the other hand, was like sending troops to fight a war, particularly paying attention to “looking for the effect of combined energy”.^[1] She had originally had countless opportunities to take advantage of and use, yet she was always navigating the boat against the current, using duplicity to cover up the wholly devoted sincerity, concealing it entirely and impenetrably. This wasn’t because of the Teng serpent, but because of herself.

Love wasn’t like wine, becoming more and more intoxicating the longer it was hidden for; if you let that person take it as rice and flour, chewing and looking at it every day, no matter what dish they ate, it would be appetising by taking advantage of it.

Only after Song Shijiu fell asleep did A Yin close the door and leave, tiredly rubbing the bracelet on her hand; but, raising her head, she saw that Li Shiyi was sitting at the side of the stone table at one corner of the courtyard, one hand supporting her cheek, the other moving back and forth along an empty wine jar, the heavy porcelain sliding around on the coarse flagstone; sitting within the irregular sound, her head was raised as she gazed at the moon. Two of her fingers pressed against the middle of the widest belly of the wine pot, thumb exerting itself faintly in a circle, and the wine jar turned within her hand, swaying and rocking, an object for her to play with.

A Yin thought of the setting of consuming wine in the daytime, and suddenly remembered that her own habitual, small motion of turning a wine pot around had been learnt from Li Shiyi; it was only that Li Shiyi did it more languidly, more comfortably. She gazed at Li Shiyi’s profile, steps pausing, not going over; there was an unhappy admission in her chest—even though she’d turned the world upside down with A Luo, carefree enough that she didn’t know what day it was, she still longed for Li Shiyi to bestow on her a light kiss.

Luckily, she only allowed her own wanton intentions to stop at the stone steps here and now.

She raised a leg, taking a step down to the next stair, her heel making contact with the flagstone; Li Shiyi raised her eyes to look over; A Yin walked over, and said, “You still haven’t gone to sleep?”

“En.” Li Shiyi dropped her wrist and stopped the wine pot.

A Yin took out cigarettes, just about to take one out, when Li Shiyi said, “Don’t smoke one today.”

A Yin was startled; Li Shiyi hadn’t looked after her in a long while; therefore, she asked with a laugh, “What is it?”

Li Shiyi frowned, and tapped the wine jar. “You drank a lot of wine.” The scent of wine on her hadn’t dispersed in the many shichen, as if having been stitched into her clothes.

A Yin used her index finger to push the cigarette back in, playing with the cigarette carton in her hand, and thought a bit; then she asked her, “Just now I heard Shijiu say we’re going to go look for the Shengsheng.”

Li Shiyi nodded, and saw A Yin lazily rub her neck. “When are we leaving?”

“After a few days,” Li Shiyi muttered irresolutely. She remembered Song Shijiu saying she wanted to wait until little Tu Laoyao was born, and her expression seemed to soften a bit. Besides, she also had another plan; A Yin hadn’t returned to the Alleys for a long while, and she had some suspicions; she didn’t know if it was that, over the years, the Teng serpent’s poison had weakened a good deal.

A Yin shot a glance at her, setting down the cigarette carton. “Then what will you do for this period of time? Go put out your stand?”

“No.” Li Shiyi shook her head, her eyes glancing all about; thinking of the seeds that Song Shijiu had scattered about previously, the corners of her mouth lifted. “I’ll plant flowers.”

A Yin’s eyelids fluttered up and down, like small fans, and in the end, she didn’t say anything.

In the early morning of the second day, Song Shijiu, body better, radiating health and vigour, got up early and, as usual, fetched water and made food for Li Shiyi; knocking on the door, though, she didn’t see anyone, and, going to the east courtyard, she heard Tu Laoyao, crouching and brushing his teeth, say that Li Shiyi had gone to Zhangjiakou.

Zhangjiakou? Song Shijiu startled; remembering the words of Qingqing yesterday, in an instant, she became half-listless. With puffed-out cheeks, she leaned against the door of the courtyard, not speaking for a long while. Li Shiyi had not only not taken her, she hadn’t even given her a word of notice, and most likely had gone to the brothel that Qingqing had mentioned; baring her fangs and brandishing her claws, she imagined herself scratching up a mess in her mind, each scar filled with aching claw marks. The young lady’s first awakening of love had finished tasting honeyed preserves, and would always start to bite into sour fruit, staining her ribs with pain enough to cause death.

