Chapter 71: Old age must not be met in the mortal world (IIX)

The distance was too large; the old woman's scattered strands of hair could barely be seen swaying in the air. She was too old; so old that even her hair wasn't willing to stay near her, escaping her bun, which wasn't held tight by a hairpin, and striving the be the first and fearing to be the last to taste the youthful evening wind.

Li Shiyi's pace was both slow and conscientious; Ling Heng's spirit and her were folded in a single place, and from her bones and blood flowed an authority that gods feared and ghosts dreaded; the inky night was her best subject, taking her place to raise the tassels of flags of those retreating.

"You…" Qin-jiangjun said, her voice as hoarse as a scratched glass, yet the essence of sound strove to rise, preserving the heritage of the prestige of a high-ranking military officer. "You recognise this venerable one?" The strength of her astonishment wasn't great, and when she spoke, she habitually raised the white qiang pole.

Li Shiyi paused her steps. "Having learned strategy in Sichuan, with the military tally held in mandarin sleeves; as a woman is willing to accept it, why must a general be a husband? Cutting the Sichuan brocade gown herself, sitting atop a peach-blossom horse and requesting a long ribbon; among all the extraordinary men of the world, who would agree to travel ten thousand li on the sands?"^[1]

—Peach-blossom horse, a candle-white qiang; the Great Ming's female general, Qin Liangyu.^[2]

Li Shiyi recited the poem which the Ming emperor Sizong had written from Qin Liangyu with his own hand, her voice clear and sonorous as if brushing away heavy black clouds, but her indifferent breath and long gaze grasped the beams of time, swaying and lilting, inviting the old woman before her to return to the battlefield of the prime of her life.

The old woman couldn't remember how many years she'd been separated from this poem for; the events of the past suddenly entered her ear, and a rush of uncooled, hot blood rushed up her throat, causing her figure to sway, her tone low as she said, "Your majesty…"

Li Shiyi's guess had been confirmed; she dropped her gaze to the qiang she grasped in her hand. That had was as rough as tree bark, having been peeled off and adhered over her bones, her veins rising like the ridges of a mountain; on either side were dried-up gorges; the posture with which she held the qiang was traditional and forceful, and the callouses on web between her thumb and forefinger were depressed such that they had turned white. She had confirmed Qin Liangyu's identity from this qiang. White wood for its body, accompanied by a curved hook at the top, and an iron ring connected at the bottom, brandished to pierce the enemy, and dropped to the ground to cut down horses.

This white weapon had been created for Qin Liangyu; it was extraordinary without compare, and time and time again was victorious in battle.

"From childhood, this general trained with the troops, and could shoot while astride; with the white weapon, I could win with an even greater surprise move, and my military service was astounding. Eliminating the violent bandits and penetrating the enemy ranks, I was known far and wide when word spread after battle. When the Later Jin invaded, this general was loyal and virtuous, and I dispersed my family's property to raise funds for soldier's pay and provisions, went North to assist Liaoning, causing the Great Ming to turn defeat into victory, and the Eight Banners^[3] heard the wind and lost gall, terror-stricken at the news."

The narrow escape of surviving nine deaths, the blood-soaked fight at close quarters turned into a few words; the gold axes and metal horses of the powerful army turned by the wrapping of a funeral shroud into wind-dried yellow sands; the old woman raised her head, her line of sight not nearly as strong as she truly wished, barely able to indistinctly make out Li Shiyi's figure, but although it was only a papercut silhouette, it was still youthful and outstanding; her posture, supported by the changqiang she leaned against, was like the joke of a fox exploiting a tiger's might. When she was young, it was a wandering dragon in her hand, majestic and awe-inspiring, sweeping everything before her; now, it was her walking stick, raising her up from the loess, bearing the weight of her not-yet exhausted ambition and loyalty.

Li Shiyi hadn't overlooked the flicker of translucence in her eyes, and after leaving enough of a message, she continued speaking. "In middle age, the General lost her husband, and her son and brothers died for the nation, her entire family martyred.^[4] At the age of fifty,^[5] she raised a qiang and mounted a horse, and took four cities in succession, breaking the siege of the capital. The Qing army entered, and the Chongzhen emperor hanged himself; the General's age was past a sexagenary cycle, yet she still commanded an attack on the enemy, and risked her life to defend Shizhu."

Li Shiyi hadn't finished speaking, and only sighed a long sigh, her tone as gentle as the night dew on a dripstone. "The General was a warrior her entire life; what's she doing here now, then?"

