Chapter 106: Yet with the xiansheng's closed jade coffin (XVII)

"Sleep," Ling Heng said.

Tu Laoyao couldn't see anything anymore, his eyes filled only with the blinding, hazy light; in the light, there was a bright figure, with a red birthmark on the side of her neck, like droplet of weeping blood.

Sleep…this voice of Ling Heng's, it was truly fucking pleasant to listen to.

Tu Laoyao spat out a mouthful of blood, and wanted to ask her, what about Li Shiyi? Had Li Shiyi, who had, just then, been beaten such that she could only breathe in and couldn't breathe out, died?

Ah, it was said that in Sijiucheng, the tobacco stand's proprietor was thin and frail, dispirited and washed out in appearance, her hair cut short, unable to cover her neck, with bangs that seemed to have been gnawed by a dog, long here and short there, concealing her heavy eyelids, an antiquated guapi hat atop her head, looking somewhat comical. Her surname was Li, and had always looked like this, neither a man nor a woman; she didn't have a name, and she was the eleventh by seniority. Li Shiyi's features were ugly, her old coat faded white from washing, and she was only willing to place an electric lights in a storehouse; she wasn't fond of speaking, yet her heart was quite soft. Li Shiyi's patience was great; she was an expert in inquiring of coffins, not fearing demons or ghosts, and when she smiled, it was like the clear, light breeze of a spring day. Li Shiyi wasn't fond of eating cured meat; she liked eating salted duck eggs, especially the ones from by that baozi stand in the south of the city; if you wanted to ask her for her time, bring along two, and she'd draw back her cold, harsh expression a cun.

Tu Laoyao laughed, and then sighed. He wanted to say, nevermind; just then, he'd wanted to call out the Bodhisattva to take this woman's life, but now he felt that, if Li Shiyi were still here, she shouldn't keep fighting, just hurry up and run away, and just live a peaceful life. As Li Shiyi wasn't there, he hadn't been familiar with this Bodhisattva Ling Heng, and he was even more embarrassed for asking her to use her skills. He'd been rash his entire life; on the cusp of death, his thoughts were even more disorderly; he couldn't even come up with a couple phrases of a metaphor that would cause someone to cry; in the end, he could only mumble, "Xiao Shijiu."

He didn't dare to mention Sishun, nor did he dare to mention his wife.

At the precipice of death, he was also a coward.

When his last breath fell, it was utterly tranquil; even the layers of clouds in the heavens didn't shift, no way of dying more negligible than this one; it was as if there wasn't even the necessity of weeping and wailing; Song Shijiu, qi and blood utterly spent, laid beneath the Jiaolong's talons, her chest rising like a pair of broken bellows, her eyes, ruddy with heat, staring fixedly in Tu Laoyao's direction, tiny droplets of tears rolling down from the corners of her eyes, dripping like minute streams. She didn't have the strength to cry out in grief, and could only sniffle harshly, gazing helplessly as Tu Laoyao's body gradually went stiff, finally freezing in a hurried, sorry position.

Her eyes, utterly lacking liveliness, were tinted with dust, stained all over with blood, and, finally, unable to bear the weight, she blinked, and then her eyes eyes shifted like a marionette's.

Ling Heng approached her; in the scene of turmoil and chaos, she was absurdly clean, causing her to think of Li Shiyi, who she'd seen once was washing her hair during her own childhood.

A Yao's wheelchair moved, clearly restraining her fear; the Jiaolong had some awareness, and it removed its talons; Ling Heng didn't cast a single glance at the two of them, only walking directly to Song Shijiu's side, and crouched down, pulling her into her embrace. Her figure had a scent even lighter than that of a Queen of the Night cactus' blossoms, her clothes cool, her fingers cool as well; one hand held her waist, the other's sleeve covering the ragged abdomen of her clothes, her palm stopping by her ear, which had been whetted by tears. Song Shijiu stared at her motionlessly; her features were clearly incredibly similar to Li Shiyi, but her outline was even finer and more harmonious, and the distinct edge of her jawbone was gone.

Naturally, it was hard to tell whether she was, after all, angry or not.

In a flash, Song Shijiu's body tensed, yet with Ling Heng's glance, the tension hurriedly loosened; her expression was gentle and familiar, not the aloof coldness when she'd leaned on the railing that day, and her lower eyelids had filled out, her brows rising slightly, an uncontrolled pain of love within them. She pressed her exquisite lips into a radian, the corners of her lips slightly downturned; this motion was aloof and cold and controlled, exactly the same as Li Shiyi.

Song Shijiu suddenly felt aggrieved, and she called out to her, choked with emotion: "Shiyi."

