Chapter 95: Yet with the xiansheng's closed jade coffin (VI)

The second hand ticked away, drilling into Song Shijiu's ear, a pressure as if urging her to open her mouth. She gazed at Li Shiyi; she was still a slender bamboo, the cool breeze and floating moon, slim and elegant, like the clean origin within the turmoil and chaos of war. The Taishan Fujun was good, and the xiansheng who inquired of the coffins was fine as well; actually, she'd always been this attractive; at that time, how had it been that she'd though, at that time, that she was like an enchantress? She couldn't quite remember.

She followed blindly in suit of her, as if having been wrapped within a shell, hidebound by convention. Only in this moment, she felt the inflexible clock having run into her mind, the second hand, at one side, separated from the hour hand, letting out a ticking "beng" sound, like some sort of lamenting sound of termination. Her curled lashes were like the clock's hand as well, touching as they closed, then breaking apart. She asked Li Shiyi, "And why?"

It was as if she were asking why she had to send Chun Ping back, and also asking Li Shiyi why she didn't think the same as she did.

Li Shiyi lowered her head; it wasn't clear if it was that she was tall, or the return of a habit, but she always hid her eyes, tinted with emotions, within shadows; she paused for a while, and only then said, "The life and death of all things naturally have their time; I taught you this before." Mortals' destiny, like this assiduous clock's hands, gears, fitted together snugly, turning with discipline, unable to be diligently faster a single second, or lazily drag a single second.

Song Shijiu's palm, grasped tightly with Li Shiyi's, perspired faintly, and her voice was frank and straightforward. "Send her back, back into the chaos of war?"

Li Shiyi gazed into Song Shijiu's eyes, and said mildly, "She's not of here. You saw it; she can't meet strangers, and the fever each time is the backlash. If you forcefully keep her here, in the future, she'll endure even more."

"I can protect her." Song Shijiu's throat bobbed, and she lowered her head, looking at the photograph. She wasn't used to arguing with Li Shiyi, and her heart was as if it had been ground down in a grinding stone, halfhearted and unable to raise her spirits.

"There's still the future," Li Shiyi explained. "A living person from ten years or more suddenly disappearing, it's bound to disturb all the fates which have connections with her; one disrupting ten, ten disrupting a hundred, a hundred disrupting a thousand; it may give rise to uncountable consequences."

"Is there any consequence worse than the chaos of war?" Song Shijiu retorted. "Fires reaching the sky, the people without a way to make a living; the mortal realm a purgatory, the people in a terrible situation. Even if it's disrupting fate, how do you know whether the disruption is good or bad?"

Li Shiyi closed her eyes, tilting her head slightly to look at her; an unconcealable chill seeped from within her gaze, causing the perspiration on Song Shijiu's palm to rapidly dry.

It was bad, she knew.

Song Shijiu seemed to have just woken from a dream; standing before her was the master of the record of the lives and deaths and fates of countless souls, calmly and composedly turning Song Shijiu's stubbornness into a naive joke.

An indescribable misconception arose in Song Shijiu, as if, at this moment, the one facing her wasn't an equal, gentle lover, but Ling Heng, who had clung to her lantern as she'd crossed the bridge, looking forward and not glancing at her. She finally remembered why, at that time, she'd loathed Ling Heng; what she'd hated wasn't that stunning face; what she'd hated was her attitude of being aloof and set on high, not amenable to reason, like a piece of stubbornly unmelting ice, clinging to the inflexibility within her dogma, understatedly instructing others what was "ought to be".

She wasn't willing to be troubled, wasn't willing to be broken through to, wasn't willing to have any exceptions; she simply insisted on it.

She was the most arrogant, obstinate Zhu Long beneath the heavens, her massive body nourishing her boundless heart; where her heart wished to fall, then that was where it would fall. In the past, her heart had been placed in Li Shiyi's hand, to be weighed as a toy as she wished, but that didn't mean submission, didn't mean deference, only that she was willing.

Song Shijiu raised her wrist, lifted her eyelids to look at Li Shiyi, for the first time refusing to obey with her correction, and asked her, "War, is that also its time? Is that also by the rules?"

She didn't need Li Shiyi to reply, shaking her head to herself, and withdrew her hand, supporting herself on the table, and spoke some things which Li Shiyi hadn't recalled. "In the past, if a spiritual beast emerged from my Mount Zhongshan, and ate a few of your Taishan seat's ghosts, your Taishan seat would send out forces to attack, and the hun command army's military flags would spring up everywhere, very impressive. Who could have imagined that now, when it's the plantative whine of starving people filling the land, deep waters and scorching fires of suffering, the god of all directions only watches with folded arms, merely speaking of not disturbing the order, not even able to protect a single little girl.

"Saying it like this, how truly useless." The corners of her mouth had a seldom-seen mockery, her gaze watching Li Shiyi burningly.

Li Shiyi gazed back at her tranquilly, not even an expression of offense within her eyes.

In the end, she wasn't Ling Heng, and so couldn't take Song Shijiu's taunting personally; what caused her brows to furrow was only Song Shiju's unfamiliar expression, her eyes shining bright with disappointment, the estrangement between them laid out as clearly as the rivers Jing and Wei separated. She wanted to extend a hand to grasp her, but Song Shijiu's little finger twitched, curling into a tiny fist. Li Shiyi's heart was pricked by a sharp needle, causing her hand to also unconsciously clench, but she was still patient, using her faintly husky, gentle voice to say, "Gods don't disturb mortal affairs; those are the rules."

