Poetry Chants, Saber Howls – Chapter 30

Unfathomable Hearts, Each Suspicious of the Other; Hoping to Restore What Was, New Waves Rise Instead (Part 2)

Night had deepened; the hour for rest had come.

Chongming helped Yin Teng tidy the dilapidated room until the bed was barely fit to sleep on. Hearing Yin Teng’s thanks, she smiled with easy generosity. “I’m the host, you’re the guest — sweeping the couch to await you¹ is simply what a host ought to do.”

            

As if the person who had refused their request for lodging earlier hadn’t been her.

Yin Teng regarded her for a moment without speaking.

Chongming’s appearance was, for her, an accident; she couldn’t fathom the woman’s identity or origins. While she was still turning it over in suspicion, Chongming asked on: “Lady Yin, you said earlier you came to Chang’an to seek kin. Might I ask that relative’s honored surname and given name? If I find myself with leisure, perhaps I could help make inquiries.”

            

“Her surname is Yin, same as mine — she’s my distant maternal aunt, named Yin Lu.”

“And where did she live before?”

“Xiuye Ward, in the city’s west.”

            

Yin Teng had long since prepared answers to these questions — not for Chongming, but as a guard against Xie Yuanjue’s questioning. Xiuye Ward was extremely far from here; even if Xie Yuanjue grew suspicious, she couldn’t possibly dash over at once to verify the truth. She had even worked out what she’d say if Xie Yuanjue took her pulse and detected the internal power in her body — she’d claim that as a child she’d suffered a dreadful illness, and that at death’s door a kind-hearted eccentric of the martial world had poured years of cultivated power into her to save her life. Who could have known that Xie Yuanjue wouldn’t ask anything at all, never giving her the chance to voice a single one of those explanations?

Instead it was Chongming — this sudden accident of the day — who seemed to take an interest in her, asking after her origins.

She answered each question without hurry.

            

Chongming nodded when she’d heard her out, then took her leave of the room, crossed the courtyard, and walked straight to a chamber beneath the opposite gallery.

Withered branches and rotten leaves from months past lay drifted before the chamber, piled thick; yet Chongming’s feet fell on the decaying leaves light and soundless. All around was dead quiet. She carried no lantern; by the faint moonlight she pushed the door open, shut it at once, then untied the sash of her outer robe, reached to her waist, drew out a golden mask, and put it on. Only then did she walk to a broken bed, crouch down, seize a corner of cloth, and quickly haul out a man.

A man bound hand and foot with rope.

            

Chongming unsealed his mute acupoint, then sat down on the ground beside him without the slightest scruple, not minding the dust, lounging lazily against the wall.

The man, forced to curl up beneath the bed for the better part of the day, ached in every bone of his body; now that he could finally open his mouth, he first heaved a great breath, then said in a rush: “Heroine Jin — oh no, Heroine Yan — you… you’re finally back. Look at these ropes on me. Couldn’t you loosen them just a little? You’ve sealed my martial arts already anyway; I couldn’t run now even if I wanted to.”

“Of course I can.” Yan Rushun at this moment was nothing like the cold severity of midday; she seemed most agreeable, and said with a smile, “Answer me one question first.”

            

“Ask away. Anything I know, I’ll answer.”

“Do you know a Yin Lu?”

Yin Lu? Peng Lie shook his head.

            

He wasn’t lying — he truly didn’t know.

“She was a commoner who lived in Xiuye Ward, in the city’s west,” Yan Rushun said. “Did you burgle her property too?”

“No.” Peng Lie denied it without a thought, without an instant’s hesitation. “I’ve never once set foot in any Xiuye Ward — how could I have stolen anything there?”

            

“Oh? Don’t let me discover you’re lying to me.”

“Judge it clearly, Heroine Yan. I’ve been in this trade without capital² for years now; I’ve burgled several hundred households at the very least, and the whole jianghu knows it. What is there to deny? My life is in your hands this moment — why would I lie to you over a trifle?”

Yan Rushun had originally intended to recover Yin Teng’s stolen goods for her. Hearing Peng Lie’s words, her suspicion of Yin Teng deepened by a few degrees. She lowered her head in thought for a moment, then, as promised, reached out and untied the ropes binding Peng Lie; afterward she went on leaning against the wall, her gaze drifting vacant, heaven knew what she was thinking.

