Extra 1: A Qing

It was said that, in the south of Sijiucheng, there was a family, whose husband in the past had packed tobacco for an official; afterwards, the official had plaited his hair, and no longer had the mind to smoke, and so the man had set up a tobacco stand, right at the mouth of the Nansanshi Alley, and others called him Tobacco Stand Wu.

Tobacco stand Wu's wife was a fool; once, she'd looked after the stand for him, and although she'd sat at Zhu Rougui's stand, when people asked how much two liang of pork cost,^[1] she would say, "What sort of tobacco do you want?". This comedic happening travelled about the whole neighbourhood, half because their lives didn't have any prospects, and partially because Tobacco Stand Wu's fool wife looked lovely. How foolish was she? The uneducated, coarse-skinned residents of the marketplace couldn't describe it, but when they passed by her, they would whistle.

When I met her, she was already no longer that pretty; already in her thirties, her hair was half white, and her temples were pinned back with black clips, the back of her hair always a mess, irregular in length as it fell against her neck; it was said it was because she'd careless while cooking, and burnt her hair, and then simply clipped away at it a couple times. She liked wearing a light blue cotton aozi, which revealed the loess-yellow lining within, and sometimes she'd even wear the scarlet handkerchief outside; when speaking with her, mucus would be about to drip, and she'd raise the heel of her hand, and wipe a couple times in front of others, and then wipe it on the corner of her clothes. It wasn't clear whether this was the reason that the colour of her clothes would always be dark in one spot and light in another, even more unkempt than the child she'd lead along.

The girl she led along was no more than three or four years old; she wasn't like her fool mother, both clever and sharp, her eyes turning this way and that, and when she smiled, it was like a sugared hawthorn that had been pinched into roundness. All the neighbours loved her.

I imagine, my shifu had also taken a liking to this child, and so often came to see A Qing.

A Qing was the name of Tobacco Stand Wu's fool wife; her given name was Yi Shuiqing. Yi Shuiqing, Qing Shuiyi; I turned it over and over, and felt that this name was quite nice to listen to. Shifu often came to see her, and sometimes, under the sun, she would stare blankly, and sometimes during heavy rainfall, she would carry an umbrella, but she would always be there, at the base of the that wall. Then, she would pass the pork in her hand to me, and instruct me to take it there. Sometimes, there was also half a cooked chicken.

With only a single jar of wine, swaying in hand, she made a good deal of extending and retreating motions, and all along, she didn't give it to me. I thought also, fools oughtn't to drink wine; if they do, then they might get out of hand.

Once, Tobacco Stand Wu's young daughter had mud thrown at her by some hooligans, who said that she had a fool mother; A Qing pulled her into a an embrace and wept, and only then did my shifu come forward, yet, coming close, paused hesitantly, and only after a while did she take the remaining few steps, and then crouched down, her skirts covered in mud, and called out to her, "A Qing."

For the first time, I realised that my shifu's voice could be this gentle, like the wine at the Xishan shop she loved the most.

A Qing, sobbing, raised her head, her nose dripping.

This business of ours, robbing tombs, was the least afraid of dirt and disorder, but I hadn't imagined that my shifu would extend a hand to wipe away A Qing's mucus, and then use her fingers to carefully and attentively wipe the snot and tears on her face clean.

When we'd first become master and disciple, my shifu had had me stand on a stool to cook, and when I was choked and teary from the smoke, my shifu had only tossed a scrap of grey rag at me, and said, "Be a bit more careful, don't let it run into the food."

I'd assumed she probably regarded crying people with a deep disdain. I'd never seen my shifu cry, not even when A Qing died.

When her daughter was five, A Qing was arrested by the newly appointed military commander, along with Tobacco Stand Wu, saying they had some involvement with the previous Qing official. Zhu Rougui stamped on a kitchen knife, asking what involvement there could be; Tobacco Stand Wu wasn't aware of any major players, and in the past, had only packed a tobacco pipe. What was this called, the newly appointed official making bold changes on taking office, the sparks burning Tobacco Stand Wu. The sparks of the influential officials fell on poor families, and easily burnt them down.

