Chapter 52: Who entrusted my longing to the wild ginger? (I)

Li Shiyi uncrossed her long legs, and hurriedly followed after. 

The street was incredibly chilly, the small shops’ doors closed tightly; the road ahead was dim and misty, the depths of night revealing heavy flagstones, and intermittently, there was the sound of bicycle bells. Yun Niang, lifting up her skirt, got into a rickshaw, which drove joltingly towards the outside of the city. Li Shiyi, without the slightest hesitation, called a rickshaw along with Song Shijiu, and, gazing forwards, said quietly, “Follow at a distance.”

Her hand rested casually on the hand-rest at the side, which was ice-cold and gave off the scent of rust, and she paused, then grasped it a bit more firmly. The darkness was always able to magnify one’s true, inferior nature, and in the past, it was the rickshaw drivers, most in touch with the common people, who were exhausted by periods of misery and oppression, the strength of their legs weakening and their motions growing tired, terrifying people as if they were wandering ghosts; the serpent’s tail that had flashed by just before bred an even greater terror concealed beneath the surface, and it caused Song Shijiu to shiver involuntarily.

It was too quiet, quiet enough that she was even afraid of the sound of the wind by her ear, and she leaned her body closer to Li Shiyi, lowering her voice to ask, “Just now, what was that?”

“The Teng serpent,” Li Shiyi said, lips parting and closing. Furthermore, it wasn’t the same as A Yin; it wasn’t a spirit, or even a soul, but rather—“The Teng serpent itself.”

Song Shijiu gasped, a chill running down her spine. “It’s under Nüwa, and a spiritual beast of antiquity; why would it be attached to Yun Niang’s body?”

Li Shiyi muttered to herself, and shook her head. Song Shijiu inexplicably became cheerful, and laughed delicately. “There are things that you don’t know?”

Li Shiyi cast her a glance; everyone said she was cool and calm, controlling herself; even if Mount Tai were to collapse, her expression wouldn’t change, but she felt more and more that it was Song Shijiu who was the one whose heart was the strongest; in her short life, true flaws in her emotional state rarely appeared; for example, terror, wrath, irritation, envy, and self-pity and self-redress. If they did appear, they were a brief flash. The average person’s superfluousness came from ignorance, and terror came from half-knowing, but Song Shijiu wasn’t like that; she knew clearly what awaited ahead, and still warmly curved her eyes to observe Li Shiyi’s emotions. In her mind, the six characters of “Li Shiyi doesn’t know it” were even more conspicuous than “spiritual beast of antiquity”. 

Or, perhaps, it wasn’t six characters, but three. When Li Shiyi thought of this, she lowered her eyes and smiled faintly.

Before her smile retreated, she heard Song Shiju ask her again, “Though Yun Niang is a ghost, the Teng serpent is attached to her body; how could your paper talisman easily control her?”

Li Shiyi thought for a moment, and had a faint guess. “Although she’s a spiritual beast, she’s still the little pet of a superior; it turns a blind eye to the petty, everyday ruckus; however, if she were to cause trouble in a place like Xianyuesi, she might be held responsible, so that’s why, temporarily, she would act weak.” Her mind still had another suspicion; once she took a paper talisman out, she couldn’t sense whether it had use or not anymore; that Teng serpent had truly and honestly been controlled by her, but she didn’t much want to tell that to Song Shijiu.

The longer the car drove, the further it strayed; it stopped at the foot of Mount She, which was extremely low; hidden in the curtain of the night, even its rises and falls brought a sense of a Shanghai girl’s shyness; the treetops had grown luxuriant and lush, crowded tightly, and on the mountain, aside from some lamps of farming families who went to sleep late, there wasn’t any other colour. Yun Niang got out of the car, and, paying mind only to herself, followed upwards along the mountain; Li Shiyi, leading Song Shijiu along, followed slowly after. The mountain path was hard to traverse, and Yun Niang relied on familiarity with the terrain to walk quite quickly; within a few moments, she disappeared behind a bend; Li Shiyi moved a branch, stepping on soft, dead leaves, and increased her pace.

