When Mengshi returned, it was already a winter afternoon flooded with sunlight.

“Daozhang, why did you come back so early today?” Shang Rong set down her brush and at a glance noticed the bulging cloth sack on his body.

Mengshi had previously said that he would have to stay at the small school until dusk every day before returning.

“This morning I forgot something, and on the way back, as it happened,” Mengshi removed the heavy cloth sack and set it on the table, poured himself a bowl of tea and gulped down several large mouthfuls before finally having the leisure to wipe the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. He gave her a gentle smile. “I ran into those two who wanted to rent this courtyard. They were truly too careless—no idea how they ended up falling into the ditch beneath the woods. Their arms and legs were all broken, unable to move. I had no choice but to return to the village to call people, and together we sent them back to the city.”

The wind stirred the edges of the xuan paper on the table, covered in graceful lines of writing. Shang Rong pressed it down with a small stone and said, “Was it their carelessness, or Zhezhu’s carelessness?”

Mengshi froze. He had originally planned to conceal this matter from her—after all, she was such a delicate little girl—but it seemed Zhezhu had not intended to hide it from her.

“Not entirely,” thinking of this, Mengshi spoke openly, “Zhezhu gongzi¹Gongzi (公子)] — A respectful form of address for a young nobleman or gentleman of status; often used for the son of a wealthy or aristocratic family, similar to “young master.” and I both had a hand in it.”

Hearing this, a trace of astonishment suddenly appeared on Shang Rong’s face.

“They aren’t good people either. This time, insisting on renting this courtyard—their intentions were not truly about the wine.” As Mengshi spoke, his gaze involuntarily fell upon the rippling water channel.

Shang Rong was utterly confused and had just opened her mouth to ask, when Madam Yu and her husband hurried in from outside the courtyard. Both walked quickly; Madam Yu, her head full of sweat, did not even pause to catch her breath. As soon as she came closer, she bowed slightly and asked Mengshi, “Sir Mengshi, you said that my husband and I are about to face a great calamity—what exactly do you mean?”

After returning from Shuqing City, Mengshi had first gone to Madam Yu’s home, but her carpenter husband had not yet returned. So Mengshi had given her a message first, telling her to come to the bamboo grove courtyard once her husband came back.

“I remember Madam Yu once said that the flowing-wine winding-water arrangement was an idea from an old gentleman?”

Mengshi instead asked in return.

“Yes,” although Madam Yu did not know why he suddenly mentioned the water channel, she still answered truthfully, “It was Old Mister Cen from Jiyun Alley in Shuqing City—the very person those two distinguished guests wanted to invite to the poetry gathering today.”

“Then do you know what is beside that water channel?” Mengshi pointed to the extremely neatly laid wooden planks on one side of the channel, upon which were scattered several meditation cushions.

“What?”

The carpenter who had been silent beside Madam Yu showed a puzzled expression. “What could possibly be underneath there?”

Just as his words fell, a sudden creak was heard. The door on the wooden steps opened. The youth had clear brows and eyes, dressed in white robes with wide sleeves, entirely the appearance of a frail and refined scholar.

He supported himself against the door as he walked out, his steps slow, as though his leg truly were injured. Meeting the gaze of Madam Yu and her husband, he lifted his chin slightly. “Wouldn’t you know if you looked?”

“This…”

Madam Yu and her husband exchanged a glance.

Carpenter Yu quickly found a handy iron tool and stood in the water channel together with Mengshi. Working together, they pried open two wooden planks. Seeing this, Shang Rong could not help but walk a few steps forward in curiosity.

But a hand suddenly blocked her eyes. She instinctively grasped his wrist, unsure what had happened, when she heard Madam Yu cry out in alarm.

“What is it?” She could not see, so she tilted her head slightly upward and asked.

“There’s a dead person underneath.”

The youth said it slowly.

“What?”

Shang Rong was startled, almost thinking she had misheard.

Her eyelashes brushed lightly against his palm twice, a little ticklish. The youth remained expressionless, silently glancing toward Mengshi. Seeing that he had covered the oilcloth wrapped around the corpse again, he released his hand and looked at the couple whose faces had turned deathly pale from fright. “Do you two recognize this person?”

The oilcloth was wrapped tightly around the body. The water overflowing from the channel had seeped beneath the wooden planks, and by sheer coincidence had sealed the corpse even more securely. Thus, not only had the body not decayed, it also had not emitted any obvious foul odor.

“N-no, we don’t recognize him…”

Madam Yu’s lips trembled, her legs so weak she could barely stand. She was terribly frightened. “I truly have no idea when he was buried here!”