How A Qing died, I don't know; my shifu and I had stolen gold from Hebei, and then learnt this news; my shifu stood before A Qing's residence for three whole days, and on the third day spat out a mouthful of blood, and inexplicably smiled, saying, "Dying is good too."

I feared my shifu was going crazy, and furtively watched over her for seven days, yet she was the same as ever, but it was only then that she finally opened that jar of wine that hadn't been sent.

Half a moth later, my shifu found the news from who knew where that A Qing's young daughter hadn't been taken to the prison with her, and seemed to have been entrusted to her visiting Sanjiu,^[2] and it was said he'd returned to Guangdong.

See, the fool A Qing, as a mother, did have some clever instincts.

My shifu dragged me away from Sijiucheng, heading South, but we searched without avail, until I assumed that girl was no longer alive; yet, in an old tomb in Jinan, we saw her. She was still pale as snow and adorable, her cleverness threatening, her eyes turning this way and that, and atop her plaits, there was stuck a bow. My shifu stared fixedly after her, and only after a while did she ask me, "Shiyi, is it A Yin?"

This wasn't the first time I had met A Yin, but A Yin believed it was the first time she'd met me, and only afterwards did I learn that she'd narrowly been sold to a low-grade brothel, falling into desperate straits, the hardships piling up, and naturally didn't remember myself, who had brought pork over a number of times.

A Yin and I, we weren't the same type of girls, yet we ate and lived together. She taught me how to steal touch-me-not flowers, and painted my nails with scarlet polish, and urged me to keep my hair long and comb it into braids, and begged me to cut firewood and carry water for her, and even tricked me into giving her my saved change, saying she'd go into town for me and buy some new clothes.

Those clothes had skirts that ended at the calf, and the cuffs didn't cover the wrists, the shoulder line tight, and they were A Yin's most beloved pink. When looking at A Yin and I, my shifu would always go still, drinking a mouthful of wine and looking at her, and then drinking a mouthful and looking at me.

A Yin unexpectedly also had some conscientious realisations; once, on my birthday, she gifted me a sheep's white jade pendant, and I held it in my hands, looking at it, and then raised my gaze to look at her. She laughed with a puff of air, and said to relax; it wasn't stolen from underground, but bought from a foreign jade pavilion; it was a genuine good.

I thanked her greatly, and wore it, yet because of it, I suffered a harsh punishment because of my shifu. That day, when entering the tomb, my shifu saw the jade pendant on my waist and was furious, and ordered me to take it off immediately, and then, without even opening the coffin, we returned directly to the city, and she punished me with kneeling in the courtyard. I knelt there for a full night, and A Yin accompanied me, trembling as she stuffed a few mantou into her mouth.

Only early the morning of the next day did my shifu come to see me, and saw the wretched A Yin and I, and sighed, and said, "In the future, when entering a tomb, dress a bit more cleanly."

I agreed with an "en", and out of the corner of my eye, saw A Yin's bright red hairtie.

My shifu passed on a winter's day; she'd injured herself with drink, and was already so gaunt she didn't look human, and even when speaking, she sounded like a famous actor, so hoarse and raspy she struggled to form words.

She asked me, do you remember A Qing, in Sijiucheng? A Yin's mother.

I remember; Tobacco Stand Wu's fool wife.

Fool? My shifu laughed, her dry eyes blank, and said, There isn't a woman more intelligent than A Qing was.

Shifu told me a story.

She said, A Qing was her shijie,^[3] and was the student my grandmaster was most proud of; she could use fengjing to find entrances to tombs, and could recite incantations; nothing was beyond her, especially because her appearance wasn't common; her features were like a painting, and she was the most awe-inducing talent.

In the profession of entering tombs and robbing coffins, few were female, because when the yin essence was strong, it was feared that evil spirits would plague you, and so among the various sects, there were only the two of them. She and A Qing were like A Yin and I, eating and living together, with the relationship of sisters. A Qing was true to her name, as cool and cold as jade, not fond of speaking or smiling, proper in every matter, thorough in all realms. It was just that, every time she returned from a tomb, she'd always detour to the Xishan shop to buy a jar of wine, and pass it to A Yin to drink.^[4]

A Yin was my shifu, Zhong Yin.

