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Chapter 50: 'Ride the Air' Design (I)
The group turned to see the silhouette of a carriage train rumbling out of the fog and toward Wen Village. Three horses led the way, and a mule drew the final carriage at the end, with a driver for the first carriage only. The man driving the train was tall and strong, with three long scars down his face, which made him appear violent, and not at all kind.
But Jiang Shining and the others knew that this man only looked unkind. In reality, he was deeply amiable... If he were still alive, he could be called a good person.
The troupe was none other than the kind-hearted people who had picked up Xue Xian's group on that snowy day in Guanyin Port.
"They're still here?" Jiang Shining mumbled.
As a respectable rogue ghost himself, Jiang Shining knew exactly how much ghosts feared coming into contact with living people and yang energy. Not many ghosts and spirits would choose to go around in broad daylight –– the exceptions were those who had been anchored to something tangible, like Jiang Shining and his paper body, and who also had someone looking out for them, just as Xue Xian and Xuanmen had taken Jiang Shining under their wing. Even then, ghosts only dared to become active on overcast days or in the early mornings. But this long-dead troupe travelled with no nervousness at all.
It was because they did not know that they were dead. They had no sense of danger nor self-consciousness. But how many crowded streets full of living people had the troupe already traversed? Any other ghost would long have been dissolved by the strong yang energy all around them, yet this troupe had somehow made it all the way here with no issue.
"You think they belong to the same category as you?" Xue Xian asked, glancing at the bookworm. "I only said that they're already ...... But I never said they were the same kind as you."
Confused, Jiang Shining said, "Are they not?"
"If I told you eight hundred times that you're dead, will you vanish?" Xue Xian snapped.
"…You haven't said it eight hundred times yet. More like eighty,” Jiang Shining replied.
"So? Aren't you still bouncing around happily now?"
Jiang Shining still didn't understand. "If they're not ghosts, then what are they?"
"Duty spirits," [a] Xuanmin said.
"What are –– duty spirits?" Jiang Shining had never heard of such a thing.
Duty spirits were neither ghosts nor resentful spirits. Duty spirits existed because they had made a promise in life that they were unable to forget. The strength and sincerity of their commitment to that duty engulfed all other concerns at the moment of their death, to the point where they were not even aware that they had died –– all they knew was that they had a promise that they had not yet fulfilled, which drove them to keep going.
"It's like if you have debt up your ass, but died before you could pay it off," Xue Xian explained lazily. "And all you can think of while you die is, 'How could I die? And why did it have to be now? At least wait until the debt is repaid, and then I can die.' So you find some other way to stay. Understand?"
"What happens when you fulfil your duty?"
"Then you can depart," Xue Xian replied.
But whether the troupe were duty spirits or ghosts, the group was now in a highly awkward situation –– stuck between a rock and a hard place. [b]
"Both ways are blocked. What will we do about my sister?" Jiang Shining asked anxiously. "How do we get out of here?"
Xue Xian glared at him. "Who said we were getting out of here?"
"We're not?!" Chen-shu and Chen-sao blurted out. The crowd of villagers was getting closer to the Xu compound, and in turn, these two were trembling even harder.
If we don't leave, are we staying to be food for the spirits?!
"Some invitations cannot be rejected," Xue Xian said, wagging his finger. "There are limitations to all of the spirits wandering around in this village. As long as they remain inside their loop, [c] then everything is normal. But if they leave the loop, then things become uncertain. Think about it. If a nice person insists on you coming over to their place for a drink, and you say no, what would happen?"
You would probably go back and forth a little, each insisting the opposite to the other. Of course, when living people tussle over such a minor thing, ultimately one of them would give in, and it would be fine. But it was different when it came to those who had already died. What if you angered the spirit? Or what if you accidentally tore them out of their loop?
It was far too dangerous...
But the reason why Xue Xian hadn't decided to leave immediately was not because he minded the danger –– if he was truly reluctant to delay their journey, then even the Jade Emperor [d] wouldn't be able to stall him. Xue Xian didn't mind staying a bit longer because he'd detected something strange about the place, and suspected he might be able to find some more pieces of his dragon bones nearby.
While the group stood by the door talking, the scarred man had already pulled at his reins and stopped the carriages. He jumped off from his seat and paused with shock when he saw Xue Xian and the others, but quickly saluted and walked over. Frowning, he said, "Why have you come here?"
When normal people run into people they know while on a journey, they find it a happy coincidence. Their dismayed comments would be accompanied by a smile, and they would not be upset by the encounter –– they would even try to stay and make some small talk. But this scarred man had never been an ordinary person, and faced with Xue Xian's group, his gaze betrayed a sense of... reproach?
