Chapter 84: Dreaming nine times of the lord for ten nights in the pavilion (IX)

No rain had fallen on Mount Jinyun; even the wind was under strict control, the sun spreading rays of light evenly over the mountain, as if shining on a rice paddy, shining a rare vitality in the winter day.

Li Shiyi tugged Song Shijiu's hand, walking upwards; behind her followed A Luo and A Yin. The small path on the mountain still had some mud, the fresh soil muddying the soles of their shoes; Song Shijiu looked at the path with a lowered head, one hand holding up the skirts of her crescent moon-coloured qipao, her deep black wool overcoat piled with a circle of cozy racoon dog fur, tickling as it brushed her sharp chin. She inclined her eyes once more to look at Li Shiyi; she wore a long cotton coat, with wide sleeves and a high collar, which made her clear, aloof features appear as bright as if they'd been washed in water; her crow-black hair was braided from the top of her head like a fishtail, brought together in a loose tail, swept to one side, laying on her chest, becoming a rich and lustrous full fur. Seeing Song Shijiu casting a glance at her, she raised her black-gloved right hand, and tightened her dark green outer cloak.

Song Shijiu had been unsatisfied about precisely this bit. Li Shiyi's hands were absurdly delicate, and this was the first time they'd been covered up, and it only allowed her to faintly see her bright wrists.

Li Shiyi remembered that the last time she'd worn gloves had been ten years before, when she'd been in a terrible thousand year old tomb in Henan; the first night, when she'd been flipping through a book, her palm had sweated; she'd touched it a couple times, and taken out gloves and put them on, fearing that the next day, her hands would be too slippery to hold her smoking pipe.

Her hands were her mind; close up the tension, and it wouldn't be visible.

It hadn't been long since they'd come the last time, but it was as if what they had entered wasn't a mountain; the trees' leaves had fallen away completely, the branches dry as they rose in ridges, like a fisherman's goods out of water, the protruding wood knots dried up fish's eyes, one after another, without vitality as they took measure of the few women in their prime. Without the eerie, treacherous atmosphere, everything was completely withered.

Fortunately, in these two months, the "ghost-built wall" had gone, and on the mountain path, there were a few sporadic travelers. A firewood cutting hunter passed by, basket carried high, bringing along a spell of sweaty, chilled breeze, and casting a glance over them, hurriedly descended the mountain.

The path had been gotten from asking a wandering ghost at the foot of the mountain; walking further in, the small footpath became even narrower, the dead leaves overflowing entirely with the accumulated water, the surfaces also covered with fragmented, scattered paper money, the fallen crimson adding some colour. The paper money went up the mountain, and at the end, off to the side, a small grave mound had been piled up, the soil incredibly fresh, and thinking on it, it was newly-buried.

A Yin raised her neck to cast a glance, and said with a laugh, "Now the mountaintop's been opened up, unexpectedly, it's even spacious."

Irreverence for the heavens and earth, and fear of ghosts and gods; in the past, it had always been this sort of arrogance. Now, cuddled up against Yama's side, it was an even more obvious recklessness of a fox exploiting a tiger's might.

A Luo laughed softly, yet didn't say anything, only leading her upwards. Following along the creek once more, they wound around half the mountaintop, walking such that the group's foreheads had a fine sheen of sweat seep out; Song Shijiu brushed aside the soft fur that had stuck against her neck, and raised her head to see a simple and crude fortune-teller's stand by the side of the road.

That stand, within the bleak winter scenery, was incredibly ordinary, so ordinary that it was abrupt. The wood table, half as wide as a person, stood with an erect, alternatingly blue and white cloth sign, and the character of "teller" in the middle, written in grass script, was half missing, yet expressed a bit of long years and many months' mottling. Behind the stand was withdrawn, white-bearded man with drooping eyelids, his cheeks so gaunt they were sunken inwards, yet his body was full and bulging, his neck stooped on the chair; seeing the arrivals, his eyes rose slowly beneath his brow, and he pulled out his hidden hands, and said with a smile, "You young ladies, would you like your fortune told?" His voice was hoarse and crowing, like a pair of broken bellows, and with each phrase, he panted for half another, and it also brought along the press of a throat stoppered up with old phlegm, as if fingernails scraping a couple times against the eardrums, incredibly hard to listen to.

