Chapter 67: Old age must not be met in the mortal world (IV)

Li Shiyi had a rare, lazy sleep; when she woke, Song Shijiu had already wrung out a kerchief and spread it across her face. Li Shiyi opened hazy eyes and tilted her head to look at her; Song Shijiu shifted the kerchief, laid out on her forehead, slightly, the rising steam joining her line of sight. Li Shiyi drew her gaze back and turned her head, the muscles on her neck stretching visibly.

Song Shijiu blinked; usually, when she met Li Shiyi's gaze, she was that kind of being unable to hold her own for three or four moments; yet this time, Li Shiyi had withdrawn her forces; even the action of already retreating was done as easily as handling a butcher's cleaver. She tilted her head, immersing the kerchief in the water, soaking it for a few moments and then wringing it out once more, sitting at the side of the bed and passing it to Li Shiyi.

Li Shiyi took it with a single hand, closing her eyes and massaging her temples, and then placed it between her eyes and pressed down. Her mouth twitched, as if she didn't know what she wanted to say, and then just cleared her throat, and said, "Many thanks."

Many thanks? Song Shijiu raised her brows in astonishment, earnestly and seriously looking at Li Shiyi. The ambience of this moment had an unprecedented estrangement, and an even more unprecedented ambiguity; her mind was a ball of paste, hurting as much as when Tu-saozi had pushed Tu Sishun out of her full belly; her shoulders and vertebra were as if having been gently struck by a hammer, struck into looseness and aching swelling; even the action of raising her hand was somewhat difficult. She gritted her teeth and raised her arm, placing it on the pit of the other side's shoulder and kneaded; although she didn't remember what insanity she'd participated in, but as she thought hard, she still first acknowledged in a small tone, "Don't be upset, I won't drink alcohol again."

Yet Li Shiyi was startled; she took off the slightly cooled kerchief on her face, gazing at her with a complicated expression. It was the first time that she had seen an expression close to aggrievement in Li Shiyi's eyes. She felt that Li Shiyi wanted to say something yet was hesitating, and tilted her ear, waiting a bit, yet seeing that she didn't have any other words, only sighed lowly and passed the kerchief to her, turning her hand over and supporting herself to sit upright, her half-length hair softly curling at the hollow of her throat.

She got up and got off the bed, her actions a bit slower than usual, and asked Song Shijiu, "Does your head hurt?"

"It hurts," Song Shijiu replied honestly.

Li Shiyi pushed her hair to one side, letting out a "wu" as she put on her coat, and then immediately said, "Let's go downstairs; I'll boil some soup to dissipate the effects of the alcohol."

Song Shijiu nodded, and also reached a hand out to smooth her hair; she didn't know whether it was a misconception or not, but she felt that Li Shiyi's line of sight paused subtly on the movement of her fingers; then she turned her head, her expression as usual, and went downstairs.

On arriving downstairs, they ran into A Luo, who had risen early to read, yet didn't encounter A Yin; on asking Wu Qian, who was sweeping off to the side, Wu Qian rummaged and took out the note that had been left behind, saying that she'd risen early and gone out to eat Chongqing's xiaomian,^[1] and on the way, would buy some vegetables and meat, and for lunch, they'd turn on the stove.

"Turn on the stove, what does that mean?" Song Shijiu asked.

"It's Cantonese; it's hot pot," Li Shiyi said, leaning against the staircase, and returned the slip to Wu Qian.

Song Shijiu nodded, heading into the kitchen. "Is A Yin Cantonese? I often hear her speak Cantonese."

Li Shiyi paused, only saying, "She isn't." Her gaze fell unclearly on A Luo in her peripheral vision; A Luo's motion of turning pages stopped, her left hand holding the cover, her right hand tapping gently against the endpaper.

The sunlight fell in picturesque disorder on the mountainous city, decorating it in a great deal of contradiction; the light rays were obstructed by the buildings of uneven height, indirect in a way that was as if graceful and subdued, yet in the places where it wasn't blocked, it shone brightly and broadly, showing a degree of forthrightness and enthusiasm. Yet having only lived there for a day, the neighbours she'd met the day before called out greetings to A Yin, carrying a small purse; knowing she'd come from the north, they put on a not-too practised Mandarin^[2] to ask her, "Yao-mei'r, you got up this early, eh?"^[3]

A Yin didn't know how this lady, arriving in the southwest, had become "yao-mei'r", and also wasn't sure whether it had any relation with Tu Laoyao, but she also didn't much want to argue about it, and cleared her throat, calling out a few greetings, still swinging her small purse, her lithe frame swaying as she walked onwards. Originally, she hadn't been an industrious woman, yet yesterday, seeing these flagstones, she'd recalled some inexplicable memories, and had had a premonition of hanging in the balance.