She was Shiyi; she was still Shiyi.

The outer tips of Ling Heng's brows trembled lightly when she heard this sound, and then she patted her back, and said to her gently, "Don't cry."

There wasn't a comfort that was more brief than this; Song Shijiu leaned her head against her chest, feeling as if she herself were a cub who had returned to its owner, barely having the strength to rub her hair against her clothes, leaving behind a slight, self-evident lingering. She felt Ling Heng pat her unhurriedly a couple times, and then set her down, rising to look towards A Yao in the distance, and then sweeping a glance over the rather agitated Jiaolong, and then closed her eyes, stroking the jade on the Shentu command in her hand, tidying the knot, and only then nodded to A Yao. "A Yao."

A Yao's calm, composed hands curled on her knees, and she tilted her head towards the Jiaolong, ordering it to retreat behind her, her chilling eyes leisurely glancing at Ling Heng, and only at this did she propel her wheelchain forward, stopping a couple metres before Ling Heng, smiling as she said, "A Heng."

If it weren't for Song Shijiu, by the side, bleeding like a river, or Tu Laoyao, by the side, his eyes as yet unclosed, it would actually seem like a scene of exchanging pleasantries when meeting again after a long separation. A Yao parted her lips once more, holding the sound of "I trust you've been well since we last met" within the aura of illness.

Ling Heng didn't speak again, only roughly looking about; the jade of the Shentu command swept at her cuff over and over. The slower she was, the more it was a dead calm, the breeze still and the waves silent, and the more A Yao was agitated; casting a sideways glance, she said, "This ill village earned a plague; of course it has a reason; I am in the capacity of the god of punishment, and stand atop my own mountain as you do; naturally, each position has its own duties; you ought not interfere."

"I'm not interfering," Ling Heng said quietly, shaking her head.

A Yao's frenzy increased a few degrees, the white silk in her hand looping again and again, and only after a while did she said, "Today, I discovered that there's someone who defied the heavens and changed fate, slaughtering the entirety of the plague worms in the village; someone this unruly and rash, naturally, I had to defend order."

Ling Heng raised her gaze to look at her, not answering. A Yao's breaths rose and fell; she was still smiling, yet her molars gradually grit. "When I arrived, I became aware that this little pampered Zhu Long of yours had raised chaos, and couldn't avoid acting to reprimand her a bit."

"Reprimand?" Ling Heng asked flatly in reply. She turned her head once more, glancing at the injuries covering Song Shijiu's entire figure.

A Yao's gaze followed after her; in the third second that Ling Heng's gaze remained, she understood, and she rapidly withdrew her smiling expression, and a sneer rose on her lips, her voice swallowed back as she asked Ling Heng faintly, "Will you retaliate?"

With a rapping sound, she knocked against the arm of her wheelchair twice, the Jiaolong behind her as large as a tree reaching to the sky, whiskers floating in the air, making preparations to fight with its all. But she shifted her body as well, only stretching out her arms out and yawning gracefully, yet it was the earth-shaking, mountain-trembling tiger's roar.

That roar was line the rumble of thunder, splitting open one's eardrums; Tu Laoyao's long dead ears and eyes bled dark red rivulets of blood, and even Song Shijiu couldn't help but vomit half a mouthful of blood, yet Ling Heng stood before this roar, her changpao and long hair as if facing a light breeze.

A Yao said with a laugh, "If I were to give my all and fight at risk of death, I might not even be able to be sure of succeeding."

Ling Heng shook her head. "You have no chance of success." Without waiting for A Yao to retort, she added, "That's the first."

"The second?" A Yao's back arched.

Ling Heng said, "You wouldn't dare."

A Yao's hands rested on the the armrests, her wrists facing upwards, her taut skin so pale it was almost translucent, and the calmly flowing veins were visible. Ling Heng swept a glance over her legs, raising the corners of her mouth, whether or not it could be counted as a smile unclear; she paused for a moment, and only then said, "Why did you take advantage of the fact that I hadn't returned just then, using deadly force?"

Nevermind reprimanding Zhu Long; that was merely a pretence, leading to the life of the Taishan Fujun before her.

A Yao's expression was even more inhuman than before; even her breaths were thin as a nearly broken thread; she relaxed her back, and leaned against the back of the wheelchair, gazing at Ling Heng with a smile that wasn't a smile.

Ling Heng advanced a small step, and then stopped again, and said softly, "I'll say it for you."

A Yao watched her thin, pale lips open and close, saying three characters.

