Chen Ping'an knew that look all too well. It was the very look he had worn himself, as a little boy, when he watched Liu Xianyang. In those days Liu Xianyang had been the king of the children of Apricot Blossom Lane and Mud Vase Lane — a lad who could catch snakes, trap birds, and net fish, as though nothing under heaven lay beyond his skill. Presently the boys of his own years, who had once followed at his heels as his lieutenants, had scattered — some gone as apprentices to the dragon kilns, more dispersed into the town's sundry shops as clerks, or keeping the ledgers of their kin. And there were those, as Song Jixin said, who for lack of any better, ended their days grubbing in the fields. But of them all, the only one left who still kept company with Liu Xianyang was Chen Ping'an himself.
Chen Ping'an strung the three slate fish he had given the girl through the gills with a few stalks of dog's-tail grass and handed them to her. She took the string and weighed it in her hand; they came light, and seemed not enough to make up a dish of fish fried with green peppers. So she cocked her head and glanced at the deep hollow of the creek, full of expectation. Chen Ping'an took her meaning and apologized: "The fish I catch next, I must stew into soup for a friend to build up her health. I can't give those to you."
The girl pointed to the open bundle not far off, signifying that she would trade her cakes for fish. Chen Ping'an shook his head with a smile: "No. Cake is good, and it fills the belly too — but it can't nurture the body the way fish soup does."
The girl nodded, and did not press where she was not wanted. She sat quietly back in her place, set the fish beside her feet with great care, and resumed her own great undertaking of sitting there devouring her mountain of dainties.
Curious as he was about her rank and station, Chen Ping'an asked nothing. Judging by her dress, she was not one of the young ladies of the great houses of Fortune & Rank Street or Peach Leaf Lane; rather she put him a little in mind of Zhigui of the neighboring house — pretty and dainty, and no great talker. A sudden worry came over Chen Ping'an: could she be a serving girl who had stolen out of some house with food to eat? They said the household rules in those great mansions were fierce indeed. Liu Xianyang and Song Jixin were forever contradicting each other, yet on this single matter they spoke as one — though in differing key. Liu Xianyang's telling was dreadful enough: that serving maids and bondwomen within those high-walled manors, should one take but a single wrong step, would have their legs broken by the steward, whose eye was as keen as a snake-catching eagle, and be thrown out over the wall into the street to wait for death. Song Jixin, for his part, said Liu Xianyang was passing along a garbled rumor, and nothing so exaggerated; only that the maids and dames of great households did in truth walk like cats, so softly that not the least sound reached the ear. And when Liu Xianyang, catching sight of the giggling bondmaid Zhigui nearby, flew into the sort of rage born of mortified pride and bellowed at Song Jixin: "What goose-this, what goose-that! Can your goose talk, then?!"
Chen Ping'an at last brought up seven or eight slate fish, rattling the fish-basket about so it swayed this way and that. The youth, his face gone the color of suet, knew he was at the end of his strength. Spring's water is cold — a cold that reaches into the bone — and above all his wounded left hand could not bear it. On his final climb to shore, he hurried down off the green crag and thrust himself into the grass of the bank; from it came a rustle and whisper. In a little while he pulled up three or four kinds of herbplant, many with roots still trailing earth. Gathering the lot in one fist, he picked up an ordinary stone and returned to the crag, where he found a tiny hollow in the rock the size of a palm. He wiped and dried it, then began to pound the herbs gently; soon they had become a green pulp, and their juice gave off the particular fragrance of wild spring herbs by the water's edge.
With his back turned to the girl, Chen Ping'an drew one deep breath, set his jaw, and began to unwrap the cotton from his left hand. Sweat broke out on his brow at once, spreading over the chill water that had slid down from his damp hair. The wound, where flesh and blood had come to a pulp, had somewhat improved from the time it showed white bone, yet it still looked a ghastly thing. When Chen Ping'an had set out he had not thought that his left hand would touch the creek water, and so had prepared no strip of cotton; all his thoughts beforehand had run on two things only — that snake-gall stones could earn money, and catching fish to stew into soup. Only now did he realize what a grave error he had committed. The youth was still in his daze when a hand appeared before his eyes, holding out a few strips of dry, clean cloth. It was the green-clad girl, who had at some point torn off a strip from her own sleeve. Chen Ping'an smiled a bleak smile, and forbore to stand on ceremony; he smeared the herbs over the wound on his palm, brought his hand to his mouth, clamped one end of the cloth between his teeth, pulled it taut with his right hand, wrapped it twice about the back of his hand, and tied it off. All the motions were orderly and unhurried, like a butterfly threading among the branches, leaving the bystander dazzled.
The binding done, Chen Ping'an slowly raised his right arm to wipe the sweat from his face. Both arms trembled without cease, quite beyond his control.
The green-clad girl, crouching nearby, poked out a thumb at him, her whole face saying: what a skill!
Chen Ping'an pointed with his right hand at his own eyes and smiled bitterly: "The truth is, it hurt so much the tears came out."
