Poetry Chants, Saber Howls – Chapter 25
by Little PandaTen Years of Flowing Water, a Return to the Old City; A Bright-Moon Night, Into New Lodgings (Part 2)
By late morning, Chang Ping had already shown Ling Suihan and Xie Yuanjue two properties. Xie Yuanjue was dissatisfied with the surroundings; Ling Suihan was dissatisfied with the price. In short, neither of them was satisfied with either house.
This was well within Chang Ping’s expectations.
Renting a home was a serious matter. Even if one wasn’t planning to live there a lifetime, it meant months at the least, often years, and common folk took this “home” of theirs extremely seriously. In the past, Chang Ping had spent ten days to half a month showing a client house after house before a contract was finally signed — that was common enough. So when noon arrived, the three of them found a wine house at random for their midday meal. Afterward, Chang Ping pointed at a courtyard not far from the window and said:
“The master of that house is preparing to move to a new home before long, and he means to rent this courtyard out as well. If you two ladies aren’t too tired, shall we go have a look in a bit? And if it still doesn’t suit, no harm done — the keeper of that inn in Jingyuan Ward is a good friend of mine. If the two of you lodge there, I’ll have a word with him and the room rates will come down quite a bit. You can take these few days to pick out a suitable house at your leisure.”
Xie Yuanjue had in truth walked a great deal and was rather weary, but seeing that the next destination really was close by, she nodded her agreement.
This residence was indeed far more exquisite — several rooms bright and spotless, furnished with great elegance. Even someone as exacting as Ling Suihan couldn’t have named a fault. Naturally, though, the finer the house, the steeper the price, and Xie Yuanjue began to hesitate — at which the master of the house suddenly burst out laughing.
Ever since Xie Yuanjue and Ling Suihan had stepped inside, the man had kept his eyes fastened on them, a faint suggestive smile lurking on his face. Now his grin dropped all pretense of concealment. “If the price doesn’t suit you two ladies, then pay whatever you’re willing to pay.”
The master of this house came from merchant stock, a man who counted every coin in his daily dealings — since when had he grown so generous? Chang Ping couldn’t help being taken aback. She looked at his expression, and in a flash realized what was happening; she instantly regretted bringing the two of them here. Sure enough, in the very next moment the man followed his laugh with: “As long as you two young ladies are willing to stay behind and keep me company, this house is yours for free.”
At those words, even Xie Yuanjue — who had dwelt secluded in a valley for years, innocent of worldly ways — felt deeply uncomfortable, and so understood his meaning at once. Yet she remained utterly composed, neither nettled nor angered, only regarding the man in silence for a moment. Chang Ping swiftly stepped in front of her and said to him with a smile, “What kind of joke is this, sir? Your silver didn’t come blowing in on the wind — how would we dare let you do business at a loss? Forgive the intrusion. We’ll take our leave right now—”
“What leave? Lady Xie and Lady Ling haven’t said a word yet — who made you their spokesman?” the man interrupted impatiently. Seeing Xie Yuanjue’s placid expression, he assumed his words had already won her over, and couldn’t resist reaching out to pull her toward him. Chang Ping was hardly about to yield him the path — with one hand she gripped his sleeve, with her mouth she laughed and coaxed him with soft words, and all the while she glanced back at Xie Yuanjue and Ling Suihan, signaling them to leave quickly.
Ling Suihan had been holding back for a long while.
In the past, the instant that man had spoken those words, she would have seen blood on him. But the capital of Chang’an was unlike anywhere else — its laws were iron-fisted. At least, for common folk like them, the laws were most certainly iron-fisted. Everything she did now had to remain utterly clear of her grand design of vengeance; naturally she could no longer act with her old flamboyance. So she hesitated a moment — and the man, given an inch, took a mile. She truly could endure no more. Her left hand had just closed around her saber hilt when she felt a wave of cold against the back of her hand.
She remembered it well: yesterday, when Xie Yuanjue had treated her poison, that right hand had rested on her wrist to read her pulse, and in that instant she had felt this same sensation.
Colder than ice and snow.
