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Chapter 71: Passerby (II)
Although the letter had been composed in a great hurry, its contents were not to be taken lightly. The Taibu had considered her words carefully: not once in the letter did she mention the ‘person highly similar to the Guoshi’, as, to a certain extent, it was rather disrespectful to do so.
No one in the entire Taichang Si dared to be so informal toward the Guoshi. To their knowledge, the Guoshi had always been highly reserved. Whenever he appeared, he carried an intimidating and unapproachable aura.
Although the Taibu and Taizhu had been brought into the Taichang as children, even after all these years, the Guoshi remained a distant and holy figure who could not be touched, let alone disobeyed.
"Your letter..." the Taizhu said carefully as they got ready to leave.
The Taibu did not need to hear his full sentence to know what he wanted to say. "I'm not that stupid," she said. "I only said that the man we were looking for has died. If all goes well with the dove, it should arrive at Famen Si by tomorrow evening. Even if the weather turns bad, it will definitely be there by the day after tomorrow. Once the Guoshi reads the letter, he will know what to do, and we will simply obey. Until then, let us take care of the matter at hand."
Their powers were limited, so they'd had to use a dove to send their letter. But the Guoshi was different –– if he had a message to send, he would simply burn it with a flame and they would immediately receive it on the other end, with no delay at all.
So if they wanted to check if the Guoshi was still located at Famen Si, the longest they had to wait was two days.
"To be fair, once we enter the village and meet that person, something is bound to happen," the Taizhu said in a low voice. "After all, not any ordinary riffraff can pretend to be the Guoshi."
Although the Guoshi had never named them his official disciples, they were in all but name by this point. They had been educated at Taichang Si, and ordinarily lived and ate there too –– but the Guoshi did not like being around others, and was often shut away in Tianji Courtyard [a]. Yet, out of everyone, the Taibu and Taizhu were still the people who saw the Guoshi the most. In the time from their arrival as children to achieving their high positions now, they’d had plenty of opportunity to understand the Guoshi’s habits and idiosyncrasies.
If they could say so themselves, they knew him so well that, even if the Guoshi were to put on his mask and stood in a crowd of a million people dressed in the same manner, they would still be able to pick him out immediately.
Writing that letter was really just a formality –– a way to ease their minds.
The two looked at each other again and decided not to delay further. They kicked their stirrups and the long train trotted toward that small village on the south side of Boji Mountain…
*****
Deep inside the village, a small one-bedroom hut stood beneath the shade of an old loquat tree. On either side of the hut's door were hung strings of dried garlic and peppers, woven into a decorative design around the ropes that bound them.
The ropes also seemed special –– they did not appear to have been randomly chosen to dry the goods. As Xue Xian and Xuanmin approached the hut, they could detect a smoky stench coming from the ropes.
This was the home of the Qu-shu that the soldier had mentioned.
Xue Xian walked to the door, but did not immediately knock. Instead, he scrunched up his nose and sniffed at the ropes, frowning. Then he covered his nose with his sleeve and said, "Blood. From many years ago."
Xuanmin had always been repulsed by such things, so he reached out and yanked Xue Xian back, as though if Xue Xian stood by the strings any longer, that smell would seep into him too.
The two were still invisible, and ordinary people could neither see nor hear them. In the instant that Xuanmin pulled Xue Xian away from the door, a man wearing a thick winter coat and holding the hand of a small child walked by Qu-shu's door.
That child tried to take a look at the hut, but the man forcibly dragged them away, as though the hut were covered in some pestilent disease. [b]
"How many times have I told you? Don't get too close," the man scolded the child.
The child said, "Oh," and obediently turned their neck back around. They followed the man away, though their eyes continued to dart back at the hut.
At the same moment, another pair –– a woman and her son –– happened to be walking back into the village after having been to see the commotion at the village gate. As the woman passed the man and his child, she nodded in greeting and, similarly, dragged her son farther away from the hut...
"People in this village seem not to really like this Qu guy," Xue Xian muttered.
He had intended to wait for the people to pass before going up to knock on the door, but in that instant, the rickety old door creaked open by itself.