“When the water channel was first completed, was anyone living here?” Mengshi rinsed his hands in the channel and stood up to ask.

“No one lived here, but people did gather here to meet friends and discuss poetry.”

Carpenter Yu supported his wife, barely steadying himself as he spoke. Then something came back to him. “It was those two from today! Half a month ago, it was those two who met their friends here! Could it have been them?”

“When I set their bones today, I also spoke with them. The reason they were so anxious to rent this courtyard is because Old Mister Cen agreed to meet them here to discuss poetry,” Mengshi turned back to look again at the corpse submerged in the water. Earlier he had already seen the face of the body—it was a young man, around twenty years old. “But now that both of them have suffered broken bones and torn tendons, this poetry gathering likely cannot be held. If they truly are the killers, and this time failed to move the corpse, there is no telling that, in their desperation, they might force the blame for murder onto you two.”

“Ah?” Carpenter Yu’s cheek muscles trembled in fright. For a moment he was utterly at a loss, panicked beyond measure. “Th-then what should we do?”

Madam Yu nearly fainted.

“You might as well report to the authorities first. Do not let them gain the advantage.” Mengshi spoke bluntly.

“Sir speaks rightly—this servant and my husband will go report it at once!”

Madam Yu tightly gripped her husband’s hand. Hearing Mengshi’s words, she finally found her voice. At once, caring for nothing else, she absentmindedly bowed to Zhezhu and the other two, then hurried off, supporting each other as they left.

The sound of flowing water continued without pause. Shang Rong’s gaze moved from the departing backs of the couple back to the water channel. The churning water splashed over the stone channel and into the hidden compartment at the side that had originally been concealed beneath the wooden planks and partitioned off. Drip, drip—it rang out crisp and clear.

“The interesting thing you mentioned,” Shang Rong stared at the oilcloth emerging above the water and suddenly asked, “was it this?”

“A dead person,” she heard the youth beside her speak, his voice cool and clear, “what’s so interesting about that?”

Shang Rong turned her face to look at him and only then noticed his temples slightly damp, fine sweat already beading on his forehead at some unknown moment, not a trace of color on his lips. She immediately reached to lift his sleeve.

The narrow cloth wrapped around the youth’s pale and strong arm was still clean, with no visible bloodstains. She let out a sigh of relief, but when she raised her head, she met his bright, clear eyes.

“Look at my memory,” Mengshi had been watching the silent expressions and gestures of the young pair. His spirited brows lifted, and stroking his beard, he smiled. “Today the gongzi hasn’t changed his medicine yet. Miss Susu, I’ll decoct the medicine first. Please watch the stove for me for a while. That stove isn’t easy to use, you mustn’t add firewood yourself. If anything happens, just call me.”

“Alright.”

Shang Rong nodded to him.

Mengshi skillfully set the medicine to simmer over the stove, handed Shang Rong a palm-leaf fan, and reminded her not to sit too close—be careful of sparks splashing onto her—before going inside to change Zhezhu’s medicine.

The courtyard grew quiet, leaving only the sound of water flowing through the channel and the occasional crackling bursts from the fire before Shang Rong. After a short while, she lifted her head to look over.

Sitting here, the drifting hot mist carried a bitter scent, swirling and winding. She actually could not see the corpse submerged in the water clearly at all.

When a person dies, it is just this quiet.

The fingers holding the palm-leaf fan tightened again and again. Shang Rong could not stop herself from thinking of Danshuang, who had also died in the water.

“Miss Susu.”

Mengshi’s voice suddenly sounded. Shang Rong turned her head to meet his gaze, and the fan slipped from her hand.

Something about her expression was not quite right, but after watching her for a moment, Mengshi bent down to pick up the fan from the ground. The cold wind stirred his black beard. “That day, I happened by chance to see the young lady’s true appearance. Please believe me—I have absolutely no intention of prying into any secrets between you and Gongzi Zhezhu.”

“Whether Daozhang is someone to be trusted, I understand in my heart,” Shang Rong lowered her eyes, looking at the glowing red coals inside the stove. “Actually, I am not afraid either. In any case, there is only this one path before me. I don’t know how long I can walk it. If I cannot go on, then I… will stop walking.”

Mengshi was so perceptive—how could he not understand what she meant by “stop walking.”

He looked at the girl before him again. Clearly, she was still so young, yet her brows and eyes always seemed weighed down by worries no one else knew.

Mengshi poured the decocted medicine into a bowl, then said to her, “The wind has grown stronger now. Miss, go inside.”

A bowl of medicine was brought to Zhezhu’s side. He sat by the window, one hand supporting his chin. He watched her in the courtyard tidying up brush, ink, and raw xuan paper, not forgetting to pick up the small stone she used as a paperweight. His eyes curved slightly.