All was calm, with only the intermittent cicada’s song and the sound of birds’ wings flapping, and the occasional howling of the dogs in the farming families’ courtyards sounding, whimpering and then falling asleep. Li Shiyi patiently followed along the winding mountain road for several laps, carefully observing the footprints on the ground, and, finally, halfway up the mountain, found a spacious cave.

The two sides of the cave dripped with beads of water, which splattered onto the ground to form an aged water hole; the entrance, as tall as a person and twice as wide, was crowded with several thickets of low shrubs, the runners in the middle having been pressed aside to two sides, more than half of them withered and yellow, as if done deliberately by someone to exit and enter. Li Shiyi entered without haste, releasing a small paper figure to find a path, and saw it walking quietly on tiptoe to enter into a small crack; soon, it came out just as quietly, wearing grass clothes like those of an ambush soldier. It nodded to Li Shiyi, its arms forming a circle around its head to indicate that it was safe, and then conscientiously entered her pocket once more.

Li Shiyi held her breath, and the two, bowed, pressed against the wall and entered.

Originally, the mountain was dark, and the inside was even more pitch-black; closing their eyes, they adapted to the light, and feeling about, they passed through a narrow pathway, ahead of which was a large boulder forming a barrier; behind the barrier was a vague brightness, accompanying a rather bizarre sound. Li Shiyi took a testing step, but heard a loud burst of sound, a large group of bats flapping their wings and taking flight, causing rock debris to fall down in response with a rustling; she instinctively drew her body back to protect Song Shijiu, crouching with her behind the boulder. She took out a talisman, pinching it, and touched Song Shijiu’s wrist to indicate that she should make preparations, afraid that they had aroused the Teng serpent’s attention; she pressed her lips together, her bottom lip turning white, and tilted an ear to quietly wait for a while; surprisingly, that direction had no detectable movement; she restrained a sigh, and shifted to stick her head out, peering covertly.

What came to her ears before the scene was the sound of Yun Niang’s moaning; she was laying on her back on the dirt, her qipao half shed, her long legs twisted painfully, sweat moistening her thick hair, which was stuck to her face in a disarray, half of it following along her shoulder and over her full chest. The bracelet of her luminous wrist was on the ground in shattered pieces, and she was grasping a cluster of withered grass, her neck arched, gasping and out of breath as she moaned. Her white clothes were the lantern candle that most drew one’s attention in the night, and at this moment, it was unexpectedly faintly glimmering, rising and falling like a firefly as it wrapped around her; with a twisting motion, she turned over, and only then did what was causing her unbearable pain become visible.

It was a serpent’s tail as thick as a person, blue-black in colour, covered in hard scales, which stretched out from within Yun Niang’s body, twisting and sweeping back and forth like an earthworm, the length of the tail whipping against the stone wall, leaving traces of sparks as it did so, then swinging against the ground; from the withered grass, it dragged out sticky traces, specks of flame falling all about.

The Teng serpent—master of fear, and master of fire.

Li Shiyi let loose the talisman she had been holding, and finally understood why the Teng serpent hadn’t paid attention to their alarm; where that flame disappeared were piles of dark things, like silkworm pupae—it was shedding its skin. When a snake shed its skin, it was at its weakest; its spiritual qi was largely reduced, and therefore it needed to adhere to a ghost’s body, and so it was too busy to pay attention to anything else.

Tiny flames leapt within Li Shiyi’s wave-gleam-like pupils, as if a hope were unconsciously growing; if the Teng serpent chose this moment to shed its skin, then this cave had to be the place which it resided in at this time. She let out a long breath, turning her head to see Song Shijiu’s sparkling eyes gazing at her, inquiring whether or not to advance; Li Shiyi shook her head, lifting her hand to gesture outwards, indicating she should retreat.