Li Shiyi raised her gaze to glance at it, holding Song Shijiu's hand as she came forward, stopping before the stand. A clean, cool, fragrant breeze delivered her shadow across the face of the table, with one of its legs shorter than the others; the elderly man stopped the motion of his knees trembling beneath the table.

"What are you good at telling?" she asked.

The elderly man drew his face back, like a bouquet which had been withered under the sun, his eyes sweeping back and forth, and said with a smile, "Predestined marriages, divining fate, interpreting dreams, and choosing auspicious days." It was only because they were women who hadn't trimmed their hairlines^[1] that he had placed "predestined marriages" at the front.

Li Shiyi extended a hand, her gloved fingertips flipping through a small, blue-covered booklet off to the left side, and asked, "Then how do you tell?"

"The Eight Characters, literomancy,^[2] tortoise shells, horoscopes."

A Yin let out a scoff, and came forward to lean on the table. "This divination of features, this lady here is an expert of. I say, what master do you bear from, and which school did you learn from?" Seeing Li Shiyi unhurriedly ask, her heart had known there was a reason, so she'd continued the speech.

"Guniang, this radiance of yours, it surely is due to a delight," the old man said, narrowing his eyes in a smile, not angered, the corners of his mouth drawing back to reveal an incisor, and he shook his head. "My founder was the ancestor Wang Chan, have you heard of him?"

"Guiguzi!"^[3] A Yin scoffed, and shifted her waist. "Of the fortune-telling xiangsheng in the alleys of Sijiucheng, eight out of ten are Guiguzi's great-great-great grand-disciples."

"And what about the other two?" Song Shijiu asked.

"The remaining two can boast a bit more, they're great-great grand-disciples."

A Luo curled a finger and pressed it against her bottom lip, smiling reservedly. The elderly xiansheng still had a smile, and he pulled back the small blue booklet Li Shiyi was tapping on, placing it neatly in the middle, not raising his head as he said, "If guniang won't have her fortune told, then nevermind."

"I'll have it told," Li Shiyi said.

The old man raised his brows and gazed at her, consideringly blinking his eyelids, and then extended his withdrawn neck, saying cheerfully, "That's quite good, what will guniang have it told?"

Li Shiyi came plucked up a piece of white paper, expression cast on the writing brush to the side. The brush had been frozen stiff, as rigid as bared teeth; the old man laughed mockingly, and took the brush, wetting it between his lips, and then dipped it in the ink that had yet to congeal, turning it over to hold out to Li Shiyi, not bothering to wipe away the traces of ink at the corner of his mouth, only spiritedly gazing at the xuan paper. "Write your birthday vertically, starting from here, format it a bit prettily."

Li Shiyi didn't regard him with disdain, pressing her lips together in a smile, holding the brush according to his advice, and, beneath the old man's attention, wrote two graceful characters. "The birthday isn't necessary," she said, passing the characters to the elderly xiansheng.

That xiansheng's smiling expression, seeing it clearly, solidified; he inclined his gaze to look at Li Shiyi for half a glance, and remained smiling as he said, "This is?"

"My name," Li Shiyi said, straightening.

The old man lifted the paper up a bit, looking at it, and then looking at Li Shiyi; the two characters of "Ling Heng" had seeped through to the back of the paper, causing his hand to inexplicably shake. Li Shiyi lowered her gaze, listening respectfully, yet she saw him place the paper on the table, and in a few moments, place the pen, ink, paper, and ink-stone into the blue bag hanging around his neck, and then wrap up the small booklet, drawing his neck back and standing up. "I won't tell it!"

He'd just turned his bent back when he saw a delicate, frail woman to the side, wearing a cheongsam, drop her upheld umbrella, just obstructing before him, the oppressive shadow covering the tip of his nose. That woman held the umbrella, asking him with a still willowy figure and water-warm voice, "How is it you won't tell it?" When she finished speaking, her wrist shook, and the umbrella's surface pushed the elderly xiansheng backwards; the old man wasn't steady, and he fell and stumbled, yet from beside him, a pair of hands holding a smoking pipe emerged first, picking up the scarlet belt around his waist, the other hand grabbing onto it, steadily and determinedly dragging him backwards.

