Poetry Chants, Saber Howls – Chapter 15
by Little PandaA Distant Guest Arrives in the Deep Night Valley; Who Can Fathom the Life and Death of a Mayfly (Part 4)
Xie Miao slept for another day and night.
When she next woke, it was dusk the following day. Waves of medicinal fragrance drifted from the gilded peacock incense burner, and Jiuru sat by the opposite window, clad in a manyi dyed crimson by the setting sun, head bowed over several medicinal herbs on the desk, silent.
Xie Miao’s mind swam for a moment before the events of the previous night gradually surfaced. She bowed and asked Jiuru, “Was it you who saved me?”
To her surprise, Jiuru still did not answer, her expression as still as water.
Xie Miao hurriedly pressed on. “Last night there was another…” She wasn’t sure how to address Shan Lan and paused before continuing. “…a heroine in the valley. Do you know how she is now?”
Jiuru finally spoke. “She is in the next room.”
Xie Miao felt relieved and asked about the other person. “And Qin Jiao…”
Jiuru said, “The poison Qin Jiao gave you triggered a flare of your congenital illness. She felt remorse and could no longer insist on taking you as her apprentice, so she left Longevity Valley last night.”
Xie Miao nodded in understanding.
Jiuru said, “Does that not strike you as suspicious?”
Xie Miao asked, “Suspicious how?”
Jiuru said, “Qin Jiao is no good person. Does it not seem strange to you that she would feel remorse?”
Shan Lan had woken a little over two hours earlier than Xie Miao. Upon waking and asking about Qin Jiao’s whereabouts, she had heard Jiuru’s answer with a look of half-belief, half-doubt — Qin Jiao was known as the Poison King, having slaughtered countless innocents with her toxins, her humanity long since extinguished. How was Xie Miao any different from those past victims? That she would feel remorse toward this child was a joke.
Xie Miao tilted her head. “Of course she’s a wicked person, but… but wicked people are still people. How could she have no feelings at all? When I’ve made mistakes before, even by accident, I’d feel guilty about it.”
She said this as though it were the most natural thing in the world, which only made Jiuru’s question seem strange by comparison.
A crack seemed to finally appear in Jiuru’s ice-sealed countenance. In her gaze toward Xie Miao was a measure of surprise, and more than a little sorrow. She suddenly recalled how, before Qin Jiao departed the previous night, she had asked with genuine bafflement what her own martial sister had seen in this child — why the sudden urge to take an apprentice. Qin Jiao had turned the question back on her: did she truly not know? At the time, she truly had not. But today she had first heard from Shan Lan the reasons Xie Miao had endured pain to save another, and now she heard these words from Xie Miao’s own lips.
She was beginning to understand…
This child did indeed resemble their Junior Martial Sister…
The room fell quiet. Xie Miao sensed something strange in the air and had meant to ask about the relationship between Dharma Master Jiuru and Qin Jiao, but for some reason lacked the courage to speak. After a moment’s hesitation, she shifted the topic. “You said the heroine from last night is in the next room? Can I go see her now?”
Jiuru nodded. “She hasn’t much time left. It would be good for you to speak with her before she dies.”
The words were delivered with casual lightness, yet they struck Xie Miao like a blow to the crown of her head.
She stared. “She… hasn’t much time left?”
Jiuru said, “She forced her internal energy into circulation to fight Qin Jiao while already poisoned. The toxin has penetrated her organs. She is beyond cure of medicine and stone1.”
Xie Miao shot to her feet, her face stricken with panic. “But aren’t you a divine physician? Can’t you save her?!”
“I am only a physician. I have never called myself a divine physician. And even a divine physician is no immortal — she cannot save someone who is meant to die.”
Jiuru’s voice remained even, stripped of emotion. She did not explain to Xie Miao that both of them had fallen into unconsciousness simultaneously the previous night, and that she had chosen to save Xie Miao first; by the time she turned to treat Shan Lan, it was already too late.
Xie Miao had seen too many physicians since childhood to argue with Jiuru’s reasoning. Her eyes stung, and a wave of pain seized her chest.
It was a dense, prickling agony — like a thousand needles piercing, ten thousand ants gnawing. Xie Miao’s brows knitted tight. She pressed a hand to her chest without thinking, and a question surfaced in her mind: though she had been plagued by various illnesses since birth, she had never suffered from chest pain at home. Not until the day before yesterday, when she mistakenly believed Fuli had perished, and the heart in her chest had hurt so violently that she fainted. Since then, she had been feeling intermittent stabs of pain in her chest.
And every time, it was when she was overcome with grief.
Like the previous night, when she had spoken to Shan Lan about her fear of death. Or just now, when she heard from Dharma Master Jiuru that Shan Lan was dying.
She slowly crouched down, bowed her head, and couldn’t suppress a groan. Jiuru showed no surprise. She immediately went to Xie Miao’s side, pressed her right palm against Xie Miao’s spine, and channeled a gentle stream of internal energy into her before drawing seven silver needles and inserting them into seven acupoints along the front of her body. She asked at the same time:
“It’s only in the last two days that you’ve started having frequent chest pain, isn’t it?”
“How… how did you know?”
Jiuru said, “Your heart condition was triggered suddenly under extreme grief and anguish. But even without what happened the day before yesterday, your heart already had a very serious problem.”
Xie Miao looked blank. “What problem?”
Jiuru said, “Your heart is too soft.”
Xie Miao blinked, not yet able to grasp what she meant.
