Chapter 68: Old age must not be met in the mortal world (V)

The night in the mountain city was inky black, the sky low, cut across by dark clouds, the clamour of the bright day swallowed by the treachery, the threat hidden in the mountains like paper cutouts. The Shengsheng lived concealed in the Jinyun mountain range; this mountain was made up of multiple anticlines, the peaks of range after range standing tall, the ancient trees that reached up to the heavens hidden within the sheer cliffs and precipitous rock faces, rugged and strangely beautiful.

In the midst of the swaying bamboo, the four people followed the mountain upwards, the trickle of a stream by their ears, the scattered moonlight before their eyes, pressing against the four's brisk steps, as splendid as going for a walk in the spring, when the grass had turned green. Li Shiyi walked at the very front, holding aloft a glass-covered kerosene lamp, an outstretched hand pushing aside the obstructing bamboo; when she grasped the chilly branches and shoots, it was with a slow, accustomed manner; Song Shijiu also extended her palm, carelessly touching the back of her hand, covering it up and then pulling it down, her little finger swaying and unwilling to let go.

Her girlfriend held the oil lamp in one hand, and cleared the path with the other, unable to free a hand up to lead her along.

Li Shiyi turned her head, smiling in tacit understanding, and passed the oil lamp to Song Shijiu to hold, her other hand turning over to grasp hers, and intertwined their fingers. Uncertain as to why, Song Shijiu always felt that the action of entwining ten fingers was far more touching than the give and take of intimacy; the latter, after all, was a hidden entanglement, while the former could place love into the full light of day, exhibiting the minor details.

For convenience, she'd changed out of a qipao and into Li Shiyi's black, unlined tunic of before, its wide, great sleeves trailing, her thick plait pushed to one side, appearing incredibly dainty; if it weren't for the wandering elegance of the outer tips of her eyebrows and the outer corners of her eyes, it would look as if she'd just matured.

Being led by Li Shiyi, she wasn't much mindful of what was underfoot, and raised her head to gaze at the moon, then lowered her head to shoot a glance at the creek. Suddenly, she leaned close to Li Shiyi, chest near her arm, and said in a low voice, "True romance."

The term "romance" was one she'd learned while reading a Western book, and it was also called "romantic". She hadn't known how to describe this sort of abundant and sentimental feeling; when speech arrived at her lips, she'd remembered this term.

"What?" Li Shiyi lowered her head, looking at her, her speech warm, and her expression warm as well.

Song Shijiu didn't reply, only leaning her head close to her and reciting a phrase of a poem. "Oh, how I wish we were trimming the west window's candles, and talking of the rains on Mount Ba.^[1] Tell me again," she raised her head, her glistening eyes gazing at Li Shiyi, "which mountain is Mount Ba?"

Li Shiyi smiled. "Mount Jinyun." It was the mountain which was beneath their feet at this moment.

Song Shijiu was incredibly pleased, fluid glance flashing as she bit her lip and smiled.

A Yin, fallen halfway behind, held A Luo's hand, gazing at the backs of the two people at the front, hearing their words in scattered fragments, and, on hearing it, she drummed her cheek. It ached, yet it wasn't that usual ache of a needle pricking her heart, but rather the ache of vinegar filling her cheeks and reaching her teeth.

A Luo tilted her head and looked at her, and saw A Yin's brows rising, casting a look askance at her. "How about you also recite a couple lines?"

A Luo smiled. "What do you want to hear?"

Originally, A Yin had only been needling, but knocking up against A Luo's earnest eyes, became a bit uncomfortable, and struggled her hand free from A Luo's palm, clearing her throat and grasping the bamboo stalks as she walked. A Luo breathed heavily, and curled the corners of her mouth, drawing back her empty hand. Since the Teng serpent's poison had been solved, A Yin always treated her like this, approaching one step and then retreating two, good for three days, ad then giving her the cold shoulder for two. She was always pondering when she looked at her, and when she didn't look at her, she was always baffled. She no longer had the brightness of the past, nor the easy manner, nor the outrageous speech and actions of carelessness.

A Luo was somewhat at a loss; she'd never engaged in romance before, and didn't much understand this advancing and retreating indirectness; but A Yin understood; when she herself had placed Li Shiyi in her heart, it had also been like this.

Bored stiff, she let out a sigh; she herself had cried for days by the Naihe bridge, and the Taishan registry had remembered every cent of this debt, causing her to stumble to the head of this group of ghosts over and over again.

Mentioning ghosts in the middle of the night in the mountains, the experienced and knowledgeable A Yin-gunainai couldn't help but tremble; unexpectedly, the sound of footsteps ahead paused as if in agreement, and the the howling wind took the opportunity to act up.