Zhou Mu Wang.^[1]

"Yaochi A Mu^[2] opens her decorated pane, the song of Huangzhu moving the earth with pain. Eight spirited horses travelling thirty thousand li a day, how has King Mu yet to return?"

A poem from Li Shangyin,^[3] "Jade Pond", speaking of King Mu of Zhou's punitive expedition west to Kunlun, meeting the Kunlun's Goddess of the Jade Pond; the matter of his earning immortality caused legends to rise among the people, travelling as folklore from mouth to mouth.

"Then, you were a harmonious couple with King Mu; in order to stay together forever, you selfishly took the elixir of life to give him immortal life; the primal chaos was infuriated, and commanded Taishan Fujun to capture King Mu's soul, and the one who went up Kunluln alone then and captured King Mu was me."

In the dispirited, listless eyes of the goddess before her, some vigour finally rose, as if a skilled artist had painted on the eyes of a dragon.^[4]

"You refused to accept this, and for King Mu, you rebelled against the primal chaos, and for that reason, your legs were broken, and you could only pass your days in a wheelchair."

At that time, the young woman whose face was full of pride had cultivated on Kunlun to ascend to the highest heavens; the heavens and earth lost their colour and the mountains and rivers trembled and shook, the severed leopard's tail tossed into the South Sea, raising great, raging waves.

"The primal chaos decided you would be in charge of punishment, spreading plague and pestilence; looking at the birth, aging, sickness, and death of the mortal realm, and fearing you'd once more birth a calamity, the Taishan seat was commanded to restrain King Mu's soul in purgatory, unable to enter the wheel of reincarnation, and thus control you."

A Yao gazed at the expressionless Ling Heng; she didn't know whether she were remembering the friend of the jade pool who, then, had coveted joy, or if it she had heard the sound of the most unobtainable breeze at the lowest levels of the Taishan seat in her sleeves. When had she realised that she had become prejudiced, addicted to murder, seeing mortals as insects and lives as trifling grass and weeds? She didn't remember.

"So."

So, she had wanted to use Zhu Long to create chaos, and seize the loss of control to kill Ling Heng, and search through the Taishan seat, and release King Mu's soul.

Ling Heng hadn't finished the latter half of the sentence, still gazing at her with a expression and cool as the breeze and as clear as the moon.

"A Heng," A Yao said, gazing at her, and lowered her brows, smiling lightly. "I can't kill you. Will you kill me?" She asked Ling Heng with a smile, coughing a couple times.

Ling Heng shook her head. "I won't kill you."

Besides the matter of the plague, according to her, she'd disturbed the peace of others, and she ought to assume responsibility. Besides, the mortal realm and the Taishan seat had rqual checks and balances, the political undercurrents complex and tumultuous; if, now, there were to be no Xi Wangmu, she feared that it would cause great chaos.

A Yao seemed to have relaxed, tilting her head to look attentively at the aftermath of the violent, devastating commotion; this farce was just about to cause one to end it in an unexpected way. The sick in the village had been cleared of plague worms, and, one after another, sank into a stupor; tomorrow, when they awoke, it would be a deep sleep, the kind after suffering a serious injury, and no one would have any way to know that, tonight, this sort of misfortune of nine deaths and a narrow escape had occurred.

In the end, the common people were insignificant; in the end, the common people were ignorant; in the end, the common people were blessed.

She raised her hand, recalling the Jiaolong, and nodded to Ling Heng in what counted as bidding goodbye. Yet, before she turned around, she heard a clear, cool woman's voice from behind her say, "There's still a matter."

A Yao turned her head and saw Ling Heng's gaze sweeping across Tu Laoyao's corpse; she said to the Jiaolong, "Leave your paws talons behind."

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Translator's notes:

[1]: King Mu, the fifth king of Zhou; he reigned for 55 years, from either 976 BCE to 922 BCE or 956 BCE to 918 BCE. Under his reign, the Zhou was at its peak, and he introduced reforms to the Zhou government, changing it from a hereditary system to a merit- and knowledge-based administration. Here, 周 (Zhou) is the name of the dynasty, 王 (Wang) is the title for a king, with 穆 (Mu) is his reigning name.

[2]: 瑶池阿母, the Goddess of the Jade Pond; similar to another title of Xi Wangmu, 瑶池金母 (Golden Mother of the Jade Pond). The Yao in A Yao is the same as the same character, jade, in the title Goddess of the Jade Pond (瑶).

[3]: A Tang dynasty poet, born in either 812 CE or 813 CE, who lived during the declining period of the dynasty.

[4]: Referring to the idiom 画龙点睛 (hua long dian jing), about an artist who was so skilled the dragons he added eyes to became real.