My grandmaster was a mend, and in the end, it he wasn't too suitable to teach them; when, by chance, he found some un-poured wine in the bedding, he sent A Yin to carry thirty pails of water.

In thirty pails, there were only three pails that weren't regular; the lesser half of the water in the well was pulled out, and the remaining twenty pails were neat and tidy, and with a single look, it was clear that the person carrying water was steady in their efforts, their posture as proper as bamboo.

My grandmaster could see it; everyone in the sect could see it; yet no one said a thing.

An incredibly minute misfortune came, even a bit harder to capture than my shifu's expression when relating this. At the start, A Yin's fever rose practically every day, and afterwards, she gradually began to speak nonsense; another few days later, she came to sit before the mirror in the night, a scarlet veil draped over her shoulders, and her voice rose, high and sharp. A Qing became panicked, and went to get my grandmaster; my grandmaster looked her over for a long time, and then took A Yin's pulse, and said she was beyond hope.

I asked my shifu what that meant.

My shifu laughed, and said, haunted by a ghost marriage.

Only afterwards did she learn, that when she'd entered a tomb a month before, and touched a few coffins, that tomb was actually a millenia old one. An entire family had been buried together, the master and lady together with a son who had died in his prime, all of them fed into a fire. The master and wife had taken a liking to my shifu, and had wanted to drag her into a ghost marriage with the young master, and so had stayed behind in the jade pendant she wore, making a mark of life or death, and before the end of forty-nine days, she had to become a ghost, and enter the tomb to complete the marriage.

Ghost marriage? I cast a glance at my shifu.

My shifu was silent for a while, and only then said, of course, it wasn't completed.

Her shijie, her brilliant, talented shijie, A Qing, had drawn out one of her own hun spirits and three of her po souls, using the ghost puppet-making skills she'd studied her entire life, and had sent it into the burial mound, switching A Yin's life or death mark.

A Qing had the appearance of a celestial being, and so, having A Qing switched for A Yin, that family was naturally unable to contain their joy. It was just that, the magic or making a puppet, it could deceive them for a while, but before long, it began to cave in and deflate, and the master and lady were furious, scattering A Qing's hun and three po, the three po classified as love, evil, and desire.

And that one hun, it was spirited awareness, in charge of one's brightness and cleverness.

The rest of the story, my shifu didn't tell, but I understood. Without intellect, she'd become a fool wife. Without love and desire, she couldn't remember my shifu.

From the day A Qing had made that puppet, she'd left the sect, and others only knew that she'd provoked a master, and been scared such that her courage was broken; even my grandmaster sighed over and over. In the end, it was years later, while exploring that ancient tomb, that my shifu learnt the reason.

My shifu's eyes finally had some flickers of something, distant and glimmering, silent and lonely. I thought, perhaps A Qing still had some scattered and fragmented memories; otherwise, why would she name her daughter A Yin?

A Yin, A Yin. It's easy to fall in love, and hard to hide that love; easy to clear water, and hard to clear the heart.^[5]

I buried my shifu beneath Mount Jiuru, and then took A Yin back to Sijiucheng. In Sijiucheng, I set up a tobacco stand with A Yin; A Yin was quite nimble at packing tobacco, and was often fond of smiling, which I fear wasn't a skill passed down from her ancestors. The tobacco stand is at the mouth of Nansanshi Alley, right next to Zhu Rougui's clattering knife; others ask me how much a roll of tobacco is, and I ask them—

What sort of tobacco do you want?

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Translator's notes:

[1]: 猪肉贵 literally means "expensive pork".

[2]: A title for the third youngest maternal uncle.

[3]: 师姐, an older female disciple of the same master.

[4]: The two A Yin's are written the same in romanisation, but they are different characters and tones—the young A Yin who Li Shiyi grew up with, A Qing's daughter, is 阿音, and her shifu, A Yin, is 阿隐.

[5]: Essentially, a play with their names; "easy to fall in love" is formed of Zhong Yin's Zhong and Yi Shuiqing's "qing" and "Yi" (钟情易), with "easy to clear water" written with Yi Shuiqing's name backwards (清水易).