            

Peng Lie waited impatiently; after a brief hesitation he took the initiative himself. “Heroine Yan, at midday today, weren’t you asking me about Yuan Chenghao’s whereabouts? Why… why aren’t you asking now?”

The instant that name fell, Yan Rushun’s formerly open, unrestrained expression sharpened all at once, turning grave beyond measure, killing intent flashing swift through her eyes. Yet she said nothing. After a moment, her right hand drew a small paper packet from the pouch at her waist; she studied it fixedly for a while, then bit by bit poured out some powder and scattered it on the ground.

It was the insect- and rodent-repelling powder Xie Yuanjue had compounded; whether it did any good, she didn’t know.

            

If it truly worked, this Doctor Xie could indeed be called a good physician.

Realizing that today’s actions had implicated such an innocent woman, Yan Rushun began to hesitate over whether what she’d done was wrong. But she had searched for his whereabouts for eight full years, and for that she was willing to pay any price. Peng Lie was the only lead she currently held in her hand — how could she lightly let it go?

— In any case, she herself was already laden with sin.

            

— She didn’t mind committing one more.

At this thought she finally sighed, steeled her heart, and said gravely: “You say you can reach Yuan Chenghao?”

“Yes. He and I have been good brothers for years. Though I don’t know where he is now, I have a way to contact him.”

            

“How readily you sell out your good brother.”

“Every man for himself, and heaven destroy those who aren’t.” Peng Lie grinned. “However good a brother, is he worth more than my own neck? If Heroine Yan truly has a feud with him and means to kill him, then afterward I can only burn a few more sticks of incense for him³. Of course, if Heroine Yan’s feud with him is one that cannot live under the same sky, and you’d rather I didn’t burn incense for him at all, then from this day on I’ll pretend I never had such a friend. I only ask Heroine Yan, seeing how sincere I’ve been, to grant me two things.”

Yan Rushun raised an eyebrow. “Two?”

            

“Two very easy things. Take the first: once I’ve lured Yuan Chenghao out, you give me a road to live, and from then on my well water won’t trouble your river water — and you mustn’t tell the Iron Eagle Guard or anyone else in the jianghu where I’ve gone. That shouldn’t be hard for you, should it, Heroine Yan?”

Yan Rushun neither agreed nor refused, only asked on: “And the second?”

“The second: Heroine Yan, having stayed in Chang’an this long, must surely have heard the name of the Silver Dragon Girl, Yin Ruoyou? Go to the Drunken Flower Pavilion in Qingle Ward on my behalf, find Yin Ruoyou, and th—”

            

“No.” Before Peng Lie could finish, Yan Rushun refused flatly.

“Wh-why?”

“I don’t do things that harm the innocent.”

            

Peng Lie froze, then said quickly: “Heroine Yan misunderstands. I’m not asking you to move against her — I want you to carry her a message: say I’ve escaped, and that after some days we’ll meet at the place we agreed on.”

Yan Rushun found this strange. “You know her?”

Peng Lie said: “Of course. I met her once before. She promised me that once this business was done, she’d wander the ends of the earth with me. A pity that when I left Zhang Mansion something went wrong — they discovered me. I hid and skulked for days on end before I finally got out of Chang’an, and then, who’d have thought… All this time I haven’t found a chance to contact her; I’m afraid she’s grown anxious waiting.”

            

Hearing this, Yan Rushun fell silent a long while, frowning as she studied him, her expression exceedingly complicated.

“Heroine Yan?” Peng Lie said, puzzled. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just find your skin remarkably thick.” Yan Rushun’s voice held disgust she couldn’t conceal — and didn’t care to. “If you’ve never looked in a mirror, I could gift you a bronze one, so you could see your own face for yourself.”

            

In truth, Yan Rushun didn’t entirely disbelieve his words.

Perhaps Yin Ruoyou really had made him such a promise. But a woman dwelling in Qin towers and Chu pavilions⁴ was never her own free person; she had no choice but to swallow her inner pain, maneuver among those so-called patrons, deal with them insincerely, speak words against her heart, just to scrape out a living — that was beyond reproach; rather, it deserved sympathy and pity.

Peng Lie, hearing this, went blank for a moment; only after a while did he grasp the mockery in her words. In an instant he was fuming with rage, and had just been about to flare when he suddenly remembered that this woman now held his life in her hands — he could only swallow the anger back down, and said: “You really take her for some ordinary dancing girl, playing me false? If she weren’t true to me, why would she risk her life, betray her master, and bring me word that her master meant to kill me to silence me?”