Though Xie Yuanjue’s strength could never have stopped her from drawing the blade, feeling that chill of skin against hers, Ling Suihan frowned slightly, paused after all, turned her head, and looked coldly at Xie Yuanjue. “How is it you’re always so kind to scum?”
The words had barely fallen — Xie Yuanjue had yet to open her mouth — when with a heavy thud, the man still grappling with Chang Ping toppled to the floor for no visible reason, screaming in agony.
The servants around him watched him collapse without rhyme or reason, his face twisted with pain, and stood gaping, utterly baffled. “Master, you… what’s happened to you?”
“I don’t know…” The man tried to rise but hadn’t a shred of strength, and could only lie sprawled on the floor. “My… my chest hurts… aiyowei, why does my chest hurt so…”
Ling Suihan looked at him, then looked back at Xie Yuanjue, a question in her eyes.
Chang Ping, for her part, assumed the man had been struck down by sudden illness. Heaven has eyes, she thought — inwardly blooming with laughter even as she sighed aloud: “Ah, taken ill, sir? What wretched luck — why, of all moments, did it have to be this one? Hurry and fetch a doctor for your master, the lot of you. Rest well, sir. We mustn’t keep hindering you here.”
Moments later they left the residence. The street beyond was thronged and bustling once more, crowds flowing to and fro; out in such broad daylight before the public eye, Chang Ping judged the man would never dare pursue, and her heart settled. She hurriedly apologized to the two of them.
Ling Suihan dismissed it. “He’s the one who behaved filthily — what’s that to do with you? Before you brought us here, you had no way of knowing this would happen. What are you saying sorry to us for?”
Chang Ping said, still ashamed, “Actually… actually I knew this fellow was a born lecher, and I’ve always loathed him. But I’d met him a few times before on other business, and he never dared bully anyone in broad daylight. I never imagined… that today he would…”
Here she trailed off, greatly puzzled as to why the man had grown so bold today. Then she turned to look at the two of them — and understanding dawned at once. As an estate broker she had brokered countless deals, and though she’d served plenty of female clients, those young ladies all came from families that were either rich or powerful; wherever they went, whatever they did, at the very least several guards trailed at their heels. Young women like Ling Suihan and Xie Yuanjue, traveling entirely on their own — that was a rare thing indeed.
Her probing gaze began sizing them up.
Ling Suihan’s probing gaze, meanwhile, had settled on Xie Yuanjue, and at last she couldn’t hold it in. “That poison just now — it was you?”
Xie Yuanjue inclined her head. “It was.”
The answer was exactly what she’d expected, yet it still struck Ling Suihan as barely believable. Back in that residence just now, she had watched in all six directions and listened in all eight; not a single movement of any person present had escaped her eyes and ears. She could swear that Xie Yuanjue’s hand had never once touched the man’s body, nor had she loosed so much as a hidden weapon like a silver needle at him. A poisoning technique so elusive that not even gods or demons could trace it — she had been intensely curious about it yesterday at Yongchun Hall, and at this moment the curiosity could no longer be suppressed. It burst out of her: “You—”
The word was barely out before reason clamped her mouth shut. This poisoning technique was obviously Xie Yuanjue’s crowning skill. Never mind that she and Xie Yuanjue barely knew each other — even had they been on reasonably good terms, probing into a secret like this would be shameless overstepping. Consider it from her own side: if someone asked her how her saber technique might be broken, unless the asker were a friend she could trust with her very life, how could she possibly give them the answer?
Xie Yuanjue watched her fall abruptly silent, the sentence left hanging without head or tail, and asked, puzzled, “I what?”
Ling Suihan said, “Did you think what you did just now counted as punishing him?”
“His crime doesn’t warrant death.”
Life was too precious. In Xie Yuanjue’s view, aside from those who owed mountains of blood debt, there was no one in this world who deserved to die. And even if some arch-villain steeped in wickedness to the very brim appeared before her eyes, the most she would do all the same was subdue him and hand him over to the authorities or his victims to deal with. She could not bring herself to take a life with her own hands.
“Who said anything about killing him?” Ling Suihan said. “But whatever the punishment, he should at least know it’s the consequence of his own wrongdoing — so that a shudder of dread stays with him, and the next time he means to do evil, he’ll weigh the price first. The way you did it today, he’ll think he simply fell ill. And once this ‘illness’ of his is cured, he’ll carry on exactly as shamelessly as before.”
