Poetry Chants, Saber Howls – Chapter 13
by Little PandaA Distant Guest Arrives in the Deep Night Valley; Who Can Fathom the Life and Death of a Mayfly (Part 2)
“Qin Jiao! For someone who’s made a name for herself in the jianghu, poisoning a child—aren’t you ashamed?”
Shan Lan’s anger surged through her chest in an instant, the rebuke tearing from her lips before she could stop it. The outburst stirred the poison inside her, doubling the pain. A wave of dizziness crashed over her, and she nearly blacked out too—she braced one hand against the ground and quickly gathered her wits.
Her refined internal energy protected her, keeping the poison temporarily suppressed. Xie Miao knew no martial arts at all and had always been frail—how could she possibly have Shan Lan’s resilience? The searing pain in her chest spread through her entire body in a heartbeat, as though a thousand wild beasts were tearing at every limb and bone.
Qin Jiao stayed leaning against the tree trunk. She coughed twice, then spoke in a voice just as weak: “I’m a notorious fiend in the jianghu. What’s so strange about me doing such things? Didn’t you already assume I’d kill her just now? But…” She slowly shifted her gaze back to Xie Miao. “I have no grudge against you. You haven’t angered me, either, so I don’t necessarily have to kill you. Do you want to live?”
Xie Miao nodded.
She wasn’t a knight of the jianghu. She didn’t understand the principle of rather be shattered jade than intact tile1, or the conviction that one must never yield to demonic ways and crooked paths no matter the circumstance.
She didn’t want to die. She couldn’t endure this agony. So she nodded without hesitation.
Qin Jiao said, “Then let’s keep our original agreement. Go gather those herbs for me.”
Xie Miao’s whole body convulsed. She curled into a ball from the pain, cold sweat beading her forehead. Her trembling voice made every word fall to pieces: “Then… then she…”
“If you’re still worried about her, then keep suffering.”
This poison wasn’t a lethal one. Even if Qin Jiao never gave Xie Miao the antidote, it wouldn’t kill her—but the pain was worse than death. Qin Jiao was certain this child couldn’t hold out for long. She closed her eyes to rest, listened to the girl’s groaning for a while, then asked in a leisurely tone: “Have you thought it over? If you can’t speak, just keep nodding or shaking your head.”
Xie Miao shook her head.
Without hesitation.
“You… you detoxify her first… and I’ll… I’ll give you…”
She didn’t have the strength for a complete sentence. But both Qin Jiao and Shan Lan understood her meaning, and both were startled at the same time. Shan Lan had been thinking for a while and still couldn’t find a way to save this girl. She said helplessly, “I don’t need you to detoxify me. If you have even a shred of conscience, let this child go.”
Her tone carried a hint of pleading, but Qin Jiao turned a deaf ear. She fixed her gaze on Xie Miao and stayed silent for a long time. In Qin Jiao’s original assessment, this child had none of the spirit of a jianghu daughter. She was timid and skittish through and through—she’d screamed at the top of her lungs because she was afraid of ghosts. How could someone like that not fear pain, not fear death? Making her yield should have been effortless.
Who could have expected that, timid as she was, she’d go this far for a stranger?
Why, exactly… for strangers, she could go this far…
Qin Jiao’s expression grew distant, her eyes hollow, her thoughts flying off to somewhere unknown. She murmured, “No wonder she suddenly took on an apprentice. You really do look like…” The sentence trailed off, her voice growing fainter and fainter, and then she seemed to let out a bitter laugh. She produced another medicine vial from her robes, tipped out a pill, and fed it into Xie Miao’s mouth. “It’s the antidote.”
Having been deceived once, Xie Miao was no longer inclined to believe her.
But whatever the consequences of swallowing this pill, could anything be worse than the agony she was in right now? So Xie Miao hesitated for only a moment before swallowing it.
The cold wind didn’t let up, but after a while, the pain in Xie Miao’s body gradually lessened. Her whole body still felt limp and powerless, and she sat on the ground, gasping for breath. Qin Jiao turned to Shan Lan and said, “I can detoxify you as well, but…”
Shan Lan understood her concern: “I won’t take advantage of your peril and attack you while your internal injury hasn’t healed.”
Qin Jiao said, “The Gentleman of Dingshan—words carrying the weight of nine cauldrons2. Good, I trust you.”
The medicine vial Qin Jiao had previously given Xie Miao did indeed contain the antidote for the poison in Shan Lan’s body. After Xie Miao rested for a while and could barely manage to walk, she brought the vial to Shan Lan. Shan Lan swallowed the antidote, tested her internal energy, and gradually felt no obstruction. She finally stood, picked up a longsword from the grass, and shot a cold gaze at Qin Jiao. After a moment, she said to Xie Miao:
“Let’s go. I’ll go with you to gather the herbs.”
