Poetry Chants, Saber Howls – Chapter 26
by Little PandaTen Years of Flowing Water, a Return to the Old City; A Bright-Moon Night, Into New Lodgings (Part 3)
The moment the Iron Eagle Guard officers dispersed, the man who had filed the report stood rooted to the spot, at a complete loss—until Ling Suihan’s gaze shifted onto him. A chill went straight through his heart; cold flooded his whole body, and his first instinct was to run. But a white shadow, light as flying snow and drifting cloud, had already flashed before him in the space of a blink, cutting off his escape.
Ling Suihan never spared anyone she hated or despised.
A great grudge or a small one.
A great evil or a small one.
Even if she couldn’t kill within the capital, she would still give him a lesson he’d remember for the rest of his life. As for what consequences that might bring—she had no wish to think about that for now. She simply refused to wrong herself.
Yet just as her left hand closed around the saber hilt once more, Xie Yuanjue came to her side and blocked her draw. The fire in her chest flared up at once. “Last time you didn’t give him a real lesson—and now you’ve seen exactly what came of it?”
“I know.” Xie Yuanjue abruptly raised her hand, and several silver needles trailing fine silk threads flew out, streaking like falling stars to strike the man’s body in an instant.
Her strike and her withdrawal were too fast. Plenty of idlers still lingered to watch the spectacle, and all they caught was a faint white glimmer in midair—no one had any idea what had just happened. This time, what the man felt was no longer pain but cold, a cold as if he’d been thrown bodily into an ice cavern. His whole frame shook without his willing it; when he tried to get a word out, even his teeth were chattering.
“You… you…”
“Last time I gave you a chance, and that poison was an ordinary one.” Xie Yuanjue had come to find Ling Suihan’s earlier words to her quite reasonable, so now she laid it out for the man with perfect clarity, one word at a time. “This time, you may go and try. See who else can purge that toxin for you. Chang’an is vast—remember to call at every single medical hall. If you find one, bring him to me. If you can’t, then swear to me that from this day forward you will conduct yourself decently and do evil no more, and I’ll give you the antidote.”
“You’re welcome to keep running to the officials,” she added at last. “If you believe those officials can cure you.”
With that, she spared the man’s terrified eyes no further glance and turned away.
Ling Suihan said, “And that’s the end of it? He gives you his word, and you simply believe him?”
“Do you truly mean to kill him?” Xie Yuanjue asked, doubtful.
Poison, once purged, leaves no trace—wind passing without a mark, a wild goose crossing without a shadow. That was why, when Ling Suihan punished an evildoer, she truly did one of two things: take the offender’s life, or leave a few grave scars that would never fade. She still thought Xie’s handling of the fellow insufficiently ruthless—but then, the fellow’s chief offense hadn’t been against her. The matter being settled, she decided she had no call to champion Xie’s cause, held her tongue, and said nothing more.
Seeing her fall silent, Xie Yuanjue considered a moment, then abruptly turned her head toward Chang Ping.
Toward Chang Ping, who had been standing nearby in something of a daze.
“Gentleman Chang, did I frighten you?”
Chang Ping snapped back to her senses. She fixed Xie Yuanjue with a long, complicated look, and only then shook her head. “I was with you at the Si hour1 today—you couldn’t have been the one to break anyone out.” With that she gave a small smile, turned, and walked into the inn.
She and the innkeeper here were not only good friends but business partners besides, having agreed to steer customers each other’s way. Who could have guessed that the moment the innkeeper heard Ling and Xie meant to lodge here, he’d taken fright as though badly startled: “My humble establishment is fully booked tonight—every last room is taken. I fear… I fear we cannot take the two ladies in.”
“What?” Before Ling Suihan or Xie Yuanjue could get a word out, Chang Ping’s brow had already creased. “Don’t you usually have rooms to spare? It’s no festival day today—where would all these guests come from?”