"What is it?" A Yin understood Li Shiyi fully, and didn't need to see her faintly furrowed brows, taking a couple steps forward.

"There's something not right," Li Shiyi said, pressing her lips together. She tilted her ear and listened attentively; the was the sound of the wind, the sound of the trees, the sound of the creek, and the sound of the rising and falling breaths of the four of them. Yet there wasn't anything else. There weren't calls of wild dogs or cats, the undulating rasp of a snake moving, the owls up late at night; even the sound of wooden blocks^[2] in the temples had stopped—to put it briefly, there wasn't a trace of any living thing's presence.

She was slightly tense, and grasped Song Shijiu's hand, just weighing whether they needed to retreat, when she saw the flame in the lamp in Song Shijiu's hand sway as she picked up the lamp and lit the distance, saying doubtfully, "We've walked this long; how is it that that temple is still as far away as the horizon?"

From behind her, the sound of A Luo's uncertain sound came, said without careful consideration, "This path…haven't we passed by it already?"

The stream on the left side had a bend like a dragon's mouth, and on the right side, there was a crooked tree that overhung the path, and a few meters ahead, in the gravel, there was a two palm-sized depression, half filled with water, which A Yin had just before almost sprained her ankle on, and then she'd instinctively reached out a hand to her.

The handkerchief in A Yin's hand swayed, and she crossed her arms, bending her back, and unexpectedly sounded interested. "A ghost-built wall?"^[3] Her charming eyes rose, and she gazed at A Luo cheerfully. "Aren't you a ghost? Tell me, how do you build a wall?"

A Luo dropped her gaze, not answering, and A Yin stuck out her neck to chase after her. "You don't know how?" Her neck swayed like a water snake, then rose again, and she clicked her tongue in great disappointment.

A Luo understood; she was regarding her own failures with disdain.

Unexpectedly, a man's voice appeared and disappeared like a ghost: "This is third-rate; daren naturally doesn't have to learn."

A Yin's head shook, and she covered her chest, looking back at Wu Qian, as if having seen a ghost. "How long have you been here?"

"I've been here the entire time," Wu Qian said, exasperatedly.

A Yin laughed, just about to say a couple of things, when she heard Li Shiyi, ahead, softly ask Wu Qian, "Would it be convenient to go piss?"

"Pu!" A Yin couldn't hold it back, and trembled like a flower out of glee. A Luo and Shijiu looked at each other in dismay, Wu Qian's face deathly pale, and gazed disbelievingly at Li Shiyi. "Fu…Shiyi-jie?"

Li Shiyi explained, "In a graveyard or a mountain, 'a ghost-built wall' is by no means rare; if villagers encounter them, pulling out a smoking pipe or going to piss will can break it." She raised her arm, a long smoking pipe in her sleeve. "Although I have it, I hadn't prepared my usual tobacco strips; if I light this pipe, I'm afraid it'll attract spirits even more." She indifferently and courteously lowered her lashes. "Thank you for your trouble."

Li Shiyi rarely spoke this much; if one counted Ling Heng-daren's identity, it was even more of a face; Wu Qian didn't dare not follow through, and in a few moments, he recovered his spirit from being dumb as a wooden chicken, and swallowed, meeting A Luo's gaze, his face as ashamed as a boiled prawn, yet he still nodded respectfully and turned to walk deep into the bamboo forest. There was the sound of clothes rubbing as they were undone, and then the rustling sound of water; Song Shijiu was somewhat embarrassed, and pressed her head into the hollow of Li Shiyi's neck; A Yin held back a laugh, casting a glance at A Luo, head swaying and incredibly at ease.

After waiting a bit longer, the sound of steady footsteps rose, and Wu Qian returned from there, and, with a lowered head, he crouched by the creek and washed his hands. Li Shiyi was just about to open her mouth and call everyone to follow with her, when there was a sudden, earth-shattering, heaven-shaking great sound, and in the dignified, aged rebuking sound, the wind shed the shell of tender sentiments, attacking like a sharp knife as it passed through the bamboo. The fallen leaves swirled up, blowing across the face like blades, and the dried snake, insect, ant, and rat corpses were also swept along in it, glancing against the ankles.

The chaos-causing squall knocked against the alarm bell with a great jolt, and the group internally said this wasn't good; A Yin looked towards Li Shiyi, and saw her holding onto Song Shijiu's shoulders and pushing gently, shoving her into A Yin's embrace, and then pushed hard with the tip of her foot and her heel, leaping up as lithe as a swallow, turning over and half kneeling on the ground.