The girl turned her head and glanced at the great basket the youth had woven himself and his bamboo fish-basket, a little puzzled.
Chen Ping'an, awkward, said: "Those stones can earn money. And catching the fish — that matters too."
The girl took this in a little blankly, but still she did not speak. Her eyes went a little distant, and she turned her head to stare at the glittering shimmer of the creek water.
The murmuring water chafed against the stones rising from it, and made a sound of splash upon gurgle.
In that moment, the stars were bright and the heaven and the earth were desolate, and in all the human world it seemed there was only a youth and a maid.
Chen Ping'an's body gradually grew still and even. His breath, hurried before, began to slow of its own accord, settled into long and level rhythm.
Like a little creek that had just been loud with mountain torrent becoming the quiet stream of autumn's low water.
This subtle turning, the youth himself did not in the least heed; it was natural, of a piece, water finding its own channel.
Chen Ping'an knew that soaked as he was through, he dared not pass too long in the chill wind of early spring; he must hasten back to town and change his clothes. The youth knew nothing of the nurture and the pathology of the physician's books, but this boy, who feared nothing in the world so much as falling ill, had long ago bred in himself a keen instinct for the turning of the seasons and the needs of his own body. So he quickly put on his straw sandals, bound the fish-basket to his waist, shouldered the great basket, and waved his hand at the green-clad girl, smiling: "I'm off now. Miss, you too should go home before too late."
Even as he came down off the crag, he turned his head to warn her: "The water at the gallery bridge runs very deep — mind you don't slip on your footing. Better you keep to the side of the paddy fields on your way home; even if you fall, a coat of mud is better than going into the creek..."
Mid-speech, it came to Chen Ping'an that his words rang ill-omened, not at all the words of good counsel but rather the sort of baleful, cursing chatter at which Widow Gu of Mud Vase Lane was past mistress. Chen Ping'an soon fell silent, refused to go on fussing, quickened his step, and ran off northward toward the town.
The basket was heavy.
Yet the straw-sandaled youth was extraordinarily glad.
Once the knot that had near lain knotted to death had come undone, Chen Ping'an for the first time felt he must live on well — live well, properly.
For one thing — he must have money!
Money for spring couplets fragrant with their own ink-smell, and painted door-gods; money for the meat buns from Old Mrs. Mao's stall; best of all, money to buy a cow, and, like Song Jixin next door, to keep a coop of chickens...
The green-clad girl went on, tireless, "mining her mountain," her face earnest and grave; each time she lifted a new cake, it was as if she were facing down a mortal enemy.
She was contending with a peach-blossom cake when her body went suddenly stiff. Realizing that mischief was afoot, she did not run, but opened her mouth wide, swallowed down the better part of the cake in one gulp, brushed her hands together, and sat waiting to be seized where she was.
There had appeared, no one knew when, a man. He was not tall, but gave the sense of a thick-set, solid fellow — yet none would mistake him for a rustic of the plow, for the man's eyes were too piercing to gaze upon, and none dared look him full in the face.
The man looked at the floral bundle now reduced to little more than a "mountain's foot," utterly at a loss. He would have liked to scold her a lesson or two, yet could not bring himself to it; and gazing at his daughter's stubborn pose of "I erred, I'll take my punishment," his heart ached all the more, as though he himself were the one at fault.
The man longs to say something to take the chill off the air — something like: daughter, if you're hungry, eat your fill there at the sword-furnace hut, and tomorrow father will go into town and buy you more.
Yet the words, come to his lips, would not pass; for the man was reserved by nature, and the words seemed to weigh a thousand jun apiece, pressing down hard upon his tongue, and he could not, do what he might, find the way to comfort his child.
In that moment, the man felt himself a lesser man than that straw-sandaled youth, for at least that one had no need to sit so nervously on edge.
The green-clad girl raised her head on a sudden and asked: "Father — why did you not take him as an apprentice back then?"
That his daughter should speak on her own made the man feel mightily relieved.
Though he kept his face stern, he had already plopped down to sit at his daughter's side, and explained: "That lad has a fine nature in the day-to-day, but his foundation of bone and sinew is too poor. Even if your father took him in, he'd be distanced at once by his fellow disciples; and let him strive as he might, he could only watch the gap widen. And if the day came when we had to raise up another Senior Brother Liu — what would be the point."
The girl's face clouded over; whether it was the mention of that "Senior Brother Liu" that grieved her, or the straw-sandaled youth passing her by, she did not say.
The man hesitated, but did not mean to hide the truth from her, lest she be led up a wrong path or upset the sage's design. "Besides, this youth is too ordinary — and in this little town, that in itself makes him extraordinary. Xiuer, you may not quite know it, but this lad's life-binding porcelain was shattered by someone long ago, and so he has become a wandering ghost bereft of shade, receiving no blessing of his ancestors. And with that come all manner of strange happenings too subtle to be perceived — which is precisely why Song Jixin and that girl chose to be his neighbors. For were it not so, given Song Jixin's standing — could it be that even Fortune & Rank Street were too good for him? Plainly not."