Neither of them knew the Longevity Valley’s array. They followed the route Qin Jiao described, and the path ahead did indeed grow wider. Shan Lan felt puzzled—before she could figure out why Qin Jiao was so familiar with Longevity Valley, she suddenly saw Xie Miao stop and clutch her chest, gasping.
Most martial artists had some basic knowledge of medicine. Though far inferior to Jiuru and Qin Jiao, Shan Lan had learned basic pulse-reading techniques. She grasped Xie Miao’s wrist and was immediately startled: “Why are your hands so cold?” She checked the girl’s pulse and couldn’t help but say angrily, “Did she give you a fake antidote?”
Even though Xie Miao now deeply loathed Qin Jiao, she still didn’t want to falsely accuse anyone. She shook her head: “It has nothing to do with her. This is… this is an illness I’ve always had…”
But after Dharma Master Jiuru’s miraculous treatment over the past month, her condition had improved considerably. Tonight’s ordeal had undoubtedly worsened her illness, wasting all of Dharma Master Jiuru’s efforts of the past month. She wasn’t a physician, but she knew her own body well. Just then, Shan Lan asked in confusion:
“So you’re Dharma Master Jiuru’s patient—that’s why you live in Longevity Valley? But why would you be walking through the valley alone in the middle of the night?”
She suddenly thought of Ling Cheng, and her heart ached. Tears fell before she realized it.
“What’s wrong? Don’t cry.” Shan Lan was greatly alarmed and quickly wiped away her tears. “Did I ask the wrong thing? If you don’t want to answer, I won’t ask.”
“No…” Xie Miao was heartbroken, and once the tears started, they wouldn’t stop. “I… I’m afraid…”
At that moment, there was indeed a faint look of fear on her face.
Shan Lan paused, fell silent for a moment, then suddenly asked gravely: “Were you afraid just now too, when Qin Jiao poisoned you?”
Xie Miao nodded, sobbing.
Shan Lan said, “Then why did you insist on saving me first?”
Xie Miao sniffled: “Because I hurt so much.”
Shan Lan frowned, even more bewildered: “You mean the poison she gave you hurt? Then you should have agreed to her demand and let her detoxify you first. Otherwise, if she truly hardened her heart…”
“But you were poisoned too.” Xie Miao barely hesitated before blurting out, “You must have been in even more pain than me.”
She wasn’t some great hero, let alone a knight from a prestigious orthodox sect. As a County Princess of the dynasty, she’d been born more exalted than most people in this world. Naturally, no one had ever taught her the phrase “sacrificing oneself for others.” So she didn’t have complicated thoughts—she simply hurt so badly that the more she suffered, the more she thought about how that elder sister had been poisoned even earlier than her. Wouldn’t she be suffering ten or a hundred times worse right now?
Just as she’d never met Qin Jiao before, yet when she first saw her, she’d been deeply concerned about her injuries and anxious to gather herbs to treat her—simply because she’d been plagued by illness since childhood, and that made her understand better than anyone how agonizing the torment of injury and sickness could be.
Extending oneself to others—nothing more than that.
Shan Lan never expected to hear such an answer. Her heart shook. She slowly crouched down, looking at eye level at this child whose name she still didn’t know, and after a moment, pulled her into her arms.
The mountain wind in the deep of night never ceased. Xie Miao’s body was cold as ice. Suddenly drawn into a warm embrace, she could no longer hold back: “But I’m so scared. I’m really so scared… C-can I ask you for something?”
Shan Lan had rarely dealt with children in her life. Only two months ago, by chance, she’d taken on a young apprentice, but before she could teach her much, a letter from a jianghu friend had called her away on urgent business. On her return journey, she’d encountered Qin Jiao committing violence, which led to tonight’s events. So she had no experience comforting children. She could only gently pat Xie Miao’s back and say, “You’re my savior. Whatever you need help with, just say so. You don’t need to use the word ‘ask.'”
“You have a sword with you—do you know martial arts? Are you a knight of the jianghu?”
“I know a little. The title of knight is an undeserved compliment from my fellow martial artists, but I suppose I qualify.”
“Then if… if I die…” Xie Miao paused, then sobbed, “could you help me find someone and protect her?”
“Who?”
“Her name is Ling Cheng. She’s my age, and she’s my best friend. But… but she’s wanted by the court now, so she probably won’t go by that name anymore.”