A sound like a slaughtered pig's startled cry suddenly rose, adding a greater misery to the desolate wilderness; A Yin and Song Shijiu's spirits returned, and they took a closer look; what one was grasped within Li Shiyi's hand wasn't in fact a belt, but clearly a downy, lively, trembling and shaking, long tail.

A Yin let out a cry of surprise, raising a hand to cover her lips. A Luo laughed shallowly, and she advanced, extending a hand to the back of the ear of the old man, dumb as a wooden chicken; she tugged slightly, and a face mask suffused with a heavy, bloody scent peeled away; she pinched it in her hand, putting it behind her back, and said to that beast, panicked and unable to find the path, wanting to cover up its face, "Where are you wanting to go? Shengsheng."

That Shengsheng's eyes, seeing that its most vulnerable point had been grasped, and hearing these words, knew in its heart that struggling was useless, and so lowered its hands, exposing a furry face that was both like and unlike a monkey's, both like and unlike an ape's. Its facial features were unexpectedly no different from a person's, and it was a great deal more youthful and tender than just before, the skin beneath the sporadic fur faintly suffused with red, and to look at it, it only looked like a slightly short youth.

The corner of its lips rose in a smile, still in a natural smile, yet the corners of its eyes drooped downwards, as if it were disheartened. It wanted to ask what flaw had revealed it in the end, but its brows frowned, and it thought that it would be in vain; setting up a fortune-telling stand in this desolate wilderness, anyone could see something strange.

Yet it heard Li Shiyi ask, "The Shengsheng always knows what has passed by, and knows past events; how could it act in the business of fortune-telling?"

The Shengsheng was about to speak; its tail, pulled once more from behind, began to hurt, and, baring its teeth in pain, it indicated to Li Shiyi to loosen her hand. Li Shiyi, complying with its indication, drew her strength away, yet still held up its incredibly treasured tail, and heard it say, "It's precisely that I've gone through the past, yet don't know the matters of the future; I know the past, yet don't know the results; it's a great pity, and hence I painstakingly study the way of prophecy."

When it finished speaking, it saw A Yin furrow her brows, looking strangely at it, and it was incredibly indignant, raising its voice to shout, "Can't I have pursuits, dreams, desire to rise, desire to be complete?"

"What are you getting angry for?" A Yin, startled, shifted her chin, pausing, and then asked it, "Since you have this dream, the business that was brought to you just now, why wouldn't you do it?"

The Shengsheng's ears drooped when it heard this. "It's useless." When it finished speaking, it gazed at Ti Deng, blocking it horizontally, with great plaintiveness, pointing at them one by one. "Fujun, Yama." It paused, thinking of the two pairs of clasped hands from just before, and then nodded to Song Shijiu and A Yin. "Fuujun-furen,^[4] Yama-laopo.^[5] Four honoured great Buddhas came to my door today, and I hadn't predicted it at all; this business of mine, could it be called good?"^[6]

Song Shijiu, her cheeks flushed, said quietly, "Each person has their own destiny; this peerless skill of yours, it's already terrific; the common saying goes that being too intelligent must be injurious, so what's the need to master everything?"

Only at this did the Shengsheng take a serious look at her, yet felt that the misty eyes were rather familiar; for a while, it couldn't remember it. The matters which were in its mind were truly too many; if they were to be attentively arranged, it would still need a method.

Song Shijiu spoke again: "Today, coming up the mountain, it was also to make a request of you."

These words, it'd actually already guessed it; originally, it had wanted to strike a pose and prepare a couple lines of song, yet it suddenly felt its tail end hurt, pinched coolly and with great relish by someone, so it was only able to hold back its gaze and ask, "What matter?"

Song Shijiu fell silent, then said, "I can't remember who I am; I wanted to ask you who I was."

