Chapter 93: Yet with the xiansheng's closed jade coffin (IV)

Another half month later, Chun Ping had acclimated a lot; although she wasn't fond of speaking, occasionally she'd smile. The reason was unknown, but she got along the most with Song Shijiu, and often would follow along with her close by, sitting quietly. Song Shijiu was like a small dragon which had found its tail, and raised the corners of her proud mouth exceptionally aloofly.

Many days had passed, and Song Shijiu had also gradually grasped some tricks. It wasn't clear if Chun Ping had some sort of congenital deficiency, but when she was about to exit the door and saw strangers, she was guaranteed to have a fever that night; but it would only last a single night, and the next morning, she'd once more be as lively as a dragon and as animated as a tiger.

Although her mind was well, in the end, her body was weak; Song Shijiu didn't dare to disturb her, so she didn't take her out again. Fortunately, she wasn't too fond of wandering about all over, and mostly she laid on the window sill, looking out at the girls and boys getting off school, and occasionally clumsily holding a book, head swaying as she looked for a long while; Song Shijiu went over to take a look; the characters were upside down, the top facing the ground and the bottom facing upwards.

So, she gently took it out of her hands, and asked her, "Do you not know how to read?"

Chun Ping's neck flushed slightly, and she let out a quiet affirmation.

"Do you want to study?" Song Shijiu flipped through a couple pages as she spoke.

Chun Ping thought it over, and said, "My mother said—in the past, my mother said, if I were to read, in the future, I wouldn't be beaten."

What sort of logic was that? Song Shijiu somewhat didn't know whether to laugh or cry; she closed the book, setting it on the table, and then straightened the hem of her clothes for her, and said, "If you want to study, that isn't easy; our room has an erudite,^[1] go look for her and have her teach you to read." When she said "erudite", the corners of her eyes had a subtle smiling expression, and Chun Ping tilted her head, watching; it was warm and tender, and in this expression, the three characters of "Li Shiyi" didn't have to be clearly indicated.

Chun Ping nodded, and, following her words, went to go look for Li Shiyi; she was just about to head upstairs when she heard the sound of movement from the courtyard, and stuck out her head to go look. A Yin sat beneath the newly-transplanted plum tree, her long legs crossed, sitting across from A Luo and cracking melon seeds.

The winter day was cold enough that even ghosts were coughing, yet this mistress wasn't fond of hiding away in their room; from beneath her qipao, even a rosy ankle was revealed, and a plum petal fell down from the golden qipao like rouge, touching the pit of her ankle, and then after a few moments, fluttering down once more. Chun Ping gazed at the petal that had fluttered down from her, then looked at her rosy face, holding the spring, and wanted to speak but hesitated, standing there.

A Yin spat out a melon shell, andn said to her, "If you have something to say, just say it."

Yet Chun Ping chose a different topic, and cast a glance towards the table. "What's this?"

A Yin turned her head, and raised the letter. "It's a letter from Tu Laoyao. Oh, you don't know Tu Laoyao; you ought to call Tu Laoyao 'shu'.^[2] If we don't return, he'll come looking for us."

"Return?" Chun Ping was startled.

"We came from Shanghai," A Yin said, her bottom teeth closing, the tip of her tongue curling around the new melon seed, and in a couple beats she chewed it up, then asked her, "Shanghai, do you know of it or not?"

"I know of it," Chun Ping nodded, and then after a bit, she furrowed her brows.

"Listening to you speak, you're not a local either, yet I never asked, where did you come from?" A Yin's palm held the rouge-stained melon seed shell, holding it before her chest as she asked her.

Chun Ping looked at her brilliant red nail polish, and only spoke after a while. "I'm from Nanjing." She'd travelled a great long journey, had ridden a great while in ox carts, and had even had the luck to run into a group of hastening soldiers, and only then safely arrived in Chongqing. As soon as she'd arrived, it had become overcast and rainy, and she'd fainted in a mountain god temple outside the city for a good many days; on opening her eyes, she'd stumbled into the city, wandering about, and had found this courtyard.

"Ah, no wonder you know of Shanghai," A Yin said, smiling broadly, and put the melon seed shell into her handkerchief.

Chun Ping nodded; a plum petal fell on the back of her neck, soft and silky, and she twitched her neck, only after a while saying, "Are you really going to return to Shanghai?"

A Yin tilted her head, looking at her, and huffed, laughing. "You little girl, how is it that you're like a dog with mange, always wrinkling your face at something? If we're going to leave, we'll leave; we aren't likelly to leave you behind. When you meet your Tu Lao-shu, you'll understand; the rough-skinned rascals, we don't regard any of them with disdain, and more than that, what about a soft-skinned and tender-fleshed little girl? You can safely put your heart back in your stomach."