At the word “wanted,” Shan Lan’s expression changed sharply. But after only a moment’s thought, she nodded: “All right. Don’t worry—as long as I can find your friend, I’ll protect her. If I can’t find her on my own… I’m a disciple of the Dingshan Sect. Our sect has many martial brothers and sisters, close to me as hands and feet, and they’ll all help too. So stop talking nonsense about dying. Your poison has been cured—how could you die? Sometime soon, I’ll invite you to visit Mount Ding as my guest. Then you can tell me all about your friend in detail. How does that sound?”
The words of comfort only made Xie Miao’s tears flow harder.
She lowered her head, her eyelashes dipping, and sobbed: “But I really might die…”
Shan Lan said in alarm: “Why?”
“My chest… my chest hurts so much right now, more than ever before… I’m so afraid that if even Dharma Master Jiuru can’t cure my illness, I won’t live to see my jiji3…” At first her voice was soft, her crying soft too, but when she reached this point, she paused for a moment—then suddenly, with a loud “wa,” she buried her face in Shan Lan’s arms and wailed, as though every emotion she’d held back came pouring out all at once. “But I don’t want to die. I really don’t want to die. I want to live…”
Shan Lan grew more alarmed with every word, until she was frozen stiff.
If Xie Miao’s family and friends had been present to see this, they would have been even more shocked than Shan Lan. In the eyes of her many elders, Shejia—though young—was mature and sensible beyond her years. She faced illness, even life and death, with a composure and open-mindedness that surpassed anyone else’s.
But life and death—something even many adults who’d lived over half a lifetime couldn’t see through—could a child of barely ten truly not care? Almost no one knew that she was, in fact, just like most people in this world: afraid of pain, afraid of hurt, and even more afraid of death. Ever since she’d accidentally learned three years ago that she was destined not to survive past her jiji year, she had lived every moment in worry and fear.
She wanted to live.
She wanted to live a long, long time.
But every time she saw the tearful eyes of her elders and friends when they discussed her illness, she knew they’d already exhausted so much on her behalf, and she couldn’t deepen their sorrow. So she could only pretend not to care, facing it all with composure—because tonight she’d just met Shan Lan for the first time, with no prior acquaintance, she could finally pour out the years of fear she’d buried deep in her heart before this stranger.
Shan Lan waited until she’d cried her fill, then dried her tears and smiled: “But Dharma Master Jiuru probably never said she couldn’t cure you, did she? You’ve already been living in Longevity Valley for a long time, haven’t you? She must have a method to treat you, or she wouldn’t have let you stay. Let me take you back to Dharma Master Jiuru in a bit.”
But those who walked the jianghu’s chivalric way honored their promises. Before that, they had to go to the place Qin Jiao had described and gather the herbs to treat her internal injuries.
The trip took a long time. About two ke later, Shan Lan and Xie Miao returned to the original spot and handed the herbs to Qin Jiao.
By then Qin Jiao’s injuries had grown more severe. She gave them a cold glance. Though she found it strange they’d taken so long to return, she no longer had the energy to ask. She immediately stuffed all the herbs into her mouth and chewed—no fire could be built here to decoct medicine, so this method of consumption wouldn’t draw out the full medicinal effect, but it could at least save her life and restore half her combat ability.
During this time, Shan Lan had already thought it through: once Qin Jiao’s internal injuries healed, the two of them would likely have to fight again. She herself wasn’t afraid, but she couldn’t keep dragging this child into danger. So she took Xie Miao’s hand and left without looking back.
Though she didn’t know the paths of Longevity Valley, she had studied some Five Phases and Eight Trigrams divination and was confident that given enough time, she could break through the valley’s array. Wind rustled the leaves, whispering and sighing. Once they’d put enough distance from Qin Jiao’s position, she finally stopped and attempted to use lightness skill—leaping up toward the branches to survey the mountain’s terrain from above. She tapped her toe and sprang into the air, but before she’d risen even halfway, her body dropped straight down.
She’d fallen back to the ground!
Xie Miao stood stunned for a moment, then hurried forward to steady her arm: “Are you all right?”
Shan Lan was utterly shaken, baffled beyond understanding: she’d clearly tested her internal energy after taking Qin Jiao’s antidote, and everything had felt fine.
How could this happen now…
Footnotes
- 宁为玉碎不为瓦全 | ning wei yu sui bu wei wa quan | Literally 'rather be shattered jade than intact tile' — a classical proverb from the Northern Qi dynasty expressing the choice of honorable death over degraded survival.
- 一言九鼎 | yi yan jiu ding | Literally 'one word is worth nine cauldrons' — the nine cauldrons were ancient ritual bronze vessels symbolizing supreme sovereign authority; the phrase describes someone whose word is absolutely trustworthy and unshakeable.
- 及笄 | jiji | Classical female coming-of-age ceremony at age fifteen, when a girl's hair was gathered and pinned with a hairpin, marking her formal transition to adulthood.
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