“Truly there’s nothing left!” The innkeeper looked ready to weep. One glance at Ling and Xie and he shuddered without meaning to, then hurriedly looked away, his face full of dread. “Ours is a small trade with the thinnest of margins. I beg the two ladies to spare… spare us. There ought to be other inns nearby…”
At those last sentences, Xie Yuanjue understood everything at once: her clash with the Iron Eagle Guard had played out before the eyes of every bystander, and no ordinary inn would dare take in a “suspect” like her. Nor was she willing to make things hard on common folk, so she could only ask Chang Ping, “Where’s the nearest inn?”
“This is the only one in Jingyuan Ward,” Chang Ping said. “There’s another in Puxuan Ward, just next door.”
But when they reached Puxuan Ward, that innkeeper too eyed them strangely and, trembling in exactly the same fashion, insisted his establishment was full and he could not take the two ladies in. Chang Ping stood stunned a beat, then abruptly pulled the innkeeper aside by the arm and said in a low voice, “You can fool them, but you can’t fool me. I don’t believe you’ve had this many guests today.”
The innkeeper’s voice dropped lower still. “I say, Xiao Chang Ge’er—those two young ladies are probably not good people. How can you… how can you still be keeping company with them?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“A few friends came over from Jingyuan Ward just now and got to talking. Of course we all heard.”
“News certainly travels fast. But didn’t you also hear that the Iron Eagle Guard had no hard evidence—which is why in the end they simply left, without arresting her at all?”
“But the authorities still suspect them! Who’d dare take that risk?”
They fancied their conversation was quiet, little knowing that Ling Suihan and Xie Yuanjue heard every word. Ling’s brow knitted again. She despised these people for failing to tell black from white, timid as mice—but they were unarmed common folk, and however much anger she carried, she could only swallow it. She turned on her heel and walked out of the inn.
“Hey—where are you going?” Chang Ping hurried after her.
Ling Suihan stood at the inn’s door and swept her eyes across the city. “Chang’an has a hundred and eight wards. You think it’s short of inns?”
“But after what just happened, every inn nearby will have heard of it. And if we go farther afield…” Chang Ping looked anxiously at the darkening sky. “It’s getting late. I’m afraid we won’t make it in time.”
Chang’an kept a strict night curfew: anyone still walking the streets after the start of the Xu hour2 committed the crime of violating curfew and earned twenty lashes of the light bamboo. Xie Yuanjue, wearier now and feeling faintly unwell, simply sat down at an empty table to rest. The innkeeper didn’t quite dare drive her off. She rubbed the spot between her brows, then lifted her eyes to Chang Ping. “Where do you live? Go on home. I’ll think of something else.”
“You’ve only just arrived in Chang’an—what could you possibly think of? Sleep in the streets? Even if your martial arts are good, you can’t keep making enemies of the officers.” Chang Ping dithered a good long while, then all at once a flash of inspiration struck, and she smiled again. “Where I live isn’t far from here. There’s an abandoned residence there—I’ve never once laid eyes on the owner. You could put up there for the time being. Only… only the conditions there aren’t much. You’d best brace yourselves.”
They were only staying a single night; naturally the state of the place was nothing to haggle over.
So the three of them left Puxuan Ward, Chang Ping leading the way along the Sixth Cross Street. The long street was clean and tidy, and passersby were growing fewer and fewer. Then, all at once, a deep “Dong” rang out—full-throated and far-carrying, as if it rolled in from the horizon’s edge—and the few folk still out on the street all quickened their steps. Chang Ping reckoned the distance: they would reach Wuri Ward well before the six hundred beats of the closing drum3 were done. Reassured, she even had leisure enough to play tour guide for Ling Suihan and Xie Yuanjue:
“These two rows are planted thickest with poplars and willows, and the birds love to build their nests here. Right now the closing drum’s an awful racket—but walk this street at any other time and the birdsong warbles so sweetly, it’s truly lovely!”
“When I…” Ling Suihan had played along this street many times as a child, and the words “back then” nearly slipped out of her mouth before she caught herself. Seeing Chang Ping glance back at her, she weighed her words and said, “When I lived in my hometown, tall locusts and deep-shaded willows were planted all around our house, and they drew no end of birds to nest. There were always silk-breeched young lords who’d shoot at the birds with slingshots—that conduct I despised above all. Does that happen here too?”