That, in truth, was a fair argument. Xie Yuanjue blinked, faintly startled — then, without quite meaning to, nodded slowly.
From yesterday to today she had crossed paths with Ling Suihan twice and been forced to spend several shichen1 in her company, yet only at this moment did she discover that the woman was capable of saying something so reasonable. Her face never changed color, but in her heart a small measure of her dislike for Ling Suihan finally ebbed away. She pondered a while, then said, “Your blade is too fierce. If you wounded someone, it would drag you into a lawsuit. Chang’an is the capital, after all — even chivalric justice had best be practiced with care.”
Xie Yuanjue’s misgivings weren’t something Ling Suihan had failed to consider. But on the way to that residence she had already heard Chang Ping describe the master of the house: merchant stock, a family with money but no power. And this very morning she had helped the Iron Eagle Guard capture a wanted felon — she counted as a woman of merit. Even if she had wounded him and the matter reached the authorities, she ought not to face prison for it.
Of course, these reasons were all secondary. The most important one was simply that she could no longer hold back. Given her temperament, if anyone at all behaved wantonly before her eyes, being expected to stand there unmoved was worse than being killed. And so she naturally had little patience with Xie Yuanjue’s cautious nature. “With skills as formidable as yours, how are you also such a coward? Even if it came to a lawsuit, the fault would have been his first. What are you afraid of?”
Less a rebuke than genuine puzzlement. She truly, sincerely believed that children of the jianghu should never act so timidly, forever looking over their shoulders.
But to Xie Yuanjue’s ears, she had offered well-meant advice and been scolded for it in return. Even after ten years of practicing the art of stilling her heart and calming her breath, her mood couldn’t help but ripple slightly. It made her expression colder still; she couldn’t be bothered to spare the other woman another word and simply walked on ahead.
And Chang Ping, standing to one side, had listened to this entire exchange in a daze.
—If she hadn’t misheard them, that fellow’s sudden collapse just now hadn’t been illness at all — he’d been poisoned by Xie Yuanjue?
—So the two of them were jianghu wanderers, both of them?
Chang Ping had turned the question of their origins over in her mind for a good while, and never once had the thought of jianghu folk crossed it. How could it, when Xie Yuanjue was so pale of face, so frail she seemed scarcely able to bear the weight of her own clothes, looking as though a puff of wind would topple her? Anyone could see she was an invalid. Weren’t practitioners of the martial arts supposed to be hale and hardy?
As for Ling Suihan — true, a ring-pommel saber hung at her waist, but her right arm was severed; how was she to wield it? Chang Ping had originally guessed that it was precisely because she was disabled that she deliberately wore a blade at her waist to deter lawless types. Then she’d heard Xie Yuanjue’s “your blade is too fierce” — could the woman actually know saber technique?
Chang Ping’s steps gradually slowed, and she stared doubtfully at their backs — until Ling Suihan glanced over her shoulder. “Not coming?” Only then did she come out with an “Oh,” asking nothing, saying nothing, and caught up to continue leading the way.
Most people in this world had secrets of their own — was she herself any different? So she had learned very early not to go prying into other people’s secrets. The three walked on at an unhurried pace, and roughly half a quarter-hour later they finally reached Jingyuan Ward. They were just about to enter that same inn from this morning when a drumming of hooves sounded; she turned her head and saw several fine horses galloping toward them, their riders all dressed in official garb.
“Officials. Ladies, let’s clear the way— Huh—” Chang Ping’s sentence broke off as she spotted, astride one of the horses, a man in ordinary commoner’s dress whose face was rather familiar — none other than the master of that residence they had just left.
“It’s them!” The man was just as quick to point at Xie Yuanjue and Ling Suihan. “It was those two demonesses who did it! Honored officers, you must give this humble one justice!”
With a “Whoa,” the horses came to a halt before Ling Suihan and Xie Yuanjue.
The common folk all around, ignorant of what was happening, felt fear at the sight and fell back, opening up a wide stretch of empty ground.