"This is easy," the Shengsheng grasped at its own square hat, straightening it, and cleared its throat, raising its chin to Li Shiyi. Li Shiyi released its long tail, and A Luo also withdrew her umbrella, yet she saw the Shengsheng extend its hand towards her, with an expression of stubbornness, neither overlooking nor sparing her. In a few beats, A Luo understood, and passed the face mask back to it. The Shengsheng carefully put it on, and stroked it a couple times, retaining the stooped figure of an aloof hermit, apart from the world; only then did it exasperatingly slowly walk to the book table, flipping through the blue-covered booklet, drawing out a slightly stiff paper, holding it forward and thinking for a moment, and then inclined its body towards Li Shiyi to greet her with clasped hands. "Ling Heng-daren."

Li Shiyi furrowed her brows, and heard it sincerely say, "On the day my spirit returns to Taishan, and is about to enter the wheel of reincarnation, you arrange a fortune-teller's fate for me, the sort that's a master of the subject, alright?"

This little devil was so reverent and respectful, it was somewhat comical; A Yin couldn't help but let out an amused puff, yet she saw it turn its head to say resolutely, "This is an ideal."

"Gu…" When the lady was arranging ideals, who knew what mountaintop you were on. A Yin cast a glance at A Luo, and in the end, was able to restrain herself, and only acknowledged her mistake. "Yes, yes, yes."

Only then did the Shengsheng's temper become orderly; seeing Li Shiyi nod, listening intently, it happily passed the paper over, and then lowered its head and drew out the brush. "A bit of a clue, fragmentary memory, don't you have that? Write it here, a character or two will do."

Song Shijiu took the proffered brush, and thought for a moment, then leaned over, writing down the character "jiu". The simple strokes took shape in the midst of her breaths; the oversight that the Shengsheng had inadvertently left also took shape on Song Shijiu's profile as she pursed her lips with rapt attention; its heart let out a ge-deng, leaping like a cut candlewick, and it couldn't help but straighten its back.

Seeing Song Shijiu had finished writing, the Shengsheng's hands took it, and it looked for a while in silence, then coughed a couple times, and said, "Come with me."

The group of people followed the Shengsheng up the mountain; the winding mountain path's end couldn't be seen; about half a shichen of walking later, the descending curtain of the night gradually enveloped the still surroundings; fortunately, the field of view of the mountaintop was open, and the great, long stretch of lantern lights could be seen at the bottom of the mountain, along with the lines of smoke and fire from the farming houses halfway up the incline, like mountain flowers.

The lights reflected on the middle of a crescent water source; only then did the Shengsheng stop, walking a couple steps back and forth around the lake, selecting the best-lit spot, and then sat down, extending a hand to Song Shijiu, behind it, gasping out white plumes. "Hair."

Song Shijiu stilled, exchanging glances with Li Shiyi, and then plucked up a long strand of hair, and gave it to it.

The Shengsheng had, at some point, fished out a thin silver needle, and it passed the curling hair strand through the needle's eye, tugging slightly, then lowered its head to embroider the character "jiu". Once it finished embroidering a strand, the character still wasn't covered up; the Shengsheng extended its hand again, and Song Shijiu, willingly following its advice, passed another strand to it. Immediately after was the second strand, the third strand. She gazed at the Shengsheng's motions, flying up and down, and, with lingering fear, stroked her own long, curling hair; luckily, what Li Shiyi had asked was "jiu"; if it had been a more complicatedly-written character, she feared she might have gone bald.

All sounds were entirely silent, only the rustling sound of leaves and the lapping of the water; only the sound of those nearby, the occasional dogs' cries, somewhat bringing the sense of the world; Song Shijiu sat, bent-kneed, at the side of the lake, resting her head on her arms and looking at Li Shiyi.

The Shengsheng, sewing and stitching, was weaving her past, yet she wasn't nervous, nor panicked; she'd never been this calm, nor as like a piece of empty paper as now. She felt she herself had some deeply-entrenched thing, and this confidence caused her her to be steady and calm; she could use any identity, and pass through any state of emotion, to gaze at Li Shiyi, as long as she was by her side. In that case, she wouldn't need to fear anything at all.

Song Shijiu's eyelashes trembled, and she heard the Shengsheng say, "It's done!"

She straightened up, the fully-embroidered paper being stuffed into her hand. The Shengsheng said, "Sit cross-legged, both hands clasping this embroidered character, and close your eyes."