A man with a shrunken mouth stuck his head out from the door and looked around vacantly. His eyes fell on the spot where Xue Xian and Xuanmin stood. Although this man’s eyes were murky and his pupils appeared rather unfocused, Xue Xian still got the feeling that he was looking directly at them, or could at least sense their presence.
"Who is it? Why are you standing by the door? If you don't come in, I'm going to close the door," the man lisped.
He seemed to be slightly deaf himself, so his words rang out loudly, enough for the other villagers to hear.
"Let's go, let's go. Lao-Qu is about to have another episode," the man said in a low voice as he herded his child away –– quickly followed by the mother and her son.
In the blink of an eye, the street in front of the hut became empty.
"Tsk––" Lao-Qu was clearly a rather grumpy man. He held the door open, but seeing that no one was coming in, he muttered angrily and made to close the door.
Just before the door slammed shut, Xue Xian reached out his hand and blocked it.
"Would it be possible to take temporary shelter in your home, please?" he asked.
Lao-Qu was shocked. "Are you a human or a ghost?"
But before Xue Xian could respond, Lao-Qu suddenly yelled, "Of course you're not a ghost. My spirit-repelling strings are right there. Ghosts wouldn't dare come near me... Who are you? What are you doing here?"
"We have some questions," Xue Xian replied.
Still gripping the door, Lao-Qu did not let them in. "What about?"
"We heard that you come from Xia Mountain, Langzhou." Xue Xian didn't really care whether the old man was going to let them in or not. Actually, the hut was rather small, and he and Xuanmin would have to bend their heads to enter anyway. If they could get all the information they needed standing outside, then it would save them the trouble and back pain.
Lao-Qu nodded and said, "Yes, and?"
"Earlier, as we were accompanying a xiao-xiongdi [c] to his home, he mentioned something. As a child, he'd heard you say that the Xia Mountain, Langzhou area produced a miracle pill?"
Puzzled, Lao-Qu listened to Xue Xian speak, then stroked his chin. Finally, he stepped away from the door. "Let's talk inside," he said. "I have bad legs and get tired from standing up too long."
Lao-Qu seemed to have lived alone in the hut for many years. The room had not been tidied for who knew how long, nor had the windows ever been opened to let in fresh air, so that it was filled with a sour smell. Just the sour smell would have been tolerable, but on top of that the hut also reeked of garlic.
As Lao-Qu pushed the door open, the stench attacked Xue Xian's nose.
Xue Xian: “...” Actually, could we just stay standing out here...
He grimaced and held his breath as he bent to enter the doorway. Xuanmin tried to linger outside, but Xue Xian grasped him and dragged him in too.
Taking advantage of a brief moment during which Lao-Qu had his back turned to them in order to sit down, Xue Xian yanked Xuanmin's pristine robe, brought it to his nose, and took a deep breath from it. Now he felt a little better.
Xuanmin: “...”
Lao-Qu was not a good host. He did not invite the two to sit down, and in fact, there was no other place to sit in the hut.
"What miracle pill are you after?" he asked as he settled into his cloth-covered chair and squinted suspiciously at them. "There are many rare herbs in the Langzhou area, and some miracle pills aren't even considered that miraculous."
"A pill that can extend one's life, or exchange the fortunes of two lives?" Xue Xian asked tentatively.
Lao-Qu eyed them for a long time, then finally said, "Such pills are rumored to exist. But there is more than just one type. They say that there are two types, which are extremely similar, but with vastly different effects. One extends life, and the other harms life. They even say there is a type of pill that can link together three lives from one reincarnation cycle, one after the other... I don't know what that is, and I've never seen it. All I've heard are stories," he rambled.
"Do you know where that pill comes from?" Xue Xian asked.
Lao-Qu did not disappoint –– he actually did roughly give them a location. "Baichong Cave!" [d]
Xue Xian understood. "Good. Do locals know where Baichong Cave is located? If so, we will wait until we've arrived in Langzhou to ask."
"Oh no!" Lao-Qu exclaimed, waving his hands. "If you do ask, I don't think anyone will be able to tell you."
Xue Xian frowned. "Why not?"
"You have no idea how poisonous those insects are. Just hearing that name, Baichong Cave, should scare the life out of you. Besides, who would give so much thought to a bunch of unsubstantiated rumors?" Lao-Qu said. "The only reason I know about it is because my ancestor was a witch doctor [e] who loved to mess about with such things. To be honest, the two of you have come to just the right person. I’m the only person who can tell you how to get there."