She breathed a couple times, controlling herself with great difficulty, and approached where Tu Laoyao was crouching; she picked up a branch to draw a circle on the ground, wanting to speak but hesitating a good number of times, and then asked him, “Is it that she’s angry with me?” Li Shiyi had been very angry the night before; at that time, Song Shijiu still had some delight that she didn’t know the origin of, and today, she’d tasted the retribution, and regretted it until her intestines were black.

“Angry at you for what?” Tu Laoyao didn’t understand. “What did you do?”

“I…” Song Shijiu was at a loss for words; she couldn’t, after all, say that she hadn’t let Li Shiyi wipe her body. She pressed her lips together, and asked him in return, “Then what was she doing not taking me along?”

“Hey,” Tu Laoyao’s cloth shoes pressed into the ground, and he continued, “would I know? Wasn’t I not taken along either?”

“Then, what about A Yin?”

Tu Laoyao pointed at the doorway; A Yin was taking a leisurely, unhurried walk.

Song Shijiu grew a bit more comfortable, and then faintly worried again; she was accustomed to being with Li Shiyi, and she didn’t know if she could survive by herself. Having thought to this point, she propped up her cheek and blinked her eyes, feeling that her own thoughts were nonsense and preposterous; clearly, in the past, it was Li Shiyi protecting her, and she was merely a little nuisance, wasn’t she.

She greeted A Yin, and then stretched her head out in front of Tu Laoyao, moving closer, and said with a small voice, “Tu Laoyao, I want to learn martial arts.”

A Yin picked up the teapot on the stone table, shamelessly pouring herself a cupful.

Tu Laoyao spat out a mouthful of saliva with a pei, and then with a rumble, shook his cheeks, and lowered his head to spit it all out; not paying his mouthful of suds any mind, he asked her, “What are you doing learning this?”

“If I want her to always take me along, naturally I have to have some abilities.” Song Shijiu paused, and then said, “I can’t always be like you.”

“Hey!” Tu Laoyao bared his teeth.

Unexpectedly, A Yin, holding tea, came over, and handed a cup to Song Shijiu; she laughed windingly, and said, “Wanting to learn the an ability is good; in the future, you can take care of yourself some, and you’ll be a bit more capable.”

Song Shijiu nodded.

“Then what are you going to learn?” Tu Laoyao wiped the corners of his mouth, worried, and said, “The Wudang Mountains? The Shaolin Temple? The Eighteen Arhats?”

As he spoke, Song Shijiu’s face paled a degree, and she touched her own delicate wrists, not making a sound for a good while. A Yin sat at her side, and reached out a hand to stroke the gently falling, long hair on her back; she tilted her head, thinking a moment, and twirled the ends of her hair. “As the saying goes: each person has their own destined abilities; when my shifu taught me, that’s what she said. You’re good at controlling time, so put in effort on time.”

“But this skill, it seems like it’s only good for fleeing.” Song Shijiu threw aside the stick in her hand, and clenched her teeth tightly. “I want something more fierce.”

Tu Laoyao, taking into consideration her charming, lively, clever eyes, drew back his neck and didn’t speak.

“More fierce?” A Yin’s brows knit very tightly, and after a bit abruptly loosened, her expression suddenly polished. “Do you still remember Xia Ji?” A Yin asked her.

Of course I remember. Song Shijiu raised her face.

“That Jiu-daren she said before—it’s most likely you, halting time on her body, and then bringing time back, caused her, in a flash, to go from sixteen years to crane hair and chicken skin; think about it, that’s what happened, right?”

“It is,” Song Shijiu nodded.

A Yin extended her index finger, raising it, and said, “That’s it. Think carefully; if you can use time on someone’s body, if you can take away all the years of their life, wouldn’t he then become an adult, an elder, and die violently on the spot?”

A trembling, swaying fresh flower emerged in Song Shijiu’s mind, and was withered in a split second by the blowing wind, wrinkled and withdrawing into itself. “Is it?” she cautiously and solemnly asked A Yin.

“It is.”

Originally, she’d been talking nonsense about Song Shijiu’s growth slowing down, but this time, her own words were so proper, even the honorable Buddha had had to give her face.

A Yin patted her shoulder—devotion to righteousness that inspires reverence.

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Translator's notes:

[1]: From Sun Zi’s “Art of War”, Chapter 5: Energy; the full quote is about looking for the way people fit together, not the specifics of the individual.