Sentiment arose abruptly, or perhaps it was only because Li Shiyi noticed the small motion of the elderly female general's ear faintly drawing back. Her sharp ears and keen eyesight had been eroded by the years, and only a shell of it remained, causing her to have to use strenuous effort to bring her right ear forward in order to be able to hear the entirety of Li Shiyi's words.

So, Li Shiyi advanced a few steps, shortening the distance between her and the old woman a bit. She saw that the old woman's expression became gradually clearer, but she didn't know if it was the moisture within her eyes, or if it was because she'd retrieved the intellect that had stealthily run away; she furrowed her brows severely in shock, not carrying to reply to Li Shiyi's question, and only said in alarm, "What sort of appearance is this?" She retreated a step, swaying and trembling where she stood, and then guardedly pointed her changqiang at Li Shiyi.

Li Shiyi knit her brows. The agile sound of small footsteps came from her side, and Song Shijiu also came forward, tugging at Li Shiyi's hand, meeting her gaze.

The qiang in the old woman's hand trembled, and it drew a circle in the air, rising and falling; if it were someone else, they would probably have long since dropped it, but she barely allowed herself to relax her strength, dragging her chest up and down fiercely, and with a quivering voice, she called out, "Jiu…Jiu-daren?"

Her tone was incredibly excited, as if clinging to the rice straw saving her life, and also as if making pious worship, and her complexion was cast in the candle of the heavy evening mist, causing her to, for a brief moment, become lively. Tremblingly, she raised the hem of her gown, and then unexpectedly bent her knees and leaned, about to kneel; Song Shijiu was startled, and hurried forward to grasp her arm and stop her; her hand dangled by Song Shijiu's wrist, held tight, and the yin essence caused Song Shijiu's bones to be as cold as ice.

The old woman effortfully raised her brows, inciting the light in her eyes to be displayed incredibly clearly; Song Shijiu's throat was as if constricted by the coils of a great snake, causing her breaths to become stoppered up, not able to even let out half a word. She gazed at Li Shiyi in an appeal for help, and Li Shiyi placatingly nodded her head, advancing to stand by her side, and opened her mouth, calling the old woman to draw back her spirit.

The old woman inhibited her emotional state, and stood, supported by her qiang, and measured Li Shiyi from bottom to top, and then said doubtfully, "Since you're Jiu-daren's dear friend, why are you asking me what I'm doing here?"

She looked towards Song Shijiu; Song Shijiu uneasily rose, but she wasn't willing to always depend on Li Shiyi, and said in a small voice, "I lost my memories."

"Lost your memories?" the old woman muttered, her lips twitching a couple of times, as if she had something she wanted to say.

Li Shiyi supported her. "How about you sit down."

The two supported the old woman to sit down on a stone off to the side, the mottled shadows of trees impressing themselves on her face, like the peeling skin of a wall. She breathed deeply, the skin of her throat pulled tight, and only after a while did she move her eyes, and recall, "When this venerable one was seventy-five, I fell off a horse, and tumbled off a cliff; when I was dying, I met Jiu-daren. Come to think of it, I was defending the nation to my death; my aspiration weren't rewarded, and my heart wasn't reconciled; it was dying with these emotions which caused Jiu-daren to descend to the world to help me.

"Jiu-daren's skirts brought breezes, and when she walked, the flowers and plants by the side all stopped swaying; she walked from the end of the ravine, and I knew with certainty she wasn't like other people. So, managing a single breath, I kowtowed to Jiu-daren, and begged her to save my life; if I couldn't expel the dalu,^[6] I couldn't die with my eyes closed.^[7]

" Jiu-daren was greatly shocked; after she pondered it for a long while, she said she could help me live eternally; but, because it was counter to fate, she required that I move to Mount Jinyun, and not converse with outsiders, to avoid divulging the will of heaven. So, I lived in single-minded seclusion, day and night studying the art of making puppets, and with leaves as soldiers, I waited for the the the Qing troops would once more invade, and I could fight them with the leaf soldiers, without hurting my subjects or soldiers, and also make it impossible for those barbarians to hold their own."

She spoke slowly, and at the end, she sighed in her throat, and carefully stroked the back of Song Shijiu's hand, and said, "But I don't know how many years have passed, yet the Qing soldiers never made a move. Jiu-daren's coming now, does it mean I can leave the mountains?" As she spoke, Song Shijiu's face whitened a degree, and at the very end, there was almost no trace of blood; her jaw trembled severely, and she could only tightly bite her lower lip, only then able to restrain the sense of cold like drops of water falling in a cave.