            

“Her master?” Yan Rushun grew all the more puzzled. “You mean the proprietor of the Drunken Flower Pavilion?”

“How could it be? Since when does the proprietor of the Drunken Flower Pavilion have that kind of power? I don’t know this master’s surname or given name either — whenever I met the man, it was behind a screen. All I know is that he’s a high official at court, and that Yin Ruoyou is an assassin in his employ.”

Yan Rushun seized the crux at once. “You killed Zhang Xuan not to burgle Zhang Mansion, but as a deal with this man?”

            

“What else? The world is vast; wealthy households are plenty. Why would I go kill a high official and invite an imperial manhunt down on my own head?”

“But if Yin Ruoyou is his assassin, why didn’t he simply send her to do the killing?”

“Well… Zhang Mansion kept several guards, all of them jianghu masters; joined together, even I might not have gotten the better of them. I don’t know how Yin Ruoyou’s martial arts compare, but her art of disguise — that truly deserves to be called peerless under heaven. Though Heroine Yan should know: the art of disguise can change a person’s face, but not a person’s build. As it happened, Zhang Xuan’s son and I are near identical in height and girth, so she disguised me as Zhang Xuan’s son, and I entered Zhang Mansion unimpeded, drew away every guard at Zhang Xuan’s side, and only then forced out of Zhang Xuan’s own mouth—”

            

At this point Peng Lie abruptly stopped, realizing he’d perhaps said too much, and shut his mouth.

Yan Rushun didn’t press further. She lowered her head, her thoughts drifting far away.

Because of her mother’s charge, she bore an extra measure of care for women surnamed Yin — above all, women surnamed Yin who had helplessly fallen into the pleasure quarters. Soon after she first came to Chang’an, she’d heard the Silver Dragon Girl’s name in the marketplace and made particular inquiries into the woman’s history: Yin Ruoyou was born of commoner registry⁵; it seemed that because her family was poor, she was sold at ten years old to the proprietor of the Drunken Flower Pavilion; and because her beauty was stunning, the proprietor deliberately groomed her into Chang’an’s foremost dancing girl.

            

Such a fate invited grief and pity. But by this account, her elders could hardly be the person her mother sought, and her age matched not at all. And there were too many unfortunate souls in the world; Yan Rushun could not extend a hand to every one of them, and so she had set the matter down.

Now, hearing Peng Lie’s account, doubt stirred in her again: if he wasn’t lying and Yin Ruoyou truly was an assassin under a high official — had that been before she was sold into the Drunken Flower Pavilion, or after?

Cold wind struck through the window of the ruined room. Seeing her silent so long, Peng Lie couldn’t help himself. “Heroine Yan, I’ve explained this matter clearly enough. Those two requests of mine — will you grant them or not?”

            

Yan Rushun’s eyes snapped up, cold light flashing in them; a shiver ran the length of Peng Lie’s body. Then, without warning, she rose to her feet, sealed the acupoints across his body once more, picked the rope up off the ground, and bound him again — then kicked him straight back under the bed.

“Someone’s outside. The rest can wait for another day.”

Yan Rushun removed the mask from her face and tied it at her waist, hidden beneath the loose outer robe. She turned, walked a few steps, pushed open the battered wooden door, and looked out: in the courtyard beneath the moon, Yin Teng stood with a wooden bucket in hand; hearing the door open, she turned to look as well.

            

“Lady Yin? This late, and you’re not resting?”

“Doctor Xie’s medical art is truly brilliant. I applied her medicine, and before long the pain vanished entirely and I could walk without the least effort.” Yin Teng smiled. “So I wanted to do something for you all. I’ve just discovered there’s a well in this courtyard — it still draws water. We should be able to clean out a few rooms.”

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The author has something to say:

            

At present, this arc is mainly the story of Yan Rushun and Yin Ruoyou — their backgrounds and histories, and the process by which the four members of the protagonist group come to know one another and gradually become friends.

Earlier I saw a comment from a sweet little reader saying that since Yan’s and Yin’s childhood names are both mythical animals, their backgrounds must be terribly impressive. Not so — their origins are both very humble; they’re true bottom-rung folk. Come to think of it, one thing I’m still not satisfied with, looking back on my last book, is that I wrote too little about genuine bottom-rung people. So in this book I’ll be writing plenty of them.

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