He began to outline something on his palm with his index finger. "Once you get to Xia Mountain, you go here and go to the southwest side of the mountain. There are three peaks there, and one of them has a curved cliff. Baichong Cave is near there, but I'm not sure how to get there. Perhaps you have to jump off the cliff. If you have some life left in your destiny, perhaps you should try."
Life... that's the one thing they didn't lack.
Xue Xian scoffed. That's not hard, he thought. If it comes down to it, we'll search every corner of that cliff. It's no big deal for people like me and Xuanmin.
Indeed, when they'd been talking about miracle pills, Xue Xian had still been skeptical. But now, they were talking about a ‘Baichong Cave’, which seemed to be the right track: the thing on Xuanmin's neck was called a Tongshou Spider, after all, which was definitely related to insects.
Obviously, it was ridiculous to think that a simple insect could help to extend or exchange one's life. But if an insect secreted some kind of venom, and that venom was combined with a talisman or some other more evil technique to help it along, perhaps it really could have some effect. But this kind of thing probably only benefited one of the parties, causing great harm for the other.
Having gotten the information they needed, the two did not linger. Before he left the hut, Xue Xian scanned that rotting mess of a room and surreptitiously dropped a few golden pearls in a pouch that hung near the door –– consider it payment for the information.
Lao-Qu was eccentric, but not inherently unlikeable or troublesome. He did not try to ask Xue Xian what they were going to do now. He didn’t even get up to walk them to the door. But as Xue Xian pulled the wooden door open and got ready to step outside, that old man murmured something as though in a dream: "But I have to say... Even if you do find that thing, it's best not to use it. One of my ancestors was a romantic. They say that he wanted to extend his life, or perhaps bring someone back from the dead, I don't remember, but in the end the results were devastating. Far worse than death. I don't know what he was trying to do..."
Then he chuckled self-deprecatingly and added, "But I say that to everyone, and no one believes me. They all say I'm crazy. Now that you've heard me say it, you may leave. Go... I'm going to take a nap."
"I have better things to do than that. I’m not that idle,” Xue Xian muttered absent-mindedly. “Besides, extend my life even further? That would be overkill." He saluted Lao-Qu, then herded Xuanmin out the door.
There was no need to stay any longer in the village, so the two of them immediately took a route that led them back out to the village gate. As they came upon that pond again, Xue Xian couldn't help but glance at that mud hut, and saw the soldier's spirit dutifully standing guard by the door, seemingly planning to stay there forevermore.
In truth, Xue Xian could not really relate to such strong, passionate emotions, whether those of Lao-Qu's ‘romantic’ ancestor, or that weeping soldier. Xue Xian found himself unable to empathise with the feelings that their actions so clearly demonstrated.
He had met one other military man before, perhaps six or seven years ago now.
It happened in a great desert in the far north of the land. By order of the universe, [f] Xue Xian had gone there to bring about a bit of rain. When he arrived, he looked past the strong winds that he’d summoned to send spirals of sand into the air, and saw that the ground was littered with countless skeletons. Destroyed military carriages and ragged war flags, as well as tattered, empty uniforms, were strewn across the desert.
A soldier was sitting by one of the ruined carriages, with one of his legs bent and propped up against the carriage wheel. With his head tilted, he had been gazing at one of the torn flags.
Xue Xian only needed a glimpse to know that this was a lost soul who had already been there for at least half a year. The others had departed long ago, leaving only him –– clearly something was keeping this one here. Xue Xian was lazy, and did not care enough to consider even approaching the man. He had planned to simply send down a storm and then leave, but at that moment, the lost soul actually called out to him.
Perhaps because he'd been there for too long, the soul's mind was rather dazed. He seemed not to realise who Xue Xian was, and merely tugged at Xue Xian’s sleeve while rambling on and on. Like the soldier whose soul had lingered on the dog tag that Xue Xian would meet years in the future, this soldier spoke in bits and pieces, and was difficult to understand.
Xue Xian always acted entirely based on his mood, and on that day, the sight of all those corpses made him a bit sad. So he tolerated the soul's mutterings and listened to him speak for a long time. Overall, the man really said two things: If only we'd won this battle... and, I don't dare to depart.