Chun Ping'sthin brows twitched slightly, like tender shoots breaking through the ground, yet her face didn't have any other shift; she thought to herself, and only then turned and started walking back inside; she'd only walked a few steps when she stopped again, gazing at A Yin's ankle, and said quietly, "If you're going to travel, dressing like this won't work."

A Yin raised her brows, and A Luo raised her gaze; in Chun Ping's calm eyes, they saw an incredibly repressed scar, and int he end, she raised her lower jaw, pressing her lips together, and without saying another word, turned around and walked inside.

"How odd," A Yin said, her lower jaw touched by a piece of melon seed shell,, and she lazily propped a hand on her waist.

Entering the house, Chun Ping set her mind, walking upstairs; Li Shiyi was in fact in the study, a mixed cardamom and sweet pine incense lit in a censer, holding her sleeve back as she wrote. Today, her hair was loose, and she wore a long, white qipao, the sleeves somewhat wider, not graceful and delicate in the way that A Yin and Shijiu's were; her waist was bare, and her crossed collar wasn't high either, and, along with her artful wrists and the small birthmark at her neck, it caused the qipao she wore to have a different sort of asceticism.

She raised her gaze to look at Chun Ping; her expression was like that of playing a qin, unhurriedly pressing down the taut string which had just been plucked, rubbing it with the body of her finger once more.

In this expression, Chun Ping saw a difference from how Li Shiyi had been the past few days, as if a dormant person within her body had languidly extended a hand and pressed against the tip of your sleepy nose, and then looked at you with a caring expression, just about to wake. But this expression was only for a flash; Li Shiyi lowered her head once more, and said indifferently, "You want to learn to read?"

Chun Ping wasn't surprised that she'd heard it, and only nodded, walking over to the desk. She didn't speak, and Li Shiyi didn't have the intention to make a move to teach her, only ignoring her earnest gaze.

Today, Li Shiyi was practicing Slender Gold Script,^[3] her weasel-bristled brush held between her fingers, and as it moved back and forth, it maintained the appropriate sense of fine slenderness.

"Pick a brush." Once she finished writing, Li Shiyi stopped, and indicated for her to look at the brush container on the table. Chun Ping nodded, holding her breath and looking left and right with rapt attention, as if she were doing something with an extreme sense of ceremony; Li Shiyi smiled, and chose a purple rabbit-hair brush^[4] for her, and then raiased her hand to dip it in the ink a couple times, trying it out herself a few times. Her profile was especially good looking; even if her gaze was clear and cold, the rise and fall of her breaths were warm as a spring breeze.

Curling smoke rose from the censer, and the window lattice created a partition, dividing the morning sun into angles; Chun Ping crookedly leaned over the table, cautiously and solemnly watching Li Shiyi's extremely steady figure.

She hadn't raised her face, only watching Li Shiyi's hand as it wrote, and she suddenly asked, "Why are you treating me this well?" She paused for a moment, then added in a low voice, "I don't know any of you." She rarely spoke this sort of affected speech, and at this moment, she'd also withdrawn her hands into her sleeves, stroking the fine stitches back and forth.

Li Shiyi looked at her with lowered eyelids, yet didn't hurry to say anything, only pausing the brush in her hand slightly, and then added a line, writing in the middle a character "Chun". "Do you recognise it?" she asked quietly.

Chun Ping shook her head.

Li Shiyi's thin lips met each other. "Ping."

Chun Ping's mind leaped; it was her name. Li Shiyi didn't explain any further, only added three more characters after it, then set the brush down, and looked at her, saying, "Strangers coming together by chance."^[5] She smiled, and said, "People being brought together by fate or chance, it all comes from these four character." She looked over Chun Ping's short head, thinking of her shifu, whom her predestined relationship with wasn't deep; thinking of A Yin, with herhair bound in a bow; thinking of Tu Laoyao, hugging her thighs and not letting go; and, finally, thinking of little Shijiu, holding onto her fingers.

The interactions between people didn't have any reason, but meetings had reason.

Studying characters with Li Shiyi for a few days, Chun Ping spoke a great deal more; ocassionally, when meeting ones she didn't understand well, she would even mutter to herself for the lesser part of the day. Tonight, the day darkened early, and by dinnertime, the twilight was already deep; as she arranged the tableware, A Yin called up to Chun Ping, coming down the stairs, "Go, go, go wash your hands!"

