Read this letter as though I am before you:
Anu, by the time you read this, your mother has already gone to a place very far away.
So far away, in short, that I shall never be able to return in this lifetime.
I... I was never a good mother.
When I was very young, your grandmother left. No one taught me what a mother ought to be.
I do not say these things to make excuses. It is remorse.
Regret that I lived through such a lonely childhood, and yet could be so heartless as to let you live through it too.
Regret that I gained nothing from my own mother, and when I became a mother, had nothing to hand to my own daughter.
Regret that, as a mother, I also taught you nothing.
Never taught you how a girl should protect herself, never taught you right from wrong, never taught you how to love another... and of course, I never had the right or the ability to do so.
I think your brother will teach you all of these.
I pray your brother will teach you all of them.
He is a child of great promise. Living with him will be far better than living with this useless mother of yours.
That is the only thing with which I can console myself.
An'an, you are a good child.
Do you remember?
That year at the new year, the apprentices had all gone home on leave. The herbal shop had to restock, and I hauled those herbs back and forth by myself, run after run, until I was weeping from exhaustion.
When I had cried myself out and turned around, I saw you stumbling back and forth, carrying the herbs back into the storehouse one armful at a time.
Quite a few had been mixed up, but your mother's heart was warm.
In that moment, your mother felt infinitely comforted, and yet infinitely alone.
Loneliness is a devil. It devours a person's reason, their morals, even their humanity. It devours everything.
Your mother was devoured by that devil, to the point that she forgot what a beautiful life she possessed. To the point that she lost it all.
I am sorry.
Your mother should not be telling you these things.
The weather has already turned cold. Have you put on more clothes?
Your mother sewed you a winter coat and sent it with this letter. There was meant to be a little cap as well, but I had only finished half of it... No matter.
I am sorry.
I can no longer send you gifts.
I am sorry.
Once again I have abandoned you...
I am a shameful mother. But I have no choice.
The thing I strove after has already vanished from this world, and I can only follow it, to a place very far away.
Never to return.
I had meant to leave in silence. But I felt that I could not go without saying something to you. Whether it is a mother's final words of advice, or the last self-consolation of an irresponsible woman.
I had to say something.
An'an.
This is the first letter your mother has written for you alone, and it will be the last.
I truly do not know what words would be most fitting.
An'an.
Take care of yourself.
Study hard. Grow up like your brother, pass the examination into the academy, become a great official, become an immortal.
No, your mother should not demand this of you.
Your mother has no such right.
Cultivation is too exhausting. Do whatever you wish.
Eat less sweets. Rotten teeth do not look pretty.
My An'an, you will grow into a great beauty. What a breathtaking loveliness that will be?
Merely to think of it makes me want to close my eyes.
An, be good.
Listen to your brother.
Grow up happy and safe.
Empty words are useless.
But besides these useless empty words, your mother has nothing left to give you.
I am sorry.
I do not know how your studies are now, whether you can read all these characters.
You may save this letter and read it later.
Or perhaps you would rather not read it. That is fine too.
...
Writing this, your mother suddenly recalls the days when your father taught me to write.
I am sorry.
I miss you.
...
The first day of the winter month, in the fourteenth year of Yongtai. Song Ruyi.
...
...
When the letter from Riverview City arrived, Jiang Chen was in a state of great anxiety. And since the envelope read "For the personal attention of An'an," and it had come from Auntie Song, he did not overstep his bounds but simply handed it on to Jiang An'an.
An'an bounced joyfully into the study to read it, while Jiang Chen turned his mind to his own problems.
The Bone Lotus that had appeared upon his body was deeply wrong. That sinister pattern, one look and it was clear, was no product of any orthodox Dao sect.
Something must have gone wrong somewhere. But he had no one with whom to discuss it — no elder he could trust completely, one who would support him in anything at any time, and whose knowledge ran deep.
Dean Dong was perhaps trustworthy. But with his upright, unyielding nature, if he learned that Jiang Chen had tangled himself with a heretical side path, he might well strike the boy dead on the spot. Slaying his own disciple in the name of righteousness.
As for Ling Chuan and Zhao Yan, these two could naturally be trusted completely. But both had only just begun cultivating, and it would be pointless to hold out hope. Zhao Yan might have some mysterious background, but where the Bone Path was concerned — a heresy sinister even to the ears — Jiang Chen would never be willing to drag them in.
He had searched certain Dao classics, secret records, and some records of events, but nowhere was there so much as a single word about the Bone Path. Either it had never appeared within the State of Zhuang, or its traces had been erased.
The only thing Jiang Chen could be sure of was this: in all his memory there was not a person or a happening bound up with the Bone Path.
The invisible link with the Lunar Star was likewise a matter of the Ethereal Realm and nothing else.
That secret the black-veiled woman had wanted to know — was it the Ethereal Realm? And what had that woman to do with the Bone Path? If she belonged to it, what was her purpose? If she did not — if, as she claimed, she too came from an orthodox Dao sect — why raise the Bone Path at all?
He suddenly remembered that black candle within the Celestial Palace, the thing taken from the Heart-Devouring Demon. The Starfield Array had come down from the Ethereal Realm, and should have been beyond reproach. If there was anything strange within his body, it was that black candle — inscrutable in origin, its secret hidden.
While Jiang Chen was pondering, Jiang An'an came running out in tears.
"What is it? What's the matter, An?" Jiang Chen crouched down and gathered her into his arms.
"What is that faraway place?" An'an raised the letter in her hand, great teardrops rolling down one by one: "Has my mother gone up to heaven, just like my father?"
Only then did Jiang Chen realize the gravity of the matter. He scooped An'an up in his arms and coaxed her: "It's all right, it's all right. Don't cry, An. Brother is here, brother is here. Brother will stay with you."
Soothing her all the while, he took the letter and read it through quickly. The paper was thin, but it seemed to grow terribly heavy.
The letter had come by the ordinary route. Judging by the time it took for letters to travel between Riverview City and Maple City, the matter could already not be undone.
Jiang Chen could not claim any deep affection for Auntie Song. But for one thing she was his own father's wife, and for another she was An'an's mother — to his sister an irreplaceable part of her life. And now she had left this world forever.
Though Jiang An'an was still young, children do not fail to understand some things.
Jiang Chen had once been that age himself. He understood a child's sensitivity, a child's fragility. On ordinary days, a mere stumble by little An'an was enough to make his heart ache unbearably. Let alone now, watching her eyes already swollen with crying, his heart was near to shattering.
"There, there, An. Don't cry. Brother is here, brother is here."
"Sob sob sob, my mother, she, she..."
"An, An, brother will give you an accounting, no matter what." Jiang Chen cradled her little head in his hands, and said it gently, and firmly.
No matter who was involved, no matter what the reason.