Chapter 43: The amorous are angered by the heartless (IV)

Song Shijiu, having received a suggestion, incredibly diligently practised the skills; but she was entirely without a foundation, and without method, only relying on holding her breath with rapt attention; it really caused one embarrassment; having practised for a few days, there wasn’t even any progress. So, she went to plead with A Yin, saying that before she’d given an incantation that was “as lovely as a flower”, which had been very useful; and, she considered other’s skills, most of the time they also needed incantations to be recited to work, and she asked A Yin to use her mind, and gift her another one.

A Yin cracked a melon seed, and spat the shell into the handkerchief, carelessly getting a small amount on the corner of her mouth, and she raised her hand to grab it, carefully considering. It had to be fierce and succinct, as well as useful.

“Then…” She wrapped the melon seed in the handkerchief, and said, “Go drop dead.”

Tu Laoyao snorted, laughing in a manner more lively than a pig.

Song Shijiu swallowed her saliva, determined to go peacefully water the plants.

Waiting until dusk, after she’d made a meal, she went as usual to the entrance of the residence to wait for Li Shiyi; for convenience in training, she only wore a long, blue gown which had faded from washing, her hair draped over her shoulders as she leaned against the door, remarkably like a bride waiting quietly for someone to return home.

Tu Laoyao, passing by, let out a sound of disapproval, and moved a stool nearby her leg, and turned his head to head into the courtyard, muttering, “Standing for more than half a shichen, I don’t know if her legs are aching; fool.”

Song Shijiu sat down with a smile, and then, after not to long, stood up again, still near the wooden door, gazing at the mouth of the street; it was a clear, narrow alley, and it could be seen in its entirety in one glance, but she always felt that by standing up a bit taller, her field of view could be widened a bit; if, when Li Shiyi turned and came down the street, she could capture a greater degree of her shadow at the front, she would be a bit more perfectly contented.

Her fingertips picked at the doorframe a great number of times; the afterglow of the sunset filled the small alley with a tranquil, dark red plum colour, and she finally waited until Li Shiyi came.

Li Shiyi’s stature was tall, her shoulders and back slight, and she wore her common shirt and pants attractively; she came out from the shadows, her hand still in her sleeve; one hand carried a bag, and the plaster covered her face, and she hadn’t worn her hat, her half-length hair half tucked behind her ears, the other half faintly brushing against her cheek, pale and spotless as the moon. As was her habit, her head was lowered and her lips were pressed together, and she raised her eyes in a slightly bored manner, and the silhouette of Song Shijiu in her casual dress was within her eyes.

Song Shijiu raised a hand to push aside her messy bangs, the tip of her foot pressing against the doorstep lightly, reaching out exploratorily, and then she drew it back, and only after a while smiled at her.

This sort of longing state of mind came without warning, appearing hurriedly from when her footsteps sounded, lasting until she came to the front, and still hadn’t been able to organise a manner. She thought a moment; since she’d been born, she hadn’t been parted with Li Shiyi for a few days; a few days were too short, short enough that saying “since they last met” was inadequate, but it was also incredibly long, long enough that the person before her had been stained by an aura of unfamiliarity, making her ill at ease and tense, picking and discarding a great number of expressions, and still being unable to find that one that wasn’t too distant or too close.

Song Shijiu bent the corners of her mouth, and said sweetly, “You’ve come back.”

Conventional greetings were all, without needing to be said, probably superfluous, but there were always people who enjoyed and never tired of them.

Li Shiyi stepped onto the flight of stairs. “En.”

She stood still before Song Shijiu, bringing along a familiar fragrance, and asked her, “Then, what are you doing?” As she spoke, she took her hand out of her sleeve, and plucked up her hair.

Song Shijiu only then discovered that her own hair had grown quite a bit longer; at the start, it was short, only just passing her chin, but now, it already fell below her collarbone. Song Shijiu stooped and picked up the stool. “Waiting for you, of course.”

Li Shiyi raised a brow. “How did you know when I would come back?”

Song Shijiu replied, “The heavens are mild when the sun falls into the mountains; most of the time, a person can be waited for.”

“Who said that?”

“My mother.”

Nonsense. Li Shiyi’s nose twitched, and she drew her lips into a smile as the ice broke, her clear and bright eyes glancing at her, well aware, and she lowered her head, walking inside.

“Did you find the Teng serpent?”

“I didn’t.”

“Was there anything of value in the brothels?”

“There wasn’t.”

Song Shijiu carried the stool diligently at the rear, and tossed aside her concern with dignity, and only then asked, “I missed you a bit; did you miss me?”

Li Shiyi let her pursed lips loosen, and blinked. “I didn’t.”

Song Shijiu was startled, and thought a bit, then plucked out the next phrase: “Did you go to a brothel?”

Li Shiyi paused a moment. “I didn’t.”