The man at the fore wore black garb embroidered with the eagle crest, his gaze fixed hard on Ling Suihan, and he seemed almost crestfallen. “Why is it you?”
“General Hu.” Ling Suihan said, “What is all this…”
The man on horseback was surnamed Hu, given name Zhenchuan, a rank-four2 general of the Iron Eagle Guard. He had met Ling Suihan once that very morning, so the two were acquainted. He sighed. “She’s your friend? Then it would seem…”
Ling Suihan answered without thinking. “Not a friend.”
Hu Zhenchuan found this odd. “Not a friend — then why travel together?”
Ling Suihan explained the circumstances.
Hearing that the two had met by chance, Hu Zhenchuan’s eyes narrowed at Xie Yuanjue, and he said in a low voice, “This morning, when you handed Peng Lie over to me, I asked you who had treated those blade wounds on his body. Was that physician you spoke of this woman beside you?”
Ling Suihan had answered without thinking it through; now, seeing something strange in Hu Zhenchuan’s manner, she fell silent and pondered. Peng Lie had already been captured and his case filed — so why weren’t they off interrogating him, instead of hunting down the physician who had treated his wounds? Could something have happened?
While she kept her silence, Xie Yuanjue gave a nod and raised her voice. “Correct. Not only the external wounds on his body — the Nine Curves Palm injury within him was healed by my hand as well.”
“So it was you!” Hu Zhenchuan said furiously. “Very well. Since you confess so readily, I’ll ask you: what exactly is your relationship with Peng Lie? Why did you save him?”
“He was a patient. I am a physician.” Xie Yuanjue wasted no words, speaking those eight words with perfect blandness.
Hu Zhenchuan gave a cold laugh. “That’s all there is to it?”
Seeing suspicion brimming in his eyes, Ling Suihan — who had no liking at all for Xie Yuanjue, yet had no wish to see her wronged — knit her brows. “She’s a physician. Healing the sick and rescuing the dying is only right and proper by heaven’s law; it’s just that her head is a bit muddled, so she saves even villains. But afterward, once Peng Lie’s wounds had healed and I moved to take him into custody, she didn’t stand in my way. Peng Lie has already been brought to justice — why harp on the matter, General Hu?”
“I didn’t ask why she treated Peng Lie’s wounds yesterday.” Hu Zhenchuan’s tone sharpened. “I’m asking why she broke into the prison today and freed him?!”
“Broke into the prison?” Ling Suihan said, startled. “Peng Lie escaped?”
That Peng Lie had been freed from an Iron Eagle Guard cell meant not only a humiliating loss of face for the Guard, but very likely criminal culpability for a great many of its officers. Hu Zhenchuan was desperate: on one front he had dispatched his men to search in all directions; on the other he had called on colleagues in other government offices for help. As it happened, right while Hu Zhenchuan was conferring with the Chang’an Sheriff, a commoner came in to file a report.
The man claimed that today he had suddenly collapsed, his chest racked with unbearable pain. Assuming he had contracted some strange illness, he had hurriedly summoned the physician from the neighboring medical hall to treat him — but that physician said he might not be ill at all, but poisoned. Greatly alarmed, he suspected the two young women of attempting to murder him, and had come to beg the officers for justice.
At the words that the poisoner was a woman, Hu Zhenchuan instantly recalled the female physician from Ling Suihan’s account that morning — anyone who could heal a Nine Curves Palm injury was no ordinary doctor; nine times out of ten, a jianghu hand. He asked a few questions at once, learned that an estate broker named Chang Ping did business with the keeper of this very inn in Jingyuan Ward, and reckoned the broker would be bringing his clients to lodge there. He immediately spurred his horse over.
By this point the onlookers had heard that Peng Lie, that notorious bandit guilty of every evil under the sun, had slipped the net of the law yet again. They couldn’t help drawing a sharp breath, cursing the villain who had broken him out.
On the horse to Hu Zhenchuan’s right sat a woman of about thirty, likewise clad in the eagle-crested black garb of the Guard. She reflected briefly, then leaned toward Hu Zhenchuan’s ear and murmured, “General, we have no hard proof that she’s the one who broke him out. Condemning her before this whole crowd on bare suspicion — surely that’s not quite right?”