The two left the cave carefully, and only after having gone half a li did they dare to let their steps make sound; Song Shijiu, seeing faint sweat had risen on Li Shiyi’s forehead, hurriedly pulled out her handkerchief to let her wipe it away, and herself clutched her sleeve to wipe it away as well; she asked her, “Didn’t you want to find the Teng serpent? How come you suddenly left?”

Li Shiyi shook her head, and explained to her, “What I wanted to find was the hardest to find among the ghosts and gods of the world, the Bai Shai’s idol. The Bai Shai is engendered to the Teng serpent, and can subdue it; the Teng serpent usually hides itself in the surroundings of the Bai Shai’s idol, so its whereabouts can only be found through it.”

“Oh,” Song Shijiu nodded obediently, wanting to say something and hesitating, and added, “I had assumed that you wanted to kill it.”

Li Shiyi had just been about to take a step; hearing this, she paused, looking at her in disbelief. “Me, kill the Teng serpent?” Nüwa, spiritual beast. She let out a meaningful scoff, and shook her head, passing by her. “You really think highly of me.”

“What relation does this have with thinking highly of you or not?” Song Shijiu caught up in a few steps, her voice as lighthearted as her feet. “If you want to kill, I’ll just do it.”

Li Shiyi tilted her head to gaze at her earnest profile, the corners of her mouth involuntarily rising. “Your ability is quite great, is that it?” She turned her head to gaze at her feet; originally she hadn’t thought of speaking further, yet by curious coincidence, the work of ghosts and gods, she was teasing.

“It’s not that great,” Song Shijiu said modestly. She was just about to make a display of her own skill to Li Shiyi, when her eyes suddenly shifted. “What’s this?”

All she could see was a ruined courtyard, the likeness of a former temple faintly recognisable, and in the two low walls of the courtyard laid a severed gold head of a Buddha, the surface layer of gold leaf having been scraped off by the people nearby; the stone block within had bumpy holes left on it, and the weeds passed through the hand of the smiling Buddha, the appearance having a bit of a feeling of the withered and fallen mundane world’s bleakness.

Li Shiyi’s mood shifted; she exchanged a look with Song Shijiu, and stepped forward.

The temple was quite small; from start to finish, it was barely two rooms; in the front room, only a glowering guardian deity remained, long since lacking incense, and the offering table lacked arms and legs, even the prayer mat having been taken away by someone. Song Shijiu looked them over attentively one by one, crouching to look and not even letting small cracks slip by; only after looking for a while did she ask Li Shiyi, “The Bai Shai’s idol, what does it look like?”

Li Shiyi withdrew her hands from the offering table, brushing off the dust and ash on her fingertips, and said, “The Bai Shai’s appearance is rarely noted, as usually, it wouldn’t be met either; but, like the Teng serpent, it has a snake’s body.”

Song Shijiu let out a sound to indicate understanding, and, holding her skirt, went running to the back. Li Shiyi gazed after her deft movements, her mind somewhat worried, and she followed after her with a few steps, and was almost tripped by the doorstep. She held onto the door frame to stand up, raising her eyes to see Song Shijiu’s back.

Her head was tilted, and she stood in the middle of the second room, one hand still holding her skirt, not having let it go, one hand stretched out, with the slight tremor of having found a result. Her curly hair bounced joyfully against her back, and with a rapid swing, the young mistress’ dimples a blossom blossoming in the midnight, she said excitedly, “Shiyi! Is it this?”