He offered no polite greeting, and seemed downright unhappy –– it was the direct opposite of the warmth with which he'd helped them previously.
Now, a group of men and women of all ages were streaming out of the three carriages. Some went to the mule-drawn carriage to unpack, and others made their way to join the scarred man.
One of the old women looked at the Xu compound and said to Xue Xian's group, "What are you all doing here on a freezing cold winter day? You should return to the xian cheng."
The old woman was familiar to them –– the portable heater that Stone Zhang loved to clutch had been a gift from her. She had also been a kind-hearted and warm soul, so why was she now as rude as the scarred man, so eager to chase them away?
This was the first time Jiang Shining had been asked to leave in such a veiled way. He stood rooted in his spot, embarrassed and unsure what to do.
"Ah –– Renliang, they are all my guests for the day. Come, come, tie your horses in the barn and drink some hot wine to warm up your throat!" Xu-da-shanren interjected. He waved at the troupe by the carriages and called out, "Come in, everyone."
Then he reached out a hand to pull Xue Xian in.
"Aiya, I've been sitting for so long that my back hurts––" Xue Xian said, grasping Xuanmin who stood right next to him and leaning against Xuanmin so as to stretch his back, thus smoothly avoiding being touched by Xu-da-shanren.
Xue Xian's gesture appeared completely natural and harmless, with no trace of deceit. So Xu-da-shanren wasn't bothered –– instead, he switched targets and tugged at the next person, which was Jiang Shining.
Jiang Shining: “...”
How unlucky... This was Jiang Shining’s first time getting his wrist seized by a ghost. Just like Jiang Shining himself, Xu-da-shanren's fingers were freezing cold from the yin energy that coursed through them –– if he'd been holding onto a living person, that person's wrist might've become numb from the cold, but to Jiang Shining, it made no difference.
"Xiao-xiongdi, [e] what is your name? I should have prepared some heaters. My hands are much too cold –– are they a bother?" Xu-da-shanren said courteously.
Jiang Shining laughed drily. "We're in the same boat."
He was probably even colder.
Helpless, Jiang Shining allowed himself to be dragged into the main hall of Xu Compound. As he entered, he looked around and said, "Xu-laoye, please do not hesitate to go take care of your other guests. I can help myself." As he spoke, he inspected the eastern room from the corner of his eye.
"I'm afraid I have been a poor host," [f] Xu-da-shanren replied politely. "I have too many guests. If I've missed something, I hope xiao-xiongdi can forgive me. Your humble servant Xu is going to go greet his hometown friends. Xiao-xiongdi, you may walk around as you please."
As he spoke, Xuanmin and the others entered the main hall too. Xu-da-shanren saw Xue Xian and paused. He asked, "This xiao-xiongdi is... incapacitated?"
Xue Xian patted his legs. "My legs are paralysed. I can't walk."
Xu-da-shanren smacked himself on the forehead and said, "You've come to the right place. Your humble servant Xu happens to have a two-wheeled carriage. My late mother's legs were handicapped and she could not walk, so I hired a carpenter to make her one. These days, it's been gathering dust in a corner, and I have no use for it. Xiao-xiongdi, why don't you take it? It seems awfully tiring for your friends to carry you all the time."
Chuckling politely, Xue Xian said, "It's not tiring at all, don't worry."
Xuanmin, the one actually tiring himself out: “...”
Xu-da-shanren wasn’t just a polite conversationalist; he was a man of action. He immediately ordered servants to push the two-wheeled carriage that he kept in a side room out to the main hall. This was when Xue Xian noticed that none of the rooms in the Xu compound had thresholds –– it seemed that when he'd first had the compound constructed, Xu-da-shanren had done away with thresholds in order to allow his mother to move around.
Just from this tiny detail, Xue Xian felt that Xu-da-shanren's nickname was accurate: he really was a saint.
The two-wheeled carriage was called a ‘carriage’, but it was really just a chair with two wooden wheels attached to either side. Behind the chair were two small wooden handles, which allowed the family servants to push the chair. Xu-da-shanren ordered his servants to wipe the chair clean, and then asked them to find a cushion to install onto the seat.
Xue Xian thanked him profusely and said, "Please don't worry about that. I'm not very fussy."
"It's no issue at all. We have many cushions put aside just for this purpose. The chair is far too hard, and becomes uncomfortable after a while. Besides, the weather is so cold, and it would not do to catch a cold." Xu-da-shanren was about to go on, but Xue Xian had already settled into the chair and was asking Xuanmin to push him.
"Alright, alright. Xiao-xiongdi, you are an interesting person," Xu-da-shanren compromised with a smile.
He saluted the guests, then went away to find his hometown friends.