“That’s been banned, as it happens. But banned is banned—this is hardly some grave matter, and some folk still…”
—”Thud.”
Chang Ping’s words were cut short. In that instant came the sound of something heavy striking the ground behind her—unmistakable even through the deep booming of the closing drum. She spun around. Not far off, at the foot of a poplar, a woman in plain rough cloth sat slumped on the ground, hands braced against the earth as she tried to rise; the moment her left leg moved, a groan escaped her and she dared not stir again. She had plainly fallen out of the tree—and fallen hard. And there, at the gate of Tongnan Ward, stood a young dandy in splendid brocade, slingshot in hand, his expression dazed.
“No way?” Chang Ping froze, stunned. “How can there be someone who shoots people as if they were birds?”
“Young lady, are you all right?” Mercifully, the young gentleman’s wits were quick. Before Xie Yuanjue and the others could go over, he was already running toward her, apologizing again and again. “I was aiming at the birds in the tree—I never meant to hurt you, Miss. Ah, this is all my fault—my eyes failed me and I didn’t see you.”
His apology was most sincere, shouldering every last scrap of the blame, and by the time he’d said that much he had already reached the woman’s side. He went on: “If you don’t mind, Miss, I’ll help you along to see a do—” At the same moment he crouched down; before his hand could touch her arm, his gaze fell upon her face. He froze mid-word, and then let out a cry:
“Mother!”
He sat down hard on the ground, then scrambled up at once and backed away several steps.
“You… how can you be so hideous?!”
The woman had her back to everyone. Though she wore a suit of coarse cloth, the slenderness of her waist and the grace of her figure showed through all the same. Anyone who saw her from behind would have taken her for a beauty.
A peerless beauty.
Yet when she at last turned her head, everyone present saw her face in full: a small face, the skin dark and wrinkled both, her features crowded together, both cheeks covered in dense, close-packed freckles. To speak fairly, this could indeed be called not “beautiful” but “ugly.”
A beauty with furrowed brows is moving and pitiable; an ugly woman with furrowed brows only makes her face harder to bear. “I know you didn’t do it on purpose, Sir. Might I ask—do you know where there’s a physician nearby? I can’t get up, and the curfew is nearly upon us—”
“You know the curfew’s nearly here too, do you?” the man cut in. “Where would I find the time to go hunting a physician with you? You fell out of that tree yourself—what’s that to do with me?”
“But…”
“But what? Heaven knows how you got up that tree in the first place. If you fell, it serves you right—none of my affair.”
The old saying goes haughty before and humble after4. In him it was humble before and haughty after—a turn of attitude so sweeping it left one speechless.
Chang Ping couldn’t bear to watch. She whispered to Ling Suihan and Xie Yuanjue, “Should we help her?”
Just then, the woman seemed to give up any hope of aid from that gentleman, and turned her pleading eyes toward Ling Suihan and Xie Yuanjue. “Ladies, do you know where there’s a physician nearby?”
Footnotes
- 巳时 | Si Shi | One of the twelve traditional two-hour divisions of the Chinese day, spanning 9:00 to 11:00 AM; Chang Ping cites it as her alibi for the prison break.
- 戌初 | Xuchu | Beginning of Xu, the eleventh of twelve two-hour divisions in the traditional Chinese day, i.e., 7:00 PM; in Tang Chang'an it marked the mandatory start of the nightly curfew.
- 闭门鼓 | Bimen Gu | 'Gate-closing drum'; the great municipal drum of Tang Chang'an, beaten six hundred times at dusk, upon which the city and ward gates shut and every resident was required to be home.
- 前踞而后恭 | Qian Ju Er Hou Gong | Literally 'arrogant first, deferential after'; from the Warring States Strategies, describing how Su Qin's family reversed their cold treatment of him once he won high office. The dandy here inverts the pattern.
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