Song Shiju stilled, not speaking for a while, and only after a bit, replied to her, "If all things follow the rules, and mortals live once, then where's the meaning in that? If fate is determined by the heavens, then when ill, medical attention needn't be sought, and when cold, clothes needn't be added; you've endured hunger and poverty, and experienced incredible dangers; I ask you, when life and death is a single line, what is the purpose of striving and seeking survival? Descending into a tomb to open a coffin and earn three liang, what's the reason for that?"

Wasn't it for the hope of changing this thread of destiny? Wasn't it for piecing together an unyielding spirit which could conquer nature?

She hadn't finished speaking, yet Li Shiyi seemed to understand completely; she gazed at her steadily for a while, and shook her head, and said, "It's not like you think; the rules aren't shackling at all, but precisely the scale which measures the meaning of human life." Li Shiyi rarely spoke this much, but she absolutely wanted Song Shijiu to understand. "From birth, mortals are destined to die, but it has never stopped the hope for life. Only with death can life have value; only with aging can one live up to youth. Flowers blossom and flowers wither; the sun rises and the sun sets; spring, summer, autumn, and winter, the four seasons turn, each of them in time; that's order, yet not decline, but vitality.

"If every person receives protection, the world would lack life and death; if all were without cold or hunger, love and hatred would disappear entirely; I wouldn't have any need to earn three liang again, yet would also would never have felt the desire to have enough food and warm clothes."

She gazed at Song Shijiu, and said, "I wouldn't stand like this before you, and want to hold your hand."

An unbounded tenderness rose within her slim shoulders; for the first time, she sincerely and without reservation spread herself out before Song Shijiu; Song Shijiu's disordered, chaotic heart lightly twitched, filled with the desire to beat wildly. Her rebellion had been easily suppressed by Li Shiyi, like the advancing hun spirit army of before, horses trammeling the borders of Mount Zhongshan and sending up blossoms.

Song Shijiu closed the door in silence, sitting in the corridor for a while. The lantern light filled the alley, and the entire small building was so quiet, the drop of a pin could be heard. A Luo and A Yin were resting, and Wu Qian, having fed the chickens in the courtyard, had also gone to sleep; Song Shijiu hugged her knees, and suddenly became aware why she, herself, wanted to firmly grab ahold of Chun Ping. From the time she'd regained awareness, she'd often felt that she herself was out of harmony with this place; A Luo's bearing towards her was unknown, Wu Qian was neither cold nor welcoming, and A Yin and Li Shiyi had a green plum childhood friendship, naturally a bit more intimate than her; the friendship of all those around her belonged to Li Shiyi, and she herself was only an accessory.

These friends would, because of Li Shiyi, give her preferential treatment, and, if she were to hurt Li Shiyi, then, without the slightest hesitation, they would come against her. If there wasn't Li Shiyi's love, she wouldn't be any different from the small visitor from a foreign land.

Thinking of Chun Ping, she didn't know what her state was now. Song Shijiu stood up and headed towards the kitchen to heat up a bowl of milk, and carried it to the room on the second floor.

Chun Ping was sitting on the bed, just having heated water to wash her feet; her hands held a book, and she didn't even recognise ten of the characters on it, but she still wanted to be more familiar with them. Seeing Song Shijiu, she set the book down, and tugged the corners of her lips into a smile; before she smiled, she first blinked her eyes, like a cat's intimacy. Song Shijiu passed the bowl to her, and said, "Drink it while it's hot; drink it and you'll sleep well."

Chun Ping held the bowl, half as large as her face, and drank in large gulps, her throat burning, the soles of her feet burning as well; a flush emerged on her small face, and even the mood in her eyes warmed. She drank a few gulps, and then stopped, a ring of milk around her lips, and she rubbed the frostbite on her hand against her pants.

The frostbite itched badly, Song Shijiu knew, but Chun Ping was always like this; if it hurt, she wasn't fond of saying it, and only once she absolutely couldn't withstand it did she make a small movement. The ache in her heart came incredibly suddenly, racing even more than the milk in her stomach; Song Shijiu leaned over, and used the heel of her palm to support her forehead, yet within her eyes was only Chun Ping's small, bright feet within the wood cask.

The scars crisscrossed those feet; it seemed as if a piece of untouched skin couldn't be found; the blisters and swlling had been rubbed and burst, and stuck to the bloody scabs on top; her heels had thick callouses, so hard they ought not have been formed on a girl's body. The middle toe of her right foot seemed to have been broken before, and curled in a deformed position.

That was the toe of a bound foot that hadn't yet matured, yet it seemed to exceedingly like the four words of "powerlessness" that overwhelmed Song Shijiu.

Song Shijiu dazedly wiped her face, gazing at those feet, and asked Chun Ping quietly, "That year, what was it like?"

Chun Ping lowered her head, looking into the steaming milk and not speaking.

The ache in Song Shijiu's throat lightly defused; after a few moments, she whet her lower lip, and asked again, "Running out, it took a lot of effort, didn't it?"

Only at this did Chun Ping sniffle, and the rims of her eyes, easily flushed red; it took her a long while to arrange her words. "When I ran, I wasn't thinking much; I couldn't pay attention. A Sheng ran together with me, and only after running for two li did I realise there was a hole in the stomach, and the intestines had all come out." She said, nasally, "Only when they came out did I know to be scarred."

Song Shijiu didn't ask who A Sheng was, and didn't want to ask any more. Chun Ping's tone didn't have any pain in it, only the numbness of a calamity survivor; perhaps it even had a bit of appreciation for meeting Song Shijiu.

Song Shijiu lowered her hand into her palm, and only raised her head after a long while; she extended a hand, brushing Chun Ping's hair behind her ear. With a hoarse voice, she said, "Sleep, don't think anymore."

-

< LAST | HOME | NEXT >

 

-