The ground had vestiges of being swept across, and Li Shiyi's ankles, like pale as cold jade, were scratched to shocking, ghastly bloody lines. A Yin drew her head back, and saw that, close to the ground, a long, white wooden pole attacked rapidly, the head of the pole carrying a curbed edge of a blade, suffused with a cold light like the clear moon, its hooked end having fresh bloodstains, which had just been stolen from Li Shiyi.

"A Luo!" Li Shiyi couldn't pay attention to a lot, and only lowly called out.

A Luo's eyes^[4] and ears were keen; she could carefully distinguish the lengthening and shortening of the long pole on the ground, and directed the others to evade the attacks. Li Shiyi shifted in front of a great rock, pressing her back against it, and making sure, she took the opportunity to draw out her smoking pipe, taking advantage of when the curved hook attacked to strike it against the ground, just catching it on the returning arc of the iron hook, and then with a strike and a raise, flicked it away from the ground, extending her body forward, left hand grasping the bamboo pole and exerting herself as she pulled, and a changqiang^[5] the height of two people revealed its appearance fully.

This attack of Li Shiyi's seemingly had caught the person causing the attacks unprepared, and the bamboo forest, for a bit, lacked the sound of movement. She dropped her hand, and the long pole hit the ground, its fall bring up a dull sound. Song Shijiu raised the lamp and looked forward; it seemed as if it were a pole made of Chinese ash, yet the end of it only had a pool of green leaves, and they fell into a pile like a suit of armour that had fallen from its frame, blown and scattered by the wind, fluttering in the breeze incredibly resentfully.

Li Shiyi could control paper figures, so she naturally knew this skill of controlling objects didn't count as novel; what was strange was that thus green leaf soldiers were expertly trained, and advanced or retreated as appropriate, and had unmatched strength. This long pole was usually used by soldiers and also was somewhat challenging, not to mention the leaves as flimsy as paper. She was just carefully considering it, when she saw that pile of leaves shift as if ashes burning once more, as some sort of spiritual awareness was being poured into them, and they rapidly stood up and formed the shape of a person, gripping the long wole and pulling it back, turning it over and slamming the weaponhead against the ground with full strength; Li Shiyi retreated a couple steps, and covered up Song Shijiu; A Yin and A Luo also rapidly dispersed, and the mud faintly vibrated, a depression as large as a bowl appearing, knocking against the layer of rock beneath the ground, fragments of sparks splashing out.

Li Shiyi raised her eyes; the other end of the changqiang had a fist-sized iron ring, unmatchedly hard, comparable to a heavy hammer. The curved iron hook which had withdrawn was hooked on A Yin's hem, and with a ripping sound, it tore open. Then, it disappeared immediately without a trace.

A Luo wrapped A Yin in her embrace, her cheongsam covering up the exposed attractive sight, and she lowered her gaze and said to Li Shiyi, "Will you call Mulan?"

Li Shiyi subconsciously drew her hand back, and stroked the Shentu command at her waist, and thought without moving, then shook her head. She raised her eyes and gazed at the sky; the clouds had shifted and the mist had dispelled, and the moon and stars were distinct; in her ears, there was also the sound of birds, startled and fluttering their wings, and so she lowered her voice and said, "It seems like Wu Qian's actions just then had some use; let's first descend the mountain." Within had a strangeness; although the leaf soldiers were merciless in their attacks, their motions had a method, and she intuited that it wasn't a deranged evil spirit, and moreover, this place was related to the Shengsheng, who knew Shijiu's past; she didn't much want to use the hun army.

A Luo nodded, and supported A Yin, indicating to Wu Qian to clear the path. Li Shiyi explained rapidly, "Follow the creek north, and when you come to the crossroads, turn right, and turn towards the original place three times, then turn around and walk and you'll be able to leave."

Wu Qian, advised, guided everyone down the mountain. Song Shijiu peacefully leaned into Li Shiyi's embrace, and blinked slowly, and suddenly, with some sensation in her mind, turned her head, and gazed deep into the bamboo forest.

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Translator's notes:

[1]: This translation references both the Classical Chinese Poems in English translation and the East Asia Student translation of 夜雨寄北 by Tang poet Li Shangyin.

[2]: A percussion instrument, known as 木鱼 (muyu), or wooden fish, used by Buddhists in China.

[3]: 鬼打墙 (gui da qiang), used to describe the sensation of loss of direction when walking in an unfamiliar place or at night. Here it's more literal; something which causes one to become trapped in a loop.

[4]: The raws say 眼疾耳明 (yan ji er ming), which is literally "weak/ailing eyes and keen ears", but I suspect that it's probably a typo.

[5]: 长枪 (changqiang), translated into English as a spear.