Chapter 85: Dreaming nine times of the lord for ten nights in the pavilion (X)
"Outside the Northwestern Sea, to the north of the Chi River, there is Mount Zhangwei. There is a god, with a human face, a snake's red body, and vertical eyes; when it closes its eyes, it is then dark, and when it opens its eyes, it is then bright. It does not eat, nor sleep, nor breathe, but can visit wind and rain. It is Zhu Jiuyin, known as the Zhu Long."[1]
Within the movement of Song Shijiu's wide eyes, Li Shiyi noticed the difference in her; in the past, her open eyes had seemed to be like closed curtains, the thin screen being pulled down with a rustle, eyes which held shyness and carried a smile jumping out, like the cry of an oriole, loudly and suddenly expecting you to look at her. But now, it seemed as if she were using a pair of hands to push a door, her lowered eyelashes arranged in preparation for straightening her cuffs, the gaze fallen to the floor the crack of the door she'd knocked and opened, and only at the end did she push the door wide open, her eyes completely meeting the person before her.
Unobstructed and unconstrained, languid and indolent, and even carrying the unconscious offence of having been suddenly awakened from a deep sleep. She calmly and silently swept her gaze across the surroundings, and finally, stopped on Li Shiyi's figure. Before she even spoke, she smiled, and then said, with a husky voice, "Shiyi."
Ten thousand households' lights lit again when she spoke these two characters; Li Shiyi suddenly stopped, as if her heart had also been resuscitated.
She stood up, an elegant and graceful white snake curving as it rose from where it leaned on a tree; the white snake slowly walked towards Li Shiyi, ring finger and middle finger held together, tucking the character in the heart of her hand into the lines of her palm.
She'd only taken a few steps when she paused once more, suddenly furrowing her brows, her gaze sweeping over Ti Deng, held up by A Luo, and she tilted her head and asked Li Shiyi, "The Shengsheng isn't hard to subdue, nor is it dangerous; you knew that from early on, didn't you?" Her fluid eyes flashed, expressing a bit of familiar naivete.
Li Shiyi replied, "I consulted the ancient records for a few days, and knew its character and habits."
"Then," Song Shijiu lowered her head, and then raised it again, "Ti Deng, held in her hand, and the gloves you're wearing for coming to blows, aren't because of it." She was like the gathering ripples of the lake, and she calmly gazed at Li Shiyi. "It's because of me."
I'm called Zhu Jiuyin.
—the god of Mount Zhongshan; when I open my eyes, it is day, and when I close them, it is night; my breath the winter, my exhalation the summer; I wield the four seasons, and control time.
Mount Zhongshan is incredibly large, and I'm also incredibly large; the usual form of my body, reclining, is an undulating mountain range, and I gaze at the human realm silently and remotely.
The breaths I exhale are Mount Zhongshan's blossoming clouds, the saliva of my dreaming fantasies the condensed lake; when I close my eyes, Mount Zhongshan sinks into darkness, and when I open them, it is once more daytime.
I was in a deep sleep for a great while among these multitude of gathered beasts at the mountaintop; afterwards, I created a human figure, and descended the mountain to enter the mortal world.
I listened to the Tang and Song dynasties' folk storytelling, drank the vintage wine of the Yuan and Ming, walked through the chaotic bone pits of the Upheaval of the Five Barbarians, and sat on the highest ivory eaves the Epang Palace.
I experienced first-hand all the kinds of people, and took in all the kinds of desires.
In 1912, that day that Empress Dowager Longyu's imperial edict of abdication appeared in the newspapers, I entered the Taishan seat.
The reason was because I had received Yushiqie's letter, saying that Zhu Yan had been sentenced to reincarnate into a domestic pig by the Taishan seat.
Zhu Yan was the most clever of strange beasts; its head was white, and it had red feet, resembling apes and monkeys; from childhood, it had grown on Mount Zhongshan, only it was somewhat naughty, and liked to go to the human realm's forests to amuse itself.
In the Qianlong era, I lost the trace of it, and heard rumours that it had been murdered by a person and its spirit had returned to Mount Tai, and as it had lived for an excessive time, and its past was a mess, after a careful investigation of one or two hundred years, only then was the case resolved.
The Taishan seat was incredibly desolate and cheerless; even the teashops were open intermittently, unfortunately following the style of the painting Along the River During the Qingming Festival, renovated along the streets on the two banks of the Bian River, half the crowded shops closed, the crows and sparrows on the bridge dozing, the jujube-red bay horses and old oxen facing each other and exchanging stiff, bored pleasantries; even if one were to wear the dragon robe, the endless stream of horses and carriages and flourishing blossoms' brightness couldn't be stolen.
Two characters: it's artificial.
Whate was even more artificial than this false town was the person walking over the bridge; in the clear, bright day, she carried a glass-covered altar lamp, the bottom of her cross-collared cheongsam brushing against the stone steps like falling snow, her raven hair combed into a homely bun, a cinnabar-like red birthmark on her neck.
This was Ling Heng.
This was the bewitching Ling Heng, the one who, in the heavens and on the earth, put on the most airs.
I sat by the teashop, leaning backwards, raising my knees and placing my legs on the table, crossing them and swaying them. This motion was one that I'd learnt from the figures of men, and in intimidating ghosts, it ought to be sufficient.
At that time, I regarded the Tatar clothes with disdain as unpleasant to look at, and was wearing a Later Tang period reddish-purple young master's dress, my hair loosely half-gathered; I watched her expression, with a slight touch of astonishment, and knew in my heart that she'd taken me as Dengtu Zi.[2]
But actually, I had come to look for her, and even for a case.