"How many years?" She sensed that her own, gooselfesh crawling up her calves like wild vines, rushing up to her pretty neck, and she became a drowner, choked by the waves; what was drowning her were her own crimes, hiding in the sky and covering the earth. She tensely turned over the hands which were holding the old woman's icy-cold hands, and turned her head to gaze at Li Shiyi.

Li Shiyi didn't even need a short moment to understand what she was thinking of asking, and she exasperatedly and mercilessly told her, "If the person is alive, asking the coffin won't draw out a single character."

Song Shijiu's nostrils flared violently, and the hard-to-bear disconsolateness converged into shape in her eyes. She understood everything now; the old tomb at the foot of the mountain, the lonely grave without a marker or monument, the answer of "the hun hasn't returned", and the aged general who had been cast aside by time.

"You already passed away." The sound of Li Shiyi's voice came calmly and gently by her ear.

The old woman was startled, and her doubtful expression was filled with wrinkles, and then she stammered a few moments, and in the end waited for the truth without choosing a word. Only then did Song Shijiu, in a trance, raise her head, and say, "Jiu…I, I didn't actually allow you to live undyingly until now, but rather erased your memories related to your death, and then stopped the time after you died."

The others had no way to know the amount of courage that the character of "I" that she said required; she felt that her limbs and white bones were unprecedentedly aching and weary, and taking an unprecedented undertaking. She also understood why she herself, on entering the cave, had had a different kind of sense; it had to be that she had created a spell for Qin Liangyu's grave, and sequestered the memories of her death in that cave; on entering the cave, the familiar magic rose and fell in warning, and also returning.

Her heart ached incredibly, and also feared incredibly; she really wanted to throw herself into Li Shiyi's embrace, and, caring for nothing else, sob for a while, and ask her whether or not she believed that she herself at the time had, because of the aged general's pleading, been unable to bear it, and only because of that, at the time, had made this unwise decision to cover her ears and deceive her in her place. But she was, in the end, no longer wilful, and only minutely bowed her neck, facing Li Shiyi with a taciturn outline.

After the awful, deathly stillness, the old old woman loosened the hands which had grasped Song Shijiu's, raising them, and then, with briefly visible agitation, grasped the white qiang's pole. The changqiang in her hand caused some stability to return to her, and her face was tranquil, without any censure, and without any blame; she only cast a glance at Li Shiyi once more, and asked her, "The question I asked you just now about what appearance this is, can you…can you tell me?"

She had been closed in this mountain for too long; usually, people would come into the restricted area by accident, and because of her ghost-built wall, be turned back around, or be scared out of their wits by the leaf soldiers and flee down the mountain as fast as if in flight; there had never been anyone who had had the opportunity to meet her face to face, and up until today, she'd only met two people dressed this way.

Li Shiyi cleverly understood the meaning beneath the old woman's words, and pressed her thin lips together, and said, "Now is the fourteenth year of Minguo.^[8] More than ten years ago, the Qing dynasty died," she delivered with a sigh.

The old woman's aged appearance sank, and her expression dazedly stared at the ground, which was covered in a disarray of mixed leaves, covering it in layer after layer; if there hadn't been anyone to stir it up with footsteps, not even a tiny amount of the colour of the mud would be visible.

Only after a long while did she raise her head, looking both seemingly at Li Shiyi and Song Shijiu, and looking through them to gaze at the emptiness of somewhere else. She asked, "Then, what of my Great Ming?"

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Translator's notes:

[1]: From the poem Chongzhen grants Qin Liangyu Four Verses (崇祯赐秦良玉诗四首) by the final Ming emperor, Zhu Youjian (reign name Chongzhen).

[2]: Qin Liangyu, who defended the Ming from Manchu attacks.

[3]: The military organisation of the Later Jin dynasty.

[4]: In actuality, her son Ma Xianglin survived her.

[5]: The euphemism "at the age of destiny" (天命之年, tianming zhi nian) is used to refer to the age of fifty in historical times.

[6]: A derogatory term for Manchu used around the 1900s.

[7]: To die with one's eyes open implied that they had unresolved grievances.

[8]: Used to refer to the calendar year after the founding of the Republic of China in 1912; the fourteenth year would be 1925.