Song Shijiu cast a glance at Li Shiyi, and then, following its words, closed her eyes.

The character talisman in her hand, embroidered into shape with hair, began to gradually give off heat, branding burningly against her palm, the snake spirit nourished with flesh and blood, the spirit that had slept for long enough rising from its hibernation, exploring out from between the joints of her fingers, flicking out a tongue, and then cheerfully charging into her limbs and bones.

The light seeping into her eyes struggled for a couple moments, then extinguished; the soft-spoken, lightly-smiling Li Shiyi in her mind also extinguished in a flash; the mountain forest and night within her breaths and her ears also extinguished totally; no sound of bird's calls, nor the sound of swimming fish, no breath of any living thing; only the ceaseless, boundless darkness.

Song Shijiu's head lowered as if she were entering a meditative state; A Yin bit her lower lip, nervously grasping at her clothes; A Luo silently clenched Ti Deng, what she was pondering unknown. But Li Shiyi was only gazing at Song Shijiu, not the slightest bit of expression on her face, only that bit of flickering, unclear fluid gaze leading the faint tremble of her fingertips, then sinking once more.

Within her eyes, an elegant, enchantingly strange dark flower blossomed, inheriting the ghostly charm of the night, the clearness of the lake, the epic scope of the mountain range which gathered, and the independence of a pavilion standing in a vast, empty valley. Song Shijiu's red lips were faintly parted, and the strands of hair behind her head had been drawn up, faintly roiling.

Li Shiyi's attention became rapt, yet she heard a faint "beng" of collapse, surging and dispersing from her ear, and then the an urgent uproar from the foot and halfway up the mountain. That human cry of alarm was brief yet sudden, and from all sides, the birds and beasts which had risen scattered; it seemed as if it were nothing more than the sense of a gong and drum being beaten in the human realm; A Yin's brows furrowed, and she asked, "What happened?"

A Luo raised her eyes, and said quietly, "The lights everywhere, they've all extinguished."

Only then did A Yin free herself from the anxious atmosphere, becoming aware of the peculiarity of the surroundings. The electric lines that lit up the sumptuous, foreign buildings at the foot of the mountain, enough to light half the sky, had been cut; the prestigious, famous old residences' bright red lanterns had been put out, each and every one; the kerosene lamps, the pressure lamps, the gas lamps, even the sparks of the earthen stoves on the mountain, which for year after year hadn't been put out, totally buried, every single one in the most primeval darkness.

And the light between Song Shijiu's brows was the only salvation within the darkness.

The Shengsheng, only on seeing her eyelids irreverently twitching, made a hoarse sound from its throat, asking her, "What do you see?"

"I see…a candle." Song Shijiu's words brought along hesitance, and she hadn't opened her eyes.

Brightly glimmering, swaying and rocking.

The Shengsheng said with a smile, "A candle; that's right."

The hesitance on Song Shijiu's face fell like an ebbing tide, and her pursed lips slowly loosened, holding a faint smiling expression; her brows, high and proud yet brash, hid the disdain beneath contempt until only the barest bit remained. She heard the Shengsheng's hoarse voice say—a candle; that's right.

"Zhu Jiuyin, Jiu-daren."^[7]

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Translator's notes:

[1]: 开脸 (kai lian), refering to the custom of removing facial hair and trimming the hairline of a bride-to-be.

[2]: Fortune-telling through the analysis of written words, or in the case of Chinese, characters.

[3]: The supposed author of a work by the same name, compiled during the Warring States period on the topic of rhetoric; known under a number of names with the surname Wang, including Wang Chan.

[4]: 夫人 (furen) is the title given to a wife, usually that of a distinguished person's, such as a lord, and is placed after their spouse's title.

[5]: Like furen, 老婆 (laopo) is also a term for someone's wife, but is a less formal one.

[6]: The Shengsheng actually says 我这晚饭，还吃得成么? (wo zhe wan fan, hai chide cheng me?) which literally means "could this meal of mine still be eaten?" but figuratively refers to his business.

[7]: The "zhu" in Zhu Jiuyin (烛九阴) is the same zhu as in in "candle" (蜡烛, lazhu).