The premonition finally took shape when she heard the person behind her hesitantly say the two characters of "A Yin".

A Yin turned her head, and saw a not too tall man; his short hair was very stylish, the quality of his light, Western suit not bad; his shirt tails and sleeves were slightly wrinkled, but didn't hinder his impression, his facial features average and without any strangeness, yet his eyes were fairly good-looking, his eyelashes very long, so pretty they shouldn't be on a man's face.

A Yin's heart twisted, and she furrowed her brows, asking him, "You are—"

If it were the past, she would have immediately put on a smile regardless of whether or not she recognised him, and follow up with a "gentleman", but gazing at this man's fingers, trembling slightly with excitement, and his bobbing Adam's apple, as well as the vague light in his eyes, she felt that, overall, he wasn't.

He couldn't be a patron.

The eyes of that person, hearing her speak, darkened in loneliness, like blowing out an oil lamp. A Yin fixed her gaze on his eyes, and suddenly, a phrase stuck in her throat. She reached out a hand, the handkerchief she clutched tapping in the air, and then drew it back, pressing it against her lower lip, and said doubtfully, "It's you? You're—"

The oil lamp in his eyes lit up, and that person advanced a couple of steps, saying, "It is, it is. It's me, A Ping!"

A Yin considered it for a long time, and only then said, "A Ping?" She looked him over from top to bottom. There had been this A Ping, who in the past, when she had been in the south with shifu, had lived next-door; Cantonese, and because he spoke unintelligibly, would always be bullied by some bad children; A Yin couldn't watch, and had picked up stones and hit them a few times in his place. A Yin's character was bold and forceful, and was also someone who was studying skills; the kids didn't dare to raise their voices, and like a nest of bees, had dispelled. From then on, this A Ping had followed after her.

A Yin's brows raised in delight. "It's been many years, hasn't it? How are you, are you well?"

"I'm well, I'm well." A Ping lowered his head, gaze sweeping across dusty feet; all these years, he'd become a lot more eloquent and clever, and his speech didn't have many traces of Cantonese accent, but seeing A Yin, he could still only say a couple muddled characters. "What about you, are you well?" He tugged at his suit, making an effort to cover up some ill ease. Originally, he'd thought he was living well enough, but seeing A Yin in an exquisite qipao, the hair at her temples neat and orderly, her alluring red lips and fair cheeks, he suddenly felt the ten or so years hadn't changed anything at all; some people looked up, and would have to look up for an entire lifetime.

"I'm well," A Yin said, smiling dimly, her lips pushing out a small parenthesis. "Well, and not well."

Among the four pleasures of life, the foremost was meeting an old friend in a foreign place; but in many cases, the four characters of "meeting after long separation" wasn't meeting an old friend, but rather the self which had been thrown away deep in one's memories. It would bring that person before you without warning, causing you to closely examine the period of many years, borrowing the mouth of the other to ask you a phrase—how are you, have you been well?

The answer usually was listlessness and bewilderment. If one said "not well", one would let down a face flushed with success, and if one said "well", one would let down a heart a thousand ships had passed, experiencing a multitude of matters. So, A Yin had pulled at the hair at her temples, and hidden the story in the pause between "well" and "not well".

Fortunately, A Ping didn't question her closely at all, completely immersed in the joy of meeting again, and stuffed the sweet cakes he'd just bought into A Yin's hand, and attentively asked her where she lived, accompanying her back. A Yin didn't refuse in the slightest, only stopping her steps when they reached the mouth of the alley, and bid a courteous goodbye to him, then, swinging her purse, returned to the residence.

The old-fashioned door was pushed open, and the one welcoming her was A Luo's gaze. A Luo had moved to a low stool, and was sitting in the courtyard, picking out the edible parts of the vegetables; seeing A Yin return, she didn't have any other words to say, only dipping her head, leisurely working with the motion of her hands.