Shang Rong carried an armful of things inside and met his gaze. She lowered her head to glance at the xuan paper in her hands, then in one motion set everything down on the table and came to him with the several sheets filled with writing. “Do you want to look? It’s the Taiqing Collection.”

He said nothing, but reached out to take them. His long lashes lowered. In the bright light filling the window, he quietly examined every trace of ink on the paper.

“In one day, how much can you memorize at most?” he suddenly asked.

“Thirty pages.”

Shang Rong did not know why he asked this, but after thinking for a moment, she answered seriously.

“How many pages does one volume of the Taiqing Collection have?”

“The Taiqing Collection emphasizes one page, one cycle of rebirth—three hundred sixty-five pages in total.”

The so-called one page, one cycle of rebirth explains the endless cycle of the Dao through human life and death and the passage of time. Shang Rong had listened to Great Zhenren Ling Shuang expound the scriptures more than once; she could already recite all its principles fluently from memory.

Zhezhu responded faintly, and finally lifted his head to look at her.

“What is it?”

Being stared at by him like this made Shang Rong somewhat uneasy.

“At dusk, we’ll go out and play.”.He suddenly said.

Without thinking, Shang Rong shook her head. “I’m not going. I still have to transcribe the Daoist scriptures.”

“Zhezhu, you shouldn’t go either.”

She looked at his pale face and added.

“There is still a corpse in the courtyard,” Zhezhu reminded her calmly, his tone unhurried. “At dusk, Madam Yu will bring the officials here. Do you want to stay, or go out and play with me?”

“Miss Susu, a traveling opera troupe has come to Taoxi Village. When I returned, I saw them already setting up the stage. There are also many peddlers selling candied hawthorn, sugar paintings, and snacks. It’s very lively, you should go take a look.”

Mengshi stepped into the room just in time to hear Zhezhu’s words and spoke to her as well.

She knew candied hawthorn.

The red sugar coating was clear like amber—she had seen it in the market streets of Yuling Town. But what was a sugar painting?

She suddenly realized, this was what Zhezhu meant by something fun.

Lifting her eyes again, Shang Rong met the youth’s gaze. She pressed her lips together and softly said, “Alright.”

Saying they would wait until dusk, Shang Rong only transcribed a few pages of Daoist scripture by the window before easily waiting for the golden crow to sink westward, golden light rippling across the eaves and dazzling the eyes. Mountain winds stirred the shadows of branches in the forest, and she faintly heard the sounds of silk strings and bamboo pipes.

“You two go ahead. When the officials arrive, they will surely want to question me. I’ll come to the village later to join you and watch the excitement,” Mengshi said with a smile when he saw Shang Rong wrap herself in a cloak and come out together with Zhezhu.

Shang Rong responded with a sound of acknowledgment and followed Zhezhu’s steps toward the bamboo grove outside the courtyard.

Winter dusk was brief. People in Taoxi Village had already lit lanterns under the eaves early. There were especially many people in the village today—perhaps because a traveling opera troupe had arrived, and people from other places had also hurried over.

Shang Rong felt somewhat at a loss amid such liveliness. Wanting to keep close to the youth’s steps, she reached out and grasped his sleeve. The youth paused slightly, but said nothing, allowing her to hold his sleeve as they moved forward.

Yet more and more people passed by them, each with joy on their faces, eager to rush toward the liveliest place. Shang Rong was jostled aside by a pair of men and women hurrying past, and his sleeve slipped from her grasp.

The melting glow of sunset and the light of lanterns wove together into one color. The youth in snow-white robes turned his head back, accurately finding her within the hurried crowd—but only for an instant, before he turned his face aside to look around.

Every two households or so in the village had a water vat, prepared in case of fire.

Shang Rong watched him walk to a water vat, scoop up water, and calmly wash his hands.

His soft sword was wound inside the jade belt at his waist, only the bamboo-green tassel showing, swaying lightly in the wind. Amid the clamorous noise filling her ears, she watched him walk toward her, and watched him extend one hand toward her—its long, beautiful fingers clearly defined.

“Hold my hand.” He said.

Water droplets rolled down from between his fingers. She stared at him, noticing that his shoulders were covered in the shifting light cast by lanterns under the eaves, while his brows and eyes remained as clean and striking as ever.

She did not know what compelled her, but as if testing something, she slowly reached out her hand.

She took hold of his damp, slightly cool hand.

Footnotes

• 1
  Gongzi (公子)] — A respectful form of address for a young nobleman or gentleman of status; often used for the son of a wealthy or aristocratic family, similar to “young master.”