Li Shiyi’s pupils dilated rapidly, and her breaths stopped in a split second, her mind ringing, as if she’d been hit atop the crown of her head with a hammer. She gazed at the snake-bodied idol that Song Shijiu had picked up and struck a few times, gazed at the simple and crude, creaking offering table, gazed at the dust hurriedly rising from the floor; in the whistling wind, the spiderwebs all about had been torn through the middle, and the spiders anxiously squeezed into the cracks, avoiding the abruptly arising heavy rain and powerful wind. The door was blown open with a clatter by the wind, the wooden building unable to withstand the ravage, swaying and on the verge of collapse. Song Shijiu accidentally dropped the idol; Li Shiyi reached out to grab her, but she saw the idol roll about a few times on the ground, the broken snake’s tail leaping up, making a loud sound as it fell onto the ground.

The flying black prayer flags, the withered and rotten house beams that shook and broke, Song Shijiu’s deathly pale, bewildered complexion, and the enraged spirit that emerged from the idol in bluish black whisps. The spirit congealed into the shape of a snake’s tail, and whipped ferociously at the space between Song Shijiu’s brows, roaring in a way that made one nauseous, but afterwards, it rapidly disappeared from view. Everything had happened incredibly quickly, quickly enough that Li Shiyi didn’t have the time to utter the words in her mouth—that isn’t the Bai Shai’s idol, that’s the Teng serpent’s offering table.

The space between her brows was painfully hot; Song Shijiu pressed dazedly against it with her palm, her mind a mess of overturning seas and rivers, not even able to roll her eyes nimbly; she strove to settle the state of her mind, wanting to turn her head and look for Li Shiyi, yet she felt her wrist suddenly being squeezed; in the spinning sky and turning earth, she bumped and fell into a strange yet familiar embrace.

Li Shiyi pushed her to the ground, one hand protecting the back of her head, one hand supporting her shoulder, not giving Song Shijiu the opportunity to raise her eyes, covering Song Shijiu’s mouth with her cool lips. She started kissing her, kissing her eagerly and hurriedly, so much that she couldn’t taste the sweetness of the rouge on the young mistress’ lips, only sucking on her bottom lip, in the chaotic breaths warmly and softly pressing her tongue in, emphatically yet probingly provoking her.

Song Shijiu’s eyes widened; she had no ability to bear the weight of her eyelids; her heart seemed as if it were being trampled by a magnificent army with thousands of men and horses, the rumbling sound in her ears extremely painful; it was as if she had once more returned to when she was young, everything being controlled by this woman before her, firmly pressing her palm against her own neck, the fingers holding her own shoulder, and even bringing along the cool, faint fragrance of lips which caused one to be lost in a myriad fanciful and wild thoughts, yet had never before been touched by another before.

Her lips were at times cool and indifferent, and at others rising faintly; only very rarely was she willing to expose her pretty teeth, and even her smile had a bit of reclusivity to it. But the kiss of hers of this moment was demanding and exertive, was giving, and also comprehensively acquiescing. Song Shijiu raised her hands to embrace her; when the flowerbed in her heart was drenched to dripping wetness, she ended the kiss; her face was shockingly red, so much that she thought of pressing her hands to cut off the heat; her eyelashes were faintly moist, as if carrying clear and sweet dewdrops.

Her gaze trembled for a few moments, and only then did she raise her eyes to look at Li Shiyi; she gazed at her; her lips were beautifully bright and glossy, and the wings of her nose opened and closed delicately as well, but within her eyes were suppressed a terror and franticness that caused one to tremble; she gazed at the fresh flower-like Song Shijiu, her throat bobbing gently, and she bent her hand to pinch her trembling fingers. She said to Song Shijiu seriously and desperately, “Remember, if you have any needs, come find me.”

This was the first time Li Shiyi had made a promise that she had no ability to accomplish; if she had really fallen into the trap, what she needed was the primal essence of the opposite sex, and she was entirely impotent. But even if that was the case, she still wanted to try, wanted to inhibit the possibility of the appetite and degradation of the person before her; she would give every bit of herself to her, and would use every method to meet her needs, for just the smallest chance to not follow the tracks of an overturned cart and repeat a mistake. She embraced Song Shijiu, lowering her eyes, cutting off the suspicious wetness within.

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