The girl pondered a while, then asked: "Father, you mean he's something like bait for fish?"
The man stroked her head. "More or less."
Then he laughed: "If we two, father and daughter, were not the least fastidious sword-cultivators in all the world over outward things, fated fortune, and the very airs of fate — why, your father might well keep him at his side, to see whether he might turn you some little profit."
The girl was a little downcast, her heart not at ease.
The man sighed deeply. "Xiuer, your father's words are plain, but the reasoning is not wrong. Don't take them ill."
The girl still looked listless, as if she had no spirit to lift.
The man thought a moment, then pointed off toward the gallery bridge, which lay across the creek like a black dragon. "The building of that gallery bridge was a great work of the Da Li dynasty that cost it incalculable pains — and all to hold down that unremarkable iron sword. Think on it: three thousand years have passed. After three thousand more, a masterless sword whose primordial spirit is broken and spent — to suppress even the remnant of its might, a whole dynasty must still pay so fearsome a price, and for reward ask only that it be granted a moment's rest..."
The girl said "Oh," her head drooping, the corner of her eye ever sliding toward that "mountain's foot," and echoed distractedly: "Admirable! Admirable!"
The man was at once wry and rueful, rubbing his forehead.
Heaven is vast, earth is vast, but eating is the greatest matter of all.
Yet her mother had never been such a woman, either — so which of their natures had this daughter taken after?
The man patted his daughter on the shoulder and said gently: "Your father's going to see a man. You yourself — eat slowly, slowly; no one's going to snatch it from you."
The girl shot up her head and clutched at the man's arm. On her wrist a bracelet the color of cinnabar gleamed bright, taking the form of a flood-dragon with head and tail joined.
Like a little flame-dragon of living fire coiling about the maiden's wrist.
The man said, much comforted: "At least you've some conscience. There, there, don't worry — your father's off to see Master Qi."
The girl let go of him and at once seized up a cake and fell to wolfing it down.
The man could not hold back his chagrin; having wrestled with himself this long while, at last he let a mutter escape him: "Eat, eat, eat! But that little wretch of the surname Liu, curse him, deserves a beating for sure — yet he hasn't said a word amiss: sooner or later you'll eat yourself into a plump, fat girl! And then who would dare take you for a wife! Am I to go snatch you an in-married son-in-law, is that it?!"
The girl stopped eating, both hands holding her cake, on the point of tears.
The man fled in rout, and as he turned his back on his own daughter, he did not forget to deal himself a slap.
Every time, it came to this — the work undone at the last step.
——
At the dead of night, Chen Ping'an ran all the way back to Liu Xianyang's house. Unlocking the door, he could hear the fellow snoring like rolling thunder.
A man of a vast and easy heart.
Were it Chen Ping'an himself in his shoes, he could not have slept at ease tonight for anything.
First he carried the great basket and the fish-basket both into the kitchen set up in the courtyard, and went to the side room on the right that Liu Xianyang had fussed about to give him, where he quickly changed into dry clothes. Only then did he return to the kitchen of the courtyard and set about the slate fish — gutting and cleaning them, then laying them on a clean porcelain plate, and covering them with another, lest they draw in snakes, rats, or creeping insects.
From the great basket he also picked out five or six of the snake-gall stones that pleased his eye the most and carried them into the side room where he slept.
All this while, a glance had shown him the longsword Miss Ning had left on the cabinet, still lying there at quiet rest.
When all was done, Chen Ping'an could at last lie down beneath his quilt, and his body slowly grew warm again; yet the youth's eyes stayed bright.
On the one hand, his left hand stabbed with pain; on the other, he felt not the least drowsiness.
But the true reason was that Chen Ping'an knew better than Liu Xianyang how thoroughly the outsiders "had no regard for reason."
The youth dared not sleep sound.
And so Chen Ping'an stayed awake the whole night, ever keeping watch over the two places — the courtyard gate and the door of the house.
Come daybreak, Chen Ping'an rose, went to the kitchen, and hoisted his carrying-pole, meaning to fetch two buckets back from Iron Lock Well in Apricot Blossom Lane.
Liu Xianyang, still blear-eyed, lay hidden beneath the quilt with only his head showing; hearing the slight sound, he called out, groggy: "Chen Ping'an — up this early? Off where?"
Chen Ping'an answered testily: "Fetching water!"
Liu Xianyang called out again: "If you run into Zhigui, give her my regards."
Chen Ping'an could not be bothered with the fellow.
He was just about to step out of the small court when he heard Liu Xianyang say: "Chen Ping'an — just you help me out here, and when I'm back I'll go to that hollow and gather stones for you!"
Chen Ping'an broke into a radiant smile: "Well then!"
Liu Xianyang rolled his eyes, withdrew even his head into the quilt, and muttered: "Faithless fellow — he knows that sole trick is the one that works."
——
On the stone steps of the gallery bridge sat alone a middle-aged Confucian scholar, keeping his vigil of quiet grief till the day broke.
When the clear, pale first light appeared, he raised his head, and said with a soft laugh: "A thousand years of darkness, one lamp and all is bright."