A Yin leaned against the door, watching her; the purse in her hand knocked against her thigh, and she suddenly felt that this scene had some absurdity. The mighty deity of Yama-daren from within the huaben literature, sitting on a stool whose four legs weren't even, a bursting, great iron basin before her, working inexpertly, the margins uneven; unexpectedly, the vegetables held in her hands were like a work of art; anyone looking on would also be unwilling to let it be wetted by the water.

She had bid goodbye to A Ping, and gazing at A Luo, there was a sudden feeling passing through her of unsuitableness; she ought to assume that A Ping, the common man, with whom she'd played innocent children's games, had his feet planted firmly on the ground, while the ghostly messenger Yama was like a heavenly steed, soaring across the skies. But she unexpectedly felt that it was exactly the opposite.

She walked over, thoughtlessly picking up a stool, and sat down next to A Luo, placing her hands in the hollow of her belly to warm them, and asked her, "How come you're doing this?"

A Luo replied, "Didn't you say that, for lunch, you wanted to have hot pot?"

A Luo slapped her head, and laughed. "I actually forgot; I didn't even buy the vegetables."

A Luo cast a look at the desserts in her hand, and didn't say anything.

A Yin pressed her lips together, and watching her actions of picking at the vegetables for a while, asked her, "Do you often cook?"

"I don't," A Luo said, shaking her head.

A Yin lowered her head, drawing the wrist she'd placed in her abdomen back, feeling, unexpectedly, for a while, that she had nothing to say to her; but what wasn't the same as usual was that she still didn't want to end the conversation with A Luo. She gazed at the figure by her side, outlined by the sunshine, delicate and frail, like a girl, as if, if you were to raise your voice a bit, you could cause her to have a hard time holding back from knitting her brows.

She thought that if she truly were a girl, the things she wanted to say to her would probably be more than one or two words.

A Yin parted her lips, and suddenly asked her, "You people from the Taishan registry, you don't age or die, right?"

"Yes," A Luo replied.

"Like a jiangshi,"^[4] A Yin laughed, and lowered her head to look at her own heels; after a long while, she said softly, "what meaning is there, then?"

A Luo stopped her actions, raising her brows and looking at her.

A Yin explained, "We live a lifetime for the sake of rarity. All in all, a couple of decades of life; naturally, we live frugally and anxiously, but we still have to live somehow. If there wasn't an end, wasn't death, wasn't fear, what hopes would there be, what would there be worth treasuring, then?"

A Luo raised her head, staring at her for a while, and then picked up the kerchief at the side, attentively wiping her hands, and shook her head. "What's fearful isn't truly death."

A Yin furrowed her brows, and heard A Luo say in a graceful voice, "It's loss, and forgetting. Fear of losing kin, fear of losing one's most beloved; fear of losing the feelings of love, of hatred, of passion, of animosity; fear of forgetting what ought to be remembered, fear of forgetting what you want to honour the memory of." Death was simply what turned loss and forgetting into something concrete; if death didn't represent the end, there wouldn't be any part that was worth fearing.

A Yin was startled, and saw A Luo gaze at her, saying in a soft voice, "I also forget, I also lose, and so, I'm also fearful in the same way." Fearing not being chosen, fearing not being treasured, fearing being efforts to no end.

She had so, so much time; and so, she could nourish a great, great deal of patience; but this absolutely didn't indicate a boundlessness. She also had exhaustion, had anxieties, had times where she grew weary of persevering and found it hard to continue.

A Luo caressed the cheeks of the person before her with her gaze; all the efforts that she herself made, for the first time, she urgently hoped that she could understand.

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Translator's notes:

[1]: 小面, a collective term for Chongqing noodles, literally "small noodles".

[2]: 官话 (guanhua), literally "official's language" or "language of bureaucracy"; at the time Wen Guan takes place (the 1920s), Mandarin was the language of the government, but hadn't yet been declared the official language, so those in areas outside the capital (Beijing) wouldn't necessarily be fluent.

[3]: 幺妹儿，起恁早哇？(Yao-mei'r, qi nen zao wa?) doesn't translate perfectly into English; it's a fairly muddled attempt at Mandarin, and sounds like someone trying to speak in a second language that they don't know very well (which is essentially what's happening).

[4]: 僵尸, known as the "Chinese hopping vampire".