I had heart that, three hundred years ago, the Fujun Ling Heng had coveted Kṣitigarbha's ear, and wanted to seek a small favour, and had looked about the heavens and earth, and had only said that the Zhu Long was decently alright.
Decent, alright.
I suppressed the flames in my heart, but one matter at a time; I attentively argued with her about Zhu Yan's path.
She was born with a repulsive countenance, yet when she spoke, it was very pleasant to listen to; you've heard the sound of the rustling patter of melting snows striking against the heart before; it was just that type.
She said to me, as Zhu Yan was a vicious beast, the master of war, and when it was seen, there would be an army, having the desire to fight, therefore, it ought to be reduced to a farm animal, and be trampled on for three lifetimes.
I replied that it had been like this from birth; what was wrong with that? A mortal is born needing to eat and drink, eating chickens and catching rabbits; is that also a crime?
She replied once more, that Zhu Yan had caused the regent's heart to bear a desire for a war campaign; Emperor Di had gone on a punitive expedition to the east, Xuanzong had fought in the west, Mongolia had immoderately expanded borders; gunsmoke had risen in the air, the people having no way to make a living.
I asked with a laugh, how could the natural intention of the monarch be blamed on an outside force? If each of them had been urged on by Zhu Yan to transgress, why would they preserve the accomplishments of previous generations? How could they be gentle rulers?
After the Kangxi era, Zhu Yan was executed, and there weren't any further campaigns, so how was it the present circumstances? External enemies bringing disaster on the royalty, a lifetime of disgrace; an independent regime internally, a complete lack of unity, whose fault was that?
She clearly couldn't convince me, so she only indifferently said, others had reasons, and that Zhu Yan wasn't necessarily without fault; the sentence had already been given, and didn't need to be spoken on further.
As she spoke, her brows furrowed, as if she were incredibly weary, and she passed by me, about to leave.
I reached a hand out to obstruct her; at this, she acted.
I fought with her from daybreak until nightfall, and then once more from nightfall to daybreak, fighting such that all the roaming ghosts passing by on the ground raised their heads to look upwards, fighting such that that servant girl known as Yan Futi was about to move the spirit army, yet Ling Heng raised her lamp and retreated backwards, saying: not necessary.
Not, necessary.
This was the third time she'd offended me.
That refusal to put down the lamp from start to finish also reluctantly counted as half.
I was an expert in controlling time, and pinching my fingers, I created a trick controlling time, forming an enclosure of disordered boundaries of day and night, and within it, I had fought with her until I was loath to part. From the Republican era, we fought until the pre-Qin, and then from the Warring States period to the late Qing, inflexibly fighting for hundreds or thousands of years, falling, bodies weary and strength exhausted, to the ground, falling into the dumbstruck pile of roaming ghosts; according to standard time, only three days had passed.
Ling Heng fell onto the bridge, still a blossom of white Yulan magnolia, with fluttering skirts, the lamp in her hand swaying and rocking, never extinguishing from beginning to end.
I gazed at her only slightly loosened bun, and was determined to outwit her.
She didn't chase me away, and so I lived in the Taishan seat, following after her the entire day, paying attention to her weaknesses.
I saw a great, great many weaknesses of hers; the greatest among them was called loneliness.
She wasn't fond of drinking tea, and only drank warm water; she wasn't fond of colour, and only wore white clothes. Occasionally, during the early morning, when she'd handled official business, she would raise that lonely, solitary lamp, and, by the side of the Yellow Springs, take a look at those muddleheaded souls, look at the stars as far as the eye could see, and then follow the false Bian River's bridge back to the palace hall.
The day that I met her, she had burnt it all through the night.
I laid with my body on the railing of the teashop we'd first met at, and looked at the jujube-red bay horse, bored stiff, and looked at her, with her head lowered as she crossed the bridge.
I stared blankly for a long, long while.
So, when the Henggongyu that had infiltrated the Taishan seat called my name, I was startled to jumping.
Seeing that I was worried about Ling Heng, she presented me an idea like a treasure, saying that regardless of any magic, it was always better to seduce. If I fought her to death, there would still be a new Fujun, but if I were to become intimate with her, not only could I send her about, I could also take the Taishan seat as dowry, and in the future, we little beasts of Mount Zhongshan could never have to be sent into the fate of a household pig.
Matters of intimacy in the human realm, I'd seen much of; they were most able to cause people to become insane; her words had reason.
Not to mention, I couldn't kill her in a fight.
So, I accepted the passion-causing nectar presented by the Henggongyu, and properly wrote a letter of respect, of forgetting previous differences, to Ling Heng. And after, I prepared a pot of wine, and poured the passion-causing nectar into the wine pot, swaying it, and carried it back into my residence, and filled up two cups.
How could a tiger's cub be caught without entering the tiger's laid? I feared that, in acting, I couldn't act well enough, and could only myself drink along with her.
Afterwards…afterwards, I forgot.
I only dimly remember that day, she came, travel-worn; separated by the candle flame on the table, I called her name for the first time; I called her Ling Heng.
The next time I saw her, it was also at night, and, separated by the once more lit thousand households of lights, I called her name a second time; I called her Shiyi.
I am Zhu Jiuyin; she is Ling Heng.
Mine and her origin were forgotten, and the endpoint is unknown.
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Translator's notes:
[1]: Zhu Long translates literally as Candle Dragon. This entire section is taken from the Shanhaijing, specifically the section Da Huang Bei Jing.
[2]: A famous lecherous character.
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