Before Hu Zhenchuan could answer, Ling Suihan caught up with the situation and cut in first. “At what hour was Peng Lie broken out?”
Hu Zhenchuan gave a cold snort. “Today, at the Si hour3.”
“Then it absolutely was not Doctor Xie.” Ling Suihan’s voice was flat and final. “At that hour Doctor Xie was at my side and never once left my sight. She can’t split herself in two to raid a prison.”
Since Ling Suihan had rendered the great service of Peng Lie’s capture in the first place, on that count alone anyone in the jianghu might be the jailbreaker — everyone but her. With Ling Suihan’s guarantee, most of the Iron Eagle Guard officers had already abandoned their suspicions of Xie Yuanjue; after all, she had no reason to lie.
Who could have expected Hu Zhenchuan to keep pressing relentlessly? “She can’t split herself in two — but how do you know she has no accomplices?”
Ling Suihan was incredulous. “On what grounds do you decide this must involve her?”
Hu Zhenchuan said, “If she and Peng Lie aren’t in league, why treat his wounds knowing full well who he was? What’s more, yesterday she was still in Changzhi County, and today she’s entered Chang’an — she must have come to rescue him. Doctor Xie—” At this point he looked coldly at Xie Yuanjue. “Kindly be honest and come along quietly with us. Tell us where Peng Lie is, and we’ll deal with you leniently.”
Had he merely suspected Xie Yuanjue, there might have been some thread of reason in it. But Hu Zhenchuan’s words pronounced her guilty outright — and that was flatly absurd.
A rank-four general, no less — a man doesn’t climb to such a seat on brute force and an empty head, surely? Xie Yuanjue didn’t answer him. She lifted her chin slightly and met his fierce gaze, calm and unflinching. She was still turning things over when a figure suddenly blocked her view.
It was Ling Suihan: left hand closing on her saber hilt, in an instant she had stepped forward and placed herself bodily in front of Xie Yuanjue, brows swept up like blades, her tone ten times keener than Hu Zhenchuan’s. “If she and Peng Lie were in league, then yesterday, when Peng Lie tried to seize an innocent bystander as a hostage, why did she step in to stop him? I wanted to join the Iron Eagle Guard because I believed it a place of fairness and integrity — a place where I could serve the nation with my whole loyalty. I never imagined you were all a pack of scoundrels who can’t tell right from wrong — contemptible! I am standing here today. Unless you can produce hard proof linking her to whoever broke him out, anyone who wants to touch her is welcome to try.”
Every officer in the Iron Eagle Guard came out of the jianghu: some had donned the official garb for riches and rank, but others — precisely as Ling Suihan had said — had put it on holding the thought of “serving the nation with loyalty.” Hearing her words, they couldn’t help flushing red to the ears.
Xie Yuanjue stared blankly at the figure standing before her, and the composure that had settled on her face like still water finally stirred with ripples.
The woman on Hu Zhenchuan’s right nodded and raised her voice. “Lady Ling speaks sense. General, we must not wrong the innocent.”
Hu Zhenchuan looked left and right, saw that many of his men disapproved of what he was doing, and knew that actually taking Xie Yuanjue away would be very difficult indeed. Besides, though he had no clear idea of Ling Suihan’s martial skill, she was after all the one credited with Peng Lie’s capture — brawling with her in the middle of a public street would look dreadful, and should someone memorialize the throne over it, that would be no small matter. He could only clench his fist and say coldly, “Fine! Today I’ll leave you be for the moment. But until we find where Peng Lie has gone, you are not to leave Chang’an on any account. And if we afterward turn up any evidence concerning you — we’ll be back!”
Footnotes
- 时辰 | Shichen | One of the twelve traditional double-hours into which the Chinese day was divided, each equal to two modern hours; 'several shichen' amounts to a good stretch of the day.
- 正四品 | Zheng Si Pin | 'Principal fourth rank' in the nine-grade system that graded every imperial Chinese official; holders of this upper fourth grade sat among the senior ranks of the court, just below the great ministers.
- 巳时 | Sishi | The sixth of the twelve earthly-branch double-hours of the traditional Chinese day, spanning roughly 9 to 11 AM — mid-morning, just before the noon hour.
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