"You're not even afraid of death. Why would you be afraid to depart?" Xue Xian asked.
That lost soul began to explain at length, and it took a while for Xue Xian to understand: the man was afraid that, if he departed, he would be reincarnated, but his wife would remain stuck in this life. He was afraid that he'd never see her again.
"You can't see her if you remain here, either," Xue Xian replied. "You're bound to this land. You can't go home."
The lost soul gave him a tragic look, and then went on: if only he could remember her in his next life, then he'd be able to go find her, and that would make things better. If he was lucky, then perhaps they could meet as children, and he could watch her slowly grow up from a little girl to a young woman, and then he could marry her. They didn't have to experience all that drama like couples did in plays –– he only wanted to lead a long and ordinary life alongside her. Ideally... there would be no war...
As Xue Xian listened to the man's pathetic rambling and looked out at that field corpses, he was surprised to find that he was not annoyed.
Before he left, he gave the lost soul a long piece of rope.
"Why have you given me a rope? I'm already dead. I can't hang myself," the soul asked idiotically.
Xue Xian snapped, "Tie that around your wrist and make a mark. Don't you want to carry a connection into your next life? Although there's no way for you to remember all of these random details, at least a clear mark can act as a reminder. Perhaps if you try hard enough, you really will be able to find her."
The soul had lingered for so long purely for this reason, so now that his problem was solved, he did not delay. After Xue Xian left, he, too, departed.
And today, when Xue Xian caught sight of that soldier from the dog tag, he thought back to the man in the desert. Although six or seven years had passed since their encounter, Xue Xian still could not understand how anyone could love another so deeply that they could refuse to move on even after death.
Although, as his mind drifted through these casual thoughts, he unconsciously glanced back at Xuanmin.
Noticing Xue Xian's gaze, Xuanmin, walking slightly ahead, paused in his steps. "What is it?" Xuanmin asked.
As Xue Xian's mind returned to the present, he discovered that he had been staring at Xuanmin's back. "Oh," he muttered as he looked away. "Nothing. I thought of a passerby."
"Passerby?" Xuanmin's eyes flitted toward the pond, then back toward Xue Xian.
But Xue Xian was already staring at the road ahead. "Let's get out of –– Someone's there!"
Having just left the village, they had removed their invisibility spell. They planned to entirely leave the mountain path soon, so there was no need. But in the middle of Xue Xian's sentence, he noticed a long carriage train on the path ahead. It was a winding streak of white.
"What kind of family has such a long funeral train?" Xue Xian muttered. But then he saw the flags attached to the carriages, and the two characters on the flags: Taichang.
Xue Xian and Xuanmin stopped in their tracks. Before they could even see the faces of the newcomers, Xue Xian heard the clear and bright voice of a woman say, "Descend from your horses."
Next, around a hundred people shuffled off their horses and bowed in a deeply polite greeting in Xue Xian and Xuanmin’s direction.
Xue Xian: “...” What the fuck? [g]
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[a] 天机院 (tian1 ji1 yuan4): 天机 means “arcane mystery” and 院 means “courtyard”. In this story, it is the name of a section of Taichang Si that is reserved for the Guoshi only.
[b] Musuli uses 鸡瘟 (ji1 wen1), chicken pest, here.
[c] Quick reminder that this means “young brother” and is a polite way to refer to someone younger than you whose name you don’t know.
[d] 百虫洞 (bai3 chong2 dong4) is literally “cave of 100 insects”.
[e] 巫医 (wu1 yi1) literally means “witch doctor”.
[f] Musuli uses 天时 (tian1 shi2) here, which literally means “sky time” or “heaven time”. This can mean “weather”, “destiny”, “the right time”, “the course of time”, etc. In this context, Xue Xian’s normal role/purpose as a dragon is to bring thunder and rain to parts of the land that require it; he is essentially a god of rain, so 天时 would be when the ‘time is right’ for him to go to a certain place and call for a storm there.
[g] The exact phrasing of this is, “What opera are they performing/am I in right now?”
This chapter was beta’d by Rogue!
Oooo can't wait to see what happens next! Thank you for the translation 💕💕
ReplyDeleteSo it’s him…
ReplyDelete