Jiuru’s tone shifted without pause. “Shan Lan likely won’t live past dawn tomorrow. If you want to see her, go quickly.”
Xie Miao’s whole body jolted. She said nothing more, turned on the spot, reached the doorway in a few strides, pushed the door open, and hurried to the adjoining room.
The sun sank westward, evening clouds gathered from all sides, and the mountain colors grew ever more vast and dim. Copper lamps cast a vermilion glow by the window. Shan Lan sat alone beneath the sill, unable to suppress her coughing as she wrote something on fine writing paper with a brush. At the sound of footsteps outside, she turned her head and lifted her gaze. Her pale lips curved slightly into a smile. “You’re finally awake…”
Xie Miao walked to Shan Lan step by step, eyes brimming with tears. She moved her lips, but sobs choked off her words.
“Why does this child cry so much?” Shan Lan wanted to reach out and wipe her tears, but her right hand, having just finished writing, was too sore and weak to move. She could only keep smiling. “You’re so pretty — cry any more and you’ll turn ugly.”
Truthfully, before entering, Xie Miao had meant to put on a smile and say a few cheerful things to lift Shan Lan’s spirits, so that she wouldn’t feel even more sorrow. But the moment she saw that deathly pale face and imagined the pain Shan Lan must be enduring, she couldn’t hold back her tears at all. “I’m sorry. It’s me… it’s my fault you’re like this…”
“What are you saying? I was already poisoned before I met you. If not for you, I’d likely have died last night. You gave me an extra day. So I should thank you — you gave me the chance to write letters to my fellow disciples. I… I have so much I want to say to them…”
Shan Lan, after all, came from a renowned orthodox sect. Since childhood, she had listened to her teachers expound the principles of “sacrificing life for righteousness2” and “dying a worthy death.” Now that she was dying for a righteous cause, she would not regret it. And yet… there was still some regret…
But she could not show it in front of Xie Miao.
A little over an hour earlier, the words Dharma Master Jiuru had spoken to her hung like a dark cloud, lingering in her mind without dispersing. She finally understood that the child before her was named Xie Miao, born an imperial County Princess, who had been sent to Longevity Valley to seek Dharma Master Jiuru’s miraculous touch only because ordinary physicians could not treat the multiple illnesses she had suffered since birth. Jiuru’s medical skill was truly first-rate in this world. She had devoted great effort to devising a course of treatment and, barring any mishaps, roughly two years of gradual recuperation would have completely cured Xie Miao’s condition.
But storms gather without warning, and the poison Qin Jiao had administered the previous night was precisely such a storm.
For an ordinary person, the toxin was not lethal — taking the antidote Qin Jiao had prepared would restore the body within moments. Xie Miao alone was different. Her constitution was far weaker than a normal person’s. Such violent toxins rampaging through her organs would destroy her vitality in an instant.
Now, even Jiuru — even Jiuru and Qin Jiao working together — could no longer cure Xie Miao’s illness.
They could, at most, extend her life by a few years.
This child probably didn’t know that yet… Shan Lan looked at her red-rimmed eyes and recalled the words she had spoken the night before. Something stirred in her heart. After a long pause, she said abruptly, “I’m told your childhood name is Shejia? Look at your red eyes now — you really do look like a rabbit. You don’t know my name yet, do you? My secular name is Jiang Huaijun. Since entering the Dingshan Sect, my sect name has been Shan Lan. After I die, will you remember this name — remember me?”
“I don’t want you to die!” Xie Miao refused to answer the question. She shook her head again and again, lips trembling as she murmured, “I’ll find another way to save you. Let me find another way to save you…”
Shan Lan smiled. “Even if I don’t die today, in a few decades, could I still avoid death? You and I are both mortals — neither gods nor immortals — and we cannot live forever without aging. The day of death will come for everyone; it’s only a matter of sooner or later. Very well, then suppose I pass away decades from now, and you are still alive then. Would you still remember me?”
This was the first time in Xie Miao’s life that anyone had spoken to her so plainly about death.
It was true — everyone in this world would eventually die…
And yet even so, she still feared it. She still prayed that the day would come as late as possible for her.
And as late as possible for the people she cared about.
“Yes.” Xie Miao stared for a moment, then nodded blankly. “Of course I’ll remember you.”
Shan Lan smiled. “Then that’s that. Not only will you remember me, but my master and my martial brothers and sisters will certainly remember me too. So I won’t have truly vanished from this world.”
Perhaps because of the severity of her poisoning, Shan Lan’s voice was slightly hoarse and exceedingly weak, but this one sentence rang out like a Buddhist temple bell suddenly sounding in the quiet night, its resonance echoing in Xie Miao’s heart. The expression on her face shifted gradually from bewilderment to solemnity. She threw herself back into Shan Lan’s arms, tears dripping onto Shan Lan’s green robe, and said with iron certainty: “Don’t worry. I will remember you forever and ever.”
But there was one question Xie Miao never asked aloud.
What about the day when she, too, left this world? When everyone who had known her had also left this world?
Who would remember her then?
The author has something to say:
The significance of Shan Lan to Shejia is that she gave the girl her very first lesson on death.
Next chapter switches to Fuli’s storyline.
Footnotes
- 药石无医 | yaoshi wuyi | Literally 'beyond the cure of medicine and stone'; 'stone' denotes ancient acupuncture needles, pairing with herbal medicine to represent all known treatments for an incurable condition.
- 舍生取义 | shesheng quyi | A foundational Confucian principle from the Mencius: choosing righteousness over one's own life, the highest expression of ethical commitment in the classical tradition.
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