Song Shijiu withdrew her gaze with meaning, delightedly narrowing her eyes; just then, having said she’d found nothing of value in the brothels, and this time, she’d added that she hadn’t gone; this obvious lie of of Li Shiyi’s was called a margin. This margin was enough that an attentive young lady could infer that what the previous “I didn’t” had negated wasn’t that firmly-based, and it was enough that Li Shiyi retained an unassailable, outmoded innocence.

And Song Shijiu was precisely that attentive young woman.

Returning to the courtyard, everyone had together eaten half a nightly meal. Tu Laoyao, having greeted Li Shiyi previously, didn’t follow around to ask; A Yin, who had always understood Li Shiyi in the past, didn’t say much about things she didn’t want to talk about with her, and the meal was eaten in a manner more peaceful than usual, and, waiting until after the bowls and chopsticks had been cleared away, returned to her room to rest.

When the east courtyard only had the Tu husband and wife, Tu-saozi asked as she wiped the table, “How old is Li-guniang?”

“What?” Tu Laoyao blinked beady eyes. He usually called her Shiyi-jie, for the sake of respect, and didn’t know, when it came to it, whether she was a senior or a junior.

Tu-saozi laughed, and straightened her aching, swollen waist, and, with fists that didn’t dare to use too much force, thumped it, and said, “Li-guniang is young, yet she has a residence this large, and her conduct is polite, and she’s knowledgable of scholarly and ritual matters.”

The residents who had lived in the city all their lives were customarily blunt; not this sort of half-swallowed, half-kept words, to say nothing of adding four-character chengyu sayings to the end. Tu Laoyao intuited that this point had an inroad, and supported Tu-saozi to sit down, restraining himself as he asked her, “What do you mean?”

Tu-saozi drank some water, and asked him, “My father’s third maternal cousin, do you still remember her?”

Tu Laoyao pondered it a bit, and crossed his legs. “How could I not remember? We went to call on her when she’d just gotten married, and unexpectedly she held her nose and looked at us, negative with one phrase and positive with the next; actually, the stone step at the front gate, I’m pretty sure, was a rampart made with jade.”

Poor people always had relatives of wealth within three degrees; in Tu-saozi’s extended family, it was her father’s third maternal cousin, who couldn’t much stand to look at Tu Laoyao, who idled about, and by happy coincidence, Tu Laoyao couldn’t much bear to look at her.

Tu-saozi cast him an annoyed glance, and said to him, “Her family’s youngster has yielded a lot of profit; when he came back from studying abroad in Japan, he was in his twenties, and hadn’t gotten married.”

The words were left halfway, leaving something for Tu Laoyao to ponder, and Tu Laoyao bared his teeth, letting out a hiss as he drew his brows together. “How could that be?” he said a moment later, smiling with the vague phrase.

The wife didn’t know all about it, but he understood it all; if a red string were given to Li Shiyi and someone else, Song Shijiu, he was afraid, would take a bite of flesh out of him.

Tu-saozi, seeing his reaction, knew that his mind had something hidden, and only laughed as she said, “You’re taking my words in vain,” and, supporting her back, went into the rooms.

A couple more months passed like this, and the conversation from that day wasn’t mentioned again; the summer heatwave was as punctual as the spread of flourishing blossoms across an embroidery piece, making the floors warp in the broil; Tu-saozi’s belly was like a swollen watermelon, about to burst, weighing her down so that she had to pant three times for each step she took, and couldn’t do much work. The fruits of the seasonal fruit trees were heavy as her belly, glossy and shiny and attractive.

Li Shiyi’s courtyard was as Song Shijiu had imagined; with the lively summer flowers in bloom, the beautiful purples and brilliant reds crowded within the varying light and dark leaves, tossed about by the winds in motion, a bevy of fragrant clouds which penetrated and gladdened the heart. Originally, it was meant to be beautiful branches and leaves, a fairyland in the human world, but Li Shiyi was a bit irritated, having sat in the courtyard to enjoy the cool air, holding a book, and from time to time, diverting her attention to chase away the lingering flies and mosquitos.

As Song Shijiu watered the plants, she cast guilty glances at her, and seeing her brows wrinkle once more, shook the water ladle, and walked up behind her, taking the gourd dipper to take her place in driving away the flying insects.

Li Shiyi raised her scale-like brows, and looked at her for a good while, then turned her face to flip a page of the book, her face expressionless as she recited a phrase from “Autumn Evening”.^[1] “Frolicking, a small fan in hand, with the fireflies.”

“What?” Song Shijiu, uncomprehending, gazed at her.

The large, yellow ladle chased away the insects. Li Shiyi smiled gently.

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Translator's notes:

[1]: The poem 秋夕 (Qiu Xi) by Du Mu. You can read alternate translations for this portion (the second part of the first line) on Youtube by Chinagrep or on the blog Classical Chinese Poems in English.