The chairs and stools lightly scraped in a fit, and everyone sat down; Chun Ping returned from washing her hands, and was just about to fill her bowl when she saw the food on the table and startled. A Yin said with a smile, "There's a newly-opened restaurant, which serves Nanjing cuisine; you aren't able to go out to eat, so I brought it back for you; try it."

Lightly crispy, oily and tender Jinling roast duck, the scent of scallion assailing the nose from char siu mandarin fish, smooth, refreshing duck's blood vermicelli soup, and prawns with their tails arranged and crowded, Qinhuai flavours packed on the table, like a xiaodiao cheerily spilling out from the gold-rimmed porcelains. Chun Ping sat down, the extent of her motions incredibly small as she held up the bowl of rice, turning it in her hands, and only then saying, "Of these, most of them I haven't eaten before." Besides the duck's blood vermicelli soup; it seemed as if she'd eaten it once before.

A Yin plucked up a prawn and gave it to her, saying with a laugh, "Regardless of whether you've eaten it before or not, you're from Nanjing, whether or not it's authentic, what you say goes."

Chun Ping pressed her lips together in a smile, narrowing her eyes and nodding, and swallowed the prawn down, then picked up a small mouthful of white rice. It was incredibly delicious, and she couldn't help but reach out to pick up a second piece, and then, thinking for a moment, her chopsticks drew a curve in the air, and she dropped it into Song Shijiu's bowl.

Song Shijiu raised a brow; Chun Ping didn't say anything, only withdrew her body towards the back of her stool, lowering her head and adding a few bits of rice.

After the cups were served, everyone's conversation livened up; A Yin, seeing everyone was eating with relish, happy at having arranged a lovely thing herself, said, "If you all like eating it, tomorrow I'll go again; that owner said that there's a number of specialties, it's just unfortunate my stomach is small, and I couldn't eat them all."

A Luo, seeing her take the credit, only smiled softly, and extended a hand to fill a bowl of soup for her. Yet Chun Ping said feebly, "Is there Meiling porridge?"

"What porridge?" A Yin hadn't heard clearly.

Chun Ping said quietly, "When I was fleeing, I ran into someone from the same village, and heard that in the past, he was a great cook in a great restaurant in Jinling, and his specialty was Meiling porridge; he said that it was very tasty, and I've always wondered about it." She was still unused to asking for things from others, and was incredibly awkward, and without waiting for when she'd finished speaking, she hid her face in her soup bowl.

"If you want to eat it, then tomorrow I'll go ask; this name is unfamiliar, which mei is it? And which ling? Tell me, so as to avoid saying it incorrectly," A Yin said.

Only at this did Chun Ping raise her head, and say, "It's the Song-furen's name. I heard that villager say, Song-furen's appetite wasn't good, so she instructed the kitchen to make this porridge; the fragrant sweetness whets the appetite, and afterwards, it spread about, and gained the name Meiling."

A Yin blinked; the more she listened, the more confused she became. "Song-furen? Which Song-furen? Is it Sun-furen?"

Chun Ping was also somewhat doubtful, and shook her head. "Meiling-furen, the wife of Chairman Jiang."

A Yin laughed, embarrassed, and took the soup A Luo offered her. "I really didn't know there was this wife." And she didn't know which chairman this Chairman was. She'd never been fond of reading books or the newspaper, and so she was somewhat ill-informed and inexperienced.

Yet Li Shiyi, who had been taciturn the entire time, raised her head, and looked at Chun Ping, saying, "You're from Nanjing; what battle was fought? Who was fighting?"

Chun Ping met her gaze, and her heart leaped anxiously; she wet her lips, and only then said, "Ah, devils. Japanese devils."

Li Shiyi's breathing uncontrollably became chaotic, and her voice sank slightly. "What year is it now?"

Chun Ping began to have a bad sensation; she helplessly bit her lower lip, and looked all around, lowering her voice to reply, "The…twenty-sixth year of Minguo."

1936.

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Translator's notes:

[1]: 书袋子 (shu daizi), literally "book bag"; metaphorically someone who is well-educated.

[2]: From 叔叔 (shushu), the address for an uncle.

[3]: 瘦金体 (shoujinti), based on the handwriting of Emperor Song Huizong, so-called because it resembles twisted gold strands.

[4]: 兔肩紫毫 (tujian zihao), a type of writing brush made of the fur of a rabbit's back. While not purple, the hairs used have a dark colour.

[5]: This idiom starts with the same character as Chun Ping's name (萍水相逢, pingshui xiangfeng).