Xue Xian watched as he left, making sure that he turned a corner before Xue Xian brusquely pushed open the door to the eastern room.
Inside, that group of beggars had grouped together into a tight cluster around the almost-evaporated soup. Earlier, when they'd heard the sound of laughing and conversation outside, they'd feared that it came from some kind of ghost and monster bonfire party, and had been so terrified that they'd barely dared to breathe. So when Xue Xian suddenly slammed the door open, the beggars thought they would piss themselves.
Two of the most cowardly of them fainted, landing on the floor with two dull thuds.
Xue Xian was not offended at all –– instead, he laughed and remarked, "Well, that's far too polite a greeting."
Perhaps fearing that the niezhang would make more mortals faint with his unfunny jokes, as soon as Xuanmin had pushed Xue Xian into the door, he immediately steered him all the way into the corner of the room, then drew a circle around the wheelchair. Xuanmin took out a talisman and pasted it lightly to Xue Xian's forehead.
Xue Xian: “...” What am I, a brain-devouring corpse?
"Bald donkey, why do you have to be like this? Haggling over every cent! All I did was touch your head! I wasn't mocking you. What the hell?" Xue Xian shouted at the wall, which he had been made to face. The talisman had frozen all of his movements, and there was nothing he could do. He rolled his eyes and was about to launch into another tirade when he suddenly felt something cold in his hand.
Xue Xian looked down and saw that Xuanmin was putting the copper coin pendant back into his hand and closing his fist around it for him. Xuanmin said, "This is the part of the village with the strongest spiritual power. Take advantage of it to heal your body."
Xuanmin patted the back of Xue Xian's head, then walked away.
“...” Xue Xian paused to gaze at the pendant in his hand, then asked, "Where are you going?"
He wanted to turn to see what Xuanmin was up to, but with the talisman stuck to his forehead, he could not even move his neck.
The group of beggars watched all of this with utter bewilderment. Even Jiang Shijing and Fang Cheng gawked, confused. But then, interrupting their daze, Chen-shu and Chen-sao burst into the eastern room with Xingzi hot on their heels. Seeing Jiang Shijing, they all ran over to her. "Shao-furen!"
"Shaoye, shao-furen, you scared this Lao-Chen to death!" Chen-shu said. But seeing that the couple were largely unharmed, he breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Then he noticed the group of beggars and rushed to put himself between the beggars and the couple. "Yu'e and Xingzi have cried multiple times already," he said to the couple.
As Jiang Shijing gently consoled Chen-shu, Xingzi hurried over to untie the couple. And indeed the beggars really had not wanted to harm the doctors, for even now the beggars were so terrified that they looked like a row of geese. Naturally, none of the beggars made a move to stop the doctors from being freed.
Xingzi threw the rope away and said, "It's good that you're okay! Chen-sao and I, and even Jiang-xiao-shaoye, were all crying just now. We were sick with worry!"
“Jiang... Jiang-xiao-shaoye?" Jiang Shijing froze and grasped Xingzi's sleeve. "Who are you talking about? Jiang-xiao-shaoye? Which Jiang-xiao-shaoye?"
Before Xingzi could respond, a warm, nasal voice said, "Jie, [g] it's me..."
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[a] Musuli uses the character 执 (zhi2) here. As a verb, it means “hold” or “persist”, and as a noun it can mean “written acknowledgment”. In this case, the term describes the reason for which a dead person has stayed on: because they still have a duty to carry out; something intangible that keeps them in the living realm.
[b] The phrasing Musuli uses here is “a savage tiger at the front, soldiers pursuing behind.”
[c] Musuli uses 圈 (quan1) here, meaning “circle”. She also used 圈 in Chapter 28 when describing the array Lu Shijiu had set up, which I translated as “circle”. Here, however, the loop in question is not a physical array or spell, but rather part of the larger spell in Wen Village: each ghost cannot break from the loops to which they’re used to, or else they will realise that they are dead and turn aggressive. Although the same word has been used, different contexts have warranted different translations.
[d] The proper term for the Jade Emperor is 玉皇大帝 (yu4 huang2 da4 di4), literally “great jade emperor”. Here, however, Musuli has used 天王老子 (tian1 wang2 lao3 zi3), “father, king of heaven”, which is a colloquial if not irreverent way to describe the Jade Emperor.
[e] Xiao-xiongdi: young/little xiongdi. Xiongdi: see glossary.
[f] The Chinese term used here is 怠慢了 (dai4 man4 le), a polite expression used by the host to guests that shows humility and self-effacement. It literally means “to have neglected”.
[g] Jie: see glossary.
This chapter was beta’d by Rogue!
Lmao poor baby XD also uwu he patted his head!
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